The web is a funny place, and I don’t just mean cat memes (but yes, I do also mean cat memes). It’s weird to buy a couch online and then get nothing but couch ads for weeks like you needed a second one. Or say something online and suddenly have a mob of people show up to tell you you're wrong when you were just talking about cats on a couch memes.
I'm new to taking Web 3.0 seriously so I truly welcome others to help educate me. But here's how I understand it.
Web 1.0 was the democratization of information
Web 2.0 was the democratization of content creation and community
Web 3.0 is the democratization of the internet itself
Could Web3 be the salvation of the web? And what's our role in making that happen? Read on and let's see!
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Gene: Welcome to the show everyone.
Carl: I forgot that we hadn't started the show. See, there's some sweet spot between when we first see each other to when we started the show.
Gene: Yep.
Carl: And that needs to be kind of that cold open. Oh, for fucks sake. Okay. How are you, man?
Gene: I'm all right, man. It's been a busy morning. I was texting you about like, hey, I'm going to be late, but I was really an hour early.
Carl: You had your Gene time zone thing going.
Gene: Then you were like, I haven't even left the house yet. And I'm like-
Carl: I was like, you told me I had time, man.
Gene: You jerk.
Carl: [inaudible 00:02:54] for an hour. All right, Gene, a couple of things. First of all, don't let me forget to thank our sponsor Parallax today. I almost forgot last time and don't want to do that. Don't let me forget to tell people to sign up to be part of the bureau community.
Gene: Okay.
Carl: Be a member. We've got the survey going out right now to everybody about what's the value of membership and they said we're not paying near enough. So I'm raising all the rates. So get in now.
Gene: Triple dim rates.
Carl: I'm obviously lifeing wrong.
Gene: You're doing something wrong.
Carl: Gene, this may come as a shock to you, but we were kind of at the forefront of the web way back when.
Gene: We were.
Carl: We're kind of long in the tooth, I think they like to say.
Gene: I think a better term would be dull in the tooth, but whatever.
Carl: What in the tooth?
Gene: Dull.
Carl: Oh, you know what I think would be better term?
Gene: What's that?
Carl: I still have a few of my original teeth. Which ones, right?
Carl: That is a good-
Gene: Can you guess?
Carl: That is how that works.
Carl: But the new ones I got are long and sharp.
Gene: Yes, implants. You got those titanium implants.
Carl: In the community recently, and this is really timely with the recent NFT crash.
Gene: Yeah. We'll go figure-
Carl: A lot of conversation of Web 3.0 or Web3, if you want to call it that.
Gene: I don't even know what it is, man.
Carl: Here's the thing. Web 2.0 never had a Web 2.1. So I think this whole show is about dropping the decimal point.
Gene: Right.
Carl: We're signing a petition, we're going to get that going. Gene, how much do you know about Web3?
Gene: Not a lot. I know that it's not really here.
Carl: Is it though?
Gene: No.
Carl: I don't know. See, this is the thing.
Gene: It's kind of like-
Carl: When did Web 2.0 start?
Gene: ... before the browser supported it.
Carl: When did Web 2.0 start?
Gene: I don't know.
Carl: No, you don't. I think it was right around when we started engine. So I'm going to say somewhere between 2003 and 2005.
Gene: So here's a statement wrapped in a question or a question wrapped in a statement. So can you say Web 3.0 starts now or is it a function of years after it started saying this is when it started?
Carl: So there are a few things, right? One, I think this is about a new chapter in the web, a new season in the web. We adopt that old software concept of 1.0, 2.0 whatever. And I've shared this story, but I remember when we got that phone call at engine and somebody said, "Hey, I need a Web 2.0 website. What does that cost?" And I told them we were doing Web 2.3 now, we didn't do Web 2.0 anymore, but that we could do it for him. But there's definitely an increase in the cost to have that done.
Gene: Right, right, right, right.
Carl: And he was like, I don't care. Web 2.3, let's do it. And I was like, sir, somebody's going to take advantage of you because Web 2.0 is a concept, right? And I think that's the thing, this is about a mind shift, it's about a concept. And I will say, I am still way ignorant to it because we all are. There are people out there who are sharing what they think it is and some people are more articulate and have bigger followings and this sort of thing, but I think the reality is like, let's go all the way back to Web 1.0.
Gene: Web 1.0.
Carl: Right? Like '94 or maybe even earlier than that. I think the first email got sent way before that where we got the convention for using the at symbol and that sort of stuff. But if we think back to Web 1.0, what was it about? It's about sharing information. That's it, right? It's about I log in, I consume, right? It's very much just one-way, it's read-only, right? That's the read-only version of the web.
