The Format #017

It’s that blurry week in between Christmas and New Year where no one quite knows what day it is or what to do with themselves. Fortunately we just about remembered it was Friday, which means one thing… The Format. The last Format of the year, and what a crazy year it’s been.

We’ve seen: explosions of AI innovation on a weekly basis, a not so smooth transition from Twitter to X, an attempted tech giant coup and some really huge layoffs.

To round the year off, here are some of the more interesting updates and articles we’ve found this week:

Andreessen Horowitz’s Big Ideas in Tech 2024

A16z rounded up some of the most exciting trends moving into 2024, and actually a lot of these predictions echo what we’ve been saying throughout the year (maybe we’re on the right track…). ‘Games become everything simulators’, ‘the rise of the modular tech stack’, ‘AI + Blockchains come together’ and play to earn games moving towards becoming ‘Play and Earn’ - these sentiments all seem rather familiar.

UN shocks world with public sector DAO trial

If there are two things that are definitely needed in the public sector it’s transparency and efficiency. The UN Internet Governance Forum is aiming to change this by creating a Distributed Autonomous Organisation (DAO) and move towards a new and on-chain model for their organisational structure, decision-making and processes. Hopefully December 21st 2023 will mark the first of many public sector governance experiments and improvements.

New York Times sues Microsoft and OpenAI for ‘billions’

Another week and another piece of OpenAI drama. This time a lawsuit from the New York TImes over the fact that OpenAI have undermined their business model by returning paywalled content within ChatGPT. Given the process around large AI model creation this is hardly surprising and becomes one of many lawsuits already filed against companies like OpenAI, Midjourney and Github (Copilot).

The State of Web3 in 2023

This piece is a great summary of the commercial progress in the Web3 space over the past year. The TL;DR being that established brands have started activating their communities in more complex and nuanced ways. From 2020 to 2022 it was very common for a brand to simply ‘drop’ an NFT collection that didn’t mean… well anything. Now brands are experimenting (and actually thriving) with co-creation campaigns, ‘phygitals’, reward programs and by developing personalised cookieless relationships with customers through wallet data.

Recapturing early-internet whimsy with HTML

In an age where the battle of the digital world is optimising for social engagement, some groups are practicing online self-expression and returning the human craft to the web through… HTML. There are some rather interesting example sites which couldn’t be further from a Wix or Squarespace template. My favourites - HTML Garden, A Room with a Window and Museum of Screens.

The core principles of building prosperous game economies

What better way to spend your holiday break than a deep dive into building a game economy? The key takeaway here: ‘Even if the economy is not directly part of the fun creation, it shouldn't get in the way of it, it should function in the background.’

That principle doesn’t just apply to video games, but anywhere that any sort of economy or game mechanics are in play. This is a big reason why many Web3 projects have struggled so far - too much focus on the economics and technology within the project and not enough focus on their true ‘game’.

OPENFORMAT News:

Our 1st birthday

A couple of weeks ago the team got together for some of the finest Jerk Chicken that Bristol has to offer and more importantly to celebrate a momentous occasion… OPENFORMAT’s 1 year anniversary.

It’s been a very exciting year with a lot of progress. Time for year número 2. 💪

Walkthrough of the Launchpad

Andy, our lead developer, recorded a walkthrough showing the current version of our Launchpad (V0.2) with a basic skating application as a simple use case. Showing what could be built in just a few minutes using OPENFORMAT.

And with that we’re signing out for 2023.

Have a great weekend and start to the new year, Dan and the OPENFORMAT team 👋🏽🎄