Listen to the audio version of this article here.
I have been listening to podcasts for over 6 years, and I still can’t really pinpoint a good way to find new podcasts. My method over the years has mostly consisted of hopelessly searching through the Spotify catalog, taking recommendations from friends, and, since joining Twitter, listening to episodes that catch my eye from my feed.
Podcast discovery is really broken, and while it’s not an easy problem to solve, it’s one that’s especially interesting to me. In web3, podcasts remain a criminally underrated medium for intimate and insightful conversations and interviews, and yet I don’t see the same kind of hype for them as articles or tweets.
So, I’m starting this podcast recommendation series to begin distilling what I like in podcasts and what makes a podcast a one-time listen versus a regular part of my week. As I listen to more episodes, I also want to start mapping out the web3 podcast space and understand the dynamics of sharing, recommending, and community.
In the spirit of the medium, I’m recording these newsletters as podcasts so if you prefer to listen to them you can. And, you can listen to the episodes in the roundup on Spotify directly in this newsletter, or if you’re reading this as an email, you can click through to listen.
One note on quotes from the episodes: I try my best to include an accurate timestamp for the Spotify embeds, but the timestamp might not be exact on other platforms.
Today’s roundup has two episodes centered around media and content creation in web3.
On The Other Side | September 16, 2022
Host Chase Chapman chats with people from across web3 and explores “the intersection of society, culture, and crypto.”
Episode guest Steph Alinsug leads media at DAO network and accelerator Seed Club.
Some of my key takeaways:
Decentralized media is not decentralized content creation. Developing a brand for a DAO requires a media strategy that is heavily aligned with the value proposition and goals of the DAO. This tends to work better on smaller, centralized teams.
Community members can participate in media at the distribution level. If we consider a decentralized media pyramid that involves content creation → content curation → content distribution, the widest opportunity for participation lies in distribution — allowing for people to share and react to content on various channels.
The fourth estate refers to the role of the media and press to provide checks and balances on government and legislative powers. In DAOs, media arms can provide context and support for governance and decision-making.
Media is at the center of propaganda, polarization, and agency. Any time we engage with a piece of media, we’re engaging in a curated view of the world. However, being aware of this interaction allows us to be more conscious of the narratives and perspectives we are consuming and choosing to incorporate into our own views — and this applies both broadly and in web3.
There are a lot of reasons why I think everyone (especially DAO builders and operators) should listen to this episode, but I initially approached it from the perspective of being interested in the dynamics of content creation and curation. Media is so influential, and I think a common theme that has popped up around DAOs and projects in this space is the struggle of messaging and creating relationships with a community. Like it or not, everything is a brand, and we have dynamic, evolving relationships with every brand we come across.
For DAOs, messaging alignment is so important because in its most ideal form, it encompasses and crystallizes the motivations and aspirations of the community. I’ve been interested in the role of curation in learning and connecting for a while, and I really liked Steph’s perspective on curation as a bridge between community input and media output from a core team. People want to be heard, but people also look for consistency in communication to reinforce ideological alignment. I strongly believe the most powerful DAO media arms will encourage creation and curiosity, and also support their overall vision through curation.
Lastly, I wanted to highlight one of my favorite quotes from the episode. It made me think a lot about my own media consumption and my agency in that process.
Steph [around 29:45]: If we can lean into this idea that everything is story, everything is narrative, and that we can create a sense of consent and agency and choice around how we participate in those narratives, it’s a beautiful thing.
Listen here.
Rehash: A Web3 Podcast | September 22, 2022
Rehash is a podcast DAO, hosted by Diana Chen. The DAO is made up of Rehash NFT holders, who either acquired their NFT through a crowdfund in April or by purchasing an episode minted as an NFT. Rehash DAO members propose and vote on guests for the podcast.
Daisy Alioto is the cofounder of Dirt, “a daily(ish) newsletter about entertainment online” that uses NFTs to fund the publication, gather community input for the editorial process, and offer other perks to NFT holders.
Some of my key takeaways:
web2 media models are not working — see web3 solutions. Ad supported platforms and algorithms aren’t sustainable for publications. Instead, focusing on community owned models such as Dirt’s, which utilizes NFTs, can help media get funding from multiple sources rather than being solely reliant on subscriptions. Additionally, a person’s on-chain activity can paint a much more accurate picture of their consumer behavior, versus guessing from demographic data.
Media and other projects do not need to be about web3 to benefit from web3 infrastructure. Dirt is a web3 native brand, but the content Dirt publishes is largely about pop culture and digital phenomena. web3 tooling can be super useful for all kinds of applications. One example Daisy brings up is web3 music, as the intersection of music and NFTs is talked about a lot. But web3 music is already happening in a substantial way — the song SNAP by Rosa Linn, which gained traction at Eurovision and later charted globally, came out of Nvak Collective, a web3 native record label.
All NFT projects need to become media companies, but not everyone can. It takes a certain amount of expertise to know what makes a good story and how to craft compelling narratives. Successful pivots to media will create stronger connections between NFT holders and the project they support.
Curation is the key to decentralized media. Through Dirt DAO, Daisy learned that people in the DAO for the most part prefer to be taste-influencers as opposed to creators. The Dirt team presents a handful of curated story ideas and people use weighted voting to pick the piece that gets commissioned.
First, for full transparency, I’m a Rehash NFT holder.
I subscribed to Dirt after listening to this episode, and I think it’s super cool! I’m very much a pop culture analysis person so their niche is pretty up my alley, but what really stuck out to me about this conversation is Daisy’s views on the role of web3 technology for projects not explicitly about web3.
I had heard SNAP on TikTok before I listened to this episode, and I had no idea that the artist was signed to a web3 native record label. Knowing that now might make the song stand out more to me since I’m interested in the intersection of web3 and culture, but the original reason I knew about the song was simply that it was a catchy song. Labeling your project as ‘web3’ inevitably brings certain connotations for different people, and it’s often as used as a kind of signifier — that the project is part of the cutting edge of innovation, or on the flipside, that it requires more advanced knowledge than the average person knows, or wants to know, about tech. It’s worth considering, especially in the media and web3 space, whether content is quality before getting too caught up in a web3 label.
There are also really cool connections between this episode and Media as the fourth estate because Daisy and Steph both talk about the difficulties of decentralized content creation and how curation solves this problem. Creating connections with community is essential at the curation and distribution layers, but successful community building requires a deep understanding of how media influences narratives and what relationship consumers want to have with the media they consume.
Product-audience fit is so essential, and this quote from Daisy is super interesting when thinking about the community dynamics of Dirt.
Daisy [around 37:34]: This is the core organic behavior that we figured out was the product-audience fit for Dirt, which is people who like to have their taste influenced and people who like to see their taste reflected in what they consume.
Listen here.
Thanks for reading the first edition of my podcast roundup series! I really enjoyed writing and recording it, and I’m excited to listen to more podcasts. If you have any recommendations or thoughts on this post, feel free to leave a comment or send them to me on Twitter or on Farcaster (@emma).
Emma Kwan