Gene: Fair enough.
Carl: And there was e-comm, it was catalogs and you could see them online now and then make your phone call to order, right? It wasn't about changing the world, it was about providing information to everybody, but from very few sources. And everybody called it the super highway, because we were going to comp you serve, or we were going to AOL, we were going to these predecessors of what the web really became.
Gene: Right. You had to go log in, literally.
Carl: Yeah. You had to log in, right? And there were some bloggers, there were some things like that, but these were technically sophisticated people because Web 1.0, the technology wasn't there for just anybody to jump in, right? So when I look at it and I've been thinking about this because a conversation's going on in the slack. Like in the bureau slack, a conversation broke out that showed me my ignorance. I mean, I was just reading what they were saying and I was like, wait, wait, wait, this is the stuff we laugh at and make fun of, why are you all legitimizing it?
Gene: I know.
Carl: Oh, wait. Am I laughing at it making fun of it because I don't understand it and that's just easier? But anyway, Web 1.0, I think is that just content stream. Don't use the word stream. It's just, you are absorbing content. It's a way to go out there and get stuff, right?
Carl: Then Web 2.0, and I'm going to throw out there that 2004, 2005, this is when it seemed to show up in my world. And this is when we started building content management systems. This is when those things started to show up like movable type. This is when you start to get ... I don't know if MySpace was around then or some of the personal blogging software though, like some of those things started to show up. So now we're actually more about everybody starting to create their own content, not just this few people. And also it's when communities start to show up more. So you think about Web 1.0 as just, we're going to put a bunch of stuff up on the web and you can come find it, good luck, right? To Web 2.0, everybody can now put stuff up on the web and e-comm is actually becoming a transaction online.
Carl: I don't know when Amazon started, but definitely it feels like ... I mean, I know Netflix was dropping stuff and you were getting DVDs from Netflix at the time, and that was a transactional where you go on and say, you want to do this, but also you start to find a lot more of the old school bulletin boards showing up on the web.
Gene: I looked it up, it says 1994.
Carl: What was?
Gene: Amazon.
Carl: Amazon started in '94. That makes sense, right?
Gene: Yeah, it does.
Carl: It'd be interesting to see the evolution, like '94 with books and then when do we actually hear about it though, right?
Gene: Right, right.
Carl: That would be the thing. But then we get to Web 2.0, that's also when Facebook is kind of starting to be there, YouTube, things focused on user generated content, user interactions. Facebook, hate it or love it or whatever, that was one of the first major communities I ever got sucked into.
Gene: Oh yeah. Absolutely.
Carl: The MySpace thing wasn't a thing for me.
Gene: Yeah. I was too old for it.
Carl: Yeah. So then it becomes a community. So now we get to Web 3.0, right? Now, I know there's technology and all this kind of stuff underlying all of it, right? Like you look at Web 1.0 and it's probably just a lot more HTML and that sort of stuff. You look at Web 2.0 and we're getting into CSS, we're getting into Ajax, we're getting into these different HTML5. Oh. So that's another thing, Web 2.0, right? Animation.
Gene: Right.
Carl: Animation and being able to do these different things. And it's interesting because people hate flash, and I get it, for valid reasons. Although, I still say it was glorious.
Gene: It's a big part of pushing that industry though.
Carl: Right. It was a big part of the entertainment side of the enjoyment of the web. HTML5 kind of allowed that to happen without some of the negatives. And CSS keeps evolving, right? Like Web 2.0, up with CSS2 or CSS3.
Gene: Yeah, whatever.
Carl: Who knows, right? We're not developers. We don't know that. Well, you might be. I don't even know what you do.
Gene: I'm [inaudible 00:11:49].
Carl: So Web 2.0, we kind of get to that. So now we're looking at Web 3.0. I think we've been talking about it long enough. We didn't know Web 2.0 was getting up with HTML5 and the animation. Not at the beginning, right? I mean, that was just, I don't know how long ago now, but in the last decade, right?
Gene: Right.
Carl: You got to look it up real quick. This is the show where we look up stuff on the flyer because we don't know what we're talking about. And I think it's great. But yeah. So now we get to Web 3.0, right? It feels like we're moving away from community or maybe this gets put on top of community, but it gets back to the individuals. And really focusing on everyone's privacy is a big part. And I guess you'd even say the decentralization, but taking out that middle layer. So I still don't firmly understand it.
Gene: Well I think-
Carl: ... empowering the individual. And that's where you get your blockchain and your NFTs and your Bitcoins. These are just parts of it. And I bet that not all of these will necessarily be the end result.
