Milady Market & Goblin Town
Anyone seen Bandersnatch?
Black Mirror should be a favorite of anyone exploring the future of technology. Some of it is pure madness; some of it feels a bit too accurate.
After a few stellar seasons, Black Mirror released an interactive experience that allowed viewers to click through a variety of storylines. Bandersnatch blew my mind (though I was a head cold and box of Franiza deep).
My experience viewing Bandersnatch came back to me as I thought about how I wanted to push my next batch of writings. Could I do something goofy and create a labyrinth of content that was self-referential and let a reader choose what they wanted to engage with?
In April, I turned the burners on and shipped 6,000 words in four days and I realized a few things:
- I could write a lot — and quickly — if I wanted
- Writing is worth it. Seriously.
- The content doesn’t need to be that good — as long as something good is mixed in.
- I suck at time management and distribution (I already knew this)
- There is another level…
After doing a speed run, I wanted to do another. There was a better way to do it though — or at least a new way to play with it. I got in my mind that I could release a buffet of posts all at once and let everyone choose to focus on or read what they wanted. If all goes well, I get some feedback (via DMs, on the TL, etc) that tells me what people are most interested in reading. This feedback can inform how I prepare future content while allowing me to test new distribution methods.
On Aggregating & Content Creation
You’re currently reading the aggregation article. This is the main branch that provides offshoots to other niches. These topics are in the same city even if they don’t belong in the same ballpark.
I flirted with this concept last batch but I wanted to try a new approach that allowed me to deliver everything at once. Instead of pushing post after post and then following up with a recap, I wanted to offer a main line into the content and a way to access the various pieces within it.
This is a good moment, however, to comment on the different types of content creation that are available to new shippers. There is a lot of value to be created without a lot of work being required. Content aggregation and commentary is one of the most available and low friction paths to getting started. Pick your favorite articles, put them in a list, add some fluff, congrats you made content. I joke, but also it really can be that easy.
There’s a lot of content that exists in the meta-discourse that is high value add and gives context to how events are processed or understood. There are whole companies to be established around meta-discourse. Just take a look at The Ringer and their $200M deal with Spotify.
tldr:
this is the main branch and the right place to start. Read on and and click out to whatever grabs your attention. You might find your way back here 🤔
NFTs Aren’t Pictures
I missed defi summer. I called top on NFTs in March 2021. I pitched tokenization of debt notes to the CEO of the fintech startup I worked at in 2017 and got laughed out of the office. I suck at timing. I will, however, give myself credit for respecting the technology.
NFT technology is such an obvious next step that the salt is almost enjoyable. I am generally anti-conflict but the opportunity at the nexus of NFT apes and yesterday’s geniuses is too ripe. At the same time, I also agree that the NFTs we’ve seen over the past 12 months are a disgusting misrepresentation of what is possible.
Some of the more interesting NFTs right now are exploring the concept of access as an asset. Skeuomorphic designs will look like a token that represents access to a tool similar to a subscription or membership that might be offered by a SaaS company or a country club. Instead of paying an ongoing membership or access fee, participants can own their access and sell it on an open market. The issuing entity can continue to earn royalties and be shaped and stewarded by the active participants who earn governance rights and/or gain exposure to potential upside of the access tokens.
Here’s 1,500 words on why NFTs are so much more than pictures.
By the way, check out this post on Music NFTs.
Are Ya Winning Son?
Science & Technology Studies (STS) is an obscure field that looks at the interdisciplinary aspects of science, technology, and society. It’s a niche studied by legends such as Micheal Saylor and myself (lol). Proponents of STS are obsessed with bicycles — I’ll try to cover this in the post but I don’t even think a pseudoscience post about bicycles, markets, and burnout can properly capture the weird STS energy around bikes…
This piece attempts to explore the strange history of the bicycle within the context of technology history while also equating the physics of bicycle stability to markets and individual participation within them. It’s nonsense and mayhem — but more importantly it’s pseudoscience and improper philosophy. Take a look if you’re feeling like one more pump could prop up your portfolio and you.
Meta-Discourse
What are we doing right now? This is the content about the content! If you’re still here and have yet to click into a new branch then you’re still at the surface and you need to jump in. This is your sign.
Try out this piece on Meta-Discourse and echo chambers.
This is a concept that I’ve been trying to explore and still feel like I’m not properly pontificating about. It’s hard to genuinely create and participate in discourse about Meta-Discourse. How do you talk about the the way that others talk about that thing that actually happened? At what level of removal and/or nicheness does that analysis lose all credibility?
Meta-Discourse is the commentary on commentary, the discussion of discussions. Shout out Mallory Rubin, Jason Concepcion, Chris Ryan, and the rest of Bill Simmons’ team at The Ringer.
This Things of Ours
Is there a better description than “this thing of ours” for DAO definitions in mid-2022? No one can give you a good answer about what a DAO is and idealogical bends on the concept trend toward immaculate conceptions, group ownership, decentralization (by the way, distributed networks are highly more resilient the decentralized ones).
As I’ve been re-watching The Sopranos, I’ve been doing some cursory research on the Sicilian and American Mafias. My favorite discovery was the first line in the Wikipedia page about the Sicilian Mafia:
The Sicilian Mafia, also simply known as the Mafia and frequently referred to as Cosa Nostra (“our thing”) by it’s members is an Italian Mafia-terrorist-type organized crime syndicate and criminal society…
Our thing, organized, syndicate, society… sounds like some other digital organization I’ve been hearing about the past 6 months.
The Mafia has pod-like hierarchies, ceremonies and rituals, and distributed authority. This piece is most honestly described as shiny fluff. It’s an attempt to mix content that I’m seeing in my personal and professional existence.
Iterative Testing
Similar to my comments on the Meta-Discourse piece, I’ll call out this as an example of itself. As we continue to move forward, we must collect feedback that allows us to refine our approaches.
Iterative testing allows users to try things out, get feedback, and then use that feedback to determine if they want to move forward or pivot and try something new. Over the past few months I’ve been iteratively testing my approach with long-form written content. I already wrote about that a bit here, so in this piece we explore how to most productively engage with the plethora of DAO tools being built.
With anything that we seek feedback on, we should seek to create highly contextualized and high volume
I feel very fortunate to be operating in spaces where experiments are being fed with a high amount of feedback. Contextualizing this feedback is important, but volume is key to inform how to move next…
If you’ve gotten this far, I appreciate you.
Fund the madness if you wish…
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