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Evolution & Future of Now Media w/ Matt Medved| Grateful Show #381
Recorded: July 1, 2025 Duration: 1:50:40Space Recording
Short Summary
In a dynamic discussion, Now Media's launch signifies a pivotal shift in the media landscape, integrating blockchain technology and fostering partnerships to enhance user engagement. The conversation highlights trends in digital ownership, potential token launches, and the importance of community-driven growth in the evolving crypto space.
Full Transcription
Yeah, let's take em back.
Uh huh.
Coming up I was confused, my momma kissing a girl.
Confusion of girls coming up in the cold world.
Daddy ain't around, probably out committed felonies.
My favorite rapper used to sing, check, check out my melody.
I wanna live good, so shit.
I sell dope for a four finger ring. One of them gold ropes, Nana told me if I pass I'll get a sheep skeet coat
If I can move a few packs, I'll get the hat, now that'll be dope
Tossin turned in my sleep that night, or with the next morning niggas that stole my bike
Different days, same shit, ain't nothing good, in the hood I run away from this bitch
And never come back if I could, be the love of the underdogs on top
And I'm gon' shine on me until my heart stops Go ahead and top, and I'm gon' shine, homie, until my heart's stopped.
Go ahead and beat me, I'm Raps MVP, and I ain't goin' nowhere, so you can get the
known me.
Hate it or love it, the underdog's on top, and I'm gon' shine, homie, until my heart's
stopped.
Go ahead and beat me, I'm Raps MVP, and I ain't goin' nowhere, so you can get the
known me.
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,
shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,
shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, guns on both sides, rider butter, go wires, I'll 4-5'em.
Kill a nigga on my soul and really do it, that's the true meaning of a ghost rider.
10 G's to take your daughter out of air forces, believe you me homie, I know all about losses.
I'm from Compton where the wrong colors be cautious, one phone call, had your body dumped in Marcy.
I stay strapped like car seats, been banging since my little nigga Rob got killed for his Barclays.
That's 10 years I told Pooh in 95.
I'll kill you if you try me for my Air Max 95s.
Told Banks when I met him I'ma ride and if I gotta die I'd rather homicide.
I ain't had 50 cent when my grandmama died.
Now I'm going back to Cali with my Jacob on.
See how time flies.
I'm gonna shine on me until my heart stops.
Go ahead and lead me.
I'm Raps MVP. And I ain't going nowhere so you can get the know me. Yo, GMGM everybody.
We have such an amazing episode today. Can't wait. Amazing guest, amazing topic, but we still have two more minutes of intro, so drop a GM in the comments, retweet the space, we have 20 people here, 3 retweets, so we can do better, and also I want to try one more thing guys, yesterday Squiddy, he played bookmark games, so try to bookmark the space, let's see how it affects the the visibility i think it works
let's see if we can make it happen and yeah let's go two more minutes of intro guys retreat the
space and let's fucking go Party Rock!
Party Rock!
Yeah!
Woo!
Let's go!
Party Rock is in the house tonight.
Everybody just have a good time.
And we gon' make you look good.
Party Rock is in the house tonight Everybody just have a good time
And we gon' make you lose your mind
Everybody just have a good time
Party Rock is in the house tonight
Everybody just have a good time
We can feel this pretty bad
And we gon' make you lose your. We just want to see you.
Shake that. Let's go, guys got that devilish blue.
Let's go, guys. What a great day.
Retreat the space and let's go.
This is Grateful Show 381.
GMGM, everybody. I'm so happy to be here today.
We have such an amazing day here in Prague in Europe.
It's hot, but it's amazing. We have incredible guests today and special co-host, Dachi.
Welcome. How are you doing, man?
I'm doing great and probably just as hot as you. I'm in Paris, so no AC is part of the experience.
And yeah, but we've got a fan, So we're feeling blessed today. How are you?
Yeah, I'm doing great, man.
We are getting so much fun in Europe for not having AC here.
I don't know why, but it's a true story.
Well, I mean, what do you think?
You think one day we'll do something about it, you know, like maybe change our stance on AC and see if we can maybe, you know,
shift in a new direction. I don't know.
I'm kind of an advocate for AC at this point.
And I believe it's just the beginning. So moving into July and August,
I believe at the end of the week, we're going to get 99 degrees.
And I know I'm speaking like a true American. So whatever that is, you know,
it's hot. That's the point. So yeah yeah, hopefully we'll change our stance on that soon.
Yeah, you know how it works in Europe, bro, right?
People or governments will start supporting crypto here, I think, in like 2050, right?
So the AC is coming maybe in the next century.
Who knows?
But guys, we have a very, very exciting topic.
I'm really happy that we have matt here
on stage with us we had last episode together march 21st 2023 so it's been over two years
and i'm so stoked that they've been still building and cooking in space that so like i know a lot has
happened since then uh you know we we're not talking about NFT now, we're talking about Now Media, which is very exciting. And yeah, we got to be talking about that. And I cannot wait
to learn more. So Matt, welcome here. Super happy to have you here. How are you doing today, man?
Yo, thank you so much for having me. I'm doing great. It's been a crazy past week,
very eventful. There's a lot going on, a lot happening this week,
but it's a good kind of busy.
So life is good, man.
I can't complain.
Happy to be, like you said,
you know, happy to still be building in the space.
Man, I was checking my NFT collection
and I saw NFT Pass and NFT Now Pass.
And I was like, man, I'm going to claim it.
And I was so surprised that everything worked. I claimed the year membership and I was like, man, I'm going to claim it. And I was so surprised that everything worked.
I claimed the year membership and I was so happy.
So I tweeted out, you guys replied and I was like, hey, let's run it again.
And let's learn more about what you've been cooking because it's not easy to be in Web3,
right?
We've seen so many companies going out of business.
And when I saw that you still cooking, man, I was really, really happy that you still, you know, here building and progressing. So really bullish, man. Yeah, man. No, a hundred
percent. Look, like anybody who tells you that it's been easy over the past couple of years
in the Web3 space, specifically NFT space, either raised a ridiculous amount of money or is lying.
You know what I mean? Like, it's been tough for everyone.
And we went through our own challenges as well.
You know, had to let go of some staff members, had to tighten the belt,
had to kind of focus, hone in the focus on the areas that were going to be the most, you know, high impact,
and continue to evolve to meet the changing market.
You know, I always say this, it's like, I feel for all the projects that had to kind of fold and
shut things down.
It's a brutal, brutal mark out there.
It's been especially brutal for the Web3 space.
It's a challenging time for media too. I always say that we have like three levels of volatility in our business we've got web three media and a startup so it's always eventful but you know like it honestly like it would have been easier to just you know call it quits say hey you know we did our best we tried but you know we really believe in the in in the vision of the new now media and what we're building.
And that's what kind of kept us going through the tough times, through the more challenging
periods, was just knowing that we saw where the brand needed to evolve.
We saw where the market was going, where things were going.
And we really feel as though we're addressing a very critical need. And so, yeah, man, like, I just want to say I feel for all those projects and, like, you know, everyone's been going through
it. But, you know, what's really important is, like, if you have that conviction if you uh if you keep your eye on on that north star
um you know you can uh you can you can get through some challenging times and and we definitely did
and you bring you you personally have been through a lot right because i think you were
you were actually djing during the first ape fest man right is that correct yeah yeah crazy
how time flies right we we will have 51 right now or 41 in las vegas yeah man it's crazy how time flies, right? We will have 51 right now or 41 in Las Vegas?
Yeah, man, it's crazy.
You know, my whole background is in the music side.
You know, prior to starting Now Media, I was at Billboard for about six years.
I founded Billboard Dance, the dance music brand there.
DJ and produce a lot of music.
You know, I ran Spin Magazine as editor-in-chief.
And it was actually Blau.
You guys may know him, Justin Blau, the DJ producer.
He was super early to music NFTs.
Very good friend of mine.
He was the one who actually got me into NFTs in 2020.
So it's always nice to be able to bring the worlds together.
And yeah, it's kind of crazy.
DJing the first ever Ape Fest, I remember great memories of that.
What a time.
You know, the boat with James Murphy and opening for the Strokes at Brooklyn Steel.
Obviously, some great memories, you know, made throughout the years, especially with the ape community.
Hey, Matt, is there a parallel to the early days
of dance music culture and digital art culture, in your opinion? Yeah, I'm happy to ask that. I
100% think there is. You know, it's interesting. I always say, like, you know, I had to lead a,
when I got to Billboard, it may be hard to imagine now, especially for some of the younger people,
It may be hard to imagine now, especially for some of the younger people, but when I got to Billboard in 2015, it was run by mostly old rock music heads who didn't respect dance music.
So dance music was the insurgent counterculture.
And I was leading essentially a change movement at a legacy institution with Billboard.
And I had to fight for the legitimacy of dance music
and electronic music pretty much every day I got to work.
And then we all know what happened.
Dance electronic music took over the charts,
became a massive force for pop crossover.
People stopped asking me when the EDM bubble was going to burst.
And now the dance music industry, well, it's interesting, actually.
You know, we recently celebrated the the 10 year anniversary of Billboard Dance,
because I started it in 2015 and now it's 2025.
And so I wrote actually a guest op-ed for Billboard,
kind of reflecting on when we started it, what's changed over the years.
And I made a couple analogies there.
Yeah, I think that what's happening with digital art,
especially getting into making incursions
into the traditional art world,
into legacy auction houses, legacy institutions,
there's absolutely a parallel.
And just like with dance music,
digital art has had to fight for legitimacy.
It's been counted out many times.
But, you know, and it's had its ups and downs.
You know, dance music, for example, when COVID hit, it lost.
Like, I mean, the market, I forget how much it crashed, but it's a tremendous amount because you know dance music is largely driven by uh live
events and so you know just to show that like even that market weathered a big crash um but has come
back strong now you know the uh the dance the dance music the global dance music industry is up um
you know is up uh 87 uh since uh since we started started Billboard Dance back when people were saying it was a bubble.
So, yeah, as I said, it lost more than half its value during COVID.
So I think there are some interesting parallels.
