Games of Engagement in Web3
and some personal updates
Hello from the Himalayas!
I am hoping things have gotten better for you in this year since my last note.
Social Web3
A key observation from my most recent deepdive into the Social Web3 is that the crypto layer of the internet is finally being integrated into the social web. Amidst hundreds of Web3 projects— one interesting trend underlying this wave is the desire to curate thriving social spaces for active participation with aligned incentives. These spaces are different from such attempts made in the Web2 world of Facebook groups, YouTube comment sections and Zoom group-calls. The term ‘engagement’ within the social side of Web2 meant shallow social interactions, without much aligned interests.
In the last five years, the horde of ‘Very Online’ people has expanded from mostly gamers and coders to a wide spectrum of creators, curators and consumers of social experiences on the Web. Now, a lot of people are regularly hanging out virtually with their friends, colleagues, fellow hobbyists, and even long-distance partners. Social Web3 is tapping into this mega-trend to prepare fertile ground for sustainable and highly engaged online communities with— aligned incentives of members and fair distribution of created value —turning online communities into powerful organizations.
The need to design mechanisms and protocols that enable sustainable online communities with aligned incentives has emerged as a rich domain of potent experiments happening every week. Game-theory has given way to game design to be the hot topic in Social-Web3. Tokenization is the name of the game. Every week, online communities are testing new crypto-tools built to enable collective experiences with real money —that were too inconvenient until now. Listening-Parties, Game-Nights, and Art Gallery Visits are taking places in Discord Voice-channels and Metaverses like Cryptovoxels. Even multi-day sports events!
At RARA Social — I’m designing incentive-mechanisms that make live social-experiences in online-communities more fun, engaging and valuable for all participants — from community moderators to creators to attendees. The space is moving really fast and it’s exciting to be working in the middle of it.
Personal Updates
Covid came back with a vengeance across India — so it’s quasi-lockdown here again along with shortages of vaccines and critical medical equipments like ventilators.
Failed Experiment — I am looking for a new base. A month ago, I packed up all my stuff in two backpacks, gave everything away and moved to a new city Manali (India) with just a week’s booking in a traveler’s hostel. When I reached there, WiFi was crappy since everybody was using it. When I tried working in the coworking space, I couldn’t be productive when I could hear multiple people talking on Zoom calls.
I knew I had to find a good Airbnb if I were to stay here more than a week. I searched, shortlisted and reached out to hosts. Reply after reply, I was disappointed. Every good Airbnb was booked for the season —how stupid of me to just go without advance planning in the middle of high season and expect to find something good. I did this because it usually worked for me in other places that were not so touristy. Since it was not work-friendly for me to just stay in the hostel, I made a hard decision— accepted my mistake Then I packed up and came back to my old homebase in Kangra Valley. It was such a relief when I reached here. Lesson Learned — finding a homebase is too important to leave to last minute.
I had to fight a stomach bug(H. Pylori) last week with the help of specialized medicinal weapon stack and my allies - the good bacteria in my gut. Glad to say I’m feeling normal again.
After a long time of being stuck indoors and still having low chances of physical socializing, two things come to my rescue — excursion into the nature and remote-dating.
On that Note, check out Craig Mod(a photographer-writer) sharing his experience of walking and walking on long walks in Japan —
Questions
(for location-independent free-agents — to ponder and share in comments)
Is having a Homebase necessary for you in a nomadic lifestyle?
How are you playing Long Games? building relationships, investing in reputation?
What is your biggest lifestyle-experiment fail and what did you learn out of it?
New Experiment Alert
After six months of sporadic planning, I’m finally going to facilitate the learning club for interdisciplinary autodidacts.
The main ingredient is weekly virtual meetups with structured peer-to-peer discussions and support. Apart from that, there is a Salon on Discord for unstructured conversations among the autodidacts
For the sake of more quality time for everyone joining, I capped the pilot cohort to 12 learners. More details available here —
Before I wrap up this note, here is a new music recommendation —
Thanks for reading. I wish you a good month ahead.
Until Next Time,
Vinay