Gene: Well, in my opinion, Web 3.0, it's kind of like, shall I spin a tail anyway? Anyway, nothing. So it's kind of like collecting comic books.
Carl: Okay.
Gene: Okay. So the comic books that are worth a lot of money are from a time when no one collected comic books, right? And now everyone collects comic books. So new comic books aren't worth a shit. It's worth something because we look back on it and see that it's worth it. We're in this point with Web 2.0 and Web 3.0, whatever, where I think we're trying to claim Web 3.0, but it's not there yet. It's not a thing. Because if you ... The description of it is, the ultimate goal of Web 3.0 is to create more intelligent, connected and open websites. I've never-
Carl: But that's one definition.
Gene: Well, that's my point. I've never read-
Carl: Somebody else will say it's the metaverse, right?
Gene: I've never read a sentence more full of horse shit than that. That's like some crazy corporate brand statement. Like we exist to make the world a better place. Okay. What? It doesn't make any sense, right? So I don't know that we're on the side of it yet where we can say, "Hey, all these things are Web 3.0, right?" Because if you're talking about NFTs, what in and of itself makes that Web 3.0, right?
Carl: Exactly. It's just a part. It's just like-
Gene: It's like me.
Carl: It's a characteristic. It's a symptom. It's an illness. No, but I think especially ... And I don't want to get too far down the NFT thing because I understand it, but I don't understand it. But I think that all gets back to just this idea of those of us on the web have rights. We have the right to our own privacy. We have the right to own things that we create. And so NFTs are just a tool, I guess that's the way to say it. They're just a way to say I own this, right? Can you make a copy? Sure. You can make a copy of a [inaudible 00:15:29] the original [inaudible 00:15:32].
Gene: That's right. It seems like what we're trying to do is take what exists on the internet that isn't real and bring it closer into the real world of existence. So the more we can do that, the more Web 3.0 gets right. Isn't that what we're trying to do with NFTs? We're trying to own things that we create on the internet like you just said, isn't that we're trying to do with the metaverse we're trying to literally put our physical cells into the internet?
Carl: Yeah.
Gene: So it seems like it's that gap between what doesn't exist on the internet and what is real and can we get them together and exist at the same time?
Carl: When you just did that, if you did it a third time, I swear to God there was [inaudible 00:16:15].
Gene: Beatle juice.
Carl: I got you. So all of this stuff makes me slow down to think because I want to understand it and I don't want to just spew out something like everybody else. Not everybody else, but you know what I mean? There's just so many-
Gene: I know what you mean.
Carl: ... people riding this wave to say what it is and what it's going to be. I want to talk about the metaverse for just a second. To me, okay, the metaverse to Web 2.0, what I think almost I would even say animation was, right? It's that evolution going from 2D, 3D to 3D VR, this idea that there are real places that are being created. I know Facebook is investing a ton of money in this. There are a lot of people out there investing a ton of money. But I also wonder if it's going to be one of those initial hiccups that we see going into this concept of ... I mean, because you look at the underlying technologies, right? Like, okay, instead of Ajax and HTML5 and everything we're talking about, artificial intelligence and machine learning and tremendously more power, right? Like just in terms of the computing power, but what does it mean really? Okay, when we were able to read books on Kindles, we didn't get rid of books, right?
Gene: Right. They still existed.
Carl: Books are still around. When we are able to go into metaverse to set up our life-
Gene: Yeah. I'm still here.
Carl: ... obviously our real life is still going to be there. When we-
Gene: I still have to eat a sandwich.
Carl: Well, that's it, right? I mean, you're not going to NFT a BLT.
Gene: No. Now, that's Web 4.0.
Carl: Well, I'm out.
Gene: Was that Star Trek, the replicator?
Carl: Yeah. It is the replicator. Isn't it? I wanted to correct you on that, but I think you were right. I guess just thinking about this, the shift is from the internet owning the data to the individual owning the data. From the internet owning the rights, copyrights, all of that, to the individual owning the copyrights or trademark or whatever. I think all of that's really great. How does it get enforced? And I guess I haven't studied this, so maybe there's stuff out there on it. If you look at blockchain and you look at Bitcoin, I still am not going to fan understanding this stuff, but I think that's because it's in a state of evolution as well. But if you think of that, there's still somebody somewhere who's got a key to the back door, right? And that becomes kind of the underlying concern. And maybe this is how our parents felt about ATM machines at banks, I don't know.
Gene: I'm sure. I'm sure.
