It’s undeniable that web 2.0 has made connecting with loved ones, friends, and coworkers a breeze. Built on web 2.0, social media networks like Facebook, WhatsApp, and others make it easier for people separated by distance to stay in touch by exchanging regular text, voice, and video messages. According to many studies, nearly half of all Internet users participate in some form of social media. Many people are using it to gain exposure and establish their identities. Social media has been instrumental in the rise to fame, wealth, and fortune of countless users since its inception. All the advantages, however, come with significant drawbacks.
Many issues, such as security breaches, censorship, privacy invasions, server failures, de-platforming, and more, have plagued traditional social networking sites because of their centralized nature. For all the benefits they provide without charge, they are a much bigger hassle overall. Due to the advantages of web3 social media platform development over traditional social media, many developers and businesses are adopting them to overcome these issues. This article will explain the value of web3 in social networking and how it excels over web 2.0.
What Is Social Networking? How Is It Different from Social Media?
The terms “social media” and “social networking” are often used interchangeably, but there are fundamental differences between the two. Online social networking entails establishing and maintaining relationships with people outside one’s immediate acquaintances. Networking is the process of establishing a system of interconnected individuals and groups through the use of a shared virtual space.
However, social media is a platform that enables people to interact with one another. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Discord, LinkedIn, Telegram, WhatsApp, and many more are among the most popular social media sites on web 2.0, allowing users to communicate with one another through posts, comments, and messages. Web-based applications and software allow users to access social media from any device with an internet connection.
Social Networking Serves the Following Four Objectives:
Sharing: Social media platforms allow for exchanging information, photos, videos, and other updates between people.
Conversations: Social media facilitates communication between people regardless of physical location or the passage of time. Users can have face-to-face discussions using messaging and video calling services like WhatsApp.
Learning: In addition to receiving timely and relevant updates from friends and family, users of social networking sites can also benefit from the sharing of information related to their academic or professional pursuits.
Marketing: Advertising on social networks helps companies get their names out there and connect with new and existing customers.
What Is Web3 in Social Networking?
Web 2.0 social networks are centralized and don’t respect users’ right to privacy. A handful of tech behemoths hold monopolies on user data and control the entire industry. In web 2.0 social media platforms, users who generate content have no editorial oversight. Regarding content, the tech giants on social media platforms can remove anything without asking users first.
Compared to the standard web 2.0 social network, Web3 represents a radical departure. Its ultimate goal is to create a social networking ecosystem in which users retain complete autonomy over the information they share. Users currently invest a great deal of time into activities like video consumption, blog reading, and feed scrolling. Although these sites bring in a lot of money, the users don’t benefit monetarily in any way. Incentives and additional services for users are just the beginning of what Web3 can offer.
How Will Decentralized Social Networks Work?
Think for a second about the possibility of offering incentives for online behavior.
The websites we frequent make a lot of money, but we rarely see any benefits from them. Web3 drastically changes this by providing incentives for users to take part.
Creators and consumers can reap the benefits of blockchain technology that powers several existing Web3 platforms, such as web browsers, video sharing sites, blogging sites, and social networking sites.
These platforms use their tokens to create a win-win situation online rather than a zero-sum game in which one side has to win for the other to lose.
To accomplish this, decentralized social networks incorporate payment mechanisms into their infrastructure.
Moreover, they are completely interoperable, allowing users to buy, sell, and trade native assets without any hassle, regardless of their platform. For instance, NFTs can be used by content producers to sell their work in multiple markets.
They can use the platform’s native token to set up subscription models and ancillary services for their communities that are unique to them.
At the same time, Web3 platforms let content makers take advantage of the expanding metaverse by letting them design a wide variety of play-to-earn, learn-to-earn, and related incentive programs for their communities.
Community members can earn platform-native tokens through these actions, which can then be used to pay for additional features within the platform, to reward creators, or to exchange for other tokens.
Native token holders on a social network can vote on future changes to the network. Web3 shifts the burden of driving the platform’s future development away from consumers and onto a wider group of interested parties, in contrast to Web2.
Token holders have a voice in a platform’s development by casting votes on proposals they believe would benefit the platform’s user base. These proposals all encompass issues as diverse as new additions, improvements, and alterations to ongoing development and advertising.
Why Web3 Social Media Platforms?
Many users are at risk in Web 2.0 social networks, and web3 in social networks can significantly alter how people communicate and collaborate. So, let’s compare and contrast web3 social networks with web2.0 social networks to see their advantages.
Open source
In web 3, information resides on a public, distributed, permissionless blockchain. No censors or gatekeepers can alter the API or prevent you from using it. Because web3 is open source, programmers are free to fork the codebase of any social media platform and create a new one with enhanced features and user experience. Since web3 is open source, anyone can re-use the publicly available on-chain code to advance the project rapidly.
Interoperability
Although web3 is only partially interoperable now, full interoperability is getting closer. Web3’s goal is to facilitate communication and collaboration between the various blockchain ecosystems that exist in isolation.
Free of Bots and Spammers
Millions of fake profiles populate Web 2.0 social media sites. Quite a few of those accounts are likely fictitious or operated by spambots. By encouraging direct verification of identities and data, blockchain technology reduces the prevalence of fake accounts.
Original Work Created By Users
No one else can take down or alter the content you’ve posted to a Web3 social media platform because it’s all stored indelibly in the blockchain and belongs to you. If you decide to switch platforms, you can use your data with a different user interface.
Web 3’s Security Advantages
Control over your digital persona and information is a major perk of decentralized identity systems. With Web3, you have more precise control over what personal information about you is shared online and by whom.
You also get a cryptographically secure method of verifying the data’s integrity.
Blockchain technology is secure and tamper-proof; data cannot be altered or hacked without detection, unlike the current system, which allows information to be easily duplicated or stolen without the user’s knowledge.
You should only use web3 apps that have been subjected to a security audit, as many of them may not be trustworthy.
A (Decentralized) World of Opportunity
Web3 ushers in a new era of social media by rewarding users for their participation in a creator-driven economy.
Web3 offers a social (and interoperable) network ecosystem where users may share in the economic benefits, in contrast to the Web2 model controlled by Big Tech.
The decentralized nature of Web3 social networks means that ownership of user-generated content will be returned to its original creators.
In conjunction with other Web3 services, these social networks will provide censorship-resistant, ad-free, and creative-centric ecosystems, guaranteeing equal opportunity for all.
Web3 social networks are catalyzing a transformation focused on the interests of the community rather than that of the gatekeeper alone, as evidenced by the proliferation of community-driven global social networks, the increasing acceptance of community-focused DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations), and the emergence of augmented and virtual reality-powered immersive experiences.
