This week Safary published its Web3 Growth Technology Landscape 2023 mapping the leading tools around the world helping web3 projects to reach, build, communicate with, incentivize and better understand their communities.

We are proud to say that both the WOM Protocol and BULLZ made it onto the 160+ list of talented growth marketing teams supporting the web3 ecosystem.

Firstly, hats off to Safary for taking the time and effort to curate all of these companies into one comprehensive map.

Secondly, can we take a moment to talk about the sheer power this cohort has as a collective? Looking at this landscape there’s no question that the Web3 Growth Technology Stack is well and truly stacked.

Let’s start with the Community tools. Here companies including @Safaryclub, @jumperstweeting and @myosin_xyz, are helping projects understand customer segments, in order to drive growth and mass adoption.

Then there are the Messaging tools that bring features, such as web3 notifications and wallet messaging, including @NotifiNetwork, @trypearlxyz, @DispatchXYZ, @ethstatus, @xmtp_, @pushprotocol, @0x_hashmail, @commdotapp and @consoledao.

Next, come the Discovery platforms and engines for communities in web3. These include @withsmoothie, @trutsxyz, @PymeID, @thedapplist, @thirdwavelabs and @Playgrid_io

After this Community Automation tools, including @twofivedev, @commsor, @w3w_ai, @0xMysterious, @shield_xyz, @zilly_social, @unjumblexyz, @ZooToolsHQ, @w3bmint, are making it infinitely easier for web3 projects to manage their socials.

Growing numbers of analytics tools, including @upptic, @cookie3_co, @bellosights, @merlindotxyz, @0xGarden, @IntractBuzz and @SuperSpacesAI, are helping projects bring clarity to blockchain data.

Wallet Relationship Manager tools, such as @absolute_labs, @holderxyz, @kazmapp, @blaze_ai are helping projects to manage and understand their communities and digital asset owners.

Then you have the Ad Networks designed for cryptocurrency-based projects to find and measure customer acquisition, including @gohypelab, @slise_xyz, @adsbycoinzilla and @bitmedia_io.

Quest-to-earn tools, including @Quest3_xyz, @layer3xyz, @rabbithole_gg and @Galxe are helping projects drive organic user growth through meaningful engagement.

Affiliate and Referral tools, including @qwestive, @WOM_protocol and @sharemint_xyz are unlocking the value of word of mouth for web3.

Meanwhile Loyalty tools, including @bullzapp, @onunblocked, @tropee_nft, @TokenScript, @HangXYZ_, @glowlabsxyz, @passageprotocol are helping projects find, reward and retain brand lovers.

Last but not least, Attribution and AdTech tools, including @addressableid and @spindl_xyz , are helping projects make smart business decisions and bring web3 to the masses.

All in it’s looking like web3 growth teams have a stellar marketing stack at the ready to structure internal processes.

We’re proud to work alongside such incredible teams and excited to see what the collective will achieve for web3 growth as the year unfolds.

*Read the Terms and Conditions

We’re Proud To Play Our Part Helping Web3 Grow was originally published in WOM Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Advertisers have been playing a game of cat and mouse with consumers for too long. If anything, the past few years of living through a pandemic — and the resulting impact this has had on people’s screen-time and ad exposure — has not helped this dynamic:

• Digital ad growth rose significantly in 2021 as brands funnelled $189 billion into targeting increasingly digitally active consumers.
• In the same year six in ten 18–24 year-olds in the US used ad blockers while on desktop.

So why should brands pour billions into digital advertising, when only 40 per cent of US GenZ consumers on desktop will even see it? At a time when budgets are shrinking to fight inflation this is of course the billion dollar question.

The rapid emergence of AI tools and the speed at which low-cost content can now be produced could of course be one answer. New tools that are either free or available as pro upgrades with monthly subscriptions, such as copy.ai, podcastle.ai and invideo.io, make it easier than ever to produce marketing content. From blogs, podcasts and videos, through to social media posts, all of these could be key to scaling content creation to reach and engage young consumers.

As machine-generated content increases, however, so will the need to counterbalance this with content that reaches people on a more relatable and human level. This will become especially true for GenZ, where authenticity is highly valued — after all, as intelligent as machines may be, authentic humans they most certainly are not (yet).

UGC or user-generated content is by far the best route to relatable, authentic — and budget-friendly — content. This article explores the benefits of UGC and the role of the web3 protocol in enabling this as a form of advertising. We’ll also touch on the potential for UGC to become a dominant form of advertising in the future.

Traditional Advertising Is Broken

Today social media platforms are saturated with traditional ads. These ads, which are created and paid for by brands, often appear in users’ feeds alongside posts from their friends and family. While traditional ads can be effective at achieving broadcast diffusion and quickly reaching a large audience, they often suffer from several problems on social media:

1. Ads can be intrusive and annoying. When users are bombarded with an overwhelming number of marketing messages on a daily basis, they become desensitized and are likely to ignore them or actively block them.
2. They can be less effective at engaging social media users. Heavily polished and overly key message-laden content lacks authenticity and personal connection. As people turned to social media to maintain their closeness and social connections through the pandemic this became even more jarring. In contrast, posts and content created by users’ friends and family tend to be more engaging and generate more likes, comments, and shares.
3. Traditional ads can be less effective at building trust with users on social media: Edelman’s 2022 Trust Barometer found that only 8 per cent of consumers actually believe what they see in adverts. In contrast, user-generated content (UGC) — content created by users themselves — is often seen as more trustworthy and authentic.

By leveraging the social networks and communities of users who create and share content, advertisers can reach and engage with their target audience in a more organic and authentic way.

Why UGC Will Replace Ads

We built the WOM Protocol to replace traditional ads with user-generated content as a way to better align the values of all participants in the advertising industry: content creators, platforms, users and brands. Rather than creating a cat and mouse dynamic between consumers and brands we believe that UGC offers a mutually beneficial way to reward users for their value, while supplying brands with non-intrusive and credible content.

