#2 - Decentralizing Social Media

Hello and Welcome to my Weekly Newsletter on Web3, AI, and More.

What This Newsletter will be about

This week’s email goes into one Web3 platform that I have been actively participating in over the past two years and my ongoing experience with creating on X.

X (Twitter) Impressions

My early experience with building my impressions on X with more replies hit a road-block. I noticed that most of my highest impressions tweets/posts where to do with Indian Politics and when I was at my sarcastic best. While that did give me the reach and numbers, I soon realized that it was not aiding my brand around Web3 and AI/Analytics in any way. I do have strong thoughts and opinions as a politically aware Indian Citizen and also feel like I will be active on X especially closer to the 2024 elections, I am still unsure if building a following in that space is what I want my main handle to be about though. While I ponder that question, I have slowed down on being too focused on impressions/reach.

Decentralizing Social

Decentralized Social is the ONLY way in my mind to truly democratize content creation and free the masses from the fangs of the centralized tech-giants (FAANG) i.e. Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google(Alphabet) or maybe we should call it Death by FANAA (Fanaa means “to be destroyed or perish” and it is usually used in the context of romantic love). Get so besotted with social media and making money there that you die a slow death as the algo and rules keep changing.

I have been active on Decentralized Social (DeSo) protocol over the past two years from the early Bitclout days and two features that I have loved about DeSo from the early days are:

1. Social Tipping (a.k.a. Diamonds) - Which are Tips from a few fractions of a Cent to a few $s depending on how much a reader likes your content.

2. Social Tokens (a.k.a. Creator Coins) - Which refers to a Creator’s Cred as defined by how much Users have chosen to invest (stake) in a Creator to both showcase support and also to profit from their growth as a Creator.

Unfortunately, the DeSo Core Team has chosen Not to build on these two features or even focus on encouraging teams that had started building on these two core features. They preferred to add more primitives like Project Tokens (DAOs), NFTs, Encrypted Messaging, Group Chat, a Trading DeX for Project Tokens and Cryptos and so much more. While I do agree that these are all coming together nicely and can be really powerful to leverage and build into different kinds of apps, I worry if they are getting into an analysis paralysis kind of situation where you work for the excitement of the work instead of getting the results.

There are a few other players coming up in the Decentralized Social space and the biggest among them are ICP, Uhive, Hive/Steemit, BlueSky, Farcaster, Mastodon and Lens Protocol. For me, besides the execution on marketing which is going to be the key differentiator in terms of getting enough of a Minimum Viable Audience (MVA) into the platform, the key is going to be the technology itself and how well it scales to handling huge volumes of data that Social Media brings with it. On this second parameter alone, I believe DeSo is pretty well-placed.

Disclaimer: I am heavily invested in DESO as a Token and also Creator Coins and hence there is an inherent bias towards it.

My Top Tweets

Lesson: People always love a story. And if you want a lot more impressions than you normally get, share a relevant story in a post that’s got over 3M impressions at the time of writing and you’ll end up with at least 20-30K impressions.

My Weekly Post on Crypto Scams: This week I focused on Ponzi Scams. Go check it out.

I’ve decided to pause my attempt at hitting the 5M impressions mark because I’ve realized that >50% of my 3K following is from pre-2020 and probably inactive. Also, building impressions without a strong profile and a clear definition of what I want to do on Twitter is meaningless. But, despite that, I have a feeling that with a few more good days, I should still get closer to the 1M impressions mark in 28 Days and that’s a big improvement from anything that I’ve come close to before.

My broad goal for the next few weeks is to clearly define what I want to achieve on Twitter. I believe it will be a variant of being seen as a solution provider/coach for Solopreneurs/Writers/Artists on Web3/Crypto as I myself go on this journey and grow as a Writer. Even if I am able to inspire one person each week to kickstart or modify their own journey, I’ll consider my attempt successful. Of course, over time, my ambitions will grow too.

That’s it from me for this week. Do reply to the email and write to me on what you would like me to focus on in the next edition or just DM me on X with your thoughts. As I said earlier, I am all about connecting and collaborating with others. While I am an introvert by nature, I don’t shy away from a 1:1 call and am exploring ways to get into speaking more in Spaces and Conferences too.

About Me

About myself, I am a 3X founder who’s built multiple successful ventures including the last one (@Convergytics) where I still am going through a bit of a painful exit. But that’s to be shared on another day. I also have worked on a couple of Web3 start-ups (CreaTiers and Squadz) on the DeSo Protocol, which were honestly more projects than ventures since it didn’t take off beyond the early PMF stage. I am also writing my first novel based on my own experience called “The Chief Embezzlement Officer”.

My Experience

I have over 20+ years of data analytics and retail consulting experience and have worked with brands like Gap, Dell, Nordstrom, Best Buy, Walmart (Sam’s Club), and Citigroup among others. I have worked in the US, Hong Kong, and India and have had clients in Australia, Canada, UAE, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and many others. I have studied in Hong Kong (HKUST) for two years, spent a month in China (during the Beijing Olympics), and a semester at London Business School (as an exchange student). Overall, a well travelled global citizen who’s keen to continue this journey and build relationships and collaborate with other like-minded individuals. 2