Marketing Ideas

General Press & News
61

Thanks for challenging my assumption I thought that maybe it was just me caring about this… Would love to further discuss this.

To me, it seems likely that the differences in scalability between different Blockchains are clearly exponential rather than anything else. With that, I just mean that there seem to be these crazy improvements that unlock orders of magnitude more scale.

With that in mind and when thinking that it might not always be trivial to replace specific pieces of these systems. Can you really say you would not care if some other chain is 50x more scalable than the IC with a similar level of decentralization? My point is yes things like partnerships as well as further features matter. But the thing is, also the partners might choose to switch to the more scalable chain at some point.

Of course, I do understand network effects as well. But it feels to me that there is a race between network effects and technological improvements. Both are exponential things. So a chain being 1000x more scalable than anything out there might easily be powerful enough that all the partners switch to that new system.

Scalability seems to be the key thing that makes people move. Maybe I’m just repeating myself and you just have a different (and totally legit) opinion. I’m curious to hear more of your thoughts.

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You are most definitely no the only one but so far the crypto market has showed it often values narratives and dApps more than decentralization, e.g Matic, BSC, Sol, etc…

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I basically agree, @senior.joinu. I don’t see marketing as the problem for the IC right now.

The IC value proposition is not in its circulating currency, like other crypto, but in its ability to build full-stack Web3 applications on top of it as the next iteration of the Internet. That’s why only ICP has a reverse gas model, which is what will dominate in the long run. All other coins and token economies assume that millions (and eventually billions) of end users of dapps will want to become token investors or not be very put off by having to deal with a complex mix of token transactions to accomplish anything. This is a huge mistake that only ICP’s reverse gas model currently solves.

Moreover, the SNS capability to build all those SNS dapps is only being rolled out now. It’s still quite piecemeal and basically in beta, so let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. The public marketing evangelization that we hope for from a plethora of charismatic leaders can wait until after we have a thriving SNS ecosystem of token economies to congregate around. In the meantime, the early adopters (both developers and end users) will come without more marketing, as they are doing now.

Later on, with VC backing, SNS token economies will be doing their own marketing and evangelizing. I would prefer that DFinity stick to its non-profit R&D knitting in the background and not try to transform itself into yet another platform monolith or business development evangelist to the masses. Just focus on building the next Internet and on keeping the developer community informed, educated and supported. DFinity should not become the center of attention as the next revolutionary launchpad and monopoly dapp incubator. Doing so would obviously increase the risk of DFinity becoming the #1 target of future ICP censorship.

Like the Internet, the Internet Computer will largely speak for itself as it gradually becomes the next indispensable commodity of humanity. If we are truly successful, no one in the distant future should even care who built this magic Internet network and world computer that humanity takes totally for granted.

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64

Technically speaking, it’s not desirable for certain tech companies.

How about? The IC is turning into an unprecedented decentralized cloud infrastructure that makes it possible for other blockchains to not rely on the tech companies whose self preference dominates and inhibits independent developer innovation. Additionally because the IC is built on the principles of distributed ledger technology while integrating self-permissioned mutability, it is opening up new possibilities in the way we organize and coordinate ourselves digitally, which have hitherto necessarily been dominated by custodial centralization; I’d even be willing to bet without something like the IC, other blockchains may never themselves get enough critical mass to realize the benefits of their permissionless decentralized network effects.

Sorry I can’t be more specific other than to create a dapp to demonstrate exactly what this means. Hopefully that helps paint a clearer picture.

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Could it be because the IC can replace the entire IT tech stack, whereas the EVM is like a one-trick pony of programmable debits and credits by comparison?

The better question is how can you expect the IC to launch a storm of SNS token economies without completing the essential components of that new Internet tech stack? Building such a revolutionary platform and then having third parties build enterprise-scale software applications and communities on top of that – all within the ICP blockchain – is going to take years, not months, to get to any level of mass market penetration. More marketing won’t make this timeline any shorter, just like throwing more marketing or money at the metaverse won’t make it arrive any faster for Meta. The good news is that the IC is already years ahead of the competition, since no other blockchain has even entered this level 0 blockchain race yet.

If you are not in it for the long haul as an ICP investor, then you are going to be continually very disappointed - you will inevitably bail out way to soon after adamantly complaining about how better marketing could have brought the IC vision to fruition sooner. ICP is completely unlike any other crypto investment, so take a deep breath and reset your expectations. I believe that patience will be greatly rewarded, but impatience will lead to many months of frustration and then a lifetime of regret.