Benefits Of Using User-Generated Content As Ads

Given the problems with traditional ads on social media, many brands are turning to user-generated content as a more effective way to reach and engage their audience.

User-generated content has several benefits as an advertising strategy on social media:

• Authenticity: 90% of consumers say that UGC is a key factor in their purchasing decisions
• Engagement: Consumers are 4 times more likely to view UGC as authentic compared to content created by a brand
• Trustworthiness: 75% of consumers say that UGC helps them make more informed purchase decisions
• Cost-effectiveness: UGC can increase conversions by up to 10% and can lead to a 29% increase in web traffic and a 41% increase in revenue

Incentivizing User-Generated Content

User-generated content is the promising alternative to the adverts that GenZ spend most of their time avoiding, as well as the machine-generated content that by-default cannot be authentic.

Traditional ads are effective at reaching a large audience and cascading from one to many quickly, but they are also seen as intrusive, less engaging, and less trustworthy.

We believe UGC will play a pivotal role in the future of advertising and bank on this becoming the smart, cost-effective way to bring the human touch back to brand marketing.

Why We’re Replacing Traditional Ads With A More Human Touch was originally published in WOM Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

One of the advantages of being a living, breathing web3 project is that you actually have the benefit of hindsight. Thanks to the early decision to integrate the WOM Token into the YEAY app as a first adopter, we have now amassed two years of testing time to see what happens when you introduce a native cryptocurrency to a community of non-crypto natives. In the case of YEAY, the WOM Token was integrated as a mechanism for earning rewards for recommending products using short-form video, and as a means of supplying brands with scalable user-generated marketing campaigns.

At the same time we wanted to see what would happen when we integrated the WOM Token into platforms targeted more directly at the crypto crowd, which is why we launched the WOM Authenticator — an app built for anyone looking to earn incremental amounts of tokens by peer-reviewing recommendation content — as well as the BULLZ product range, giving a more crypto-savvy audience the chance to create-to-earn by recommending their favorite web3 projects.

Having multiple apps in the wild has helped us observe how two different segments, web2 creators and web3 create-to-earners, react to participating in the WOM Ecosystem and ultimately which direction to take to keep driving network growth and token adoption.

We’re excited to say that in terms of user adoption and strength of use case there is one segment that stands out as the clear winner — the web3 create-to-earners on BULLZ. This is a crowd that genuinely gets a kick out of recommending the web3 projects they love, not only because they want to help the web3 ecosystem grow, but because they want to prove the crypto skeptics wrong.

Truth be told, we were just a little bit too early for YEAY. There’s no doubt that deep-rooted beliefs in the long-term benefits and viability of cryptocurrencies and web3 technologies are growing among web2 creators, but right here and now earning fiat is still a welcome way for many influencers and creators to create a sustainable career path. The challenge really lies in finding better and more efficient ways to collaborate with brands. We will therefore soon be ending our integration with YEAY, ahead of a major revamp and relaunch of the YEAY app. We’ll be ready and waiting to re-integrate WOM into YEAY as soon as the timing is right.

This means that anyone who has previously earned WOM Tokens through the YEAY app can now choose one of the following options before March 1st 2023:

• Withdraw their WOM Tokens to another wallet (*minimum withdrawal limits apply).
• Sign up for the WOM Authenticator app on the App Store or Google Play Store, then fill out the linked form including their WOM Authenticator username. We will then transfer any remaining WOM Tokens from the YEAY app over to the WOM Authenticator app, where they can continue to hold the WOM Tokens in their wallet, redeem the tokens, or earn further tokens by becoming a WOM Authenticator.

The revamped YEAY will be the heartbeat of brand collaborations, providing everyone from established influencers, through to amateur creators who are just getting started, with a level playing field for finding brand partnerships and earning rewards through creating short form video content. Brands, meanwhile, benefit from scalable influencer campaigns and highly cost-effective user-generated marketing.

As we outlined in our whitepaper, our goal has always been to continue expanding the WOM Ecosystem and integrating the WOM Token into multiple platforms, which is why this year we will be extending our ecosystem of web3-based apps.

We designed the WOM Protocol to not only pay out to creators and authenticators, but also to the apps that integrate the WOM Token. In other words by integrating WOM, web3 apps have an opportunity to create a new revenue stream and replace outdated advertising monetization models with more authentic UGC recommendation content for a better user experience.

Armed with two amazing years of WOM integration insights, we are excited to see how our ecosystem of web3 platforms will continue to grow in 2023 and look forward to bringing you up-to-date news as the story unfolds.

Get help transferring your $WOM

*Read the Terms and Conditions

What We’ve Learned From Two Years Of WOM Protocol Being Integrated Into YEAY was originally published in WOM Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The rise of web3 has been driven by the growing interest in the concept of decentralization and the benefits it can offer. While focusing on the product side, technological developments and even the trading of tokens, it can be a struggle for web3 projects to effectively build a community and gain user adoption.

All web3 projects need cost-effective and authentic ways to reach and engage with their target audiences. This is exactly what user-generated content can provide, especially in terms of storytelling, spreading awareness and educating audiences. Content creators will be the accelerators of web3 adoption. Platforms such as BULLZ, are designed to give web3 projects support in content creation to ultimately spread awareness, educate and onboard non-crypto natives.

Through the newly launched BULLZ Campaign Manager any web3 project can request content from not only established influencers of all community sizes, but also regular creators, providing projects with the chance to generate a multi-purpose content marketing approach, along with the flexibility to customize their campaigns depending on the project’s goals and budget.

These are just some of the key ways that web3 projects can work with influencers and creators on BULLZ:

Onboarding

By working with regular creators who are looking to earn small amounts of crypto as a side hustle, web3 projects have a highly affordable way to onboard users onto their project, product, game, DeFi product, wallet, exchange, and so on. Using the BULLZ Campaign Manager projects can set a goal, for instance, of onboarding 100 new users, and then simply set the task for creators to first download or sign up as required, and then create short videos on the BULLZ app describing that onboarding and overall user experience — in so doing projects can not only generate quality UGC content with a minimal budget, but simultaneously drive user acquisition.

