The Format #028

It’s been a whirlwind of a fortnight. We launched a competition, a new dashboard, our new and updated docs and our first no-code technical integration with BuildShip and then ran a live build session with them, as well as helping a heap of builders use OPENFORMAT. We’ve learned SO much already in just the last week.

It’s left us energised, excited and feeling very grateful, although I think the whole team could do with a good night’s sleep.

Given everything that’s happened, this week’s round up of news is slightly OPENFORMAT focused, there’s just so much to talk about…

No Coding Skills? How AI Helped Me Launch My Own App

This article (and many others like it) highlight a really important trend, the democratisation of innovation. With a bit of patience and the right tools, anyone can now build an app, whether it’s just solving a small personal problem or targeting a bigger issue. The thing that can’t be solved by AI: monetising that app. Is a new system needed to turn the incoming tsunami of apps into actual businesses? 👀

Why Decentralised AI is Gaining Steam

“Do we want Big Tech to control not just our data, but also what we do with it?”

So far AI development has followed the general trend that more data = more intelligence. But as the models run out of publically available data, the companies building them are turning to other sources, sources like user’s data. This makes it so important that user’s own the data and intelligence they contribute, and are fairly compensated. Something that doesn’t happen in the current centralised system.

Voice cloning of political figures is still easy as pie

Misinformation is a huge problem, but when it’s directed towards a political agenda and used as propaganda, the stakes are raised. Unless safety measures from AI companies change, and rapidly, they could have a huge impact on the results of the elections in both the UK and US. Accountability, transparency and trust sadly seem to be in short supply right now…

The Power of Missions and OPENFORMAT: Part 2 - Understanding Rewards

Mark wrote a post about the practical strategies involved when implementing a rewards system. He dived into 2 fundamental concepts that when used in the right way can be extremely powerful: XP and badges. This is a great primer in using rewards to incentivise specific user behaviour and drive engagement.

OPENFORMAT News

Competition live

Our no-code hackathon is live and will be running until the 23rd June. We’ve got some awesome prizes, an amazing line-up of judges and we’ve already seen builders working on some very interesting projects! No coding experience needed…

You can sign up to the hackathon: here

Going Live with BuildShip

Last friday we ran a live build session with BuildShip where in just over 30 minutes we took an app, integrated an onchain rewards system and added a leaderboard.

The demo could have been with any app but we decided that it had to be something with utility at it’s heart, something that aligned to our values… we chose volunteering. You can read more about it or watch the session.

Hack Night in Bristol Next Week

Next tuesday we’re running a small informal hack night at our new office. There’ll be plenty of food, drink, music and prizes… we’ll have a really fun night.

We’ll be using the OPENFORMAT toolkit and a low-code backend builder called BuildShip so that anyone can quickly build a cool MVP at the hack, including UI designers, product owners, start-up founders and non-devs, you’re all invited!

BIMA Web3 Talks - A chat with Mark Panay

Mark, OPENFORMAT’s Inventor and Co-founder, talked a bit about his story, the evolution of OPENFORMAT and his vision for the future. It’s rare to get a public appearance from Mark so this is well worth a watch.

Ten Startups you could make now: Missions and Rewards Part 3

With the launch of the competition we thought it would be useful to offer builders some inspiration as to what they could create. It quickly turned out that builders definitely weren’t lacking inspiration and we’ve already heard some VERY interesting ideas.

And that’s all for this week.

Have a great weekend, Dan and the OPENFORMAT team 👋🏽

Join our community

• Join our Telegram group, The Format, for relevant news and conversations.

• Check out our latest website

• Join our Discord for product updates

• Subscribe to our YouTube for tutorials and demos

Meet the judges for the No-code Competition June '24: Leigha Reid, Head of Product & DevRel at FlutterFlow; Harini Janakiraman, CEO and Co-founder of BuildShip; Alim Charaniya, Founder and CEO of Ambitious Labs; Mihai Gheza, Co-founder and CEO of Machinations; Bruce Molyneux, CTO and Co-founder of OPENFORMAT; Sarah Weller, CEO and Co-founder of OPENFORMAT.