I still think that, you know, digital art is still more niche, obviously,
you know, and it has its own it has its own unique challenges and opportunities.
But I've never been afraid to put my name and brand
and energy and efforts on the line
for something I believe in,
even if the rest of the world isn't quite there yet.
And so I think that what we've been doing,
it was very interesting kind of celebrating
that 10-year anniversary of Billboard Dance
right before we launched the New Now Media
because it was kind of like a full circle thing
to think about in terms of my own career journey
and how much media has changed since then
and how much the space has changed
across both.
So, yeah, I think there's definitely a parallel.
And I think if there is that parallel, it's definitely there's optimism in that because
all of the people who, the naysayers who, you know, said that dance music was a fad or was going to go away or was just a bubble, they were proven wrong.
Because 10 years later, it's going even stronger than ever.
So I hope we're saying the same thing for digital art in 10 years.
It's a great point because I see a lot of successful people in web 3 that actually experienced this before right like uh tino our our co-host here he's been through this through his streetwear
brand and everyone was like naysayers that you know streetwear is a fud etc etc so he told me
the same like he sees it like you know 15 years ago in in his streetwear brand when he was building
that so it's very interesting to see that matt I would love to ask you because I checked the preparation for the last space back in 2023
and the first point that we talked about was that traditional media don't work anymore
there were like three points like clickbait raised to the bottom people are the product
optimization for revenue so I would like to ask you, that was about NFT now, right?
What has changed since the rebrand?
Is your focus shifted a little bit?
What was the journey since the last time?
Yeah, it's a really good question.
And actually, I think all of those points are as relevant or even more relevant now.
And so let me tell you a little bit about kind of that journey.
You know, we started as NFT Now in January 2021 when, you know, NFTs were like the hot, new, exciting, you know, medium that all of a sudden was enabling digital ownership in a way that wasn't possible before.
But, you know, I've dabbled in crypto since 2013. I bought my first Bitcoin back then. You know, I was doing a
lot of stuff with like music and blockchain during like 16, 17. But I never jumped in full time into
the space because at the end of the day, I'm not a finance guy. I'm a culture guy. Right. And so for
me, you know, while crypto is very interesting, while crypto, like I always believed in the tech, I always believed in the promise of it.
You know, it really took the rise of NFTs for me to jump in full time.
And the reason wasn't necessarily because of the medium NFTs, but because of what it enabled, which was digital culture in a way that in a movement around digital culture that we had never seen before on that level,
at that scale, disrupting different industries and creating an incredible,
you know, kind of like a groundswell for creators, to empower creators,
and to enable digital ownership in a way that just, you know,
it was a total shift in just like how creators' communities and technologies were converging.
So, like, that was kind of the moment where the company was born.
And as we navigated the shifting tide, the evolving space,
the rise of AI, so much has happened.
I always say in this space, weeks or months, months or years.
We recognized that we also needed to evolve to meet the moment.
I think it's really important not to mistake a media medium for the movement.
And so recognize that like digital culture.
Is bigger than NFTs it always has been always will be.
And NFTs are a very important medium within digital culture, but ultimately the movement
is bigger, right?
And so we recognize that our coverage scope also needed to expand and with that our brand.
And so NFT Now will remain a brand that we have for us.
It's not like we're getting rid of it or anything.
It's just going to be within the greater now media ecosystem. And I think it's very important for us to not get pigeonholed based on
that kind of flagship brand.
And so, but one thing I think is really important is as this evolution is happening,
we're also noticing a lot of other trends in the space.
Everything you said, we've long said that Web2 Media is broken,
but it's even more broken now than when we first said that.
The rise of AI has changed everything, right?
Now you essentially can get infinite content at an incredibly low cost.
And what we're seeing is the rise of AI slop and
just really brain rot content that's out there.
And unfortunately, algorithms that are broken and serve and like populating that kind of stuff
like ad nauseum. So, you know, one of the things that I often struggle with, and this is something
that we started to realize that others were dealing with, was what I have to call feed fatigue.
we started to realize that others were dealing with was what I had to call feed fatigue.
And it's like just the overwhelming, like feelings of like overwhelmed burnout, et cetera,
trying to stay on top of what's happening in this space, trying to stay abreast of all of the
opportunities that exist in this space, but having to navigate these like really just dumb feeds.
But having to navigate these like really just dumb feeds like, you know, like, I mean, I log into X these days and I see right wing screeds.
I see out like like fight videos.
I see like weird, dumb, viral, like, like animal videos and things like cool.
But like, no, that's not what I asked for.
I didn't follow any of these accounts.
Right.
And like the algorithm continues to serve them up.
And what's crazy is because now there's a monetization model for X, you also have a ton of accounts out there that are simply trying to game that system, proliferating that kind a very distracting and anti-intellectual and like
and super dumbed down space that borders on toxic at times.
And so, you know, what we and so we're recognizing these issues.
We're recognizing that we have like smart readers drowning in dumb feeds.
We also recognize that like algorithms are no longer serving the people that they're intended to.
And, you know, this sort of this new vision for us came together, you know, of, like, where now media can go.
And so, you know, I know that when we spoke last time, I think it was right around, right after, right around the launch of the NowPass.
And one of the things that we built as part of the roadmap for the NowPass was the Now
Network.
And so our CTO and creative director, Aaron, built out, you know, in private beta for Now
Pass holders, the Now Network, where Now Pass holders could actually not just, you know,
follow along our content,
but follow other publications,
other podcasts, other video platforms,
and curate their feeds to basically be able to have
the personalized feeds and stay on top of
the publishers and platforms and
media creators that they wanted to be across.
And we recognize that this was something that there was real potential for
to integrate into NowMedia proper.
Especially because it directly addresses this issue, which is like,
being able to personalize your own feed, being able to choose who you follow and
not having to worry about dumb things you didn't ask for or ads and algorithms like getting in the way of it is something
about that I think it really struck a chord with a lot of a lot of people
were speaking to and so that's one of the cool thing elements around so we
recognize like I this this rebrand this read this reset is more than just
cosmetic it's not just simply changing the handles and changing the name it's
it's a full if we basically went basically went back to the drawing board and rethought through just everything
on the fundamentals of the business from top to bottom, which is very challenging to do,
I'll say.
I know startups are obviously more nimble than bigger companies, but it's still like
when you've ran a company for, you know, at that point was four years, you know, and to kind of return to basics
and think about about things from the ground up again, it could be really exciting, but it can
also be really intimidating. And so kudos to the team. I mean, we all came together. And, you know,
sometimes we had different ideas and opinions. And, you opinions and it was a lot like good healthy
tension at times, like trying to figure out like, okay, you see this feature, I see this thing,
how do they come together into a product? And it's still evolving and there's still a number
of things that I'm excited to roll out. This is kind of like the first step of it. But we
recognized that the new now media was necessary and we recognize that a new site was necessary.
We recognize that an expanded coverage scope was necessary.
So, you know, when it comes to the new now media, like we're dedicated to digital culture across crypto, you know, art, you know, AI and policy.
Those are kind of like the pillars that are guiding, you know, the current coverage scope.
One of the other things we noticed about how media has changed, you know, back when we started NFT Now,
you know, there were, you know, it was, there was already trends moving more in the creator direction.
But, you know, since then, you know, people are really gravitating more towards personalities
than brands, right? People trust people, Paramount. And so I remember when I went to journalism school,
you know, the old school mentality was that the brand should be first and foremost, right? And
everything kind of goes through the brand. That's been turned on its head. People don't want to hear like stilted, stale like brand talk.
They want to connect with people.
And I think the brands that are succeeding are the ones that are putting the people front and center.
And so that's something that's also shifting with our approach.
You may have actually noticed if you've been a subscriber to our newsletter, been following our content.
But even prior to this launch, we've been shifting things.
We've been trying new
formats. I've started writing a lot more again, kind of going back to Square One,
because that was what really got us off the ground in the early days was me writing about
the space. But it's been a lot more personal. It's a lot more voicey. It's a lot more like me, like front and center versus like, oh, it's now media in my inbox.
And it's not just going to be me.
We're going to be bringing on a number of other contributors, bringing other newsletters
into the fold, and really having Now Media be a place where different personalities, different writers, different
podcasters, different hosts can come together and kind of like an umbrella for all of them,
but that puts them front and center. So very much like a shift in the content strategy and
philosophy as well. I know this is a lot, but there's a lot to get through. And then also the
other trends over the past few years,
the rise of subscription models, the rise of newsletters,
the rise of direct to consumer media,
just because you can't trust the algorithms anymore.
You know what I mean?
It's like they're deprioritized links,
they're not trying to get you off platform.
You can't rely on platforms like X or Instagram
to bring people to what you're doing.
And so that's why those have become so powerful.
And so it's exciting.
So, you know, one of the things that I'm really excited about with the new now media is the membership model that we're launching.
And so, you know, there's basically like three levels to it.
There's basically three levels to it.
There's the free level, which if you go on, create an account, boom, you can read the free articles.
You get access to the Now, which is our baseline free newsletter.
It used to be the Now newsletter, and we expanded it from once a week to three times a week,
Wednesday, Wednesdays, Fridays,
because to keep up on the space,
you just need more touch points like that.
Then where it gets really fun,
where the value really starts is like you get into
sort of like the subscription models,
like the paid subscription models.
We have two tiers there, standard and premium.
Standard gets you access to all of
the private newsletters that we're doing.
So for example, one of the ones I'm really excited about,
it actually launches today.
So I'm probably going to publish it right after the space,
is Luminaries.
And Luminaries is this concept that we've been cooking up. It's deep
dive profile features with some of the biggest movers and shakers in the space. So the biggest
artists, the founders, the CEOs, et cetera. And it's really well-written, really well-reported
deep dive profiles written by myself, all of them.
And what's cool about it is like not only do our members get access to the feature, but they also get access to that luminary each week as well.
So like, for example, the one that's dropping today is like this incredible, he's an incredible artist.
You guys all know his name.
He's been a real pioneer and at the forefront of the space.
And later this month, we're going to also do like a private Q&A,
you know, like a Zoom kind of webinar off the record
where anyone who's a member is going to be able to ask questions
or, you know, if they to ask questions or if they have
a pitch, if they have a shot to shoot, you know what I mean?