Social Proof

Projects can also request that creators post across their wider social channels to complete the task, whether that means tweeting about it, or creating a TikTok video. In this way web3 projects can use BULLZ to generate valuable social proof by spreading the content among communities of friends.

Education

Short-form educational videos from web3 influencers provide easy-to-watch and entertaining content for reaching and converting non-native crypto users. Web3 projects looking to spread educational content can simply put out content requests to the growing segment of web3 influencers in the educate-to-earn space and once again benefit from quality content that will be boosted out across participating influencers’ social channels.

Spreading Awareness

If the goal is maximum reach, then the BULLZ Campaign Manager enables projects to put out requests to more established influencers who meet the relevant criteria, who will create content not only for the BULLZ app, but for their broader communities across social channels.

Scaling And Driving Web3 Growth

While content marketing is becoming more nuanced with macro, micro and nano “influencers”, all content creators have two things in common:

1. Their creativity in terms of “storytelling” and;
2. A relatable and credible effect compared to traditional ads

Demand to work with influencers of all sizes is high and there will certainly not be a shortage of supply as the “creative drain” from traditional jobs continues into 2023. The combination of hiring freezes, job insecurity and displacement by the pandemic is pushing creatives from all sectors into social content creation as an independent source of revenue. There are already more than 2 million people who identify as professional content creators, and 48 million more who identify as amateur creators.

Looking for on-demand UGC about your web3 project?

*Read the Terms & Conditions

Content Creators: The Ultimate Marketers for Web3 Projects was originally published in WOM Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

With the year slowly coming to a close we’ve spent the final months moving the needle ever closer towards our goal — bringing user-generated-marketing to brands and web3 projects. To that effect we have been busy adding to and refining our suite of MarTech products that enable easy collaborations between creators and brands.

This has been complemented by business development efforts to onboard strategic partnerships and brands into the ecosystem, with seven new strategic, integration and marketing partnerships established over the past few months, including IDO platform, Enjinstarter, MixPay and Mixin Network, and DOEX Exchange.

BULLZ Web App

BULLZ hit a major milestone in December with the release of the web version of the platform. This scaling of our multi-platform strategy enables BULLZ to keep increasing web3 accessibility for content creators, by providing the choice to create and share content on any device. The aim is to keep refining our toolkits targeted at the creator economy to foster easy collaboration — and exposure — for web3 projects.

MixPay Integration

In November WOM announced a partnership with MixPay, a decentralized web3 cross-chain payment protocol built on the Mixin Network. This partnership has since enabled the integration of MixPay into multiple products across all wallets, including the WOM Authenticator, BULLZ Campaign Manager and BULLZ Web App.

Changelog

In addition to releasing the BULLZ Web App and integrating with MixPay across our library of products, we also released the third iteration of our playlist on both YEAY and BULLZ. Version 3 of our playlist has been enhanced with a better, smarter algorithm that learns and adapts to user preferences.

Aside from the more significant updates, we have continued updating, refining, and adding features to the other products across the WOM ecosystem, including support in further languages, improving the flows for account creation and deletion, and adding notifications toggles for controlling notifications.

Here’s a more detailed overview of the changelog for the final quarter of the year. The changelog is divided into two sections:

1. Changelog in numbers
2. Development highlights–organized by product

Changelog in Numbers

Backend: YEAY, WOM, BULLZ

• Commits: 1815
• Files Changed: 1536
• New lines: +64,351
• Refactored: −18,354
• Jira Issues: 88

Frontend Apps: YEAY, WOM Authenticator, BULLZ

• Commits: 589
• Files Changed: 1054
• New lines: +34,581
• Refactored: −28,446
• Jira Issues: 78

Frontend Websites: YEAY, WOM, BULLZ

• Commits: 990
• Files Changed: 2414
• New lines: +174,954
• Refactored: −43,247
• Jira Issues: 102

ALL UPDATES

• Commits: 3,394
• Files Changed: 5,002
• New lines: +273,886
• Refactored: −90,047
• Jira Issues: 268

Development highlights organized by product

General

• Updated wallet pin security across all client facing products (apps and web)

YEAY

• Displayed exclusive videos on top for team videos
• Completed global error collection
• Applied AWS refactoring
• Added teams for /search endpoint to enable searching for teams by name
• Updated playlist to version 3 — featuring a smarter algorithm that recognizes user preferences

BULLZ

• Released BULLZ WEB
• Added MixPay integration to BULLZ WEB
• Released new Quick Signals feature
• Updated playlist to version 3 — featuring a smarter algorithm that recognizes user preferences
• Displayed exclusive videos on top for team videos
• Added support for Filipino and Turkish languages in collaboration flow
• Fixed notification when adding new signals
• Added notifications toggles — now users can control their notifications
• Added new flow for share in requested social networks
• Added a new flow for creating an account asking users for birthday and gender. This also applies to registered users when they open the app
• Added Terms and Conditions links
• Updated web link disclaimer
• Updated video uploading process to enable users to choose a category when they upload a new video — this category automatically becomes the first video hashtag, while the project and topic become the remaining two. Users cannot mistakenly merge hashtags
• Added detect fake phone numbers logic
• Added age and gender for registration flow
• Added new logic for collaboration enrollment process
• Added new logic for request participation flow
• Added all transaction types into wallet
• Released several improvements on categories endpoints
• Updated the logic of notifying users when the seats are open in collaboration

BULLZ Campaign Manager

• Displayed exclusive videos on top for team videos
• Updated notifications for verified users
• Enabled brands to edit the start date of collaborations before the collaboration starts
• Added referral links for brands
• Added new collaboration creation flows with participants and content approval/rejection
• Added logic for user to leave collaboration
• Added option to update and change collaboration end date for collaborations in ACTIVE status
• Added Turkish language
• Added minimum reward in WOM for creation of collaborations
• Added user’s socials and followers count on videos submitted to BULLZ
• Added MixPay integration to Bullz Campaign Manager (BCM)
• Added a social media info block as an additional service on the landing page

WOM

• Added new flow for account deletion
• Added change password flow
• Added new screens for settings
• Added language support for all languages
• Added changes into SMS verification on sign up
• Updated an invitation email
• Updated validation flow, and added an info pop up
• Integrated MixPay for all wallets

Conclusion

We want to take a moment to recognize how important our community has been to our growth and ongoing development and end the last update of the year with a heartfelt THANK YOU for your continued support. We look forward to bringing more news and some significant shake-ups to our product offering in the coming months.

