“We want extra attain.” 

“It will get a whole lot of clicks.”

“The shopper received’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 were normalized in newsrooms and advert companies internationally. 

And that is just the start of the problems with the present state of media. 

The reality is that this: Web2 media is damaged.

The standard fashions and methods of doing issues in media simply don’t work anymore. This habits didn’t come out of the blue. So how did we get right here? 

With the rise of social media, the visitors floodgates opened to media web sites. Media corporations noticed an unprecedented explosion of attain as a result of these platforms and have become hooked on this 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 Instances 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 depart 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 visitors sources for lots of of media corporations to maintain extra of their visitors within 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 visitors doesn’t equate to income when the publication was compelled to bear layoffs regardless of exceeding progress objectives. As Director of Innovation and Tradition at Elite Every day, Alejandro noticed how the publication rode Fb visitors to a sale to Every day Mail just for visitors to considerably decline after the algorithm change.

As media corporations prioritized viewers scale over high quality and optimized for algorithmic platforms like Fb and Google, there have been a variety of 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 grew to become the product. Programmatic promoting decreased 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: visitors. By advantage of working at social media corporations, 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. In consequence, 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 online with out their express consent so as to promote extra advertisements – although technically, customers consented by accepting the all-too obscure and legally verbose “phrases and circumstances.”

The rise of monitoring customers utilizing pixels and cookies invited privateness violations throughout the online. Platforms may now observe 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 develop into digital. The rise of the smartphone moved digital media to embrace cellular. Web3 expertise is of the identical caliber. And with it, we now have the prospect to construct one thing higher. 

Centered on an ecosystem of expertise merchandise which can 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 were cemented for hundreds of years. This expertise can really assist us foster the deeper and extra significant human relationships we wish. This comes all the way down to the distinction between viewers and neighborhood.

Viewers is conscious that you simply 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 grew to become extra homogenous to take advantage of algorithms, media manufacturers grew to become interchangeable, such that readers have little incentive to decide on one over one other. In web2, customers grew to become 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 middle. For the primary time for the reason that origins of the web, the blockchain permits for root possession. Now media corporations and creators can construct neighborhood in a digital asset economic 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 methods; 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. For those who 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 imagine that media corporations 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 imagine privateness is a basic human proper and needs to 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 Cross is the important thing that unlocks that door. You may study extra in regards to 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 data and insights to curated personal chats the place you may join with consultants and different builders in your trade, the Now Community will give you the instruments that you must succeed alongside insider entry to web3’s main minds.

Now Cross holders will 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 plenty of extra.

Rising retention and rewarding participation

We imagine media needs to be greater than a one-way road. With the Now Cross, neighborhood members shall be incentivized to have interaction with content material and supply suggestions by way of our reward mechanisms. By realigning incentives and reimagining how a writer can create and share worth in a web3 context, we’ll encourage deeper, extra genuine connections and a better sense of loyalty.

Decentralizing content material creation and curation

We would like our neighborhood to develop into co-creators within the tales being instructed. The Now Community is our first step in direction of progressive decentralization. We imagine 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 collection (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 coated.

That is solely the start

The Now Community shall be constructed over time, not in a single day. We’re being intentional and taking our time to create one thing sustainable. This can be 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 little thing 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’ll construct in public over the approaching months, years, and a long time. We invite you to hitch us in studying, rising, and co-creating this future collectively.

You’re greater than a pageview. It’s time to vary the connection between publishers and their communities.

Sincerely, 

Matt Medved & Alejandro Navia
Co-Founders of nft now