Carl: It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You just put in a card and type in some numbers and it gives you cash? I don't think so.
Gene: Not going to happen.
Carl: Whoa, whoa, whoa. You just put on these goggles and walk around and buy a place?
Gene: Yeah. What?
Carl: No, no, no, no. I don't think so, right? So I'm sure there's a lot of evolution and generational stuff where we just struggle with things, but I'm down for it. I want to see all this stuff happen. And the recent crash, and again, I don't follow the market that much, but when it's loud enough that I hear it-
Gene: Something's happening.
Carl: Something is freaking happening. And a lot of people are calling for the ... This is the end of it. It was just a little NFTs and Bitcoin and, but it's not.
Gene: Right.
Carl: I mean, this is where it has to go. And even if you look at world events, if you look at the war between Russia and Ukraine right now and where all of that's going, opening up the entire web, allowing people to own their individuality on the web, that could lift up a lot of people, right? This is so funny. I was having this conversation. I was like, imagine if that kid who invented the Rubik's cube, wasn't he Russian, I think? I don't remember, but he had no rights. He couldn't own what he had created. And that thing becomes a worldwide sensation. And I hope that at some level he ended up getting compensated. Does Web 3.0 help somebody like that? NFTs are only for digital. Isn't there some way for that to eventually make its way into the physical world?
Gene: Yeah. And the way that I'm hearing about it now working is just basically in the format of a contract. The NFT itself is the contract and therefore you own a piece of each subsequent contract or whatever. I don't know. Like you said, it always comes back to real world enforceability, right? I mean a real world contract that you sign between two people and then sign it, it's only as good as your ability to go after the other person when they're in violation of it.
Carl: Or retrieve it.
Gene: Yeah. How do you do that in a ... It's a frigging picture. Like, I'm just not going to answer my email. I mean, it's pretty easy to hide from it.
Carl: Well-
Gene: And that can be my ignorance of not understanding it. So somebody [inaudible 00:21:57].
Carl: I was just going to say, everybody listening, you're listening to two guys who really are just trying to figure it out.
Gene: Yeah. We're just a couple [inaudible 00:22:03].
Carl: We're probably going to say a lot of things that are wrong. We're probably misunderstanding stuff. But then again, aren't we all just a little bit? And that's not from a defensive posture, it's from, everything is in a state of constant change right now in the way that this stuff is working. And is it now the NFT winter? You remember there was crypto winter and then it came back.
Gene: Could be.
Carl: Yeah. This is interesting. So my brother is about 10 years older than me. And I remember stupidly and folks come at me on this one, because I was dumb to do this. I sold all my vinyl. I sold all my vinyl. And not for a lot of money because I had it all on CD. Man, I wish I had all that vinyl now so I could share it with my kids because they want record players, right? They want old stereo stuff. And so just thinking about this, my brother, at first Rdio, Spotify, all of these types of systems-
Gene: God, I forgot about Rdio.
Carl: Rdio was amazing. I met the guy who basically architected the whole thing. He was at one of our events. And it is one of the heartbreaks of his life.
Gene: Yep. I think I had all those dudes speak at a converge. I don't remember.
Carl: You could have. But with my brother, what he didn't like about Spotify or Audible or any of these things was that at any moment, somebody could decide you no longer have the right to listen or read or watch this.
Gene: Right. The thing you created.
Carl: Right. The original creators who do have those patents could have a falling out. The perfect example of this was Prince. When Prince pulled everything from Spotify, he just woke up one morning in a bad mood and he was like, screw you, I'm pulling all this stuff out. Now, luckily I still had all that music because I was a fan. But it's one of those things that you think about with Web 2.0 was that, you get rid of it. Somebody could just pull it away and that didn't happen often.
Gene: Right. But here's the lower level issue that a content creator has, let's say you're a musician and your music is on Spotify and Spotify pays you for each listen. Well who tells you how many times it was listened to? The same people that pay you. That is a conflict of interest.
Carl: Yeah, it is.
Gene: There's no real accounting that happens other than what they tell you.
Carl: Well, other than what they tell you and ... I mean, Spotify don't really have competition right now, do they?
Gene: Not really. But I mean your competition is just getting listens and getting paid.
Carl: Right. Well, I'm also thinking about TikTok on this because TikTok is definitely starting to launch some stars. People are starting to get record deals or things of that nature because that platform is lifting them up. And I will say, again, TikTok sends payment to creators. I know this because of my daughter, she gets like a few hundred bucks a month, but what do they get, right? So let's say that a Spotify is kind of the tail end of a Web 2.0. It does have community, although I never really look to see whether people are listening to.