-The WOM Team

_______________________________________

To stay up-to-date on the latest news and happenings at WOM Protocol, be sure to sign up for the WOM Newsletter.

Do you have any questions or feedback? You are always welcome to reach us on Telegram, on Twitter or via our Help Desk.

*WOM Terms and Conditions

WOM Protocol Development Update: Q4 2022 was originally published in WOM Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

WOM Protocol has just made a major improvement to the way that Authenticator payments are distributed on its self-developed apps. It’s great news for Authenticators, and another stride towards bringing the marketing world accessible and authentic word-of-mouth content without compromising consumer trust — WOM’s core mission.

I’m An Authenticator, How Will This Change Affect Me?

Before taking a closer look at the latest changes, let’s recap how WOM Protocol has distributed payments to Authenticators thus far.

The WOM Protocol beta version went live with an early iteration of a reward mechanism, which would become more sophisticated and stronger as we listened and learned from the community. Authenticators have always received 33 per cent of the daily WOM Protocol rewards distributed to contributors in the WOM Ecosystem such as creators, Authenticators, and platforms. This percentage for Authenticators has not changed. The way in which these payments are distributed to Authenticators, however, has been given an upgrade.

WOM Authenticators are crowdsourced members of the WOM community, who validate the honesty and authenticity of product recommendation content that has been submitted for review. They have always been the gate-keepers of quality recommendation videos. They have also earned greater rewards for prioritizing potentially high-performing content. Until now the more engagement the content an Authenticator successfully rated went on to generate, the greater the earning potential for said Authenticator. This was certainly beneficial in the early days for boosting quality, likable content into the ecosystem.

As the WOM Protocol matures we now recognize that by re-coding the reward mechanism, we can free Authenticators from predicting the popularity of content they rate. Instead Authenticators can now rate as honestly as possible and, providing they reach consensus with other Authenticators, will be guaranteed a share of WOM Tokens regardless of whether the content passes the Authentication process and goes on to perform well or not.

This is how Authenticator payments will be distributed moving forwards:

1. Stake: Authenticators must put skin in the game by staking to rate content — this mechanism has not changed. What’s new is that the greater the stake, which can be anywhere from 1–10, the greater the weighting of WOM Token payments for the Authenticator.
2. Rate: Authenticators evaluate recommendation videos using the following three attributes, using a sliding scale between 1–10:

• Authenticity — is the recommendation genuine, believable, trustworthy?
• Creativity — not so much is it pretty, but does it show the product well and is it enjoyable to watch?
• Positivity — is this a 4* or higher recommendation? Do they really recommend the product?

Authenticators need to reach a consensus on at least two of these three attributes in order to qualify to receive rewards and retain their stake. Reaching consensus means rating the attribute within 2 of the average rating. In other words if a video scores an average of 7 for authenticity, an Authenticator needs to rate the authenticity of the video anywhere from between 5.1 to 6.9. Providing they reach consensus on two out of three attributes on the video, they will receive a share of the payouts for the video. This payment is independent of whether the video itself passes the authentication process and that’s a major new development.

3. Assert: Authenticators are incentivized to assert their opinions about content rather than sitting on the fence, which means that payments are not distributed to Authenticators that rate attributes with 5 out of 10, regardless or whether 5 is in fact the consensus. This means that Authenticators have an incentive to commit to either strongly liking or disliking the video, as the distance the rating is away from 5 influences the weighting of payments. That means that if an Authenticator votes 5.5 and reaches consensus, they will earn half of the potential payout, but if they vote 4, or 6, or anything beyond this, they will earn 100 per cent of the potential payout.

These changes take WOM another step closer to its ideal vision and we have plenty more nuances to come. We’re excited to release this latest update, to help WOM Authenticators continue the good fight against fake content, and receive their due WOM Token rewards. Ready to get started?

Find out more about the WOM Authenticator DApp

*Read the Terms and Conditions

WOM’s Latest Authenticator Payments Update Explained was originally published in WOM Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Two years ago investors took bold chances on blockchain projects. Then the deepening bear cycle saw cryptocurrencies lose $2 trillion in value since 2021’s peak and investors became more cautious.

Now, after a year characterized by market struggles, not to mention the seismic shake caused by the collapse of FTX, many both on the investment and development sides of the web3 ecosystem, believe 2023 is the year to continue funding and growing the space.

In a recent address to the Future of Crypto Summit, Mastercard’s director of startup engagement, Grace Berkery, called current venture funding in crypto and web3 an opportunity, while also a good time to reset, giving a call-to-arms for funds and projects to maintain the web3 momentum: “Right now, people should put their heads down and build. You will be better off in the long term.”

This sentiment is echoed by CVP NoLimit Holdings founder, Gin Chao, who also believes now is the time to continue building web3 investment portfolios. He argues that the current crypto winter appears to follow the same cycle we have seen repeated every 18–24 months (the last of which proved to be another successful investment period) and that we can expect spring to follow, though it might take a little longer this time given the current macro environment.

