“We want extra attain.”
“This can get lots of clicks.”
“The consumer gained’t be pleased with these numbers.”
We’ve heard these narratives nonstop since our media careers started greater than 15 years in the past. They’re thought patterns which have been normalized in newsrooms and advert businesses the world over.
And that is only the start of the problems with the present state of media.
The reality is that this: Web2 media is damaged.
The normal fashions and methods of doing issues in media simply don’t work anymore. This conduct didn’t come out of the blue. So how did we get right here?
With the rise of social media, the site visitors floodgates opened to media web sites. Media firms noticed an unprecedented explosion of attain as a consequence of these platforms and have become hooked on this site visitors, which helped gasoline the rise of programmatic promoting. That is the expertise that powers these annoying banner advertisements in your favourite media web sites, from The New York Occasions to YouTube. The extra individuals go to your web site, the extra impressions the advert will get, and the extra the platform will get paid.
Humorous sufficient, the very platforms that fueled this enterprise mannequin ended up altering their algorithms after seeing how a lot income they had been permitting to go away their ecosystem by encouraging customers to click on away from Fb or Twitter onto a separate writer web site. So in 2015, Fb’s infamous algorithm change decimated the site visitors sources for tons of of media firms to maintain extra of their site visitors inside Fb. Attributable to declining income, some media properties even went out of enterprise.
We all know this as a result of we’ve lived it. As Editor-In-Chief of SPIN, Matt noticed firsthand how site visitors doesn’t equate to income when the publication was compelled to bear layoffs regardless of exceeding progress targets. As Director of Innovation and Tradition at Elite Each day, Alejandro noticed how the publication rode Fb site visitors to a sale to Each day Mail just for site visitors to considerably decline after the algorithm change.
As media firms prioritized viewers scale over high quality and optimized for algorithmic platforms like Fb and Google, there have been various alarming developments.
First, media platforms discovered themselves locked in a clickbait race to the underside. As algorithms rewarded sensationalist headlines and fast set off fingers, the standard of protection declined. The race to be first to a narrative additionally produced public embarrassments for main media manufacturers who needed to retract factually inaccurate reporting. As credibility eroded, public belief in media reached an all-time low.
Second, individuals turned the product. Programmatic promoting lowered us to eyeballs to be monetized and discarded. Within the eyes of publishers, there was no distinction made between the standard and the amount of an viewers. Put merely, we had been all diminished to a single metric: site visitors. By advantage of working at social media firms, the brightest minds in Silicon Valley ended up constructing an promoting optimization machine, the likes of which had by no means been seen earlier than. Because of this, publishers started prioritizing their advertisers over their audiences.
Third, as publishers and platforms optimized for promoting income, they started to assault our privateness. Platforms started to trace customers throughout the net with out their specific consent with a purpose to promote extra advertisements – although technically, customers consented by accepting the all0-too obscure and legally verbose “phrases and situations.”
The rise of monitoring customers utilizing pixels and cookies invited privateness violations throughout the net. Platforms might now monitor customers’ each transfer, click on, and keystroke, even past their very own web site, to serve them “higher” advertisements.
Know-how has at all times pushed storytelling ahead. The Gutenberg printing press catalyzed the data revolution. The invention of the web compelled print publications to turn out to be digital. The rise of the smartphone moved digital media to embrace cell. Web3 expertise is of the identical caliber. And with it, now we have the possibility to construct one thing higher.
Centered on an ecosystem of expertise merchandise which might be decentralized, trustless, permissionless, and interoperable, Web3 applied sciences have the ability to create fairer fashions that profit everybody. They return possession to customers, bypass the gatekeepers that management conventional media and social platforms, and permit creators and their communities to share within the worth they create.
However considerably, this tokenized revolution is not going to solely change how tales are created and consumed, it additionally has the ability to essentially redefine relationships which have been cemented for hundreds of years. This expertise can truly assist us foster the deeper and extra significant human relationships we wish. This comes right down to the distinction between viewers and neighborhood.
