It wasn't long ago that social media started to take shape, hell, before the internet was a thing.
Does anyone remember ARPNET? The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network was launched in 1969 to connect all U.S. Pentagon-funded research centers together via telephone lines. A decentralized way to communicate during the height of the Cold War. If one node was taken out, the whole network would not go down. Sound familiar?
Anyway, fast forward to 1976 when Commodore Business Machines built the first-ever hobby computer. Followed by Apple that same year in 1976 released the Apple I, revolutionizing the personal computer space forever. Microsoft releases Windows operating system in 1985, and then in 1994 AT&T deployed the first online advertisement via Wired .com.
Fast forward through the first online chatroom with America Online's AIM program in 1997, and we make it to the birth of modern-day social media platforms popping up between 2003 and 2007. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, Myspace, LinkedIn, etc. Come 2007-2008 the financial system in the U.S. collapses, sending the economy into a spiral. This then prompted the 2008 whitepaper for Bitcoin, birth the cryptocurrency space, and revolutionized the financial industry forever.
Now let's fast worded to 2012 when Facebook buys Oculus, making its way into virtual reality. It is also around this time that the concept of augmented reality becomes apparent, and in 2014 the first online avatar was live-streamed on YouTube, coining the term "VTuber."
In 2015 Decentraland takes both of these concepts with VR and Avatars and creates an online space for people to purchase digital plots of land and live in a virtual space amongst each other. Facebook around the same time experiments with VR concerts and online living spaces.
Think about this from a marketing and advertising point of now. Before, way back in the 1800-1900s, advertising was physical, on goods and newspapers. Then, over time, advertisements made their way through the airwaves via radio, then onto our televisions, and now in the palms of our hands via social media advertising.
Decentraland can take this concept and go to a new level, virtual reality advertising. When so many ads bombard the average consumer every day, the next step is taking advertising "off-screen." Competing for our ever-decreasing attention in 3-dimensions, in augmented reality, in virtual reality.
And I'm not shilling Decentraland, take any virtual space in the crypto market, and you can advertise within it.
Holographic NFTs, VR NFTs, can be looked at as advertising opportunities.
Just because we are decentralized, doesn't mean we escape the clutches of marketing and product placements. There is no escaping good advertising and marketing. Look at all the shitcoins out there right now, how do they market themselves? Poorly sounding names, overhype, all the BS. Consumers have built-in BS meters, and we use them every day. But all of these crypto companies are vying for our attention, in a world that is instant, digital, and socially intertwined into our lives.
TL;DR:
The point of this piece is to ask you two questions:
- What is next in the form of online advertising via the crypto space?
- How will marketing play a part in crypto's expansion?
I am looking forward to your thoughts.
