The Rise of Avatar Communities
As NFTs projects gain traction in everyday communities. Nike recently announced that they are purchasing RFKT studios, Pepsi went into NFTs, etc. I look to briefly explore the rise of avatar communities.
For example, @alphagirlclub, a community focused on Mental health awareness, identifies community members, who own NFT avatars of themselves. This avatar is designed by the community.
Nouns DAOs are also doing the same thing with their community.
“On August 8th, 2021, Punk4156 and his team deployed a smart contract to the Ethereum blockchain that randomly generates a new NFT digital avatar (called a Noun) every 24 hours and auctions it off to the highest bidder. 100% of the auction proceeds get sent to a community treasury that is controlled by Noun owners. One Noun = one vote.” Nathan Baschez from Every, describes.
Source: Every.to
The point of these projects is to create a positive feedback loop that goes something like this:
Convince people to spend money buying Nouns
Use that money on projects that will convince more people to spend more money on Nouns
GOTO 1
As the treasury grows, more and more ambitious projects that increase the value of Nouns can be undertaken. If those projects succeed, the treasury gets even bigger. For now the ideas are simple, but you could imagine wild projects like designer merch, a private IRL clubhouse, TV shows, theme parks, giant bronze sculptures in every major metropolitan area, etc. It seems silly, but maybe the next Marvel Universe will come from a DAO like this? A surprising amount of our daily experience is shaped by the desire to make vast pools of capital slightly more vast. Nathan Baschez from Every, explains further.
Movie Franchises
Keeping your content from being commoditized. Disney plays it well by creating franchises out of movies. This is my perspective on franchises becoming a platform, a social network on their own.
One franchise movie contains:
Comics
Cartoons
Toys
Tv Shows
Movies
Ways a Story Can Become a Social Network
Virality
Network Effects: A franchise become more interesting because you can talk to more people about it. They can relate.
Why Companies Buy Franchises
Lower marketing costs. It’s easier to write a cheque to Holywood, and they make a movie for you. Tech companies in Silicon Valley do this.
To acquire new users
A platform to spin up amusement parks
Now, I am not saying Silicon Valley tech companies like Netflix or Wealthy Web 3 DAO companies like the Nouns DAO should start buying up Hollywood studios. Content-creation is a different ball game. Companies simply just buy the idea behind the franchise.
When Companies Are Movie Franchises
Before we get into this, let us look back at how Netflix, is working towards building a movie franchise.
“Netflix started with a catalogue of older films, building it up over time as it boosted its subscriber base. Producing original content was a natural step to further differentiate its service, just like HBO started to do in the ’80s.” Eric Buchman from Digital Trends describes.
Netflix used tech to rewrite the rules of an existing market. Hollywood. By using video-on-demand offerings & cloud computing, they found a better way of understanding consumer desires and a more effective method of creating content delivered to their customers. Hence, they buy movie studios and produce movies now. The data analytics from the VoD offering gave them an edge to even consider buying Hollywood Studios.
We can’t say the same for NFT DAOs, these are organizations using blockchain tech to achieve competitive advantage. This tech provides a better way of understanding consumer desires (make Nouns NFTs more valuable). Movies or Games depicts the goal in some ways. NFT DAOs can create movie franchises off their NFTs, which becomes fun to discuss. Hence, increasing the value of the NFTs further since it is now popular.
Movie Sequels Released in 2013
2013 had so many sequels showing. From “Thor, X-Men, Die Hard, The Hobbit, etc.” It was a party!
Sequels make way more than it’s originals.
Source: Movie Earnings
Now, this is just Sequels alone. We haven’t even-explored movie franchises. One thing I enjoy about movie franchises, some scenes are incomprehensible if you don’t go online and read further.
At the birth of the new Star Wars movie franchise, Boba Fett, we see expressions of a Franchise. “Spice was mentioned by Boba Fett. “
Source: Denizens of a spice den - Wikipedia
Spice is a psychotic drug used for medical purposes but also addictive, it is also taken in the Star Wars tv show. This drug was also mentioned in the movie, Dune, though not a movie Franchise yet. Ironically, Star Wars borrowed heavily from Frank Herbert's science-fiction novel Dune. Dune would make for an interesting movie Franchise too.
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Making a Movie is a Startup Company of Its Own
Most DAOs aren’t in the content-creation business. Nor should they be. There are no algorithms for taste. Every film or TV project is its start-up, and once the project is finished, you have to start all over again from scratch. Maybe some NFT projects would need to outsource their idea to Hollywood studios, or gaming companies who will create a 3D avatar off their NFTs, hence creating more immersive experiences which improve virality.
Further Reading
https://bernardgolden.com/actually-netflix-is-a-technology-company/
https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/silicon-valley-still-needs-hollywoods-content/
https://every.to/divinations/will-daos-replace-corporations?sid=3536
https://every.to/cybernaut/our-pseudonymous-selves
https://medium.com/@noun22/pseudonymity-and-me-9ccab9c69ca1