Investors are continuing to put skin in the web3 game and Double Down, a $30 million VC fund from ex-Bain investor, Magdalena Kala, which launched in November, is particularly telling of the direction funding is starting to take. The fund is dedicated to web3 consumer startups, because she believes that the future of web3 adoption will necessarily be driven by the intersection between crypto and consumers.

Equally VC fund, Speedinvest, advises investors to not only look to crypto-native teams to build the future of web3. Instead they should consider that teams which combine the deep knowledge and expertise of native crypto engineers, alongside founders who can think like and build for non-native consumers, have the strongest potential to drive mainstream adoption. This is because having key players who are “native enough” but who aren’t blindsided by the basic technology struggles and educational-knowledge gaps that mainstream consumers may have, are better able to anticipate the kind of apps that have mainstream appeal.

It is precisely at the crypto-consumer collision point that web3 projects have an even more powerful opportunity to build for and attract creators. This is because for all of the economies and sectors web3 has the potential to disrupt, and the list here is long, the creator economy can unlock the simple but powerful gift of storytelling. This, as the consumer side has long known, is the key to breaking open crypto and web3 for everyone. As the bear cycle continues to bite, web3 creator-focused platforms offer a valuable insight into how web3 can tap into consumer culture and scale even during a crypto winter.

Where Web3 Meets Consumer Culture

In a report published earlier this year Speedinvest identified as many as 144 different platforms serving the web3 creator economy, and the list is by no means a comprehensive snapshot of the entire landscape. While some of the platforms in this space enable direct monetization, others provide creators with tools to enter the web3 economy.

On the direct monetization side, projects targeting creators range from community tokens and content creation, through to music and play-to-earn, and of course the metaverse and NFT marketplaces. Meanwhile creator tools vary from those that enable fan interaction, through to more logistical tools, such as those facilitating design and payments.

Here are a small and far from exhaustive handful of highlights from this space:

• Zestworld is a great example of a web3 platform that enables comic book artists to self-publish work, maintain intellectual property rights, and earn money from their fans.
• Glass.xyz aka the YouTube of web3, enables video creators to mint and publish videos as NFTs thereby maintaining video ownership.
• NINA is akin to a web3 Bandcamp, enabling musicians to self publish and earn 100 per cent of their sales, while their Nina Hubs feature provides a network that links everyone from artists, to reviewers, to labels, to listeners, with on-chain programmatic royalties management.
• WOM Protocol and its wider ecosystem of products sit alongside these web3 creator economy platforms, enabling influencers and content creators to earn crypto by creating short-form word-of-mouth marketing videos. For initial testing and scaling of the protocol, WOM has integrated into self-developed apps, including BULLZ, the “TikTok of Crypto” mobile app, which recently launched the BULLZ Challenge Launchpad enabling NFT airdrops in return for a predefined service.

Biting Back During The Bear Market

The emergence of web3 creator platforms show that web3 apps can be built to serve highly consumer-friendly and relevant use-cases. Equally, funds such as Kala’s Double Down, and the general sentiment from VCs, indicate that finding the intersection between consumer and crypto is a smart and investable way to build out of the crypto winter and into the next spring.

*Read the Terms and Conditions

Build Like Crypto-Natives, Think Like Consumers: Advice For Web3 Projects As The Bear Cycle Bites was originally published in WOM Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Tis the season to make predictions that help marketing professionals plan next year’s budgets. After an anything but predictable year, however, no amount of trend forecasts will turn marketers into fortune tellers, and yet at a time when CFOs and senior finance leaders are reducing budgets to fight inflation marketers are still expected to magically make smaller budgets go further.

Marketers must release their inner sleuths, collecting clues to reveal the tactics and technologies that can best weather the economic downturn and still bring results amidst shifting market conditions, rising inflation, economic volatility and weakened consumer purchasing power.

Well good tidings we bring, because the clues do fit together and they all point to upper-funnel brand marketing becoming a critical investment next year. Marketing tactics that build awareness, trust and perceived value segue well from web2 to web3 (the vision for the next iteration of the internet), where building strong brands and communities is critical.

All the puzzle pieces show that now is the time for the marketing community to start shifting collective mindset away from purely transactional to more interpersonal and engaged customer relationships, as brands prepare to adapt to major technological shifts in digital marketing and as web3 becomes increasingly more mainstream in the years to come.

Invest In Brand Marketing

In Analytics Partners’ “The Marketer’s Guide to Survive (Even Thrive) in 2023” report, which was published in late November this year, marketers are advised to ensure that at least half of their marketing spend goes towards brand and upper-funnel marketing activities next year.

Analytics Partners analyzed hundreds of billions in marketing spend to identify that brand messaging outperforms performance messaging 80 per cent of the time, and that it is a better long-term strategy for building customer loyalty. The report advises marketers to reallocate at least 50 percent of overall marketing spend away from lower-funnel tactics, such as pay-per-click and price cutting, to prioritize upper-funnel tactics, such as video and social content. This is a logical approach given that when market conditions are tough customers typically become more selective, which makes customer acquisition more expensive with greater competition. Instead, the report states, marketers should focus on connecting with customers on a more emotional level, seeing conversion as the end-game once loyalty and advocacy have been established. While such tactics might be 25 per cent less effective in the short term, they are 60 per cent more effective in the long term and this is true in all market conditions.

Positive word-of-mouth endorsement is a potent form of brand marketing, because people trust people over adverts. When brands successfully create an emotional connection with consumers they are 3x more likely to generate word of mouth marketing and 7 in 10 consumers trust the opinions of influencers as much as their real-life friends.

Useful word-of-mouth martech tools include WP Social Ninja, which imports social reviews from social platforms to WordPress sites, as do Smash Balloon and Spotlight.

Meanwhile, recommendations app YEAY enables influencers as well as regular content creators to promote brands and products through short-form video in order to earn rewards based on the performance of their content. Brands can then use the WOM Campaign Manager to turn this content into measurable campaigns, while gaining access to web recorder and viewer plugins that enable brands to capture and feature word-of-mouth content directly on their web pages.