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The goal of this thread is to present grassroots solutions to a widely recognized problem.

I don’t think the IC is necessarily going to crash and burn without enhanced marketing, but the roadmap forecast has fallen substantially short of predictions. This isn’t a strength.

Increased visibility and usage is a legitimate means for solving several of the problems that appear in this forum regarding price and inflation.

In a theory, time is not relevant. In reality it is.

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67

Indeed, time is very relevant. Hence my emphasis on the importance of both the extended timescale (to build the IC properly as the first and only L0 blockchain) and the marketing timing (to match that extended timescale).

When marketing hype is poorly timed on an extended development timescale, it ends up sounding like a vaporware pump-and-dump to momentum-addicted crypto investors when that functionality doesn’t materialize in production for many more months. Even worse, it makes it easy for detractors to spin an obviously false rug pull narrative. As everyone knows, DFinity has already been dogpiled on social media based on these false scam allegations in the months after genesis.

Don’t worry, once working products based on some of the game-changing functionality in the R&D pipeline becomes available (e.g., native BTC and ETH blockchain integration, HTTP calls to replace oracles, etc.), there will be no shortage of marketing hype from many sources that will be easy for almost everyone to understand.

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68

Nah it has to do more with the fact Dfinity ignored the topic for more than 1 year, despite the fact it was clear the community wasn’t coming to an agreement and discussions on the topic were stagnating, they only got around to it when they realized no token standard meant no DeFi and they needed one for the “upcoming” SNS and ckBTC ledger. It was an oversight on their end.

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69

that, but also we hoped that it doesn’t always have to be DFINITY that defines how things work. We’d have loved to have THE standard develop from the community

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Marketing and marketing education is definitely the biggest issue for IC.

I’ve been active in the crypto community for a long time, and ICPL.app and I have also organized a developer community for IC, which now has over 500 people.

As I spoke with these developers, for those who are not in the IC community and are more used to EVM, they hardly know that the IC network exists, and are completely unaware of the features and technical innovations of IC. At the same time, I hardly see any articles or reports from research and investment organizations comparing IC to other public chain infrastructures, and many data sites do not include IC, which does not match the market cap ranking of ICP.

I know some of you may contradict me, but these potential developers, who are not stubborn ETH maximalists, are actually very open to develop on Solana, Aptos, Sui and Cosmos, even if it means learning a new language and embracing unfamiliar architectures. We shouldn’t use the fact that IC is a separate architecture as a reason for developers not to care.

The fact is that many IC developers are losing information because ICP prices and the roadmap not meeting expectations, and they may have already tried other chain. While a large number of good developers, who do not have access to IC from any of the mainstream media and crypto discussions, prefer to go to other ecosystem.

As a result, the infrastructure on IC is very slow to build, applications with potential to explode are hard to come by, and the adoption rate of IC continues to decline.

I consider myself to be a marketing and sales person. If you follow ICPL.app, you’ll see that we do a lot of marketing and education (we just finished the the INTERSTELLAR Eco Summit, where over 20k people watched 30 IC projects demo online). Especially before ICP Genesis, DFINITY and ICPL.app held some offline and online events to make almost all crypto users (especially in Asia) excited about IC.

However, until now, the community and DFINITY did not agree on what IC can do, what the features of IC are, how IC can attract users and developers, etc. DFINITY also appears less in blockchain media, rarely even participates in crypto industry conferences and events, and hardly cooperates with other ecosystem, we seriously lack communication with the whole crypto. The outside world doesn’t know what’s happening with IC, even as we launch one very powerful new feature after another.

I think we should open up the channels of communication with the whole crypot, go more to communicate with developers, investors, users outside the IC ecosystem, and be more vocal through media channels.

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71

I think we should open up the channels of communication with the whole crypot, go more to communicate with developers, investors, users outside the IC ecosystem, and be more vocal through media channels.

Is this something you believe the IC community can do apart from Dfinity?

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There’s no point in marketing while Dfinity controls the entire network. We’re still in the beta phase of the network if it can’t function without the developers manually controlling it.

