Writers Guild Content Distribution Pipeline Evolution

Author: 0xNSHuman.

This document outlines the problems and challenges we've identified with the current content distribution model in the DAO, and proposes an immediate actionable solution for increased value and audience outreach.

Background

Bankless DAO produces an increasing amount of content covering all the topics that are tangent to Web3 and Crypto. We are being associated with knowledge and insight when it comes to learning how to navigate the bankless world.

Given the open nature of our content, there is a huge potential - and the need - for having it propagated as far as possible through the various communities and platforms, in order to increase awareness, reach new consumer segments, and enable traffic that would unlock a Web3-friendly business model for the DAO.

Growth & Decentralization Concerns

When some of our new builders came to the DAO and started coming up with ideas on how to leverage the exponentially growing amount of content we produce, they were faced with an issue that's quite critical in Web3 community. Most articles are published using a notoriously restricted solution — Substack — that is openly against having the content escape their gated system.

Link to the Substack Support article: https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/360038433912-Does-Substack-have-an-API-

As far as we know, other distribution channels that Writers Guild relies on are also not opening their systems for the 3rd-party platforms to present the content for the extended audience.

This would be fine if our business model revolved around premium subscription, however based conversations with some of the Writers Guild members, we're convinced that this is not the intention.

Opportunity

There are a couple of pilot products that would feature Writers Guild content and unlock new consumer segments:

🏴 Bankless Mobile App is ready to be released to the App Store. It would feature all the articles we produce next to other pieces of content.

🏴 Bankless DAO Website is interested in giving more exposure to our content through a decentralized platform. It would be able to access the same content as the mobile app thanks to the aggregated content delivery system we've already built in the DAO.

🏴 We are also working on reaching out to other DAOs to offer them our Content Gateway + Mobile App package that will let them host their own content and have our content delivered to them automatically, thus giving us exposure to all their audiences.

All of this is possible today. We just need a little bit of coordination.

Solution

The screenshots of the mobile app you see above are not just some dreamy mockups. We really are displaying the Writers Guild content there. And here's how we do it.

This diagram is massively simplified and hides the tools we've developed to ensure seamless delivery of the content to the devices, but essentially, from the Writers' point of view we simply added an alternative to Substack that is more open and supports sharing content with 3rd-party systems 🤷🏽.

We chose Ghost as the initial proposed solution because:

Bankless DAO website already runs on it. Some of the guild's content was already posted there.

It is a completely open-source system, which means we can copy 100% of the code and customize it in any way we need in the future.

It is also free if we host it on our own server.

Bringing all the existing Writer's Guild content there is as easy as copy-pasting it from Substack.

It takes 5-10 minutes to figure out for anyone who used Substack or a similar system.

In other words, we came to believe that this is a better choise for both Web3-native community and for those who haven't onboarded to crypto world yet.

Action Items

If everyone is aligned and open to making the move to a more open, flexible and powerful content distribution, we would be happy to help make the transition smoother.

First, I'd recommend reading the comparison between Substack and Ghost to get a sense of things that are similar: https://ghost.org/vs/substack/.

Next, we can create an instance of the system and let the writers log in, import subscriber lists, post some content and test different scenarios.

Finally, there can be two co-existing systems at any time — the old and the new one. It will result in some duplicated posting effort for sure, but the benefits appear to be worth it. But that is of course for the community to decide.

Writers Guild Content Distribution Pipeline Evolution

Author: 0xNSHuman.

This document outlines the problems and challenges we've identified with the current content distribution model in the DAO, and proposes an immediate actionable solution for increased value and audience outreach.

Background

Bankless DAO produces an increasing amount of content covering all the topics that are tangent to Web3 and Crypto. We are being associated with knowledge and insight when it comes to learning how to navigate the bankless world.

Given the open nature of our content, there is a huge potential - and the need - for having it propagated as far as possible through the various communities and platforms, in order to increase awareness, reach new consumer segments, and enable traffic that would unlock a Web3-friendly business model for the DAO.

Growth & Decentralization Concerns

When some of our new builders came to the DAO and started coming up with ideas on how to leverage the exponentially growing amount of content we produce, they were faced with an issue that's quite critical in Web3 community. Most articles are published using a notoriously restricted solution — Substack — that is openly against having the content escape their gated system.

Link to the Substack Support article: https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/360038433912-Does-Substack-have-an-API-

As far as we know, other distribution channels that Writers Guild relies on are also not opening their systems for the 3rd-party platforms to present the content for the extended audience.

This would be fine if our business model revolved around premium subscription, however based conversations with some of the Writers Guild members, we're convinced that this is not the intention.

Opportunity

There are a couple of pilot products that would feature Writers Guild content and unlock new consumer segments:

🏴 Bankless Mobile App is ready to be released to the App Store. It would feature all the articles we produce next to other pieces of content.

🏴 Bankless DAO Website is interested in giving more exposure to our content through a decentralized platform. It would be able to access the same content as the mobile app thanks to the aggregated content delivery system we've already built in the DAO.

🏴 We are also working on reaching out to other DAOs to offer them our Content Gateway + Mobile App package that will let them host their own content and have our content delivered to them automatically, thus giving us exposure to all their audiences.

All of this is possible today. We just need a little bit of coordination.

Solution

The screenshots of the mobile app you see above are not just some dreamy mockups. We really are displaying the Writers Guild content there. And here's how we do it.

This diagram is massively simplified and hides the tools we've developed to ensure seamless delivery of the content to the devices, but essentially, from the Writers' point of view we simply added an alternative to Substack that is more open and supports sharing content with 3rd-party systems 🤷🏽.

We chose Ghost as the initial proposed solution because:

Bankless DAO website already runs on it. Some of the guild's content was already posted there.

It is a completely open-source system, which means we can copy 100% of the code and customize it in any way we need in the future.

It is also free if we host it on our own server.

Bringing all the existing Writer's Guild content there is as easy as copy-pasting it from Substack.

It takes 5-10 minutes to figure out for anyone who used Substack or a similar system.

In other words, we came to believe that this is a better choise for both Web3-native community and for those who haven't onboarded to crypto world yet.

Action Items

If everyone is aligned and open to making the move to a more open, flexible and powerful content distribution, we would be happy to help make the transition smoother.

First, I'd recommend reading the comparison between Substack and Ghost to get a sense of things that are similar: https://ghost.org/vs/substack/.

Next, we can create an instance of the system and let the writers log in, import subscriber lists, post some content and test different scenarios.

Finally, there can be two co-existing systems at any time — the old and the new one. It will result in some duplicated posting effort for sure, but the benefits appear to be worth it. But that is of course for the community to decide.