[Thoughts #129] DeFormed - Decentralized Surveys
PLUS: 🔭 Zooming out on Reddit's Web3 strategy
DeFormed
A couple weeks ago, I came across a seemingly mundane use case of blockchain.
DeFormed = Decentralized Forms. 🫠 is literally the perfect logo for the product.
Albert (@thatguyintech) is a Developer Advocate at Alchemy, a Web3 developer platform powering the biggest Web3 apps. He worked with a team to create DeFormed at ETHBogota, a hackathon earlier this month.
How does DeFormed work?
The user signs in with either e-mail (Web1), social (Web2), or wallet (Web3) to take the survey.
If the form creator wants to enable Web3 capabilities, they could customize who is able to respond on the backend.
Relevant on-chain credentials are highlighted. Those with more on-chain credentials receive higher priority for review.
When it comes to analyzing responses, the form creator can filter by token ownership or on-chain activity.
If anyone’s interested in digging further, you can:
Follow Kudos on Twitter. They’re going to polish up the DeFormed product since this was conceived during a weekend hackathon.
So…why am I writing about a Web3 version of Google Forms?
Because it’s short and you can get on with your day TPan, duh.
(while editing this piece, I realized that this is not a short piece and edited it from a [Short] to a [Thoughts] lol)
Yes, and because this is a great example of how a mundane use case of Web3 capabilities can create a vastly better experience.
This isn’t music, digital collectibles, loyalty, or ticketing. This is a boring old survey form.
When I first came across this thread, I thought Oh that’s cute. As I continued reading, I realized the implications of a Web3-enabled survey are not only interesting, they provide a clear value prop.
As someone that used to takes the occasional survey for coins on rewards apps like Drop (what can I say, I’m a curious guy!), I’ve received a response like this countless times:
I answered 5 questions before the survey deemed me unqualified for the survey. At least I got 17 points, that’s the first time I’ve seen a partial credit reward for disqualification. Good job survey industry!
Why do we see these survey disqualifications?
Surveys aim to collect responses that are either:
Targeted to a specific subset of individuals (eg: 25-34 year olds that live in Alaska and go snowmobiling in the summer)
Is balanced (eg: There are plenty of survey responses from 25-34 year olds, but we want more responses from the 45-54 year old cohort)
What if you logged in with your Web3 wallet? There are bidirectional benefits:
For the user
Take surveys that you actually qualify for, maximizing points earned
Share relevant info securely through Zero Knowledge and SBTs/VC’s (TLDR: in a privacy-friendly way)
Save time by skipping questions like age, ethnicity, zip code, etc.
For the survey creator
Build a more robust database of surveyed individuals
Create more efficient and targeted surveys
Create surveys that are harder to game (eg: if you want to disqualify users that work in the entertainment industry, you can do that more deterministically if there was a employer credential in the wallet)
Create surveys that enable deeper insights (evaluate on-chain activity)
If a user doesn’t qualify, they can be contacted at a later point with surveys that they’re qualified for
Target across variables that didn’t exist prior (eg: must own a digital collectible NFT from Bored Ape Yacht Club, holds a specific cryptocurrency, has interacted with a specific smart contract)
This results in a win-win-win
Win for the user (better experience)
Win for the survey facilitator (richer offering to clients)
Win for the company commissioning the survey (richer insights)
Flashy? No. Valuable? I think so.
Digital collectibles are great for awareness and buzz, while applications like DeFormed that show the value of the broader capability set that Web3 has to offer for everyday use cases.
It might take months or even years, but I look forward to a taking a survey that asks me to connect my wallet.
Reddit PFP Hype
The excitement around Reddit’s NFT Avatar rollout has reached a fever pitch over the past couple of days with the NFT Twitter crowd, even though the news was about a week old. Maybe it’s one of those news cycle things.
Big names in the space brought more awareness around how big of a deal this was. I agree, this is a big deal.
The whole NFT crowd descended on the new opportunity and there was no shortage of jokes, with Farokh and Kix summarizing how this might play out:
The best part of this unfolding sequence of events is the Redditors enthusiastically making a case for why Reddit Avatar NFTs are different. Screenshots for ease of viewing.
The NFT Twitter space collectively chuckled at this because we’ve been through this before. And with my personal experience, this is a journey that these Reddit Avatar fans will need to go through to understand.
In the words of the 13 year old I met at EDCON back in August regarding NFTs:
“You won’t get it until you participate.”
And now we’re seeing another wave of participants going down the rabbithole.
For me, I’m reminded of when I first onboarded into the world of Web3 via NFTs, but with a different platform, NBA Top Shot.
What did my journey look like?
What does the journey for these Reddit NFT fans look like?
Timelines will vary and will likely be quicker than my journey. There is a larger community, more resources, and Reddit Avatar NFTs are on Polygon vs. NBA Top Shot being in Dapper’s closed (for now?) ecosystem.
Many will stick to the Reddit ecosystem, which is fine. But for those that continue to pull the thread, they will be introduced to an exciting world beyond jpegs and avatars.
What is also interesting is that the frenzy is on an ‘individual’ level. Reddit Avatars are tied to individual identity. I’ve written about the importance of the Community Points rollout.
I believe that this is just the start, and I’ll communicate it through lopsided circles this time around.
There are levels to this. It’s not about a NFT profile pic.
With such a large audience that has historically been against Web3 (specifically NFTs), Reddit is creating a phased rollout strategy. I don’t know if it’ll be exactly like this, but I imagine it will be a version of the above.
Don’t get lost in the NFT hype. There are bigger things at play 🔮…I think?
See you tomorrow.