Viewers is conscious that you just exist. They might acknowledge your model and see you of their social feeds. They might even attend your occasions or purchase your merchandise. However finally, there’s a restrict to their participation, and they’re largely on the receiving finish of the content material you produce. As protection turned extra homogenous to take advantage of algorithms, media manufacturers turned interchangeable, such that readers have little incentive to decide on one over one other. In web2, shoppers turned loyal to the headline, not the model.
In distinction, neighborhood desires to win collectively. And in web3, as a rule, they really have a literal stake in doing so. By aligning incentives and rewarding participation by decentralizing possession and governance, communities are the prime drivers of worth creation.
In web3, digital possession is entrance and heart. For the primary time for the reason that origins of the web, the blockchain permits for root possession. Now media firms and creators can construct neighborhood in a digital asset financial system as an finish in itself and monetize instantly by sharing within the worth that they create.
We envision a future the place digital publishers liberate themselves from the senseless tyranny of clicks, pageviews, and CPMs. Customers will not be the product being offered in antiquated and exploitative techniques; they are going to be lively companions and house owners within the content material and experiences being created.
Introducing the Now Community
Due to these experiences, we needed to do issues in another way from day one. In the event you go to nftnow.com, you’ll discover there are not any banner advertisements. We refused to implement programmatic promoting due to the misaligned incentives it creates to prioritize advertisers over customers, sensationalize protection, and violate customers’ privateness. We consider that media firms shouldn’t serve you advertisements; they need to serve you alternatives.
We additionally refused to incorporate any pixels and cookies to trace our customers. Rules like consent matter extra to us. We consider privateness is a elementary human proper and must be revered throughout the web.
The Now Community is our subsequent step in pioneering a community-centric media mannequin and constructing a creator-friendly future. The Now Move is the important thing that unlocks that door. You’ll be able to study extra concerning the particulars and mechanics at nowpass.xyz.
Right here’s how the Now Community will start to share the worth being created with our membership neighborhood.
Tremendous-serving our neighborhood with unique content material and entry
From early entry to info and insights to curated personal chats the place you may join with specialists and different builders in your trade, the Now Community will give you the instruments you have to succeed alongside insider entry to web3’s main minds.
Now Move holders can even be eligible for unique entry to our acclaimed IRL and digital occasions, together with our tentpole occasions The Gateway, NFT100, and nft now presents, alongside our satellite tv for pc occasions round Artwork Basel Miami, NFT NYC, Frieze LA, ETH Denver, Faena Rose Miami, Jackson Gap, and lots of extra.
Rising retention and rewarding participation
We consider media must be greater than a one-way avenue. With the Now Move, neighborhood members can be incentivized to interact with content material and supply suggestions by our reward mechanisms. By realigning incentives and reimagining how a writer can create and share worth in a web3 context, we are going to encourage deeper, extra genuine connections and a larger sense of loyalty.
Decentralizing content material creation and curation
We would like our neighborhood to turn out to be co-creators within the tales being informed. The Now Community is our first step in the direction of progressive decentralization. We consider this can create a extra inclusive and clear ecosystem to incubate concepts and uplift new voices. We’ll be transitioning a few of our hottest content material sequence (ex., Subsequent Up) to a community-curated Token Curated Registries (TCR) mannequin with on-chain voting that empowers our neighborhood members to have a say in who and what will get lined.
That is solely the start
The Now Community can be constructed over time, not in a single day. We’re being intentional and taking our time to create one thing sustainable. It is a first step — a basis for all of our initiatives in constructing the way forward for tokenized media. We might not at all times get every part proper – and that’s okay. Experimentation is a essential a part of pioneering a brand new paradigm. However our dedication to this house is long-term, so we are going to construct in public over the approaching months, years, and a long time. We invite you to affix us in studying, rising, and co-creating this future collectively.
You’re greater than a pageview. It’s time to alter the connection between publishers and their communities.
Sincerely,
Matt Medved & Alejandro Navia
Co-Founders of nft now
