Intro to Decentralized Social Media Networks: Metaverse for Education Newsletter Issue #18

Sep 1, 2022

🚨 The time has come! ...that anxiety-filled, throw-up with excitement type of thing. Last year, I hosted the first gamified unconference for edu in VR, before #metaverse was a thing. The 400 #educator attendees said it was the BEST virtual experience they had ever been to.🧵👇🏽 https://t.co/ell1stDwt9

Hello Educators & Friends!

I LOVE that so many of you reached out asking when this next issue is coming out! I'm glad this newsletter is useful & helping you learn about web3! Although this issue is late, I promise you'll be proud of what we've been busy with :)

Here are some beautiful updates from our non-profit DAO, which is catalyzing innovation in education, with web3.

🎫 We are partnering with ASU+GSV, the world’s leading EdTech summit, to raffle off $42,000 worth of summit tickets to Ed3 NFT holders starting September 15. We are also co-authoring social media content to teach the world about web3!

📜 We are partnering with Getting Smart, one of the most influential education publications, to author a series of blog posts about web3 & it’s implications on the education industry! Read our first blog!

And the biggest news…

🧠 We announced our Web3 & the Evolution of Education Unconference! It is a choose-your-own adventure summit in our metaverse space with Edtalks, learning labs, networking, games, vendors, & more! Grab a ticket now.

We’re proud of the tremendous progress we’ve made to bring web3 to mainstream education & cannot wait to share the excitement & learning with you at our unconference!

💎💎💎

Beyond education, web3 is proliferating faster across all industries than I could've imagined. Did you know that every major app on the internet is being duplicated on decentralized technology? Soon, everything we do will be powered by web3. Don’t believe me? What if I told that there is now a web3 version of LinkedIn? And Twitter? And Facebook?

This week’s issue is all about Decentralized Social Media Networks aka DeSo, DeSocial, DSNs, or DeSoMe (ok, I made that last one up). Some version of DSNs existed before blockchain, but web3 is certainly amping up the efforts. Here is why they're so powerful.

Decentralized Social Media Networks provide:

censorship-resistance & inclusivity
open-source source code for public inspection
no "middle-man" so content creators have ownership over content
less server downtime & outages
privacy & anonymity
decentralized storage for safeguarding user data

If you see the potential, you probably also see the dangers, especially in the hands of an underaged student. It's a wild world out there - the more we keep up as educators, the more we can drive this tech toward a better world. Read all about it below :)

Maybe I'll C U in a DeSoMe!

Yours,

Vriti & k20 Educators

Learn about Web3

A great primer on the emergence of decentralized social networks
What is decentralized social media?
Before blockchain, the Fediverse decentralized social media
How decentralized social media wants to transform your news feed
The importance of social graphs in decentralized social media
A deep dive into the state of decentralized social graphs
A pessimistic look on why decentralized social media will never work
Web3 social networks can’t rely on money incentives alone
📹 A blockchain called DeSo to support DeSo apps
📹 Building a decentralized social media network
📹 The importance of social tokens for decentralized social media
🔈 The future of decentralized social
🔈 Building decentralized social communities
Teaching & learning with decentralized social networks
Decentralized social networks are different from DAOs but follow similar ideologies - check out our intro to DAO issue

Do Something in Web3

Check out these decentralized social media network projects

A decentralized version of Facebook
A decentralized version of Twitter
A decentralized version of LinkedIn
A decentralized version of YouTube
A decentralized version of Reddit
A decentralized version of Whatsapp
Another decentralized version of Facebook
Another decentralized version of Whatsapp
A composable & decentralized social graph you can build on
A layer-1 blockchain built to scale decentralized social applications
Another open source decentralized social network
A decentralized web of data, services & devices
A decentralized social graph protocol to bootstrap network effects
A treasure chest of decentralized social media projects (for the VC’s out there, feel free to thank us.)

📅 Events

Web3 networking event for kindred spirits (Sept 1, 2022, Ed3verse)
How to use NFTs in the classroom (Sept 7, 2022, Zoom)
A weekly chat on web3 in education (every Saturday, Discord)
Blockchain Tech Summit (Sept 24, 2022, Online)
Web3 & Education Unconference (Nov 11-13, 2022, Ed3verse)

Mint an Ed3 Educators NFT for life-time access to web3 events, content, conferences, & discounts… and to support the work of this newsletter.

This week’s Metaverse for Education newsletter is about decentralized social networks. More to come on other web3 topics. We’re excited to bring education into the Metaverse & help you leverage the opportunities in the new world.

Join our community of innovative educators in the Ed3verse.