Why is Decentraland the Fastest Growing Metaverse?
Decentraland is the fastest-growing crypto-based virtual world. It was created in 2016 by a group of developers in Argentina, and its UX is largely based on Second Life and Minecraft, one of the most popular multiplayer games in the world.
What distinguishes Decentraland from predecessor virtual worlds is that all of the spaces (called LAND in the game) except for roads and plazas can be bought, sold and developed by the users of the game. Ownership of those virtual properties is documented on the Ethereum blockchain to make them easily transferable and to prevent fraud. Landowners control what content is published on their parcels of land, which is identified by a set of cartesian coordinates (x,y). Contents can range from static 3D scenes to interactive systems such as games, casinos, art galleries, and whatever else developers can imagine and dream up. There is a vibrant community of 3D animators, artists, and developers to execute on these virtual spaces, creating new ways for people (as avatars) to socialize and interact with one another.
Although Covid-19 has played a big part in the growth of Decentraland, Decentraland’s success can also be attributed to it’s Tech Partnerships, Hackathon & DAO; which forms the perfect Product Development Flywheel.
Tech Partnerships
Nowadays, systems integration is one of the key catalysts for business growth.
Over the past 2 years Decentraland has integrated with 26 partners to add functionality from Defi and NFTs; to adding sticky content from the Gaming, Music, TV & Sport Industry. Here are the top reasons to consider Tech Partnerships.
The numerous benefits of having integrated systems include the following:
1. BETTER DATA ACCESSIBILITY
With an integrated system, it’s easier for people in your company to access relevant data. Their strategies, plans, and decisions will be data-driven instead of based on gut feel. Better decision-making accelerates business growth.
2. IMPROVED COMMUNICATIONS
In an integrated system, your devices aren’t the only ones talking to one another. Because it’s easier and inexpensive to share information across the company, it’s also easier for your staff from different operations to communicate and collaborate. And this kind of integration can go beyond your office’s four walls. Global businesses with several operations scattered in different time zones are able to align and work with one another. Documents can be written, shared, and edited by any number of users with the proper access.
3. INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY
In the past, it took a while for data to be retrieved and shared. With integrated technologies, your data is more organized, accessible, and easier to share. Your employees don’t waste time waiting for data they need, and there is less room for error when everyone is sharing the same database. This lets your employees focus on improving the business, leading to better productivity.
4. ALL-IN-SERVICES
Processes are also more efficient when everything’s integrated. For example, online shopping sites have automated processes, from inventory to sales to purchase. This means faster transactions with minimal to no errors.
Integration also helps you make more informed decisions faster. With real-time data sharing and processing, you can respond quicker and provide better service to your clients and customers. You can easily stay one step ahead of your competition.
5. ACCELERATED GROWTH
In an integrated system, your data is conveniently collated for easy access and analysis. Your employees can easily share information and ideas, making collaboration more efficient and effective. You make faster but well-informed decisions and provide transparent feedback. Congratulations, you have the formula for rapid business growth.
With integrated technologies, you have information on what you are doing well, what can be improved, and what needs to be changed. And as your business grows, your technology can also keep up. An integrated system is simpler to deal with versus a complex web of different devices and technologies. It will be easy to scale up your system as your business grows. And thanks to technology, you can put new clients, new employees, and new departments in the loop more efficiently.
Hackathons
Hackathons are big rituals in tech companies like Facebook, Google, Netflix. These innovation competitions helped them to design features and new business lines that contributed to their growth in the most recent years. The innovations built by their talented hackers transformed their businesses, allowing them to rise their supremacy with disruptive and viral offers that otherwise will never see the light of the day
Decentraland holds Game Jams and Creator Contests, where designers and developers help build the metaverse for a chance to win prizes. This is an effective strategy for building Decentraland’s community, giving users ownership of the platform and ultimately crowd sourcing the development of the platform, growing the Metaverse at an exponential rate. Over the past 2 years Decentraland has hosted 14 competitions with a total prize pool of $716,000, with a large portion of the prize pool sponsored by Partners.
Here are the top reasons why organisations should consider hosting a hackathon:-
1 - EMBRACE A CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE ENVIRONMENT
When an organization has an established position on the market, where their business model is more than tested and validated, the company tends to follow a script to conduct their business and fears trying new approaches since there is a high risk of failure. This innovation barrier could sacrifice the business and weaken your talent creativity. By allowing them to test ideas or features or evolve your company models, people will be more incentivized to contribute and be fully connected with the company mission and brand by creating a culture of innovation.
2 - LEARNING EXPERIENCE
Company hackathons or online hackathons are an excellent opportunity to target specific expertise and skills. People have a chance to try new frameworks, tools, and approaches to solve problems and deliver products. These hackathon projects allow them to try them out in a less risky situation and learn on the way.
Later they can incorporate what they have learned into the company operation and optimize critical processes improving the company's capacity to deliver value.
This continuous learning environment is extremely valuable for some professionals and as a consequence in the long run will decrease the company employee turnover. People will feel that they have room to grow as human beings and improve their chances to have a prosperous career.