Prepare For Web3

In many ways web2 marketing is learning from web3, where the focus is necessarily higher up the funnel. In his recent article marketing aficionado, Robert Cole, outlined the core difference between web2 and web3 marketing: “In web3 you can fork product, which means the competitive advantage has changed to branding and community.” In other words, while web2 marketing has largely been focused on demand generation and customer acquisition, web3 projects, which live and die by the strength of their brand, have focused on growing communities to gain and maintain attention.

The reason why, Cole explains, is that in an open source and decentralized world where products can easily be copied, selling a strong product is not enough to gain competitive advantage. Only projects with perceived value and passionate evangelists willing to spread the word will survive and thrive.

In web3 community growth is not about accumulating followers, but rather bringing together people with common identities and giving them “skin in the game” — when an entire community can co-profit from a project’s success, as is the case with tokens such as NFTs, that community becomes a powerful word-of-mouth marketing force.

As Lunar Research puts it in its 2022 guide to web3 community growth, brands must realize that their communities are at once customers and company ambassadors, and build a suitable marketing stack to grow and nurture dedicated and integral communities. With more than 70 web3 teams and projects featured in Safary’s 2022 analysis of the web3 community growth tools landscape, there is no shortage of new tools to support this. These vary from CRM software, such as Kazm, which provides features, such as token gating and embeddable forms to build the most valuable member-based communities, through to messaging tools, think Dispatch, which creates a direct connection between a business and a customer’s wallet to send on-brand messages. These could be anything from a trivia game, through to a reward.

Incentives and rewards are another essential arm of community-building and web3 incentive platforms in this space include the BULLZ Challenge Launchpad, which enables influencers to mint and airdrop NFTs to communities in exchange for participation in fun challenges. Web3 influencers can also monetize content on the “TikTok of Crypto” BULLZ mobile app, which recently launched as an additional web platform to improve accessibility to web3 for creators.

Dappback, meanwhile, enables brands to establish web3 loyalty programs enabling people to earn crypto rewards for completing tasks.

Community, Community, Community

Marketers might not have crystal balls, but they do have plenty of indicators that show upper-funnel brand tactics — and especially building community trust and loyalty through word-of-mouth marketing — should be well budgeted for next year. Going down this path and away from purely transactional tactics, such as customer acquisition, will also lead marketers comfortably into web3 as brands inevitably turn to their marketing teams to help them enter this emerging space.

_______________________________________

To stay up-to-date on the latest news and happenings at WOM Protocol, be sure to sign up for the WOM Newsletter.

Do you have any questions or feedback? You are always welcome to reach us on Telegram, on Twitter or via our Help Desk.

*WOM Terms and Conditions

Seasonal Advice For Allocating Marketing Spend In 2023 was originally published in WOM Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As we watch the season pull up its own stakes, we acknowledge that we have not published a development update the entire year! As is our habit, we have been completely immersed in our product development to bring the next generation of Web3 Martech solutions to you. We are in constant communication with our users, creators, customers, and the rest of our community as we continue to develop and refine our products.

This year has seen numerous updates, changes, and new products, in addition to other other project and company milestones and events. Among the non-dev milestones is the listing of the WOM Token on the MEXC Global exchange and the first edition of SUPERVERSE, the largest consumer-oriented Web3 summit connecting creators, entrepreneurs, and artists. Seriously, if you haven’t seen SUPERVERSE yet, check out the Dubai event and stay tuned for future editions!

The BULLZ Campaign Manager + Influencer Collaborations

The biggest product launch in this edition of the Development Update is the BULLZ Campaign Manager with the related creator Collaboration feature launched in the BULLZ app.

With the BULLZ Campaign Manager, Web3 brands can collaborate with creators and influencers to create content, spur excitement, and boost awareness of their brands. Brands create Collaborations, define the parameters, and push the Collaboration live. Creators are notified in the BULLZ app and can choose to participate in the Collaboration, earning WOM Tokens for creating videos and posting them in the BULLZ app, as well as on their social media accounts.

Collaborations and the BULLZ Campaign Manager are the latest addition to the Web3 MarTech suite of products offered by the WOM Protocol.

Telegram and Discord Bots

Another exciting user-facing development is the launch of our Telegram and Discord bots. These bots give brands the ability to enable their communities in Discord and Telegram to upload recommendations to BULLZ directly from Discord and Telegram, without ever leaving the apps.

These recommendations are authenticated and appear in the BULLZ app feed, as well as the WOM Campaign Manager for brands to use on their websites and properties. And of course the creators earn WOM Tokens for their recommendations.

Changelog

In addition to developing the BULLZ Campaign Manager and related Collaboration features in the BULLZ app, development on the NFT offering also continues. The NFT project, formerly called YAAAS, has continued to grow in scope to become a unique social collaboration and experience platform that will now be launched inside the BULLZ app to further solidify BULLZ as the go-to platform for everything crypto.

Alongside these large developments, we were continually updating, refining, and adding features to the other products in the WOM Protocol library, as well as tightening security, increasing efficiency, and otherwise improving the entire ecosystem. Test coverage increased by 80% across all the projects for backend, frontend and web projects as well.

