#189: Rug Radio's STUBS Program
PLUS: 🏗️ RTFKT's community within a community
Engagement with Rug Radio’s STUBS
A few months ago I wrote a piece about how different web3 media brands have incorporated incentive models to encourage a stickier and engaged listenership.
One of the more notable examples of this was with Ryan Carson and his Daily Dose show, drawing in thousands of listeners daily. That effort sunsetted a couple months ago due to Ryan Carson announcing a new investment fund while making inaccurate statements, along with a spotty track record that was resurfaced.
Despite this, the creative approaches to listener engagement have continued to evolve. One of these evolutions is Rug Radio’s STUBS program.
The STUBS program is structured as follows:
Listeners tune into the GM Web3 show every weekday morning
At some point during the show (usually towards the end), the hosts share the password for the day
Listeners go to the STUBS mint page, input the daily password, and mint
In order to mint, listeners must hold at least one NFT from the Rug Radio ecosystem (there are 4 options)
Every Monday, the STUBS artist for the week is introduced along with the exclusive artwork for the program
Every Friday, STUBS holders are able to redeem their mint passes for the artwork within a 48 hour burn window
Simple right? That’s where the twists comes in.
Because the Rug Radio team is partnering with artists, providing creative freedom and flexibility is key. The creativity shouldn’t be limited to the canvas of the jpeg, but also with some of the levers of the STUBS program as well. As a result, the following elements are left up to the discretion of the partnering artist:
Supply cap of artwork that can be redeemed, if any
Number of mint passes to be burned per piece of artwork
The number of editions per piece available for redemption
What does STUBS look like in practice?
Last week was the first week of the program, with GDR as the inaugural artist partner, and he already showed some of the dynamic aspects the program could accommodate.
GDR had two pieces of work that STUBS could be redeemed for:
Purple Ledger: Burn 1
Purple Ledger - Stubs Edition: Burn 3
This week’s artist, With Hearts, has 1 piece available and will require 3 STUBS to be burnt.
What we’re seeing is a static foundation with composable blocks on top:
I believe there will be more variations of the model as Rug Radio and its artist partners better understand the mechanics of the program. Some examples I came up with below.
Regardless of whether or not these additional mechanics are introduced, we can see that there are more levers that can be pulled.
Similar comps to this would be in gaming where there are rich economic models to balance out supply and demand through character balancing, resources, and special events.
It’d be interesting see STUBS supply/demand dynamics based on the artist and the parameters they set.
For example, if Beeple was the artist for the week the demand would go through the roof. Beeple could address the spike in demand by requiring 100 mint passes for 1 redemption, or limit the number of editions that could be minted to 100. Or he could employ both.
A multi-layered opt-in model
Now that we’ve seen what the STUBS program looks like today and may look like in the future, another angle to look is with how the program is opt-in.
This isn’t the same as a simple opt-in for a newsletter.
I see 4 stages of opt-in:
Purchasing and holding a Rug Radio ecosystem NFT: You need to hold a Rug Radio NFT to participate in STUBS.
Listen to the show: You need to listen to the show in order to get the code to mint.
Mint Stub: You need to mint Stubs so you can burn them later in the week.
Burn Stub(s): You need to burn Stubs for the art.
It’s appropriate to call this an opt-in because no one in the Rug Radio ecosystem has to do any these things. You can be an active member or contributor in the ecosystem without participating in STUBS.
Additionally, if you don’t want to bother with all this effort, you can purchase mint passes or the art of the week on the secondary market.
This allows for participation to be direct and indirect.
This creates levers of empowerment for both the creator as well as the collector.
The rabbithole just got deeper 😵💫
I haven’t even mentioned Rug Radio’s Rewards program. Maybe for another time…
The intricacies of engagement
As web3 ecosystem is still in the depths of a bear market, engagement and retention (which hopefully leads to monetization) is the name of the game.
However, engagement as a concept is broad and there is more than meets the eye when measuring it.
When it comes to STUBS, there is a new range of engagement metrics to understand:
How many listeners participate in STUBS? What did their participation in the Rug Radio ecosystem look like before and after the introduction of the program?
How many STUBS participants go all the way from minting the Stubs mint pass to burning? Do other participants ‘opt-in’ or drop off at different stages of the opt-in funnel?
Does STUBS drive more listeners for each GM Web3 show? Does it cannibalize listenership for other Rug Radio shows?
What does ‘engagement’ for a community member look like if they listen vs. mint vs. redeem vs. collect?
The list goes on.
As the leading companies and brands in the space grow their ecosystem, understanding how each of the pieces that make the up whole will become more and more important.
RTFKT’s community within a community
It’s been a while since I’ve mentioned anything about RTFKT, but it was only a matter of time.
Today, the team announced the RTFKT Creators website. And true their superpower, it’s not a proper RTFKT announcement unless there’s a dope video that comes with it.
(PS: Twitter just disabled Substack tweet embeds, possibly as a response to Substack releasing Notes, a Twitter-like competitor, oof.)
Anyway…
What does the RTFKT Creators website have?
Hub: Articles, updates, weekly creator spaces, and creator challenges
Explore: A section that features RTFKT creators and their work. The level of talent is impressive to say the least.
Apply: RTFKT Creators get special access to the RTFKT Creator team, early access to creative tools, and dedicated Discord channels.
Despite being a Clone holder, I didn’t realize how rich the RTFKT creator community is. There’s even a dedicated Creator team at RTFKT.
This helped me understand a few things. They are obvious, but awareness is not the same as acknowledgement:
For RTFKT (and probably true for many other communities):
There are communities within a communities. Collectors, flippers, creators, etc.
Some of these communities are more ‘important’ than others. Creators are strategically important to the point where they get their own dedicated website (love that!)
These sub-communities have primary objectives and secondary objectives. The primary objective for the RTFKT Creators website is to support this sub-community since I believe RTFKT considers them a unique and important group of individuals.
However, I believe the secondary objective here is a step up from RTFKT. The Creator website and ecosystem is a testing ground of sorts for larger ambitions for the parent company, Nike.
dotSWOOSH has officially arrived on Twitter as of this week.
Nike Virtual Studios has been around since late last year, but I have a feeling they’re getting ready for the next phase of their co-creation rollout as evidenced by the more explicit social collaborations.
See you next week!