3 - PROMOTE INTERNAL NETWORKING
In these pandemic days, where almost all the companies work remotely and people work closely with a limited amount of peers it is essential to promote stages where they can interact with people from different backgrounds and have a sense of normality when they can not interact directly with other peers on an office environment.
Social interactions increase their happiness and their psychological health increasing their productivity and capacity to reach the company goals. There are plenty of studies that have proven that happier employees are more engaged, loyal, and more prepared to make the right decisions on their daily operations. You can take a look at this study Happiness as a Motivator to understand more about this topic.
We could even help them on the way by organizing webinars, ceremonies and promote meetings with mentors.
4 - INCLUSION & DIVERSITY
When you create a hackathon team with different backgrounds, locations, divisions, and skills, they tend to produce creative muscles and more out-of-the-box ingenious solutions to problems. This is fully described and studied in the book “The Wisdom of Crowds” by James Surowiecki. Surowiecki refers to the “need for diversity within a crowd to ensure enough variance in approach and thought”.
We encourage you to design an initiate where you promote cross divisions, locations, and skills teams and don't limit the participation to tech teams, product teams or sales teams. Try to involve the entire company to create fully heterogeneous groups with a broader perspective that can help each other to achieve higher greatness.
Additionally, when you gather people in a hackathon event environment, where all the company hierarchy is left behind, they can raise their voice and feel more included and connected to the company culture.
The innovation process in any organization should be an inclusive process where the job title, gender or location should not matter at all.
5 - COMPETITION ENCOURAGES INNOVATION
By allowing your best minds to compete for the final prize or for social recognition, you are creating the perfect playground for them to use their talent to reach their highest level of productivity. When people are under competition they usually use their strengths and smart shortcuts to provide outstanding product ideas to meet the hackathon goals.
We have been following some of our customer's competitions and the quality and the value of solutions proposed by their employees always outpace their expectations.
In essence, these events are fun and are a cost-effective way to gather your employees in a time-boxed window where they can interact with employees from other divisions, discuss ideas without restrictions and frictions, feel more aligned with the company mission, and leverage their voice in an equally balanced stage. The competition part makes this even more fun and acts as a driver to increase their engagement and desire to be one of the recognizable and honored winners.
Decentralised Autonomous Organisations
A decentralized autonomous organization, sometimes called a decentralized autonomous corporation, is an organization represented by rules encoded as a computer program that is transparent, controlled by the organization members and not influenced by a central government.
Decentraland uses it’s DAO to give users power and ownership of the project. Through the DAO users can vote on the product features, but most importantly they can vote on the competition winners. This functionality is brought to light thanks to a partnership with the DAO governance tool Aragon. However, no system is completely fair and equitable and Decentraland are well aware that the incentives in place during the hackathon contests may lead some to game the system, that’s why they have recently appointed a Security Advisory Board.
Here are a few ways in which DAOs can improve business operations across any vertical or industry:
SETTING STEADFAST RULES
Through incorruptible contracts accessible to all individuals involved in an organization, DAOs establish a series of rules and contracts, effectively acting as the C-level of a corporation that would typically be in charge of defining company rules. In theory, DAOs could provide the framework for a company truly devoid of any type of hierarchy.
REPRESENTING THE ENTIRE ORGANISATION.
Within many organizations, the power goes to the individuals with the highest ownership; this is true even across crypto-fueled landscapes where those with the most tokens can hold more weight and have a more prominent voice in decisions. DAOs, however, intend to offer a decision making framework that is non-corruptible. By implementing a governance framework, DAOs can effectively represent the common interest of everyone involved in the project or community.
Encouraging widespread engagement.
When there is no pyramid pinning a certain individual to the bottom and others to the top, it gives people the chance to freely collaborate and voice their ideas without fear of "crossing boundaries."
Typically, even when a company touts itself as "flat," most of the employees understand
there is still a divide separating them from the founder and his or her advisors. When power divides are present, they can actually suppress engagement and collaboration. Individuals may not feel incentivized to speak up and spearhead a new approach to a challenge. With a DAO system in place, companies may feel enabled to operate without set leadership, and everyone has a stake.
PROMOTING PRODUCTIVITY
Any organization interested in instilling a widespread decentralized approach should be prepared for the workload that may come along with introducing this type of philosophy. In an organization that is decentralized, but not necessarily autonomous, governance of some kind is still needed.
With DAOs, however, the governing model is automatically executed, which means individuals involved in the organization don't have to waste their time ensuring that every other player is fulfilling his or her role and abiding by the rules. Rather, the smart contracts do the heavy lifting.
ELIMINATE CHAIN OF COMMAND.
Typically, ideas and projects have to move up and gain approval across several levels before they are put into motion. During this process, many ideas are diluted as they traverse up the chain and fall under the scrutiny of individuals with more to lose if the idea winds up being a flop.
Within a decentralized structure, there is no chain of command; ideas don't get watered down and messages may not get lost in translation as they are shuffled from one stamp of approval to the next.