It is undeniable that the trend of Web3 is getting more and more turbulent, but it is only a distant existence for ordinary people. Many projects seem to be popular overnight, and disappear overnight. , only the surprising ups and downs will reveal clues.
Where exactly are Web3 practitioners “encircling themselves”? Most should pop up the same answer: Discord, Twitter, Reddit.
Unexpectedly, the right to speak Web3 is in the hands of social networks/tools in the Web2 era. Due to their active and open attitude and the influence of young people, these three platforms have become the platforms with the highest Web3 content on the Internet, and they also play different roles. Twitter is the main propaganda camp for each project, Discord is the DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) distribution center, and Reddit is the information square. Nowadays, all mature Web3 projects can be seen on these three platforms.
Twitter: The first to eat “crabs”, Spaces voice plaza rises
Twitter should be the first of all large platforms to get involved in the field of encryption. Before the concept of Web3 emerged, Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter and a loyal Bitcoin believer, held high the banner of decentralization and promoted many “experiments” on Twitter. For example, convert the first tweet into an NFT auction, introduce the NFT avatar function, and support Twitter to use Bitcoin as a reward.
Because of “eating crabs” and embracing decentralization, Twitter began to accumulate Web3 users from a very early time, and gradually became the center of discussion and promotion of Web3 projects. The development of Web3 and Twitter have gradually formed a complementary relationship. With the soaring discussion in the second half of last year, Twitter’s new business has also improved, the most prominent being Twitter Spaces.
After Clubhouse became popular early last year, Twitter followed the trend and launched its own voice community business Spaces, but it has been tepid. After Clubhouse all but disappeared, Spaces users were poor. But Web3 brought a turnaround. If you pay attention recently, you will find that many Web3 discussion groups regularly share in Spaces. Whenever you go to the Spaces discovery page, most of the topics in the ongoing voice chat are Web3 related.
▲ Twitter Sapces discussion room.
Almost all Web3 projects today use Twitter as a publicity channel. The number of followers of Twitter accounts and the activity of Spaces have also become the hot indicators of the project. Another trend is that Twitter is partially replacing LinkedIn in the Web3 space. When people want to contact Web3 KOLs or big heads, the most direct way is not to find them through Linkedin, but to leave messages or private messages on Twitter is the most efficient.
Discord: From Gaming Community to Web3 Community
A few months ago, it was introduced that Discord had rejected Microsoft’s $12 billion acquisition of Offer. Discord was initially positioned as a semi-open online space designed for gamers. community platform. Long-term users are mostly students and gamers, but with the rise of Web3, Discord has also quietly changed.
In addition to calling attention to Twitter accounts for many Web3 projects, almost all of them will attach a Discord link to invite everyone to join the Discord group. The current job vacancies involving Web3, without exception, say “experience in operating the Discord community”. Apparently Discord has become another home for the Web3 project. Different from Twitter’s completely open, publicity and promotion attributes, Discord acts as a group chat function and mainly attracts the group of people who pay the most attention to the project and the core.
“From the user side, because Discord users are mostly gamers and young people, it has a high degree of fit with Web3 user portraits. In terms of functions, Discord has powerful functions and is a collaboration tool with community attributes. The design is interesting and good at the same time. It’s very suitable for loosely managed communities.” Shawn Pang, co-founder of the metaverse project Matterverse, explained why Discord has quickly become a popular tool for Web3.
Many Web3 projects have cultivated a group of the most original and loyal users through Discord, not only product users, but many also provide advice and participate in testing, so many Discord groups are also developing towards DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization).
Compared with the same type of community software, many functions of Discord can help DAO exploration. For example, the group sets up precise and convenient channel division of labor and permissions, and through the guidance process, newcomers can quickly get started and enter the appropriate group; provide voice, text, video and other diversified exchanges to meet the needs of different scenarios; the semi-open feature allows members to be paired Once chatting, you can also group with friends, or even larger groups.
How to formulate and manage the group framework, Discord also gives users a high degree of autonomy and flexibility, setting up groups according to the topic of the project, and adjusting them at any time. When you join different groups, you will find the content is different and unique. “To operate the Web3 community, Discord should be the best choice at present, there is no one.” A DAO promoter said.
Reddit: Web3 Information Distribution and Diaspora Square
Many people know Reddit, probably from last year’s epic retail short-squeezing agency war. However, Reddit, which has been established for 17 years and is the most well-known large-scale forum in the United States, has always been the community platform with the longest history and most active users in North America. Currently Reddit has more than 100,000 forums/sub-sections covering finance, current affairs, games, entertainment and more. Recently, Web3 has clearly become the fastest growing and hottest group.
The immediate reason is the high level of cryptocurrency speculation among retail investors. Similar to Wallstreetbets, Reddit gathers a large number of users who are enthusiastic about various investment products, often get together to exchange investment experience and strategies, and also share industry trends and news in the first time. Slowly, many people’s attention has expanded from only focusing on cryptocurrencies a few years ago to the development of the entire Web3.
Reddit itself is also starting to explicitly embrace Web3. In the eyes of many Web3 people, Reddit naturally exudes a temperament similar to Web3. For example, Reddit gives users full autonomy and delegates group management to moderators. Another example is Reddit’s recommendation mechanism, which is decided by users. There is more traffic etc. In the past one or two years, Reddit’s Web3 has been active frequently. Not only has it launched hundreds of millions of dollars in investment funds with the Sonala Foundation, and continuously invested in projects, it has also issued its own token Moon for the first time and launched a NFT-based photo market.
But unlike Twitter and Discord, as a traditional forum, Reddit users are of course not all promoting and operating Web3 projects, but often see posts questioning the encryption industry and certain Web3 projects, and comments can also see various opinions.
（Source：Reddit）
By browsing Reddit’s Web3-related topics, outsiders can not only know about the major news in the industry for the first time, but also view Web3 from different perspectives, and maybe they will have a deeper understanding. Some netizens have called Twitter, Discord, and Reddit the “Web3 Three.” Of course, they are all products of the Web2 era in essence, and are not really decentralized. Many teams are also working on alternatives. Perhaps A new form of product will appear soon.
(This article is reproduced with permission from Pinwan; source of the first image: shutterstock)