They can actually directly engage with this person who normally isn't that available.
And so that's an element that we recognize too is like, I think it's very important that
we be serving opportunity as a service. So that's one of them.
We have another one called
In The Flow that's dedicated to the policy side of things.
That's going to come out every Thursday,
Luminaries every Tuesday.
Then for that standard side,
you get access to all the articles, all that,
and you can also start to customize.
You can find content in the explore area
from more than 100 other sources that we've curated.
Let's say you want to follow what Blockworks is doing,
you want to follow what the podcast is doing,
you can follow all of those within
this and they'll populate there.
Then the crown jewel of it
is our premium membership,
which you get everything
that I just mentioned in standard tier,
but you also get access
to the personalized feeds.
You can actually see everything
in the feeds in real time
that you followed.
We have this AI aggregated daily digest
that draws on all of your interests and personalizes
and emails you with all of
the pieces of content that are
related to the things you've indicated.
That's where all of the access to our invite-only events,
and all the exclusive salons and events come in.
Yeah, there's a lot there.
We've got an exclusive telegram for that.
And yeah, that's where our premium membership
is kind of where all of those opportunities
to connect with our guests
and with the talent that we bring to the table will happen.
And for anyone who's here and who holds a NowPass,
well, first off, thank you for your support for our community.
And second, you're eligible, like you mentioned, grateful,
you're eligible to claim a free year of premium membership.
That's all live and ready to go.
And so it's been really fun to see our incredible NowPass community getting
involved because this evolution wouldn't
be possible without them. So I know that's a lot and there's a lot more I can dig into
like all the things. But yeah, I just wanted to kind of give that that lay of the land
as to how we've evolved and and sort of what we evolved into.
Man, love it. Many great points. I especially enjoyed the one that you mentioned that we
want to talk to people, not to brands, right?
We see also that the same with Garga, when he got back into CEO role and he started sharing the announcements,
like it feels so much different.
So absolutely, yeah, absolutely love that, man.
Dachi, I saw your hand up.
So go ahead.
Before we do that, guys, if you have any questions, drop them into the comments.
I'll go through them and I'll ask Matt. But Dachi, go ahead, man. Yeah. So, you know, you were talking about basically,
you know, one of the main issues for people trying to consume content or at least find the right
content is that the algorithm is sort of delivering content that's like drinking from a fire hose.
So like, what's your thought process on deciding which stories are the right fit for now media?
And then also with the speed and delivery
that this information's coming,
how do you balance research and fact-checking
with being first to a story
or does that not matter in your model?
Such a huge issue and such a great question.
I appreciate that one, Dutchie.
Yeah, no.
So one of the things that you'll notice,
if you go to, I pinned it to the top,
you can go check out the new Now Media page.
One of the things you'll notice is like,
you know, when it comes to our own content,
we're being very judicious as to what we cover.
We're not just gonna be like,
your one thing you're not going to see
are just kind of like throw away news stories.
I think these days, for example,
I think these days news breaks on social.
That's where people get their news,
especially in the Web3 space.
So you notice like, for now,
media will always do breaking news,
news tweets, things like that.
But if something can be a tweet,
like if something can be like that, it doesn't need to be an article on our site like that. But if something can be a tweet, if something can be like that,
it doesn't need to be an article on our site like that.
If you want to follow along other publications that are more dedicated to news,
you can in those feeds, etc.
But for us, we're really focused on delivering
very valuable content that you can't actually find anywhere else.
What does that mean?
That means an extra element of analysis,
an extra element of nuance.
It means interviews that were done originally.
It means opinionated takes and op-eds.
We like to talk about this idea of crafted content,
content that you can't just simply have an AI
aggregate and spit out, right?
And so that's what's really important to us
as we build out the new Now Media.
And that's why you'll see
the new premium newsletter offerings,
like Luminaries, like In The Flow.
We have BTC Now coming for the Bitcoin community.
They're very much focused on digital culture through those lenses and through the lens of very highly intentional contextual coverage
and especially human-centric coverage.
Like there's a reason why Luminaries is one of the flagships.
It's all about people, right?
People care about people.
People care about people.
You'll see there are some like op-eds under there about different trends.
I did like if you bounce around the site, you'll see I did a deep dive on the rise of
AI in the music industry and how it's disrupting the music industry.
Obviously, something that's very interesting to me.
But again, that's like a 4,000 word deep dive. It's not a simple like throwaway news article, right? So what we kind
of see it as is this, is, you know, being on top of, you know, the stories, the news stories,
things like that on social. Always like we bring, you know I I went to journalism school you know obviously have a
background at very you know top tier publications you know we abide we abide by our journalistic
ethics code and that means confirming sources that means you know not necessarily rushing to
post something until it's been confirmed sometimes Sometimes, you know, the breaking news accounts will beat us to something.
We work really fast, you know?
I mean, we're the ones who broke like the price
for the CryptoPunks acquisition, you know,
that was something that we, like,
that was a scoop that we confirmed, things like that.
You know, we always confirm things before we post them,
like that journalistic ethic is really important. And, you know, and, and so nothing's changed in that regard.
I do think that we've seen plenty of opportunities where people have like,
you know, tried to maximize engagement over, over authenticity. And,
you know, it might get you more clicks and views in the short term,
but it really, I think it really damages, you know,
the trust and respect around your brand in the long term, but I think it really damages the trust and respect
around your brand in the long term. And so we recognize also that there are plenty of shallow,
surface level news and takes on the timeline. We're offering something different. And I think
that that's really important. That's something that's very intentional. And that's something that the content and coverage is going to reflect. And we think it's something that there is an appetite for. You know, I know that, you know, like we've received so many, you know, since we launched, and obviously, you know, this is just the first step. There's still a lot more to come.
the site, so many people have reached out and been like,
I've been waiting for something like this.
I love the new newsletter, I love this,
because it's just more intelligent content that respects
our readers time and attention.
And is not just trying to compete for clicks or
try and hack the algorithm or system to get eyeballs to get 50 more dollars on the
Elon stimulus check.
I think that we're recognizing just this climate that we're in.
Obviously, InfoFi has become a huge driver of attention and also a monetization engine
for crypto Twitter.
There's some good sides to that.
But I think there's also some bad sides to that where like you have a lot of the timeline
getting flooded with a lot of content that really, you know, maybe informative, maybe
helpful to me, but really it was created so that the person who created it could get more
yaps or get whatever, right?
And so, you know, you never need to worry about that from us.
And so from our perspective,
like we're going to cover the stories that matter.
We're going to tell the stories of the people that matter.
And, you know, if that aligns with you,
we hope you'll support us in our journey
and be a part of it by becoming a member.
Man, Twitter became something very weird recently i like it's of course because of elon and
monetization and everything that's happening i also think that if twitter looks like this in 2021
it would be much harder to form communities like byc and everything that happened back in the day
because it was so much easier now Now, as you mentioned, man,
I'm seeing so many different things
that I'm not even interested in.
It's wild.
And I'm looking for tools,
how to learn new things,
how to get stuff without the brain rot, right?
Because all this scrolling,
I think it's killing your brain,
whether it's TikTok,
whether it's now Twitter,
it's just, you feel it wrong in your head. And also I'm looking for a tool, which I really hope it's going your brain whether it's tick tock whether it's now now twitter it's just you feel it wrong in your head and also i'm looking for a tool which i really hope it's going to be other
side where we can hang out uh as apes as communities and have fun right so love that you
that you mentioned that uh what is the role of blockchain in media like uh does it authenticate the authors and what they wrote?
Or, you know, how do you utilize that technology in your business?
Yeah, it's a really good question.
So you may recall, you know, we launched Sovereignty,
which is our Web3 content tool suite,
basically like our own CMS to make content on chain.
We're integrating that still into the new Now Media site.
We're going to be using it across all of our free content.
Obviously, the content that's paywalled,
just for premium members,
can't mint that on chain,
otherwise everybody could see it because that's the beauty of on chain.
But everything that's freely available will be minted on-chain.
So we deployed that on base.
And we always say we're one of the first,
or probably the first, fully on-chain media company
in the sense that every single article that we had published
prior to the new era has been minted on-chain
since we launched and deployed sovereignty in February of 24.
And so I'm a big believer that the future of media is on chain.
I think that to me, technology has always pushed storytelling forward.
from the printing press to newspapers to web,
the early web, websites to mobile, to social.
I think on-chain is the next evolution of that.
So yeah, to me,
where it gets really exciting is how you can
also figure out proof of provenance, authenticity,
especially in the age of AI misinformation, where there's a real need to be able to tell
was something published in the form that it claims to be from the source that it claims
to be incredibly important.
We've even seen some other sites in the crypto space like Blockworks get attacked by bad
actors who spoofed their site created an entire fake version of it and a fake article that led
to a phishing link and you know it looked exactly like the real Blockworks site it looked exactly
like the kind of article they would normally cover the only you know and at that level it's like how
can you tell well check the chain. Unless there's a massive,
massive security breach as well,
in which case you have a bigger issue.
Then if something isn't published from the official wallet,
then it probably isn't authentic.
That's been the MO with sovereignty.
Then the other thing where I think it gets really interesting is
the idea around digital ownership and
collectability around content for media companies.
You know, I always give this example.
And Sovereignty enables all that, too, with White Label.
When I was at Billboard, you know, we did seven figures in revenue overnight from the BTS box set, which is, if you don't know BTS, they're probably the biggest K-pop group in the world.
And they have a rabid, rabid global fan base.
And so normally, magazines like Billboard lose money on the magazine.
The print side usually doesn't make money.
In fact, it costs. It's a cost center.
But that did seven figures in revenue
because the fan base cared so much about the collecting, collecting that piece of history in their eyes.
You know, like BTS on the cover of Billboard is a huge deal.
And so I remember also when I was running Spin Magazine, you know, Spin was fully digital by the time I took over.
But we would still do covers.
And I actually, one of the things I led was making the covers feel
legit again, make them really beautiful, well shot, top tier talent, design properly.
