Embrace the potential of decentralized social media to overcome the inertia of the current internet system.
Enable direct connections between creators and their audience to foster innovative and value-driven monetization models in an open social web.
Deep dives
The potential of innovation in the OpenSocial web
The podcast episode explores the incredible opportunity for innovation in the OpenSocial web, highlighting its importance beyond AI. The internet has been around for over 30 years, and the episode emphasizes the need to overcome the inertia of the current system and embrace the potential of decentralized social media, also known as the Fediverse.
The founding days of Wired magazine and the original sin
The episode delves into the early days of Wired magazine and the significance of the banner ad. It discusses the last-minute inclusion of an item on the World Wide Web, and how Wired covered the internet closely for the next five years. The conversation also touches on the creation of the first ad server, which separated advertising from editorial content and had a transformative impact on the industry.
The need for a frictionless and open social web
The discussion shifts towards the importance of a frictionless and open social web, where individuals and creators have direct connections without intermediaries. The episode highlights the potential of federation and activity pub in enabling decentralized social media and fostering individualistic experimentation. It showcases the power of direct connections between content creators and their audience, envisioning a world where value and attention can flow more seamlessly.
The future of monetization and the challenges ahead
The episode examines the challenges and opportunities surrounding monetization in an open social web. It explores the concept of frictionless attention and frictionless commerce, emphasizing the need to simplify and enable direct connections between creators and the audience. The conversation highlights the role of blockchain-based technologies and the importance of independent identity systems, promoting a vision of innovative and value-driven monetization models.
The Internet as we know it is now over 30 years old, and author John Battelle says we must get over the ‘extraordinary inertia’ of the system we’ve built. He would know: As a founder of WIRED Magazine and as an entrepreneur himself, John’s been tracking and writing about the evolution of technology and its impact on society for a long time.
What exactly is the difference between what he calls “the internet that we have and the one that we deserve”? Why are we now at an inflection point? Can we still fix the system? How would monetization work in this world?
