Community Hub Proposal: Web3 Social

Topic: Web3 Social Hub

Summary

This Community Hub proposal is from multiple projects and very active community volunteers in our ecosystem (see: confirmed contributors). We are proposing a gathering space for all things related to Web3 Social at Devcon.

Developers, artists, creators, founders, and onlookers are all welcome to stop by and learn more about important topics related to decentralized social media. Key topics in Web3 Social include (but are not limited to): independent social graphs, identity, user privacy, ownership of data/content, creator generated value, and community-owned social platforms.

Web3 Social is in a pivotal moment. There’s amazing examples of web3 Startups with ideas on how to disrupt the existing centralized social media platforms. However, some of these existing centralized platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, are tiptoeing into the internet’s next phase with NFT profile pictures, the metaverse and crypto. Thus it’s important that legacy web2 players don’t co-opt the truly decentralized web3 Social Platforms of tomorrow. This means web3 projects and people working on social need to supercharge their communication and collaborate on community driven development.

Inspired by the “Future of Web3 Content & Creators” Parisian Salon at EthCC, the Web3 Social Community Hub would be the space where:

  1. Any DevCon attendee interested in decentralized social media can visit to learn more and have access to open discussions with leaders in the space.
  2. It will complement DevCon programming by bringing together several DevCon speakers after their main talk, into an extended Q&A with interested members for the audience– as well as expand coverage by also inviting those with new ideas to also host small breakout sessions.
  3. Hosts interactive discussions, experiences, and intimate breakout discussions led by community members and open to everyone.
  4. Becomes the meeting point for creators, developers and founders to engage with decentralized social media projects.
  5. Provides a break from “conference” vibes and transforms into a cool space to hang out.
  6. Since each community hub can host approx 12 people at a time, this will really be a unique opportunity for DevCon attendees to get up close and personal with the founders and community leaders that are trailblazing across the decentralized social media space (and hopefully feel inspired to join the movement!)

Programming & Activities

The Web3 Social Hub’s programming and activities are designed in mind for all attendees. These will range from small breakout sessions on specific topics, Founder AMA’s, whiteboard sessions, Q&A’s following a larger official DevCon talk, small presentations with an interactive audience, Fireside chats, Office Hours with top leaders and projects in the Web3 Social Space, and casual coffee/drinks hangouts for the community.

The Decentralized Social Media Hub will be open from Oct 11 - Oct 14, following extended hours from 10am-7pm.

Programming

Below are proposed sessions, a more detailed schedule is TBD:

  • Jam Sessions: A series of fun, lighthearted, perhaps controversial and definitely mission critical conversations around Web3 Social. Examples of prompts for these sessions include;
    • “Web3 is not a revolution, it’s an evolution”
    • “Privacy is a fundamental human right… is my web3 social graph public?”
    • “Who owns your digital roots?”
    • “Social media is broken… how do we fix it?”
    • “What are the challenges for content moderation / trust & safety in web3?”
    • “How to build dapps for creator monetization”
    • “How to build a fully decentralized social application”
    • “What does sufficient decentralization in a web3 app look like?”
    • “How can we we design for human thriving in web3 apps”
    • “Friends or Foes: How can governments be good partners?”
  • EthVC - The Web3 Social Edition: This is an open session where top VCs in the ecosystem will come together to collectively hear quick pitches from new web3 social startups that are raising a round/searching for funding. This will be based on open sign-ups and any DevCon attendee can sign up for a spot to pitch a web3 social idea or startup.
  • Ecosystem Showcase: Top projects in the ecosystem will present their projects and invite anyone interested to participate or ask questions. These showcase time blocks will be scattered throughout each day. Founders/Core Contributors will commit to being available for all Devcon attendees who want to join the session.
  • Lightning Rounds: Selected up-and-coming web3 social startups will present their projects in one big block: quick presentation followed by interactive Q&A from the audience.
  • Future of Content: A series of interactive sessions to discuss decentralized technology’s role in the future of content creation, ownership, and community.
  • Breakout Sessions: Through small group workshops, participants will engage in critical topics including ownership, monetization, and moderation, with the goal of introducing new audiences to web3 social and fostering connection and collaboration among participants.
  • Builder mentorship: sign-up slots will be available for dapp developers to come to the hub with questions for senior developers from core web3 protocols to help them in refining their ideas, prototyping and testing

Other Activities & Resources

  • Living Room Hours: A more casual version of traditional “office hours” where our invited guests (founders & core contributors) will be sitting on a sofa in our community hub, available for anyone to sign up for 5-10min blocks.
  • It’s a Small Web3 World: Social Graph Installation: Big canvas where Devcon attendees can write their pseudonym or twitter handle and create lines to other members they recognize (probably using yarn, still working on prototypes)
  • Open Social Socials: Would the venue be open to providing us with sparkling water + yerba mate + beers (or letting us bring in beverage delivery or hire a catering service for this?). If so we would love to end each day with bright, light, social hours for people to connect to others at a human level. We’ll invite founders & core contributors from awesome web3 social projects to “host” each social, and anyone interested can join us for a drink.