And we put Billie Eilish on the cover right before she won all the Grammys. And I remember we were
being blown up by her fans being like, how do I buy this? How do I buy this? And I was like,
you can't because it's 2018 and I don't know what an NFT is yet. You know what I mean? But obviously there's, you know, you think about it,
it's like, hmm, there is an element where that can play a role with like digital collectability
around certain moments or big things. I don't think every piece of content needs to be,
and, you know, needs to be sold as an NFT.
And most obviously, almost actually all of the ones we've minted with Sovereignty, we've
just done for provenance reasons.
But I do think that it can play a role where it gets collectible and the like.
And yeah, so stay tuned.
There's actually some, there's going to be some fun stuff in the works actually on the
Sovereignty front with Ape Chain.
You know, I can't reveal everything right now, but there's some fun things on the horizon when it comes to sovereignty on Chain Media and Ape Chain.
So I figured this would be a good space to tease it, just because I know we got a lot of apes in the house.
Man, Lost and NGBR in the audience.
I know why they are here.
They're checking if you dropped it off or not.
But I also wanted to say about ApeChain, right?
That we had those F1 posters.
It was so easy to actually claim them through Glyph.
So the tech really evolved and it's so much easier than back in 2021.
And I think this is the way, right?
Like you don't want everyone.
And I experienced it with my friends that it was so hard to onboard them in crypto with all that seed phrase and hardware wallet, etc.
But if they can log in with email and mince something, I think that's the easy way and how it should be for most of the people, right?
A hundred percent.
And that was one of the reasons why the new now media is so important.
You know, like I said, you think about it this way.
I think that we will know we've arrived here when we're not talking about the tech,
but we're talking about what the tech is doing for us, right?
My friend Keith Grossman over at MoonPay, used to be Time,
he likes to say that the space hasn't had its iPod moment yet. The iPod moment was 1,000 songs in
your pocket. Everyone was so excited because, I mean, I remember as a music fan, that was
unthinkable to me. So I was, but you know what I was, you know, I wasn't excited about the MP3s,
you know, I obviously knew what MP3s are. I can't tell you how they're encoded, you know,
but they're a very important medium for digital music. And, you know, I was just thinking, I mean,
like, you know, imagine running a music publication called MP3 Now in 2025, right?
You know, it's actually sounds kind of cool. It's kind of got like the vinyl, like, you know,
it's come back around. It's got the like the little hipster, hipster, alternative vintage thing going. But you know
what I mean? Like joking aside, you know, there's an element of not mistaking the medium for the
movement, right? Digital music is a massive movement. MP3 is a very important technology
and medium for it. But we don't necessarily talk about MP3s these days
when we talk about Apple Music, Spotify, streaming,
like, you know, all of the rise in AI music,
all of these things.
And I also think that there's an element of that with NFTs.
I think NFTs are going to be incredibly important.
I think that, you know, I'm still a huge believer
in, you know, the capabilities of the medium,
the technology.
And I think that, like, digital ownership and the ownership of unique digital assets is only going to get more important as time goes on, as we live in an increasingly digital world.
But like you said, look how much easier it is to get somebody on board when that's beneath the surface, when they sign up with an email, when we make it easy for consumers to understand.
You know, one of the things that we're seeing is, like,
there's a lot more of an appetite for that
when it's just couched in a little bit different terms.
You know, on Thursday, we did our launch event during NFT NYC,
and we took over Pure 59 Studios with Project Blank and curated 20 incredible artists.
By the way, if you didn't see the content, Pier 59 Studios has the biggest screen on the East Coast.
You know, it doesn't quite compete with the sphere, but, you know, it's pretty big and impressive in its own right. And, you know, we used that as a canvas to showcase these incredible audiovisual artists.
And it was a very special night.
Live performances, incredible, incredible exhibitions.
You know, we announced the New Now Media and had some great remarks there.
You know, and actually a lot of the Ape Chain team came through,
which is really lovely to see.
Juan actually just tweeted about it earlier today.
And so we, and, you know, one of the things that I want to,
I think is really cool is I think that that event also provides
a little bit of like a microcosm of some of the opportunity
that we see with Now Media, because a lot of those artists,
even though there were a bunch of artists on there that you may recognize,
like MP Cause and Zach Lieberman, who have been very active in this space,
there were a lot of artists on there who make incredible digital art,
performances, cinematic art, all these things,
but haven't minted on chain and aren't really plugged into the Web3 space.
And what was cool was helping ease them into it, show them more
about it, helping educate them. And we even had, there's this big artist named Andrew Thomas Wang,
who we exhibited. He's done, he's amazing. Like when it comes to music videos, he's done music
videos for Tom York. He's done music videos for FKA twigs, like some of the biggest, like,
I think some of the coolest artists, you know in music and uh as part of this
exhibition he minted his first uh nft he minted his first piece on manifold um like an open edition
to support his uh to to kind of uh support like a patron uh token for his art film that he's that
he's debuting uh later this year And I think that's like a great example
of how we were able to get an incredible artist on chain.
I don't think that partnership happens if our name is NFT now,
to be honest.
You know what I mean?
Like I think the term NFT was kind of like a turn off
to some of these artists, but they were willing to exhibit
showcase with us because it was now media.
And I think that that kind of shows how, you know,
by putting
digital culture front and center, rather like putting the movement front and center rather
than the medium, we can actually do a lot, make a lot of progress and bring new people
in. So like, that's just one thing I want to stress is that like, like, this isn't like
a pivot or like we're like moving away from that it's more of an
expansion and you know our our commitment to empowering creators our commitment to um bringing
this movement from niche to mainstream um none of that has changed uh it's just you know it's
we see that there's that you know that as the times and the times and the market have evolved, so too did the company evolve as well.
Great point about NFTs because there are many projects
that actually dropped NFT from their name,
like Chimpers, for example, Cool Cats also, right?
It's something like if Spotify was called Spotify MP3, right?
It makes no sense because it's the tech, right?
So I think it's a good move to onboard new people
because from 2021, a lot of people,
like their association of NFTs is usually,
not usually, but sometimes it's negative, right?
With scams and stuff like that.
So I think it makes sense.
Guys, bookmark the space.
I'm trying something new. So please, we have like five bookmarks. So try to bookmark the space i'm trying something new so please uh we have like five bookmarks so
try to bookmark the space so we'll see what it does with uh uh with the visibility and dachi i
know you have more questions so go ahead yeah i've got lots of questions uh all the time just
that's a constant that is walking ai wik Wikipedia or something like that, right, Dutchie?
Exactly, yeah.
It's Dutchie GPT.
No, I wanted to ask you, you have a quote that says,
no successful meme coin has ever needed a thesis.
If you need to explain it, it's not a good meme.
So would you say the same for digital art?
And if not, why not?
That's a really good question.
I remember I tweeted that when I think there were just like a couple.
I think there was like one of the trends on crypto Twitter was just there were a few big kind of like KOL accounts writing these like kind of long theses on meme coins that weren't necessarily like, you know, that well known or like, you know,
weren't necessarily like consensus ones.
And, you know, like more power to people, you know, kind of sharing their views.
And, you know, who knows?
Sometimes these things are alpha.
But also we know that there are oftentimes a lot of like KOLs who are just like shilling
their own bags and, you know, are, are, you know,
kind of going off and being like, this is the next hot, amazing thing.
Here's my long thread.
Because at the end of the day, it serves them.
Right.
And so I remember like that was kind of a cautionary tweet on my part to be like, hey,
like, you know, if it needs something like this, maybe think twice.
Right.
Because, you know, you look at some of the at some of the most successful memes in the space, and I know that they rose
during different times before PumpFun and all that, but Pepe and Doge and Mog, the value
proposition is very simple for a lot of those, right?
It's these cult communities, it's these memes that have like a whole,
like a ton of like digital cultural cache that's existed.
Sometimes existed for a long time like Pepe,
but only relatively recently became a leading token.
Others like Mog are kind of like very grassroots,
like kind of like community driven.
But like, you look at of like very grassroots, like kind of like community driven, but like, you know, I, you, you look at like the MOG community,
um, and, and full disclosure, I do own some MOG.
So, you know, I, I, I always,
I'm always very straightforward about these things,
but like one of the things that drove that,
it was a dead giveaway there with the, with the MOG glass.
Yeah, the sunglasses, exactly.
No, yeah, like I'm, I'm always, we, we, we have our, our,
our ethics policy.
We always disclose when we have holdings. Um, so, you know, there's the, like, Like, I'm always, we have our ethics policy. We always disclose when we have holdings.
So, you know, there's, but like, I do own some Mog.
But the reason I got it was because like, there were so, you know, like, it was just
like this kind of like infectious energy around it.
It was like people just doing the, like the sunglasses and like the, like the tweets and
like the, and the things.
And like, nobody ever was like, here's my six, seven tweet thread
on why Mog is a great investment
or a great coin or whatever.
It's just like the memes
kind of spoke for themselves, right?
And so that's why I was like,
if you need to explain the meme,
maybe it's not a great meme
or maybe you should just think twice
as to what are the motivations
behind the person who's doing that.
So your question as to whether
that's the case with digital art,
that I think is an interesting one. I'm question as to whether that's the case with digital art, that I think is an interesting
one.
I'm not going to analogize them the same way, just because I think that, you know, I think
there is some digital art that speaks for itself, right?
But I also think that, you know, if you think about it, the network effect of memes are
it the network effect of memes are part of what makes them so powerful right
part of what makes them so powerful, right?
there's like people have rallied around memes for the history of the internet
long before they could actually really make money off them right like you know
people like love these different mimetic expressions because they just like you
know that they find it funny or like they feel seen or like it speaks to
something that is part of their character or their culture or their subculture, whatever it is.
And then what's interesting is with the rise of like on-chain markets, whether non-fungible or fungible tokens, you have people able to actually have financial upside in the success of memes.
And it also creates these incentives that I think have turned some of the, you know, kind of create almost like these cult-like meme communities,
which is really interesting to see.
And those thrive because they're network effects, right?
Like there are, you know, it's like when you buy into one of these things,
you're kind of buying into, it's essentially a bet on the future attention and continued relevance and evolution of that community.
