There’s a better way to describe decentralized social media apps — Memeland CEO

Ray Chan, the CEO of Memeland, explains why SocialFi may not be the best way to describe decentralized social media and how social apps are easier to onboard users than trading apps.

On episode 46 of Cointelegraph’s Hashing It Out podcast, Ryan Chan, the CEO of Memeland — a Web3 venture studio created by 9Gag — explains why the Web2 company is building for Web3, the importance of decentralized social media and how social finance (SocialFi) may be the leading catalyst for Web3 development. Chan also shares his experience buying big-name nonfungible tokens (NFTs) at the peak of the bull run and joining some of the most exclusive crypto communities. 

Before launching Memeland, the 9Gag founder, who already had a considerable following, became a big name on X for buying blue chip NFTs. According to Chan, the primary purpose of those purchases was to learn from some of the best in the space who were in the exclusive communities created by top NFT collections. He explains that even though buying a lot of NFTs during the bull run has left him “down bad,” the lessons were valuable enough to shape his approach to his own Web3 project, Memeland.

The Memeland CEO argues that, unlike decentralized finance, SocialFi may not be the best way to describe what is being built in the Web3 space. Chan explains that SocialFi makes many think about social media and finance, despite the platforms not just being about monetizing people’s social relationships but also disrupting the creator economy. He suggests that most of the projects in the SocialFi ecosystem will benefit from marketing themselves as the “creator economy on blockchain.”

Chan also believes the decentralized social media landscape is in the early stages and has yet to take off, with most users looking for opportunities to “farm” earnings. Chan is optimistic that this will change as more people come to Web3 through social apps, adding that social apps are an easier onboarding product since almost everyone uses some social application, while fewer people use trading applications.

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