Confirmed Contributors

This is the list of dedicated people that have commited to organize, oversee, participate and be responsible for the success of the Web3 Social Community Hub:

  • Shannon Wells (shannon@livepeer.org) - Livepeer, Head of Ecosystem (@ shanvasion)
  • Dani Osorio - MetaWeb & EthDenver, Head of Content (@ waverlymaven)
  • Juan David - Ethereum Foundation DevCon, Community Team (@ 0xjuandavid)
  • Miguel Piedrafita - Worldcoin & ConstitutionDAO, Core Contributor (@ m1guelpf)
  • Christina Beltramini - Lens Protocol, Head of Growth (@ 0xChristina)
  • Doug Petkanics - Livepeer, Co-Founder & CEO (@ dob)
  • Evin McMullen - Disco, Co-Founder & CEO (@ provenauthority)
  • Max Saal - Developer (@ itsbearmans)
  • Paris Rouzati - IDEO CoLab, GP (@ parisrouz)
  • Nader Dabit - Celestia DevRel & DeveloperDAO Founder (@ dabit3)
  • Diego Fernandez - Minister of Innovation, City of Buenos Aires (@ fernandezdiego)
  • LDF - Disco, Head of Partnerships (​​@ ldf_gm)
  • Shannon Ewing - EthDenver, LISCON, & EthRio (@ shannonewing)

Equipment Needs:

  • Signage
  • Chairs or sitting furniture (maybe 1-2 makeshift “sofas” from wood pallets?)
  • Power outlets
  • One Desk (or one of the small tall round tables) to set up talks & serve drinks
  • A TV-sized screen
  • Whiteboards

Equipment that we can bring to venue (if EF approves):

  • Portable Speakers (for light music during the Open Social Socials)
  • Puffs or floor pillows (if additional seating is needed)
  • Some sort of corkboard/foam/wood panel where we can set up the art installation
15 Likes

Yes! 1000% behind this! Let’s make this happen!

3 Likes

yes yes yes yes yes this is what we like to see!

2 Likes

That sounds cool! Happy to contribute to such initiative!

2 Likes

Yes! A couple reasons I’m excited about this proposal:

  1. It gives dedicated space for application level builders - people thinking about impacts for creator economy, social networks, user-owned content. Devcon has a lot of space carved out for core technology already, but many attendees are interested in the applications that are possible on top of the core tech.

  2. It’s inclusive of additional attendees beyond just developers - creators, social scientists, community builders, etc.

  3. The tech itself needs to combine technologies from across the web3 stack…all the way down to consensus/security/scaling, and up through indexing/data services/and front end technologies for web3 builders.

2 Likes

Love the proposal!

The integration of web3 into social networks is inevitable.

Giving introductory talks and workshops to educate people seems essential to me.

I know that many projects are building in this ecosystem and giving them a chance to show themselves and tell us about their proposal is very important.

At the same time, listening to VC focused on this topic is a great opportunity.

1 Like

This sounds great! The “Future of Web3 Content & Creators” at EthCC was amazing, we need more events like this!

1 Like

Great idea @shann7 !!! Happy to join!

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Hi there,

First of all, we would like to thank you for putting together this proposal!

The space allocated to Community Hubs is limited which means we can only accept six proposals.

Many of the proposals we received were very high quality and, unfortunately, we had to take hard decisions. There is simply not enough space to accommodate all of them.

With this post, I’d like to inform you that your proposal was not selected for this year’s Community space.

The topic of decentralized and distributed (social) media is an important one and we would love to see it covered in some way. I see that there are social media sessions planned in the Temporary Anonymous Zone (Community Hub Proposal: Temporary Anonymous Zone) - maybe it makes sense to reach out to them and explore collaboration or a dedicated session on web3 social in their Community Hub?

Again, thank you for showing initiative to contribute to the Devcon Bogotá experience and we hope to see you there soon nonetheless.

Have a great day,

Franziska & the Devcon team