You're doing it based on staying power and the fact that
this will get bigger, it'll get more attention,
it'll bring new people in, etc.
Because with these, you actually have an upside in that.
What's interesting is when it comes to digital art,
it's a lot more nuanced. A lot of
times with digital art, the meaning may not always be as overt. And it really, I think we do also
look to like creators to contextualize these things. I do think that one thing you're seeing
is like a lot of times, you know, there's a lot of these artists, there are certain collections that have kind of become the like sort of like the most liquid or the most the highest upside opportunity within an artist collection. those collections actually remind me in some ways of meme type communities in a sense,
because there's a shared sense of understanding around the collection.
There's a shared understanding around the artist's intentions for it.
Because it's a collection,
it has a different power than a bunch of people just holding a bunch of one of ones.
It's different when it's like, hey, we all own the same collection, right?
I think you've seen that take place with Sam Spratt and the Skulls of Lucy.
And also, you know, beyond that, you know, with the masks of Lucy and the, you know, the monument game.
What he's done, he's done a very good job of creating a cult around his art and continuing to expand the circles around it while bringing new people in
and continuing to reward the existing holders.
There's a lot of people who understand what Sam Spratt is about and what his art is about
and feel more confident buying into one of those collections that it's going to appreciate or at
least store like hold value or have you know future liquidity or people that that you know
want to buy it um you see the same thing with ACK Alpha Centauri kid and like the um and the uh um
the keys I'm forgetting the exact name of it right now but the the piano-based one, that one has emerged as one of his consensus
collections. You see this with XCopy. People understand XCopy represents to the space,
and they understand that some of these collections, like grifters or remnants or whatever,
they have enough of a network effect that they almost, that they kind of reinforce each other
when it comes to value.
So it's a long answer to your question,
but like I think digital art is different,
but I think there are also still some parallels there,
you know, and I think a lot of those,
you know, like there's very like simple,
you know, like there's very like simple, you know, like once you once you get acquainted with an artist and you get their context, you know, then I think that that that empowers people.
I think a lot of times to, you know, decide to buy in or decide to be a part of that community.
But it's not as simple as haha funny meme or or oh that's Pepe or like you know this.
There's more nuance to it. There's more context needed and especially because those communities
tend to be around more about non-fungible tokens which are less liquid. You know there's also like
there's some elements there where people kind of I think people are a little bit in this market are less are, you know, like people people are are I think a little bit less likely to just buy into a non fungible collection that is potentially less liquid than a more liquid token.
If they're if they're looking to get a return just because of the potential risk involved.
So yeah, anyway, I think it's a bit different for digital art, but I also think that there
are some common currents.
Matt, you mentioned word token.
I'm just in the Now platform right now.
When you go to Welcome Guide, you have some task to do to finish it, right?
When you go to Welcome Guide, you have some task to do to finish it, right?
Does it make sense for you guys to drop a token for some kind of purpose in the future?
And the second part of the question is, what's the best way for people to actually interact with your platform right now?
So is it by buying NFT, buying subscription, getting the free version, DMing you?
I don't know.
What's the best way to actually participate?
So the question on a token is an interesting one.
You know, it's something we've thought about, obviously.
I think any project in this space that tells you they've never thought about a token probably is lying or doesn't understand the dynamics of it, right?
One of the things that was very important for us,
we are a US-based company,
so obviously regulatory compliance.
Launching a token could be
a very risky thing prior to this current administration.
While things look very,
from a regulatory perspective,
things are looking a lot better now.
There's still a lot of guidance yet to be finalized with the new SEC and all that around that.
It's something we're watching closely.
Obviously, we've seen projects that previously I think did not consider a token
because they're based in the US or now have some have launched some,
some are considering it,
some are preparing to launch them.
It's something we thought about,
but we would need to make sure that it made sense.
Like one thing we're not going to do is just launch
a token for no reason.
We need it to play a real role in our ecosystem.
We see some elements where it can.
One of the things that we've done with the Now Network,
is you're able to earn XP points for engaging with our
content, sharing our content, contributing to our content.
And that's obviously all of our Now Pass holders who engaged and
participated in that, we haven't forgotten about that. That's
all recorded, it's there. And it'll be factored in if we
decide to launch a token, obviously.
And that's an element that we may potentially work into the premium tier of the new now media once things are ready in terms of reward dynamics and things like that.
So the answer is, it's something that we've certainly considered.
But if we're going to do it, it's not going to be a meme token that has no utility or like, it's going to have to serve a real purpose.
And it's going to also have to be something that we think is sustainable.
And I think that's a big challenge for a lot of projects in this current market is like even good projects launch tokens.
in this current market is like even good projects, launch tokens, those tokens.
You know, there's a lot of sell side pressure just because of people are looking for the
quick flip or looking to move to liquidity or looking to like onto the next opportunity.
And we don't want to do is we would never want to launch a token and have it, you know, and, you know, have it just kind of like fizzle out.
That's not that doesn't help anybody.
So, you know, so it's something we've considered.
But there's no current plans for it right now.
But it's something that we're certainly keeping an eye on very closely, especially as the regulatory landscape in the United States comes into further focus.
Yeah, great question. So yeah, for those who haven't already, I want to urge you to go check
out the new Now Media, the nowmedia.co. You can go to the pinned tweet at the top,
and the link's there. The top story on there is my letter from the editor
introducing Now Media and kind of explaining the different franchises and different membership tiers.
Look, I think the best way to get involved with what we're doing is to become a premium member.
As I mentioned before, if you own an Outpass, you can claim a free year of premium membership.
If you don't, you can also subscribe directly through the site.
There's also the standard level membership if you want to get your feet wet with it,
but you don't necessarily want to go. You want to test it out, see how you like it before going
the extra mile there. But I do think that the biggest, the most rewarding way to be a part of
our ecosystem, the best way to benefit from all the things that we're doing,
is to be a premium member.
Yeah, and if you're new to Now Media and you're just starting out and you're just like,
let me see what this is about,
there's also the free tier where you'll get the Now,
the free newsletter,
you'll get access to the free articles and you
can kind of see how things are how things uh how things go so there's different kind of tiers and
ways to get involved depending on you know where where you fit into that um but not gonna lie the
coolest things the most exciting things we have planned are planned for premium so i'm actually
hyped that i'm the premium member now because of that nft pass so uh that's
really dope man so i can experience it hell yeah man well look you know you the fact that you have
that pass i always say that either either you minted it back in 2023 when we launched uh i did
man after the spaces i think uh we had a space just around the time of Mint.
And I think if you gave me a low list or something like that, so dope.
A hundred percent, man. And like, we don't forget that. Like, we don't forget that, right?
Like, that's the fact that you supported us then.
Or, you know, some people pick them up on secondary later.
The fact that you believed in us to go get one.
Like, we recognize that and we always, we want to make sure we reward our community accordingly. It's been really cool because a lot of people,
minted now passes or got a now pass.
Then they've been focused on different spaces recently.
They're like, they're kind of,
I'm in meme coins now or I'm in like RWA's or I'm in like D-Pin or whatever.
When we made the announcement, they're like, wait, I have my NowPass.
When I was at NFT NYC, we did a MainState Fireside chat right after the announcement
went live.
And the MC was like, wait a minute, I have a NowPass.
And I was like, yeah, welcome.
And he went and claimed his free premium membership.
So yeah, I think so.
If you have one, definitely encourage you to claim that membership.
If not, go check out the site and you can also subscribe directly there through the subscribe button.
But yeah, premium is definitely where all the really cool shit's going to happen.
So definitely if you can make that happen,
I definitely encourage you to um but you know just get start i would say just you know get involved
at the tier you feel most comfortable uh and uh and you know you can always uh upgrade from there
epic dachi go ahead man i know you're packed i have one more question that i have to ask uh
because that's gonna be probably the biggest alpha for everyone.
Who knows, right? I'm teasing. Repeat the space, guys.
Don't you go ahead.
I'm not going to ask you about the ApeChain stuff, but I will save it.
But I wanted to ask, you know, so as a media company, how do you balance token gating, you know, with reach and visibility, right?
Like both of those things are
sort of at odds with each other. You want as many people. Now, obviously you have the free articles
and that may be the answer in itself. But yeah, having to, you know, publish widely to capture
attention. And then on the other hand, you have this sort of like private, private room for lack
of better words. How do you like properly balance those two um yeah it's
easier said than done right uh no but it's it's definitely uh i it's about it's a balancing act
like you said it's about balancing it um we think about things like many in terms of a funnel so to
me the uh the the free articles uh twitter spaces podcasts when we When we relaunch the Now Podcast,
we have the new series, new season coming up soon.
When that relaunches, that'll be freely available,
you know, because you need to get a podcast out
on like YouTube and like, you know,
the streaming platforms, et cetera.
But that's your top of funnel
where you reach the most people
and help them learn about what you're doing
and what exists down the funnel, right?
So like, you know, there's a lot of people who are tuning in probably today
who, you know, maybe don't follow me, maybe don't follow Now Media,
but they follow Grateful or they follow Dutchie or, you know, they're like,
all right, let me see what this is about.
Now, you know, maybe they've gone to Now Media for the first time.
Maybe they gave me a follow.
Maybe they followed Now Media.
That's all cool, right?
Now they start to see our content. Now they start to, you know, kind of see what we're about. Oh, that's dope today so stay tuned super excited for that when
that goes live you know I think we'll actually make this one available we'll
probably make this one available like like enough to run the free tier for
like a day or two just so people can get a sense for what it is you know just
because it's the first one but But going forward, those ones will be members only.
Then they start to see that, you're like,
okay, this looks cool.
Oh, okay. Wait, I get an opportunity to ask this guy a question or
go into a private chat with this artist or with this CEO or with this founder or with this,
oh, that seems like a pretty good opportunity.
You know, maybe I'll try out that monthly membership.
You know, it's only $15 a month for a standard monthly membership, right?
So, okay, maybe I'll try that out, see how I like it.
And then, you know, now you're a little further down the funnel.
Now you're getting all the top of funnel stuff, but you're also getting the private newsletters.
