Pierina Merino on Social Utility in a Web3 World

NFT

Assume TikTok and Pokemon Go, however add in NFTs. That’s FlickPlay — a cell software that mixes the person expertise of a short-form video social media platform with a component of augmented actuality (AR). 

Behind the app is founder Pierina Merino, who believes that the digital collectibles we personal are storytelling and identity-building instruments. 

FlickPlay customers throughout three dozen US cities can use the AR digicam to create movies and seize NFTs or Flickys — a part of the “FlickyGang” avatar assortment developed in partnership with The Sandbox. The extra NFTs collected, the extra rewards earned that unlock redeemable bodily objects at retailers and places all through the town district.

FlickPlay was just lately chosen to be one of many six corporations to hitch the present cohort of the 2022 Disney Accelerator Program, a enterprise growth program.

Merino spoke with Blockworks about FlickPlay’s long-term imaginative and prescient and its latest choice to onboard NFT manufacturers together with Pudgy Penguins NFT challenge, Snoop Dogg’s The Doggies from The Sandbox, and Spanish artist Edgar Plans’ Lil’ Heroes.

Blockworks: Why did you select to work with these specific NFT manufacturers? How do you consider creators?

Merino: FlickPlay desires to interact with communities and creators which can be actually proponents of Web3 and who’re genuinely thinking about evolving the use case for NFTs and metaverse pushed endeavors. We need to work with creators who’ve cultivated a strong neighborhood of Web3 fans which can be closely concerned in solidifying their manufacturers and pushing past the JPEG narrative. 

Blockworks: How can FlickPlay assist customers develop their social standing and measure the worth and utility of their NFTs?

Merino: So our imaginative and prescient is to grow to be the platform that connects digital [intellectual property] to the actual world and that overlays a digital layer the place Web3 IP and Web2 IP come collectively and work together inside one seamless ecosystem. On the finish of the day, it’s all about what you personal, and the way you select to inform your story can amplify your connection to these objects, to their potential utility.

By creating movies on FlickPlay, the rating of your NFTs will inherently enhance primarily based on the likes, views and Flickcoins the movies obtain. This enables NFT holders to invest not solely on the rarity of the NFT assortment but additionally on the NFT’s social rating. 

Homeowners can place their NFT from a group as primary within the social rating. Which means that communities will primarily outline the worth of their NFTs. That is the following era of content material creators. This function can even enable for communities to storytell with their NFTs in the actual world, flexing their NFTs of their favourite places. 

Blockworks: What are among the challenges with conventional social media platforms that FlickPlay addresses and hopes to enhance on? 

Merino: FlickPlay has at all times been authentically concerned in creating an area for Web3 and NFT fans to congregate and push neighborhood interplay past common boards like Twitter, Telegram and Discord. By means of FlickPlay NFT tasks, communities, and creators can actually convey their NFTs to life, develop the recognition and worth of their assortment by way of social engagement and create new ranges of utility by way of token-gated competitions and leaderboards. 

Blockworks: What developments must occur to augmented actuality (AR) and digital actuality (VR) expertise for extra individuals to start out utilizing it each day?

Merino: AR must have a seamless expertise to grow to be totally built-in for on a regular basis use with a function. What’s encouraging customers to interact with AR overlays? We already see the usage of filters and particular geotags on common social platforms, so the main target must be on evolving the expertise and software program that goes together with augmented actuality to make it extra environment friendly for on a regular basis use.

I’ve been very curious to see how the general ecosystem is considering it — what instruments are being launched? What underlying expertise or integrations have been constructed to energy the buyer expertise? 

We shouldn’t be serious about how we’re going to make individuals sit at their desks and simply be in goggles the entire day. Which may occur inside just a few years from now, however that’s not how we’re going to hit mass adoption.