How Digital Communities Can Get First-Mover Advantage with Web3

The world as we know it is changing. In fact, the internet – the very innovation that has changed the world so much – is itself evolving.

Over the past year or two, we’ve seen a lot of talk about Web3 and why it’s a new frontier of the internet that has everyone excited. The new evolution of the information superhighway is expected to change the way we relate with data and each other on a fundamental level. Listening to the chatter from excited fans, there’s definitely a lot of love for it.

Web3 is expected to change the way the entire internet works. Instead of having to deal with big corporations that take our data and use it for their profit, people will now be able to control their data and who sees it. There is expected to be a greater focus on privacy and user control, as opposed to people having to trust big corporations that have shown time and again that they aren’t the right people for the job.

If you’re a player in the digital space, however, you might be feeling confused. How will Web3 change your work and the way you live? Is there a way for you to leverage this technology for your benefit?

One of the best ways for creators to get ahead of the curve in Web3 is to find their communities. Just as digital communities have thrived in the current iteration of the internet, they are also expected to dominate when the Web3 revolution comes.

We spoke to the creators of WiFi Map, a global connectivity platform that is helping likeminded people to connect and share.

1. What was the vision for WiFi Map?

As of our launch on the TrustSwap Launchpad on March 30, WiFi Map is the largest connectivity platform in the Web3 space, and well on the way to becoming one of the biggest apps in the world. We’re very thankful to be in the position we’re in, and we’re incredibly excited for what’s next, but to understand how we got here you have to go back a few years.

We're old enough to remember a time when the internet was a place you visited for a short period of time. Maybe you wanted to read the news or check your emails. This might seem hard for younger people to imagine, given that we're now connected to the internet all the time. Traveling was also very different in those days and, while there were some great things about those times, I’m not sure I’d go back now!

WiFi Map came into being at a time when smartphones were still a relatively new phenomenon and the app stores were buzzing with new possibilities. We saw that people were sharing information about free public WiFi hotspots with their fellow travelers online and decided to create a global map where we could crowdsource that energy. We created a global, shared map where anybody could add a WiFi hotspot, and millions of people did.

Let’s face it – you need the internet to function in today’s world, whether that means showing a boarding pass on your phone to get on a flight, paying your bills and taxes, or communicating with your loved ones. We believe that this makes the internet a fundamental human right. As founders and developers, we think WiFi Map has the potential to help connect the whole world and reach the third of humanity that still doesn’t have a reliable and secure internet connection.

2. What are the media through which communities will be developed with Web3?

We’ve been working hard on the community front since we announced the Web3 drive last summer, and we think we’ve done a pretty amazing job since then. We have 15,000 members in our Telegram community and 58,000 on Discord, not to mention our 100,000 Twitter followers. We’re looking forward to seeing how these platforms adapt to Web3, and we’re also on the lookout for exciting new Web3-native social platforms.

Community has to be at the heart of any crowdsourced project and we’ve been working with some of our most loyal contributors for years. Our community advisory board is an informal group of top WiFi Map users who we’ve been able to consult with on new ideas and receive all kinds of feedback as the project has grown. This has put us in a great position to ensure that the Web3 shift is as community-powered as possible.

Web3 is still a relatively small world, and our own little niche of DeWi, or decentralized wireless, is just one part of it. We believe that the network effects from launching $WIFI will help us to put our name out there even more and allow our community to continue to grow organically. We’ll be adding more opportunities for community members to interact inside the app very soon.

3. With Web3 posing a threat to the fundamental powers that be, how do you view its current integration by Big Tech?

There was a really interesting survey last year – I think it was done by Rapid Innovation – which found that almost all Fortune 500 executives think that Web3 will define the next century of business.

Some of the world’s biggest companies are embracing Web3 in really interesting ways, whether that’s via collabs, NFT collections, or new payment systems. This being said, I think there are some cases where companies view Web3 as merely a trend and don’t expect that they’ll be engaging with it in the long term.

In our case, this couldn’t be further from the truth. We are committed to Web3 as a framework for delivering horizontal, decentralized and democratic ecosystems, and it’s going to allow us to make huge improvements to our core product. There have been lots of amazing new projects in the space, and I think you’ll see more cases like ours in the next few years, where established startups and Web 2.0 companies harness the benefits of decentralization at a deeper level.

So I think having a massive existing community and a solidly Web3 approach puts us in a strong position, and I’m really excited to see how we can make the most of the first-mover advantage.

4. How does WiFi Map hope to give its communities benefits and what can it expect in return?

The entire philosophy of moving into Web3 and launching $WIFI is baked on the idea of giving back to the community. Our 150 million users and 13 million contributors have helped to build the most successful WiFi finder and one of the biggest travel apps in the world. This represents a significant amount of value, and $WIFI is going to unlock that.

Millions of people were already happy to build the app without expecting anything in return, and we’re delighted that we can now thank them with $WIFI rewards, which they can use to access services within our ecosystem like eSIM mobile data. Our iOS and Android development teams did an incredible job of building the $WIFI in-app wallet in such a short space of time and making it fully secure.

eSIM is actually one of the most popular features in the WiFi Map app, and a core element of our medium-term plans. By combining millions of WiFi hotspots all over the world with international mobile data coverage, we’re aiming to be people’s primary source of connectivity. There’s a term for this – mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO – and we’re the first one in the Web3 space. With the introduction of lifestyle services like those we announced last year in partnership with power bank sharing companies Chargefon and Fast Energy, we’re on the way to becoming a superapp. In the future, WiFi Map is going to do the job of an entire stack of your favorite apps in one place.

Ultimately, we need to show people that our belief in the internet as a fundamental human right means something tangible. As well as broadening opportunities for our existing users, entering the Web3 space means we’ll be able to bring free WiFi to everybody. We’re very excited for the weeks and months to come.