Going all-in with Web3
I have been in front of a web browser for over 25 years now. The early days of the pre-graphic web with Lynx on a Digital VT220 have moved onto the web, and the Internet generally, anywhere and everywhere.
Was this ubiquity an expected outcome way back in 1994 while I was killing time talking about grunge while avoiding writing essays for my film degree? Maybe. I didn’t have a strong idea of where anything regarding the Internet was going, although I gladly joined the school of thought that it would help to foster an environment where humanity was one and we collectively worked towards a beautiful collective goal. That bit… well, none of us got that right.
That era is now generally defined as Web 1.0, with the mass adoption of social media (alongside broadband and wifi, which don’t always get the credit here) being Web 2.0.
The next era is starting now. Web3, written in a stylistically different way for some reason, brings together technologies such as Blockchain, cryptocurrencies and NFTs (as Blockchain applications), and new access technologies such as the concept of the metaverse.
Some of this stuff has been around for a while. Bitcoin is a famous and now well-established application of Web3. Facebook Inc has renamed itself Meta to signify its focus in these areas, and I still look back fondly at Apple’s QuickTime VR.
I have been slightly sceptical of Web3. The co2 expenditure of Bitcoin is universally acknowledged but how it works, its proof-of-work architecture, is being eclipsed by much better, much less damaging replacements. That’s a good thing.
It has taken me a while to overcome this scepticism and think through where Web3 is going. In summary, this is a hugely exciting time to be part of Web3, and I’m going in.
Many of the projects out there, from DAOs to NFTs, symbolise a hacker culture reminiscent of the 1990s. They are community-led, ground-up efforts which depend on great collective outcomes. Of course, there is space for business and investment too, but Web3 is intrinsically more of a culture where people and business co-exist, rather than people become commodities in the race to scale walled gardens.
As a result, I have joined the Hoxna project as their head of brand and comms.
Hoxna is a genuinely unique Web3 project in that it brings many of the Web3 technologies together. It will create and develop the physical real world and adapt that into the metaverse. It won’t offer a metaverse itself, but offer real-world data as digital 3D scans that can be adapted into any metaverse. For free.
There are also mechanisms in Hoxna to prevent the weaknesses in other metaverse projects. The digitised world isn’t going to be a free-for-all. If your property is in the metaverse, you can claim it, and have an NFT rather like the deeds to the physical equivalent. Property transactions can then happen with cryptocurrency as you have a physical and virtual property tied together. There are many, many more possibilities. Oh, and to further overcome the ‘walled garden’ approach… all of Hoxna’s code will be open source.
If you are interested in this project in any capacity, I’d love to talk with you. Right now, I’m looking for people to help with comms and content in particular, as we have a powerful story to tell in advance of our beta launch later this year. Please please please drop me a line with any questions or expressions of interest.
By the way, nothing changes in terms of my work at IBM. If anything, work at Hoxna will help to build my knowledge and experience in these areas and this reinforce my knowledge and skills as a consultant. A win-win.
Thanks for reading. Let’s do this. More info here, and join Hoxna’s Discord for more.