Now let’s take a closer look at the changelog so far this year. The changelog is divided into three sections:

1. Changelog in numbers
2. Development highlights–excluding the NFT marketplace–organized by date
3. Development highlights of the NFT marketplace

Changelog in Numbers

Backend: YEAY ,WOM, BULLZ

• Commits: 4650
• Files Changed: 4741
• New lines: +29,325
• Refactored: −108,477
• Jira Issues: 398

Frontend Apps: YEAY, WOM Authenticator, BULLZ

• Commits: 4717
• Files Changed: 6082
• New lines: +59,485
• Refactored: −128,589
• Jira Issues: 471

Frontend Websites: YEAY, WOM, BULLZ

• Commits: 1756
• Files Changed: 3402
• New lines: +348,896
• Refactored: −190,687
• Jira Issues: 674

Smart Contracts: BULLZ

• Commits: 372
• Files Changed: 419
• New lines: +2,655
• Refactored: −2,143

ALL UPDATES

• Commits: 11,495
• Files Changed: 14,644
• New lines: +440,361
• Refactored: −429,896
• Jira Issues: 1543

Development highlights organized by date

January

• Add reason quality guideline to rejection reasons in video curation
• Added notifications to BULLZ app
• Upgrade apps to flutter 2.8.1
• Select all languages
• Option is now presented in the language selection of WOM Authenticator app in BULLZ
• Users without created wallet now receive a popup when trying to enter the WOM module
• Add notification counter to profile screen
• Changed the behavior of saved-to-draft videos
• SMS now follow Google guidelines for auto detection
• Added spamming reasons in comment spam system
• WOM Marketing Toolkit was added to WOM website
• Bugs Fixed

February

• Disabled/deleted users are not shown in search
• Increased speed of video upload/processing for curation
• Async upload is implemented in the YEAY app
• Added withdrawal limit to apps
• Updated the layout and messages on the Reject Reasons screen
• Updated the minimum length for videos
• Improved SMS detection and navigation on signup
• Various bug fixes

March

• Updated Web Recorders Documentation on WOM website
• Showcased Channel Viewer on the WOM website home page
• RELEASED Telegram bot for BULLZ app
• Now users can directly submit videos to BULLZ using telegram app on desktop and mobile
• Upgraded Biometric functionality in BULLZ app
• Now the wallet is getting refreshed on swiping the screen from top to bottom

April-May

• RELEASED Discord bot for BULLZ app
• Now users can directly submit videos to BULLZ using Discord app on desktop and mobile
• Began development of BULLZ Campaign Manager

June

• RELEASED BULLZ Campaign Manager and Collaborations
• Users can link Twitter to accounts
• Users can share videos to Twitter and get rewards
• Prepped to enable users to link Instagram account
• Prepped notifications for Collaboration feature in BULLZ app
• Introduced more robust BULLZ app settings options
• E.g. now you can report an issue, make suggestions and ask to get verified directly from the BULLZ app Settings screen

July

• Released notifications for Collaboration feature in BULLZ app
• Now a user gets notified when the new collaboration is available, etc.
• Introduced mobile version for BULLZ campaign manager
• Started integrating YouTube to BULLZ Collaborations
• Added conversion rates WOM — USD while creating a Collaboration in BULLZ Campaign Manager
• Added async upload for YEAY web recorder, which ensures that the video is going to be delivered to YEAY even if there is a break in the internet connection
• Improved Team enrollment flow in BULLZ app
• Added a security step of Biometric or pin check when entering a wallet section in BULLZ app
• Began development of Quick Signals for BULLZ app

August

• Prepped release of Quick Signals (coming in September)
• Prepped release YouTube integration (coming in September)
• Upgraded settings screen for WOM app (coming in September)
• Upgraded settings screen for YEAY app (coming in September)
• Introduced notification settings for BULLZ app (coming in September)
• Upgraded security measures for BULLZ and WOM
• Upgraded SMS module for all apps
• Updated create Collaboration flow for BULLZ Campaign Manager

Development highlights of the NFT marketplace

Front End

1. Home page

• Completed UI design
• Completed scrolling
• Completed button actions

2. Discover page

• Designed the UI
• Pick and list spotlight challenges, top creators, trending challenges, trending NFTs, hot collections
• Added date range filtering
• Added see all functionality
• Added network merging and filtering based on network

3. Menu

• Implemented menu items
• Implemented user balance
• Implemented network switching

4. Challenge detail page

• Implemented detail page
• Implemented submissions
• Implemented winners
• Implemented user reports

5. My Challenges

• Pick the default list
• Implemented filter design
• Implemented the filter data and querying
• Displaying the challenges in cards

6. My Challenge detail

• Implemented updated page design
• Show challenge-related data
• Show submission list
• Implemented airdropping
• Implemented denying
• Implemented withdrawing
• Implemented data filter and querying

7. NFT detail page

• Display NFT detail information
• Implemented direct sale by owner
• Implemented auction by owner
• Implemented renew and cancel offer by owner
• Implemented direct buy by other user
• Implemented place bid by other user
• Implemented cancel bid by other user
• Implemented comment section
• Implemented user reports
• Implemented like/unlike
• Implemented view Challenges
• Implemented NFT transfer

8. Profile

• Implemented the whole page design
• Querying data based on tabs
• Querying data based on filters
• Implemented following/followers
• Implemented network merging and network-specific data
• Implemented direct chat requests

9. Collection list

• Implemented the whole page design
• Implemented search

10. Collection detail

• Implemented the whole page design
• Implemented search
• Implemented filtering

11. Challenge list

• Implemented the whole page design
• Implemented search
• Implemented filtering

12. Messaging

• List chat list
• List chat requests
• Implemented chat request accept/deny functionalities
• Implemented file sharing in chat

Back End

• Created tables for data storing for: users, NFTs, Challenges, offers, submits, comments, likes, NFT scanner, spotlight NFTs, tokens, temp storages, bids, collections, comment likes, reports
• Implemented all necessary endpoints
• Database functions
• Filtering queries

Smart Contracts (SC)

• Challenge SC: creation, airdropping, withdrawing, change fee, change token
• Exchange SC: add offer, cancel offer, buy nft, place bid, accept bid, etc.
• Token SC: Set loyalty, set release allowed
• Test case added
• Challenge SC: Add support for token challenge and airdropping
• Added event IDs to track the events

Event Watcher

Event watcher added for the following functions:

• Create NFT Challenge
• Create Token Challenge
• Airdrop challenge
• Withdraw challenge
• Put NFT on sale
• Place bid
• Cancel bid
• Renew offer
• Direct purchase NFT
• Cancel from sale
• Accept bid

Conclusion

This is a lot to take in! The first three quarters have been a wild ride and we’re looking forward to the next phases of the WOM Protocol including the NFT marketplace launch, additional SUPERVERSE editions, more WOM Token exchange listings, and more!

