A few lovely links

Last week, I published my mammoth thesis on the renaissance of community in the online world. In it, I wrote about a number of economic, societal, cultural and technological shifts that are leading us towards the re-nichification of the internet.

I also included a community categorisation, alongside some case studies.

You can find the free version here.

Hidden behind a paywall (sorry, but it was A LOT of work and I think it’s more than fair to be compensated for the rest) is a plethora of other case studies and brand-specific categorisations, showcasing how brands have both tapped into existing communities and built-out their own - including Corteiz, Mattel Creations, August, adidas ALTS, RTFKT, Nike Swoosh and many more.

You can check out that version here.

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Since then, I’ve been diving back into my mountain of reading, sharing quite a few great pieces on Twitter that have caught my eye and are actually directly in line with the predictions and conclusions in the deck. I’ve compiled a few of them below:

A great overview on the rise of paid communities for Gen Z.

'Any brand with a cult following or superfans should have an exclusive fan club. That’s the future.'

An in-depth overview of how the unicorn model, pioneered by a16z, is coming to a swift close.

'Because it was easy to raise capital, the goal was to prioritize growth and worry about the cash burn later.'

The brilliant Kyle Chayka’s latest piece in The New Yorker on the return to the niches and the end of Big Social.

'The next decade of the Internet will yield more cloistered digital spaces that seek to correct the ills of Big Social. The “post-platform” era will consist of smaller online communities connecting through group texts, Reddit forums & Discord servers'

A fantastic piece on the evolution of creator tools and behaviours within music (but applicable to every industry), which is transforming tracks from ‘complete’ to ‘infinite’.

The act of creation IS the experience.

Also, a bonus piece on how Mr Beasts learns has some fascinating nuggets in it, that are entirely aligned with my own process and the one I’ve been espousing for a while now…

'When he looked at friends who relied on advice & frameworks when growing their YouTube channels, they tended to become predictable, formulaic & miss the deeper patterns they needed to exploit to push their craft.'

'Even in chess one of the best predictors of future excellence is how much time a novice spends on studying actual games, trying to predict the next move, training their minds “like a neural net”.'

'Work posted online is a search query to find fascinating people. When you work in public, when you share your insights on Twitter or a blog, or by uploading your videos, your code, your art — people find you. If you do it consistently for years, the internet will rearrange itself around you until it resembles Renaissance Florence, if Renaissance Florence was filled with lunatics that like what you do.'

Have a lovely weekend :-)