You're playing around the site,
you unlock the areas where you can actually check out other publications.
It's not just our content anymore.
Now media becomes a hub for you.
You're like, I'm going there to be on top of everything happening in digital culture,
but also it's easier to keep up with all of the publications I want to keep up with,
because opening up X is like a headache.
And then start to see, oh wait, we're doing what cool event here that's open only to premium?
Oh, the premium members get to do this, boom.
Then all of a sudden you find your way down and you're like, all right, you know, maybe it makes sense for me to be a premium member.
And or, you know, I mean, grateful space.
And he's he became a member.
And now he's talking about it.
And he's he's, you know, rocking with it.
So maybe I want to try it, too.
That's how we see is like the user journey in terms of balancing those things.
And so you need that content, the freely available content at the top of the funnel, just to
bring new people in and also just to serve the purpose of being a media company, which
is like, for us, it's always been about empowering creators, empowering builders, providing a
platform to what matters, helping share the context around what's happening in the space.
And then you have the have the more premium content,
the stuff that people are willing to pay for,
the stuff that really brings new opportunities to the table.
I think, like I mentioned earlier,
one of the things that we really recognize is that people in
this space I think are willing to pay for opportunities.
So the opportunity as a service is really central to our thinking about
the membership tiers here.
So yeah, there's exclusive content, yeah, there's these exclusive tools,
but it's also about the network and the opportunities that it gets you access to.
So yeah, so that's kinda how we look at it.
And as I said, we've launched with kind of like the foundation of that,
which is there will be some free articles.
There's a free newsletter called the Now that goes out Monday, Wednesday,
Fridays, and then Tuesdays and Thursdays are the two premium newsletters,
luminaries and in the flow, and there's more to come.
So as we continue to build those out you'll
see more offerings um and with a real focus on uh providing our members like the most value
love it thanks so much for that um really appreciate it grateful
are you coming in for the uh the ape chain info or we what are we doing oh to get we have ape
chain account here so i think we are ready, but I hope
because I scheduled this for one hour
I'll check with you, how are you
with the time right now? Do you still
have some time? Yeah, yeah, I don't have a
hard stop, so. Awesome.
Awesome. I have different
questions, but you know, I see that ApeChain
account, so any little
tease for us here
Apes and ApeChain fans? Yeah any little tease for us here, apes and ApeChain fans?
Yeah, yeah.
So look, just a little bit of like hinting,
you know, you may have seen
when the NanoBuild Transparency report came out,
you may have seen that NFT Now was listed there.
So that's the project that we have been involved with.
And we have been having some great conversations with the ApeChain team, the leadership there.
I think what Cam and Juan and what Bam and everyone is doing over there is really incredible.
I love seeing the evolution of Apechain.
I love seeing the evolution of ApeChain.
And, you know, we've been having great conversations, you know, since the end of last year, start of this year.
And, you know, one of the first steps that we needed to get out of the way was those rebrand and the relaunch and all of that.
But now that we are, you know, we've got the new site, we've got the new things out, etc.
You know, we've got the new site, we've got the new things out, etc.
We're definitely going to be working together on some very cool things in terms of, especially
around sovereignty and everything we're doing with on-chain media as pertains with ApeChain.
So, there's, you know, I can't really reveal much more than that, but stay tuned.
You may have already seen,
we did a couple of guides on different elements of VapeChain,
just helping showcase,
shed a light on some of the areas of the ecosystem.
That's just the beginning.
There's a lot more to come in terms of us,
both in terms of infrastructure and the tech we've built,
and also, you know, the platform that and the storytelling that we do. So, yeah, stay tuned.
You know, we love the team. And it's been really great. You know, it's been really great,
you know, starting to get things going with them.
You heard it there. Sovereignty, that's the alpha right there. That's the only thing
you need to hear. If you understood it earlier, you
get it now. That's the alpha.
Go for it, Grateful.
Loved it, Daci, loved it.
Yeah, man, I had a question because
you've been on this journey
through the huge ups
and of course you through
huge downs. We had
a bull market, crazy bear market, Matt.
Is there any advice for builders, creators, founders
that you would give them how to keep going through these times?
Because it has to be very, very tough.
You have very high highs sometimes,
but man, the lows were also very low for a lot of people i think right
yeah man i mean i think the first thing that pops to mind is that like
like the highs are never as high as you think and the lows are never as low right you know like
um in this the space can change really quickly market wise narrative wise um you have to be
nimble you have to be willing to make tough decisions.
Moving from NFT now to now media was not an easy decision.
It's something that we went back and forth on for a while, but we recognized it's something that we had to do.
And again, it's an expansion, but it's not something that you do lightly with a brand that has been successful. You know what I mean? And so there's, but one of the things that I'll say is, as I said, the space changes quickly.
So if you're ever feeling the euphoria, you're feeling like you're on top of the world, take a minute, take a deep breath, stay grounded.
If it's due to something regarding trading, maybe it takes some profits. If it's due to something regarding trading maybe it takes some profits if it's due to you know what I mean like like that you know
if it's you know if you're you know if it's due to your business things like
that take it enjoy the moment but take a step back and be sober about okay what
is what are the what what maybe am I not seeing what are what could change in the
next three weeks, three months?
You know, it's hard to say years in this space, but like, you know, what could change in the
next three months, six months, like nine months, 12 months that could change this, right?
Like you have to constantly be thinking about where the puck is going in this space.
And look, if you're feeling down and out, if you're feeling depressed, if you're feeling wrecked, if you're feeling down bad, you know, we have a million words for it in this space, right?
Just know, A, you're not alone.
Everyone who's built anything of consequence has been there.
There's an incredible, if anybody here is an aspiring builder, aspiring founder, entrepreneur,
one of the books I think you have to read is
The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz.
He's one of the co-founders of A16Z.
It's a very sobering,
very personal because he goes through his journey,
but very, very realistic and
very strategic look at
the challenging sides of entrepreneurship and startups.
In particular, there's a chapter called The Struggle.
The Struggle, you can probably find it if you Google
The Struggle Ben Horowitz, I think it's online as well.
But it goes into real excruciating detail on what some people have called the chewing glass and staring into the void part of entrepreneurship. when you don't see a way out and when it feels like the world is collapsing around you or
it feels like markets moved on or things like that.
Those are all very real feelings that entrepreneurs feel.
And a lot of incredibly successful entrepreneurs, from Steve Jobs to Mark Zuckerberg and the
like, they all went through it.
They all went through it.
And it can be the end of your company, but it doesn't
have to be. One of the things that he says in there, there's always a move. There's always a
chess move. There's always a move. And the longer you can survive to stay on the board, the more
moves open up, right? As things shift, as narratives change, as markets come back or cycle or change,
new opportunities open as they close.
And so that's one of the things that like, you know, there's another really good piece
that really helped me by Fred Ayrsom from Paradigm called Surviving Crypto Cycles.
He wrote it when he was at Coinbase.
And, you know, a lot we think about Coinbase now as this absolutely massive success story,
but after the markets crashed in 2013,
in the 2013 crash, Coinbase went through it.
They had a really challenging time.
I think they had more than half of their staff turnover.
They were being pulled in different directions to do different things,
but ultimately stayed the course and were able to turn into a massive success story.
But that all seems preordained now,
but I can guarantee you it didn't seem that way in the trenches during that time.
So yeah, I think read up on these things,
stay in touch with fellow entrepreneurs.
It helps to talk to other people.
A lot of people go through the challenges in silence, Stay in touch with fellow entrepreneurs. It helps to talk to other people.
A lot of people go through the challenges in silence just because you don't want to broadcast weakness, obviously, right?
Especially when you're working to build strength.
But I think it's important to have trusted people you can talk to.
I think it's important to have a network that you can trust all there.
And honestly, building in public,
since that's a big thing in Web3 obviously,
once things turned around,
started turning around for us,
we started speaking to it a bit.
We said, look, we almost shut it down.
At one point it was like,
when things looked really dire,
like, but we saw that there was a real need for what we were building
and we had the conviction and the belief in the space, you know,
like, and in what we were doing.
And so I think it's good to speak to those things.
It really, we found that, like, it really started resonating once we did
because most, a lot of people, for every one person who acknowledges,
like, hey, I've gone through some shit or I've had some challenges or you know what, like it hasn't all been up only and to the right.
I guarantee you 10 other people, you know, are going through it, maybe even worse, but haven't said anything.
Right. And and that look in that. I get it. I understand why. But I think it's it's important to have the people you trust.
It's important to, you know, keep perspective.
And as I said, like survival is the name of the game in crypto cycles.
Like you just got to survive and, you know, continue to evolve and iterate and adapt to, you know, to stay afloat and to thrive in what are very fast moving
currents and very quick, they change direction very quickly.
You got to be nimble, but ultimately also I think conviction is the biggest thing.
If we didn't have conviction, it would have been a lot easier.
It would have been a lot easier for us to like walk away. You know what I mean?
Rather than like soldiering through it, which is why you saw so many people did. So many people
who are no longer here, right? Because the tough thing to do is to keep showing up every day.
The tough thing to do is to keep trying to find a way out of no way. And it's easier said than done.
But, you know, very glad that we did. And look, you know, there's this is just the first step
towards the new Now Media, right? There's still a lot we need to launch. There's still a lot that's
yet to come. There are new offerings. There's new opportunities. This is this is literally the,
you know, it's the first step forward. But I'm super excited about it. And it feels really good to have
what we've been building out into the world now. And I hope that if you're interested,
if you value us and what we bring to the table, I hope you'll get involved. And we'd love to see
you subscribe, become a member, get involved. You know, any questions you guys have, like, you know, always happy to help answer.
And, you know, I appreciate the platform because, again, it's like builders have to support builders, right?
You know, like, and so without supporting each other, like, that's kind of like what we don't have an ecosystem.
So I think it's important that we all stick together and support each other, that's kind of like we don't have an ecosystem. So I think it's important that we all stick together
and support each other.
Man, a lot of amazing points.
Absolutely loved it, what you shared.
And man, that's why I minted the past back in the day, right?