As always, THANK YOU to our strong community for your continued support as we revolutionize marketing and bring marketing to the world of Web3.

-The WOM Team

_______________________________________

To stay up-to-date on the latest news and happenings at WOM Protocol, be sure to sign up for the WOM Newsletter.

Do you have any questions or feedback? You are always welcome to reach us on Telegram, on Twitter or via our Help Desk.

*WOM Terms and Conditions

WOM Protocol Development Update: Q1-Q3 2022 was originally published in WOM Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As we close out this eventful and exciting year, we’re looking forward with anticipation to the coming year and the next phases of the WOM Protocol. The development roadmap is chock-a-block with new features, upgrades, and expansions including support for expanded content types and AI integration.

Check out the highlights below:

Phase 3a:

• Promotion Channel
• Advertising Channel
• Upgrade affiliate linking facilitate new Channels
• AI for fraud detection
• YAAAS beta + mobile app launch

Promotion & Advertising Channels

The Promotion and Advertising Channels will build on the current Channel Viewer to offer additional outlets for advertisers to promote authentic word-of-mouth recommendations about their products.

When a platform implements a Promotion Channel, they specify which products they wish to show in the channel–similar to the Product Viewer but with the ability to display multiple specific products. An advertiser may then use the Campaign Manager to promote one of the products in the Promotion Channel to show recommendations for that specific product more frequently.

The affiliate links remain controlled by the Promotion Channel owner.

The Advertising Channel is configured using topics or hashtags. Therefore an Advertising Channel could feature multiple products (#BTC, #WOM), multiple brands (#nike, #adidas), and/or multiple categories or interests (#running, #crypto). Video recommendations that have one or more of the chosen hashtags or topics will be displayed in the Advertising Channel.

Advertisers can then promote videos that match any of the Channel settings. The affiliate links are controlled by the advertiser.

AI for Fraud Detection

We’ve made great strides to date in mitigating fraud within the WOM Protocol. The next step is to take our fraud detection and prevention to another level by implementing AI to identify and stop fraud more quickly and efficiently.

YAAAS Beta + Mobile App Launch

Since our testnet launch in June, we have made huge upgrades to the YAAAS NFT Marketplace. The beta launch will also be accompanied by the launch of the YAAAS mobile app–the first NFT Marketplace app to allow creators to mint NFTs directly in the app. Creators will also be able to choose various blockchains to mint their NFTs.

Phase 3b:

• Influencer academy
• WOM Protocol reward algorithm update
• Automating captioning in various languages

Influencer Academy

The Influencer Academy will level up the quality of the videos created on YEAY, BULLZ, and other creator platforms in the WOM Ecosystem. The Academy will feature a series of instructional videos for all creators, as well as improved capabilities for team leaders to create their own exclusive educational videos for their team members.

Reward Algorithm Update

Since the launch of the WOM Protocol reward algorithm in 2020, we have made numerous updates to improve incentive mechanisms and benefit the participants in the WOM Ecosystem. We are currently designing a revamp of the incentive and reward mechanisms for Authenticators that will better align Authenticator incentives to increase the quality and authenticity of WOM recommendations which will be implemented in the first half of next year.

Automating Captioning in Various Languages

This feature update will automatically add captions to a video in a user’s target language which will enable users to view and benefit from recommendations in foreign languages and allow brands to reach a wider audience.

Phase 3c:

• New video format options
• Text & audio recommendation formats
• AI-enabled automatic summary graphics

New Video Format Options

We are currently planning a host of new video formatting options with the related infrastructure that include landscape as well as different resolutions for various aspect ratios. The number of display networks in the WOM Ecosystem is increasing and with this increase comes various size and formatting needs.

We will enable users to submit high-resolution videos and the system will then extrapolate as many aspect ratios as possible. This includes portrait-to-landscape conversion and vice versa, using AI to determine the focal point of the video.

Additional support for stereo videos will also allow for an immersive experience when using VR viewing equipment.

Text & Audio Recommendation formats

Also in this phase we will expand the types of WOM recommendations to include both written and audio formats. While video is an incredibly popular content format, adapting WOM Authenticator to also authenticate the hundreds millions of text and audio recommendations made online each day will bring huge value to brands and platforms that operate across all mediums.

AI-enabled Automatic Summary Graphics

In order to make the recommendations more accessible and engaging, we will implement speech-to-text to extract the message from the video recommendation. Then, using AI, we will determine the main points of the message and capture a still image from the video that best represents the product. A graphic will then be created with the image and main points.

Phase 3d:

• Long and multi-product recommendations
• Additional channels

Long-form and Multi-product Recommendations

In Phase D we will expand WOM recommendations even further by enabling long-form and multi-product recommendations. Supporting long-form recommendations will allow creators to make tutorials, “top 5”-esque videos, and other styles of content that delve deeper into why they are recommending a given product, service, etc. The longer-form content will be supplemented with the ability to add multiple product links.

Additional Channels

In-store displays and additional support for digital channels will further expand the WOM Ecosystem and give greater flexibility and value to brands.

These additional channels and channel support include:

• In-store video wall using the WOM Channel Viewer
• Open API to allow existing service providers to request a playlist that adheres to their submitted configuration, allowing recommendation injection into user feeds and streams
• Open channel to allow an organization to use long- and short-form content that functions similarly to a TV channel with the long form content serving as the “programs” and the short form service as the “commercials”
• Influencing the playlist of the in-store and open channel by the proximity of a YEAY user

We’re excited to open this next phase of the WOM Protocol. Let us know what you think and what features or improvements you would like to see.

Happy holidays and happy new year!

WOM Protocol Roadmap: 2022 and Beyond was originally published in WOM Protocol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.