eSports, Communities & Storytelling

This explosion in eSports contains hints about the future of content, communities and commerce.

We are onto something here. We see that free games could work without ads.

Creators, including brands, influencers, and platforms, must make content that inspires engagement and cultivates “true fans” important for all communities:

One of my takeaways included Robertson’s description of what constitutes valuable online space:

“There is a personal relationship that rises between the streamer and his audience who can shift the motives of spectatorship from casual watching to fandom. That is what happens today when a spectator presses the follow button on Twitch, then donates, and subscribes.”

This is an appealing notion for future communities: that a platform could offer a direct incentive and reward for engagement — with everyone from the semi-regular up to the most prominent of influencers sharing in the economic success of a platform.

That the optimal operating space for influencers is a searchable one, which by definition is content-centric — such an environment is a “gift” from an SEO perspective. The best spaces are topic-driven communities with geometric growth. Examples of such communities included LinkedIn, Stack Overflow, and Behance (where their content silos included ca... See more

In the future, communities, like LinkedIn, could be granted virtual assets along their accounts which would be cashed in upon a liquidity event. Just as new ventures may have had “advisor shares” as compensation for some early parties, tokenization-based solutions could be rolled out for community members.

Let’s close with the following: Storytelling With A Soul Still Succeeds