Freunde der Zukunft – hier kommen die Links der Woche. Sehr ans Herz legen möchte ich »The Third Web (Opens in a new window)« von Jürgen Geuter. Eine Einführung in all things crypto und warum einige Menschen große Hoffnungen haben, andere größtmögliche Skepsis. Wer sich dann immer noch einarbeiten möchte, zum Beispiel über die Feiertage, findet weitere gute Links, ein Anfang könnte »A Normie’s Guide to Becoming a Crypto Person (Opens in a new window)« sein. Lustig ist es allemal.

Klar versuchen jetzt Firmen, auf den Hype aufzuspringen. Bisher kommen dabei verzweifelte Marketing-Stunts raus wie die NFT-Versteigerung der ersten SMS (Vodafone) oder kreativer Essensbilder (Applebee's). Andere bauen so etwas wie digitale Sammelkarten (Nike). Oder schrauben weiter an kostenpflichtigen Assets in Spielen (Ubisoft). So weit, so langweilig. Interessanter scheinen mir die dezentralen, autonomen Organisationen, die DAOs (Opens in a new window), die explizit gegen herkömmliche Firmen antreten und ganz anders funktionieren wollen.

Das Jahr geht zu Ende, die Zukunft kommt!

Reading

• 10 books to rehabilitate the tech doomer in your life (Opens in a new window): These books will help put things in perspective so you can focus on what really matters over the holidays: winning family grudge matches of Catan.

• The longest train journey in the world – in 2021 (Opens in a new window): This tweet has been doing the rounds, claiming to map the longest train journey in the world.The problem is… it’s not right.

• How Shein beat Amazon at its own game — and reinvented fast fashion (Opens in a new window): By connecting China’s garment factories with Western Gen-Z customers, Shein ushered in a new era of »ultra-fast« shopping.

• Inside Apple Park (Opens in a new window): first look at the design team shaping the future of tech.

• 100 years of whatever this will be (Opens in a new window): What if all these weird tech trends actually add up to something?

• Meet Kiri (Opens in a new window), the tiny Japanese fire truck bringing joy to San Francisco.

• Ten tech predictions for 2022 (Opens in a new window): what’s next for Twitter, Uber and NFTs.

• A deep dive into an NSO zero-click iMessage exploit (Opens in a new window): »We assess this to be one of the most technically sophisticated exploits we've ever seen.«

• The metaverse has a groping problem already (Opens in a new window): A woman was sexually harassed on Meta’s VR social media platform. She’s not the first—and won’t be the last.

Crypto

• The Third Web (Opens in a new window): »I understand a lot of the motivations driving people to wanting to rethink the web. The monopolies and power imbalances, the inequality and unfairness. I understand that especially creative people are desperately looking for ways to make a decent living and selling NFTs looks like a very simple way to make some serious cash.«

• Web3 is going just great (Opens in a new window): A timeline of some of 2021's greatest hits in cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and other web3 projects.

• A Normie’s Guide to Becoming a Crypto Person (Opens in a new window): How to (cautiously and skeptically) fall down the rabbit hole.

• How to create an NFT (Opens in a new window) — and why you may not want to: Warning: here be dragons (fees and moral dilemmas).

• I Gave My Mom a Crypto Wallet (Opens in a new window): A Simple Guide to NFTs, Blockchain and More. If you wince when you hear the term ‘nonfungible token,’ fear not. We created an NFT to help explain this whole crypto revolution in a clear, easy-to-understand way.

• Applebee’s (Opens in a new window): A collection of NFT art based on our iconic menu items.

• A Bor version is ready (Opens in a new window) for the Mumbai Testnet which includes the London hard fork and EIP 1559. Please upgrade your nodes before block#22640000 hits.

Bubble

• What the press could learn from Discord (Opens in a new window): On digital media's missing community.

• »The Media Variant« Hits New York City (Opens in a new window)

• Medium isn't paying columnists anymore (Opens in a new window)

• »Paid Google Docs« shutting down (Opens in a new window)

• Disposable culture is diminishing the power of brands (Opens in a new window): If you own a business or play a role in building or managing a brand, consider these questions to get you started.

Internet Explorer

• Pop Songs About Computers/the Internet (Opens in a new window)

• Hive Index (Opens in a new window): The internet is full of beautiful communities

• WeirdSpot.fyi (Opens in a new window): enter a sentence. get a playlist.

• Gossip’s Web (Opens in a new window): the directory of handmade webpages

• Busy Simulator (Opens in a new window): Feign importance with repeating app sounds!

Das war Ausgabe #86 von THEFUTURE (Opens in a new window), dem Newsletter über das wilde Internet und die Zukunft der Medien von Ole Reißmann (Opens in a new window).