Like I minted so many NFTs here on show
to support the builders.
And of course, not everything is still around,
but it's okay, right?
Like we're trying to support and we're trying to grow the space together. And that's why I love hosting these spaces with founders, builders, artists, you know, creators, because you can share the stories, you can learn from each other. And it also helps you to keep going. So absolutely love it.
100 100 and like you know you never know you never know like uh just you know someone may know
someone who you know introduces you to an opportunity that changes the trajectory of
the business or you know or you know what i mean it's like so you gotta that's why i always say
like you know you gotta give everybody always give everybody the time of day.
Always, you know, be kind to people, be generous to people.
You know, you never know what doors may open.
You never know what doors you'll be able to open for them in the future.
It's not a big space.
So that's why you got to like, that's why, like, I always say it's like we support each other.
You got to cheer for other people.
You know, we don't see, You got to cheer for other people.
We don't see, a lot of people ask me, they're like, oh, who are your competitors?
We don't really look at that.
There are other Web3 Media companies.
They're doing it differently than we are, and we want to see them succeed.
I know when I've talked to them, they want to see us succeed because right now, it's
still so nascent. we need the whole ecosystem
to succeed and so we're all like rooting for each other and I think that that's really important
and you know I think that these communities that have weathered ups and downs are the strongest
communities like look at the ape community I love it I mean like I love the ape community obviously
I still have my ape you know I still have my Mutant. I still got everything going.
And it's like that's a community that has had the highest highs
and has also had some challenging periods as well, right?
You've had the ups and downs of the roller coaster ride,
but still going strong.
And like you said, I think Garga returning to the, Garga returning to the fold, you know, like, not to the fold, but like returning to the helm, you know, like really brought a new energy there.
And, you know, I think that it was the kind of jolt and new direction that the project needed.
I think that that is also what this, you know, for our community, for our, for what we're doing, like this represents something similar in the sense of like, you know, it's a new now media with a new vision and a new, there's a new clarity.
And, you know, it's, we're still here, you know, original founders pushing things forward.
And I think this is so important because we had a heavy metal, which we can call maybe fail, right?
ApeCoin DAO is over.
We, you know, so it was another maybe experiment, but we tried, didn't work.
We move on, right?
It's not like, it's not the end of the world.
We keep going.
So I think that's important mentality.
And a lot of people are down that, oh, this happened, didn't work.
It doesn't matter because we tried, we have to keep trying new things.
Otherwise, like we're going to be stuck in one place, right?
Yeah, this is tech and innovation and startups
and like the cutting the edge.
Like if you're not trying new things,
if you're afraid of failure,
there's a lot of traditional industries
that are just waiting for you.
You know, like this industry,
you have to be willing to try new things.
If you're like, It's the reason why so many entrepreneurs say,
fail more.
You know what I mean?
In the sense of because at least if you're failing,
it means you're taking risks and you're taking swings and you're trying things.
You're not sitting pat and playing it safe.
That's not how you succeed in entrepreneurship.
That's not how you succeed in tech and Web3.
You succeed by making bets and taking risks and changing things up and trying new things.
and trying new things, and they're not all going to hit.
And they're not all going to hit.
They're not all going to hit.
And so I'm sure that, obviously, during the 2021,
the mutants, the dogs, the mutants, the ape chain,
like the ape coin, so many wins for the ape community, right?
Yeah, heavy metal, probably wouldn't chalk that up to a win. But you know what? I am sure
that Yuga learned a ton from that. I'm sure that, you know, that team and that community learned a
ton from it. You learn a lot from the things that don't work. And those are the things that end up
setting up what's next, right? And then, you know, as long as you continue to do right by your community and continue to build from
a place of good intention and good faith, that's one thing I think we also, I mean,
it's a bigger conversation, but something we need to get away from in this space is
when a company, so many of the companies that we mentioned that shut down,
like people were like,
oh, they rugged.
It's like, no, they didn't rug, they're startups.
Startups get, 90-something percent of startups fail.
And that's like when, and yeah, there are rugs where there are people who have bad intentions
or are disingenuous or misappropriate funds or whatever.
But a lot of these projects just tried to survive and the market dynamics just didn't favor.
There was no longer product market fit.
That happens all the time in other industries.
So I think it's something that we have to be really understanding about where we can.
Also recognize that it takes a lot of courage as a founder and executive to recognize when
something isn't working and shift it.
I love to see what Garg is doing now with offloading me bits and punks and moon birds and these things.
The teams that are really focused on those projects,
that way he can be really focused on apes and other side and the things that in that you know a chain ecosystem that matters because I
can tell you as a founder I can tell you I tell you as a founder as an
entrepreneur haven't had as big a team as as you go but you know like but I can
tell you no matter what you only have so much time and attention everything has
an opportunity cost so like you if you cost. So like, if you're gonna say
that you're gonna focus on something
and you're gonna double down on something,
that's gonna take time and energy away from something else.
It's just the reality of it.
You only have so much time, attention, energy, focus.
So you have to be highly strategic as to how you use that.
And so I think it takes a lot of courage
and I think it was the right decision to make moves
like that in terms of being like, hey, yeah, you know what?
We're going to double down on these things.
And similarly, like the new Now Media, that wasn't a simple overnight easy thing for us
to decide to do.
But ultimately, I think it's also the right move for us so that we can focus on all the things that really matter
to continue to create value in this ecosystem
and to serve our community.
100% man, such a great points.
Absolutely love the discussion today.
Oh my God, so much Alpha.
It's going to be very hard to do snippets from this show
because there are so many, man.
Maybe I just copy paste the whole show.
We stand ready to retweet and share.
Yo, clip that shit.
Dachi, any more questions from your side?
I know you have like 420 questions ready for today.
Yeah, so, well, I did want to kind of, you know,
double down on one of the things that you said,
which is like, this is tech. It's cutting edge tech. You have to be able to test and experiment. That is the entire point of trying to push the needle forward is you have to try a bunch of different things. And that's what kind of carves the way forward once a specific thesis is validated, right? And so, yeah, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take,
but also nobody makes 100% of the shots,
like not even the best players in the world, right?
And to not sort of punish that experimentation.
But let's say in a blue sky world where everything is perfect,
I do want to, like, we have AI on the rise
where you have like deep fakes and media being important.
You did talk about like a cross
between trusting specific voices over brands,
but then also brands kind of becoming,
you know, important to be trusted as well.
And you have this phrase that says
the future of media is tokenized.
So in a perfect world where there is no boundaries, everyone's adopted, everyone is on board with this
whole web three thing. Where do you see the future of tokenized media going? If there was nothing
holding anything back? Yeah, really good question. So, but first to your first point, you know,
the, uh, the leaders in the NBA for, the NBA for missed shots are I think LeBron
and Kobe, right? Those guys are winners, right? So that really says it all. You don't win by not
missing shots. You win by taking the shots and bouncing back from the ones that missed.
You're never going to bat 100, right?
And so all of the greatest entrepreneurs, none of them have ever batted 100, you know?
And so that's an important part.
You know, it's interesting you say that.
You know, I think, like, in a perfect world, look, you know, one of the things that, you
know, we built sovereignty, for example, the on-chain media side, to bring legacy publishers
into the space, to bring legacy, you know, to bring, like, you know, we built Sovereignty, for example, the on-chain media side, to bring legacy publishers into the space, to bring legacy, you know, to bring, like, you know,
media companies like Wall Street Journal, like Axios, like Time, like, et cetera, on-chain.
And there's, you know, we've had some amazing conversations with them, you know, with a lot
of those, you know, I can't say which one specifically, but, like, household names,
publications, that they absolutely love it.
It just takes time. Right. Like legacy media takes time.
Everything moves a lot slower there than things move in Web3 or even just in tech.
is that when it comes to the media industry,
the media industry has never, like,
it's always had to respond to something to evolve, right?
Like, the advent of smartphones forced media companies
to lean into mobile, right?
The rise of the internet, you know, gave way to the webpage.
And so the rise of social, you know, led to, you know,
social brand strategy for media companies, etc. And so while right now, like a lot of media
companies are curious, you know, they haven't had that like forcing function yet, right? That's still
yet to come. I think that's coming with the rise of AI misinformation and all that. Ever since,
I think that's coming with the rise of AI misinformation and all that.
Ever since that proliferation of generative AI and misinformation over the past couple of years,
media companies are so much more interested in what we're building there.
But again, there's a difference between interest and on board, right?
And that's something that we all need to work on, reducing the friction, making things easier, etc.
But in a perfect world, look, in a perfect world, the way I see it is like,
everything is like, oh, media belongs on chain.
That doesn't mean that all media needs to have speculative value or be for sale.
you know, have speculative value or be for sale or, you know, I mean, you saw what happened
with the base content coins. I wrote like an op-ed around that, you know, saying that like,
that, you know, content belongs on chain, but not every single piece of content needs to be a coin.
And, you know, I'm a big believer in some boundaries there because I don't think that every single piece
of content needs to be financialized within a meme token economy, which is what we're
currently operating in.
But I understand that's why to me it's more about non-fungible tokens, collectibles, proof
of provenance, etc.
Some of those things may end up being very valuable in the future.
But to me, I think that this baseline foundation ecosystem around on-chain media.
And I do think we're going to reach a point where it's going to be as routine to publish media on-chain as it is to hit publish in WordPress or hit published on an
email or hit publish on on sub stack or whatever it is right but I also think one thing that's like
you know we're really leaning into is like you know you can't trust your feeds anymore you can't
trust like you know the you know now AI AI has cannibalized search.
Social isn't delivering you what you want anymore. And I think that there's this growing sense that the inbox is sacred to some degree.
The inbox is really where you can kind of control what can come in, what can't in certain
ways.
And that's why newsletters have become such an important distribution model and business model for media companies. Because if you're consistently delivering value
to someone via email and inbox, that cuts through all the algorithms. It cuts through the
noise. It allows you to directly reach your audience.
And so that's why that's a big part of what we're building.
But I also think that there's interesting elements
when we think about on-chain media
and direct access to your community,
where it gets really interesting
because you can start to build around those relationships
and add like on-chain incentives and dynamics and rewards and things like that, all of which
we're thinking for our now media membership models, particularly the premium tier.
