BULB’s Vision For a Do-to-Earn Web 3.0

At first glance, BULB is a crypto blogging platform that rewards users for their engagement with the platform. When you look deeper, the project stands for much more than that. It is a unique thesis, a utopian vision and a blogging platform all wrapped in one. The team at BULB are building more than just a blogging platform where users can earn crypto from writing and reading online. Rather, we are testing a hypothesis for the future of engagement: An ideal where the notion of “Do-to-Earn” is the precedent for how we interact and engage with online content.

It is our belief that Do-to-Earn has the capability to not only disrupt the blogging sector, but also industries such as; social media, education, journalism and market research just to name a few. We theorise that the unique engagement models afforded through developments in the Web 3.0 (where ownership and control are decentralised and governed by communities) will be transformative to how the masses are engaged online.
 
This is BULB’s vision for a Do-to-Earn Web 3.0… 

Every Web Developer’s Dilemma

Web developers are all confronted with one fundamental problem:

How do you create and then maintain genuine engagement?

To put it another way, the question that must be answered is what makes someone want to use a product, service or platform? And, if we can convince a person to use something for the first time, how do we maximise their engagement over time?

Let's take a look at how one might address this dilemma using BULB as an example. It might surprise you that BULB initially started out as a trading sentiment application where you could vote bullish or bearish on particular stocks. The idea behind this was to firstly, track social sentiment in financial markets and second, create trading communities where people were able to share their opinions with others.

Unfortunately, this idea had one major problem (among other things): It didn’t generate sufficient meaning to keep users engaged with the platform. Whilst some people showed interest in the idea, their feedback was consistent, that the concept failed to capture their imagination and that they just weren't interested in using it on a recurring basis.

So, if BULB (as it was initially conceived) was unable to solve this dilemma, what would? 

Going back to the drawing board, the team began to look at Social Media Engagement Theory (SME) which argues that User Engagement is made up of two core components:

1. Individual involvement and 
2. Personal meaning. 

SME asserts that the key factors affecting user engagement are personalisation, social accessibility, perceived risk and transparency.¹ 

We thought, what if there was one missing ingredient that could enhance individual involvement and personal meaning? Our answer, incentive to engage…

It is our hypothesis that providing a monetary incentive to engage with content would not only address the issue of users not being attracted to first use a social platform, but also the issue of interest being lost over time. This is where we developed the idea for BULB, a blogging platform with a unique engagement model that incentivises users to engage and make meaningful contributions to the community for a financial reward. 

Introducing ‘Do-to-Earn’

The idea of “Do-to-Earn” involves doing something for a reward. The concept is not something new, in fact, it is actually quite mature and has many existing permutations in the Web 2.0 ecosystem. For example, you might watch YouTube to have fun or gain knowledge or play video games for your own personal satisfaction. 

The model is proven, particularly when applied to the consumption of online content, but what happens when people are looking for more than just personal satisfaction or to gain knowledge? What if their motivation to consume content was different? The debate isn’t whether or not people enjoy consuming content that they like, it’s whether incentives can incite stronger motivation to do so.  

The notion of earning rewards by creating content has drawn many people using platforms on Web2.0 into building their own video channels, blogs, podcasts or communities which they can influence; it's literally produced a creator economy where engagement is the currency. 

In each of these examples, the creator may be rewarded, but there are a few major limitations: 

1. There are significant barriers to entry for content creators to build an audience and monetise their content.
2. Established Web 2.0 platforms usually start rewarding content creators once they have reached an arbitrary threshold of followers or subscribers.
3. The consumer does not get rewarded, ever. They often even have to pay to consume content.
4. If a content creator is rewarded, this is at a fraction of the actual platform value they create. 

Below is an illustration of how value is created and then distributed on Web 2.0.² 


How, then, can we build on a popular method of using the internet to benefit its users? The answer, Do-to-Earn. An opportunity only afforded by the development of blockchain technology and the ethos of Web 3.0.²

Web 3.0 and Crypto: The Enablers of Do-To-Earn

Web 3.0 and crypto tokens are the enabling forces of the Do-to-Earn economy. Already, we have seen Web 3.0 projects bring the Play-to-Earn Model to the masses. Successful gaming platforms such as Gala Games and Axie Infinity have demonstrated that ‘Do-to-Earn’ is able to capture incredible levels of engagement by incentivising participation using crypto tokens. 

It’s important to recognise that the limitation of this model is that when a crypto token is distributed to a community that increased value is only created when there are meaningful use cases to spend the tokens on as well. 

BULB builds on the foundations set by these Play-to-Earn Web 3.0 platforms and addresses an opportunity to apply the use of crypto tokens as the reward for engaging with blogs. We are currently building three main types of use cases focussed on increasing your earning potential, customisation and community status. This is how we will create a sustainable Do-to-Earn economy. 

Doing ‘Do-To-Earn’ Better Than The Rest

To address the challenges of creating powerful, long-term engagement, BULB rewards all writers and readers with crypto tokens from Day 1, irrespective of how many followers they have. We recognise that creating content is in itself a challenging task and rewarding the community for this accordingly is the key to unlocking greater engagement. With that said, the most exciting opportunity afforded by BULB’s engagement model is the Read-to-Earn element. Without a reader, there is no writer and the time is now for consumers of online content to be rewarded for their contributions too. 

The merging of Write-to-Earn and Read-to-Earn is what makes BULB unique. It aligns incentives of the broader community and creates an opportunity for everyone to be rewarded for their ideas, passions and engagement. This is the first application of limitless potential applications and the start of BULB’s vision for a Do-to-Earn Web 3.0.

The question now is, will you embark on this journey with us? 

References

¹ Di Gangi, P. and Wasko, M., 2016. Social Media Engagement Theory. Journal of Organizational and End User Computing, 28(2), pp.53-73.
² Epistemic Meditations, 2022. A Framework for Network Effects in Web3. https://medium.com/@soumilsinghnz/a-framework-for-network-effects-in-web3-d415b6652d0b