NEWT
Network Effects and Web3 Tokens, shortened as NEWT, offer the possibility of a new foundation for solving problems. I have focused on the two problems of Attention Recession and Voter Aggregation. What I want to explore in the rest of the series is to see how the NEWT ideas can offer creative ways to craft the solutions – Atomic Rewards and United Voters of India (UVI).
We need Network Effects because we want the value of the tokens to increase with and for each additional user. This will in turn attract more users. Atomic Rewards creates a two-sided platform: brands and customers. Network effects will help get more customers which in turn will attract more brands, and also create stickiness. UVI is a multi-sided platform connecting voters, candidates, volunteers and donors. More voters means more candidates. Given the first-past-the-post system in India, a critical mass of voters is needed to have a chance of ensuring the candidate selected can win. The voters-candidates networks need to happen in every constituency, since voting is local.
We need Web3 Tokens because we need to create incentives for participation. Brands reward their customers for their attention. Customers can in turn use their tokens in an online shop. Perhaps, these tokens could also increase in value over time. In UVI, the tokens can help drive a sub-economy that nurtures activities done by individuals to expand the membership base. Donors could buy the tokens and thus inject real money into the system, which can then be used to fund candidates and volunteers.
NEWT is the magic potion that can help create the two ecosystems: for brands and customers to engage with each other, and voters to choose their candidates and build a critical mass to ensure their victory in elections. At this stage, all of this is still speculative thinking. Like in science fiction writings (Foundation and The Expanse series are good examples), what I am doing is imagining the future where technology creates new possibilities to solve existing problems. Admittedly, these are two different worlds – marketing and politics. But there are many similarities. Marketers (brands) and politicians (candidates) want attention (time) as a stepping stone to the transactions (money and votes).
The NEWT framework offers a way to reimagine marketing and politics in the future, and that is the exploration I am doing in this series. Marketing and politics are beset by inefficiencies – most of the push messages sent by brands are being ignored, and the actions by apathetic voters have left India with poor political choices and outcomes. New technology ideas can hopefully help solve these problems and deliver better results to marketers and Indian citizens. And in doing so, what we need to do is to imagine a new “land”.