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I think we are talking past each other somewhat, since I was not including “keeping the developer community informed, educated and supported” in marketing:

I definitely agree that DFinity could do more developer outreach and education to build more developer mindshare. I think they realize this too based on the success of Supernova and other recent outreach efforts. However, I don’t believe that DFinity should be focusing on superficial marketing to the masses or even investors, which ends up sounding more like hype. That hype may ultimately be quite real, but the vision it is based upon is many years away. For the time being, DFinity should focus on encouraging developers to experiment with the IC and to help their projects be developed as successfully as possible, not on marketing. As an R&D organization, that also happens to be DFinity’s core competency.

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74

Marketing is among other things about building partnerships. Bob Bodily of Toniq tweeted the IC should pair with Polygon for NFTs because “Meta, Reddit, Starbucks, Draft Kings, NFL, Liverpool Football Club, Dolce & Gabbana, Macy’s, Adidas, Adobe, Stripe, Circle, and more have all used Polygon.” Had Dfinity directly partnered with a few important organisations, there would be no need to consider pairing with another blockchain which has done the hard lifting already.
The IC has unique NFT capabilities which surely some major companies could have been induced to try out by now? I suggested upthread a partnership with a prestigious art collection to build an NFT archive that would showcase the IC’s technology and would attract plenty of media attention. There are many ways to bring the tech to wider notice which have not been tried out.
A number of fabulously planned and meticulously built ghost towns exist in the world…

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75

I think we are on the same page here, @Denis, based on your posts that I’ve read so far. I just don’t think “marketing” is quite that fungible of a term (pun intended), which is a minor point in the scheme of things.

For example, I really like your NFT idea about archiving a prestigious art collection. However, I see that as more of a development pilot or partnership, rather than marketing. The bulk of that investment would be a development effort compared to any marketing effort to showcase the project. Your idea does highlight, though, the importance of allocating development outreach efforts to projects with some high public visibility potential. That should definitely be a major criterion to consider in allocating these scarce resources.

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76

Big opportunity to foster a relationship with BitBoy Crypto (Ben) right now. 1.4 million YouTube subscribers, major influencer.

He bought into the “ICP is a scam” mantra and has just turned 180 after realizing SBF was the scam all along. @ld-dfn1 and others, please continue to follow up on this: BIGGEST Scam in Crypto History (FTX Destroyed Peoples Lives) - YouTube

I think @dominicwilliams would also appreciate this opportunity.

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Update:

Glad to see Dominic following up on this opportunity.

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78

Marketing or Advertising
Marking is when you are working with very little and you create a vision of something being more than it is, lots of BS.

Advertising is when you provide a service that is running and operational.

DFINITY should build its vision and they will come when the services are running.

The main problem as I see it today is my personal information and how it is used against me!

Organizations have proven that not only can they not protect my personal information but abuse it for any and all their purposes. That I should be able to control censorship access from abuse or because I want to.

Should not the IC provide a neuron with the ability to process payments from information within my neuron and login to all website with that neuron?

The IC is not in the business of creating websites or running business operations but running a new network that provides the security and transaction that a network should provide. It should demonstrate how any organization can operate an online service that overcomes the criminal elements, provides personal details security and will therefore bring more investment into this project for DFINITY to build this network.

Many main tech companies pay billions in fines for security breaches and have the funds to build on the IC, forget the pubs, show big tech how to protect personal information on the IC with incentives and have these teams building on the IC and let the IC build the network and these large tech companies will burn the cycles.

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I wanted to get my icp coins on binance into my plug wallet. However, I saw that the plug wallet could not connect to the binance network.Binance network doesnt knows plug wallet. This time I have got an infinityswap wallet. Unfortunately, swapinfinity wallet could not connect with binace either. In short, I want to say this. For marketing to be successful, All ICP wallets must be able to engage with the ethereum and BNB chains. Because these are the densest networks. Wallets such as metamusk and TWT, which are the most widely used in the market, should also be able to communicate with the ICP network. A special team should be established urgently within the Developer team so that only safe and network interactions can be ensured.
Otherwise all the time and money spent on marketing will be wasted

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80

This may seem stupid, but the way the internet at large had correlated “internet computer protocol” with “insane clown posse” is a disgrace. to that end though, why doesn’t IC capitalize on this and hire shaggy 2 dope to talk about it, how internet computer and IC are not related. It would be very meme worthy and a crowd conscious acknowledgement of a long-standing issue.

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