A New Frontier for Crescent City Creators

The Web3 Movement – a natural, next evolutionary stage for the Internet – is alive and well in Greater New Orleans.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

This concept, articulated by 19th century French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, was illustrated in real time on Twitter in early August, when The Nieux Society – a collection of New Orleans area entrepreneurs, artists and creators bound together by their willingness and enthusiasm to explore the promise of Web3 technology – posted a pair of clips from NBC’s Today Show.

The first clip was old and iconic, a time capsule in its own right. In it, former Today co-hosts Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel asked their producer: What, exactly, is the Internet? The other clip was new, yet eerily similar to the 1994 Couric-Gumbel clip, as present-day hosts wondered aloud what the Metaverse is and will become.

The point illustrated in all this is that what may seem foreign and strange in the present often becomes commonplace in the future. That’s exactly why several New Orleans firms like The Nieux Society, Gilded, Gripnr and Iconic Moments have made concerted first steps toward embracing the Web3 Movement and readying South Louisiana to embrace and take full advantage of this oncoming technological shift.   

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“I think there’s a responsibility to explore new things, new technologies,” says Tim Williamson, one of the co-founders of The Nieux Society. “And as we do, there’s a huge opportunity because it’s still early. It’s not new, but it is growing. Web3 is an industry that’s emerging, and we think there’s a responsibility and opportunity to position New Orleans for the future.”

That’s all great, of course, but the $64,000 question remains: Just what is Web3?

To oversimplify, Web3 is simply the next evolutionary stage of how the public uses the Internet. Initially, Web1 marked the creation of the Internet and the ability to connect people from across the globe. Web2 dealt with the monetization of the Internet and the struggle for Big Tech companies to grasp a powerful and influential share of the market through platforms like Twitter, Meta (Facebook), YouTube, Spotify and beyond. Web3 seeks to decentralize the Internet, shifting power away from the Big Tech platforms and thus transforming content creators from mere “participants” to true owners of their work and how it’s distributed.

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“It’s a natural progression…and one of the bigger beneficiaries of this progression toward Web3 are the content producers,” Williamson says. “Musicians. Artists. Creators. Now, all of them have not only the opportunity to take ownership of their content, but also create new revenue streams into perpetuity. So that’s what’s exciting: We think there’s going to be a new Golden Age of creativity emerging out of Web3.”

Another major pillar of the Web3 movement deals with how creators are compensated for their works and how consumers pay for that content, good or service—mainly, the proliferation of blockchain technology and digital token-based currency. In present day 2022, roughly 80-million people use some form of a digital wallet to spend and trade various cryptocurrencies or Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). In less than a decade, industry forecasters predict that number will balloon to nearly 1 billion digital wallets. Therefore, it’s imperative that New Orleans businesses are fully prepared to embrace this transactional shift in how we facilitate transactions. 

That’s why, at this stage, the main goal for many of the local entities waving the Web3 banner is to first educate New Orleans creators about this whole digital ecosystem. From there, it’s simple matchmaking – linking individuals or teams of certain skillsets that can complement those with a different skillset. 

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“If you can build a diversified network of folks that can connect around Web3, then you have a real opportunity here,” Williamson says. “Because you have the Web3 technologists…but they might not know art, they might not know real estate, they might not know cuisine. So you bring those people together with the connective tissue being the city of New Orleans itself. 

“Our culture—food, music, art, experiences—that’s value that the world wants to access.”

What’s interesting (and perhaps surprising) is that the connections The Nieux Society hopes to facilitate will be Face-to-Face, in-person connections. To make that a reality, The Nieux Society plans to open a centralized, communal hub on St. Charles Avenue for creators and those with the skills to support those creators to learn, exchange ideas and socialize. 

“As a people, we’re not going to do anything different. We’re going to do the things that made New Orleans unique and desirable for 300 years,” Williamson says. “What we are going to do, though, is change the distribution channel, which will inspire new creativity and new revenue.”

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