And so for me, I guess, like to get back to your question, I see a future where media is on chain, but the memberships and the communities that people, that media kind of brings people together in, because like are also, you know, have an on chain element that that allows for like the on chain element of like media communities, I guess is the way I'm trying to say it. You know, there are, for example, you know,
Nylon, the magazine just launched a membership program.
They do great events, right?
Like there are a lot of people
who just know Nylon for their events.
You know, they're like, oh, cool.
Yeah, I saw you guys have a cover story.
Oh, great, all that.
But it's like, oh, you got the best event
at one of the best event at one of
the best parties at art basel you have one of the best parties during fashion week you have one of
the best parties you know in the hamptons like all these kind of things that's a there's a certain
community that comes together for their events and now they're doing a membership you know community
around that um that's not unchained yet but to me it should be right and there are a lot of
incentives and reasons why it
can be. And that's something that we definitely want to help, you know, media companies do in the
future. So I guess like, you know, what I would say is like, it goes beyond just like the minting,
like there's two kinds of like on-chain media. There's the actual minting of media on-chain,
and then there's on-chain communities around media. I think both are
incredibly important. And both are incredibly powerful parts of the equation when we're
thinking about what that looks like in the future. Yeah, it makes me think about like,
you know, what you were saying earlier about the magazine covers, you know, this one being highly
collectible, but this one not but on the same end of these things, like we used to receive,
you know, the paper boy would go go buy and drop a
newspaper which in this case could be like you're subscribed and now you're getting airdropped uh
you know this um you know article or this is piece of news and then you don't know exactly what
becomes incredibly collectible because that in the moment you like we didn't know that punks would be
what they are today until they were and so maybe there are historical events that get preserved on chain that later, you know, years later have a collectible value, but they're not like falling apart like a traditional newspaper would when people hold these newspapers of historical events.
And then the paper starts to, you know, crumble and disappear.
So, yeah, there is that opportunity to sort of preserve those moments
forever. And maybe later down the line, they have some sort of collectible value.
But yeah, it's an interesting topic to sort of dream about.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think we're going to look back at this period. I think we're going
to look back at this period where people were trying new things, they were launching things, etc.
It's all very formative stages.
We're going to look at this as a real, this was a period of tremendous transformation.
I really believe we're part of a digital digital renaissance, you know, that's happening across art, across culture, across tech.
And, you know, I think that a lot of things that like there's a lot of short term market mentalities that drive a lot of the narrative and conversations around value in crypto.
I think I think we're going to look back at certain things and it'll almost seem obvious in hindsight that these things will have lasting
value just because of like the cultural cachet and history and and you know what they the role
that they played and in everything that's coming i i i think that uh now media is a part of that
you know of being being you know from from 21 onwards like what the coverage we've done the
the the the things we've showcased the you know the the steps we've done, the things we've showcased, the steps we've taken.
I think the ape community is a great example of that too.
And I think that there's a lot of elements here that it's just like we said, it's like
things seem obvious in hindsight, but when you're in the trenches, same with Coinbase going through the 2013-2014 bear market, there's elements of that that play out here.
And that's why I just think, again, I think we all just need to support each other.
And that's why.
And continue to zoom out.
Don't mistake the forest for the trees.
This is bigger than a floor price this
is bigger than a market dynamic um we're really building the rails for like a digital digital
future and um yeah that's why you know i hope that uh i hope that i hope that you'll join us
in uh in being a part of it, today's space was absolutely incredible.
I think it's so important.
We have so many builders here in the audience right now,
and it's so important to listen to these stories
and what you shared,
because sometimes it's tough, you know?
Sometimes you're like,
holy shit, why am I doing this, right?
But people are not alone in this right we are in this together
to grow the space and as you said a lot of people wish they were part of 2021 run and they are like
i wish i was there but you can be in 2025 run you can be here we are still early right you can still
experience this i would say incredible space because i'm having such a blast it's it's of
course it's not always like, you know,
sometimes you have rocks, you have FTX happening, etc., etc.
But in general, I see the future.
I see that it's going to happen.
And I'm really bullish on you guys.
So Matt, like big shout out to you for sharing everything,
for building.
Guys, definitely check Now Media, on a Matt's profile you can
you can find it there follow him follow us is there anything else that maybe we
forgot to ask you Matt or or I think you would like to share I think we covered a
lot but you know I will say the I mentioned at the beginning but our first
luminaries feature is going live right after the space.
I'm literally going to publish it right after I get out off here.
So stay tuned. That one's going to be really special.
I'm very excited about the Luminaries series.
As again, that one's only for our paid members, our standard or premium level.
And that's going to be one of the flagship franchises for the new now media um and so that
and you know one that uh i'm i was very close to my heart personally because i'm i'm i'm writing
them and uh and curating them and uh very excited to uh to show you who who we got how we got cooking
you know it's been it's been a bit of a journey so i cannot wait uh do i have to get them into my email or can i read
them from the from the platform from the website uh you can you can read them if you if you have
a premium uh or standard membership or if you have the premium membership through the now pass
uh you can read them through the site but they will, they'll go out on email first. Like they'll, you know, so they'll
email receivers will receive them before, like sooner. It won't be that, that it won't be like
a huge amount of time difference, but if you just want to be on top of everything that's happening
as fast as possible, like as soon as it happens, because some of these, you know, some of these
profiles, you know, may or may not have some alpha in them where time might be of the essence.
I would recommend subscribing.
I would recommend signing up for the emails for them.
But we will be, for example, publishing the Luminaries piece to the website.
And people who are subscribers at the tiers, standard or premium,
will be able to access those
on the site.
Awesome, man.
I filled my email there,
so I'll be waiting.
I'll be waiting.
Amazing.
Well, thank you guys so much
for the time.
Thank you for the platform.
Thanks for such great questions.
Appreciate both of you.
And yeah, let's, you know, happy to have you part of the New On Media.
Hope everyone who's listening head to that pinned tweet,
go check it out,
read that letter from the editor,
see if it's something that feels like a fit for you.
We'd love to have you aboard.
Hopefully, we'll get back together in the next year or so, and talk about some of the exciting things that we've launched since.
Absolutely, man. Can't wait. Good luck, guys. Keep going. Keep building. Can't wait to read it. We'll be ready. And yeah, Dachi, anything from your side?
Yeah, Dachi, anything from your side?
I'm just excited to see it all roll out.
I'll be ready for that luminaries post.
And I think it's really interesting
that you're putting people in contact with those artists,
which kind of brings together your community
to interact with the media itself,
which is like, I think, a dimension
that generally you don't see a big publication go and say,
hey, why don't you go talk and ask your own questions that you might have missed in the article or something that was on your mind.
So I think it's a very unique take. And yeah, just looking forward to what you guys are building.
And I think it's important for us to have strong media companies who represent this space. Of
course, you've expanded out further to now as opposed to just NFTs. But I mean, I think, you know, we've seen some of these larger publications, let's say, change their tune about this space as well. Right. You know, I guess I'll just say like Rolling Stone who went out and said, you know, yeah, it's great. And then turned around and put out a bunch of articles that was kind of like against the space. So I think it's important for us to have kind of companies who also believe in
what it is we're doing when speaking outwardly to the world. And then of course, like keeping us
informed and connecting us with, you know, the movers and shakers in the space. So I love that
you guys are not only speaking about the technology, but utilizing the
technology, which often that's not always the case. So you're minting stuff, you're, you know,
using the tech. And I think that, you know, by walking the walk and talking the talk, I think
it's an important thing to have. So really appreciate you. And, and I did, I'll bookmark
some of the some of the references you made today. And it was a very inspiring conversation.
So thanks for that, Matt.
Amazing, amazing.
Thank you, thank you.
And yeah, fully agreed.
Like, you know, you highlighted it.
It's one of the things that other media companies aren't doing
is like going beyond just like the surface,
going beyond just like, hey, this is exclusive like content.
Yeah, that's cool.
We love that.
But like, what's the opportunity?
How does this
potentially change my body like my situation how can this change you know give me access to
opportunities that's what we want to offer our members right we recognize that that's like that's
that's the most important thing for many people in the space is access to opportunities um and so
that's that's really lies at the core of what we're trying to do for our community, for our members.
And so premium content, like exclusive content, is just part of that.
And so we've seen it happen before where we facilitate a conversation between a leading founder or a leading artist
and an aspiring builder or an aspiring creator, and it can be a trajectory-changing opportunity for them.
And so that's
what we want to be able to offer our our community and um yeah so very i'm happy you see it so i
appreciate it it's something that that is very important for us and and where we feel like
there's a real gap in the market um so yeah if thank you everyone appreciate everybody who came
out to listen i know it's been uh yeah we we almost went two hours. We rocked it.
Damn, nice.
Great conversation.
And go check out the new Now Media.
You pin tweet, nowmedia.co and get involved.
We'd love to have you.
Thank you so much, Matt.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you, everyone, for listening.
I absolutely love today's episode.
And big shout out to Dachi
for co-hosting with me today.
He's also hosting many amazing spaces
with many incredible guests.
So big shout out to him too.
And let's go guys.
We got to have another space on Thursday.
So stay tuned.
Love it.
Check the Matt's profile.
Check Now Media.
Check Dachi's profile.
Let's keep going.
And this was great for show 381 let's go everybody
and we gotta be clipping our hands everybody let's go Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands.
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Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands.
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Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands.
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Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands.
Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands.
Clap your hands.
Clap your hands. Clap your hands.
Clap your hands. Clap your hands.
Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands.
Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands.
Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands.
Clap your hands. Clap your hands.
Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands.
Clap your hands.
Clap your hands. Clap your hands. Clap your hands. I'm not tired! I'm retired! I'm not what? I'm not what? I'm not what?
There's bands of father and son in the city of the earth, in the middle of the universe,
that wild is this first coming six-time rehearsal!
For freestyle, look for a run of like sassies, beneath the screen, controlled by the fiends!
let's go everybody have a great tuesday have fun enjoy the amazing weather and see you soon
i'm not