Gene: Right.
Carl: I can't see how many people listen to a song. I can't see which of my friends that I follow are doing it. Web 3.0 is about community. It's about this watch and I'm part of a running community online, right? It's part of slack and the bureau is a community that this is that Web 2.0 stuff. Then in Web 3.0, we're still in community, but we each own our own stuff.
Gene: Right.
Carl: It no longer belongs to the network, it now belongs to the individual. I think this is the core differentiator.
Gene: Yeah. I think you're right. You might be right.
Carl: Because you remember us freaking out when Instagram said they own the rights to the photographs that we upload.
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: And then we're all going, my photo's going to show up in Times Square in a giant advertisement.
Gene: And I won't get paid for it. Right.
Carl: You wish. And it didn't. So Web 3.0, we get to decide how it's shared. So can we sell our privacy? Can I tell YouTube for a hundred bucks a month, you can tell everybody what I do?
Gene: Yes.
Carl: If I buy a couch, are you going to follow me around trying to sell me couches for two months? I just-
Gene: I already got this.
Carl: I've only got one need.
Gene: Yeah. They're already doing that.
Carl: Yeah. I know. Trust me.
Gene: But that's the thing, right? The other side of it is our laws and government regulations and stuff, still haven't caught up with Web 2.0, right? They're still painfully decades behind that stuff. My excitement for Web 3.0 is tempered by that. So you're going to use an NFT as a contract, I mean, good luck and forcing that in any other way than a normal contract gets enforced. You know what I mean? Like whatever. It's not real. Honestly, just look at Twitter, privacy and freedom of speech issues and all kinds of stuff, it's just woefully behind in terms of regulations and laws. I don't know how they even fully understand the difference between Web 2.0, Web 3.0 from a federal level.
Carl: I mean, they still haven't figured out how to tax things, right? This is going to get it a little bit off topic, but it's just like points on credit cards.
Gene: Yeah, right?
Carl: Trust me, the government's staying up late at night trying to figure out how do we tax points? Well, they don't have a set value. But you know what? Neither does a dollar and neither does a Bitcoin. I don't care where you mind it. All of this, I'm just thinking, this is putting the citizen at odds with the government and-
Gene: It is.
Carl: ... that's kind of cool, right? But it also means that we have to make sure ... Oh man, I didn't want to get into all this, this rabbit hole.
Gene: I would love to get someone on here with us to talk about-
Carl: Who knows what they're talking about.
Gene: ... this so I could sign off and let you just contain. No, I would like to get someone on here and talk about how it's impacting them as an agency and what types of work they're doing in this space and what interests them or what ways they're gearing their business towards thinking about this stuff, right? Because that's where it matters for bureau members. It's like, where should I point the ship? What's the low hanging fruit to make money doing this, and then where do they think it's going in five years? And I don't know enough to do that from a business standpoint other than, hey, let's create some really cool drawings and call them NFTs. Like, that's it, that's all I know.
Carl: I mean, I think about James White a lot, right? I know he's made the move into this and his art is stellar. I wonder ... And I'm not saying to get James on the show, but I think reaching out to James to find out, I'm sure we could, but it, but it's one of those things that I think you're right. We need to bring somebody else in and keep talking about this. But the reality is, it's a concept that's going to evolve for a while. It would never stop evolving really. But the foundation seems to be there. We've been laughing at and talking about blockchain and Bitcoin and NFTs for a couple of years now.
Gene: Yeah. It's not new.
Carl: It didn't go away.
Gene: Right.
Carl: So maybe it's time to kind of take it seriously. [inaudible 00:30:19] I don't want to learn.
Gene: I don't either. I was kind of looking-
Carl: Learning is hard, Gene. Gene, I know early on I thanked our sponsor, Parallax.
Gene: I was going to tell you, don't forget to do that.
Carl: Moment of silence for thanking the sponsor, Gene. Okay. And check them out, they do good stuff for your operations. Gene, we need to figure out what we're doing with this show.
Gene: Probably a good idea.
Carl: I'm going to be thinking about that. We sent a survey out to all of the bureau members and we've gotten, I think just about 60 responses so far.
Gene: Wow.
Carl: Yeah. To kind of understand more about where they're seeing the value and what they like. And the podcast ranks at the bottom.
Gene: I'm sure it does.
Carl: Yeah. So just wanted let you know that. If we're not back next week folks [inaudible 00:31:18]. And if we are, it's because, totally manipulated that data. I'm not going anywhere. All right, Gene, Gene.
Gene: All right, man.
