Critique of Metaverse and Twitter, Lack of Trust to Mainstream Media and the Rise of Cryptocurrency: The First Day of Web Summit 2022

The Web Summit 2022 has brought together more than 70,000 people, the event industry is recovering after two hard years of lockdowns. At this year’s Web Summit, there are 26 content tracks and 17 stages where every tech topic in the world will be discussed. 

The summit was attended by 70 000 people, and booths were overwhelmed. Curious about the experience of start-up representatives who worked on booths, I talked to Iliya Romanov, CMO at NearPay,

“I spent the whole day on our stand; there were so many people that we could barely manage to answer all the questions that people asked. Hours of conversations non-stop, so much energy, enthusiasm, and expertise, but also many jokes and memes ― a very special experience”. 

Taras Dovgal, co-founder of  Kikimora Labs said that Web Summit is growing in comparison to the previous years, and cryptocurrency becoming more and more represented at the event, “Our team attends Web Summit for the fourth time, and it’s nice that Web Summit is growing again in the second post-COVID year already. There are more booths, more interesting people, and more awesome projects. As usual, we are so grateful to Web Summit for allowing start-ups at every stage of development to present themselves. There is also a noticeable trend toward crypto-friendliness – every year I see more and more crypto projects. I’m glad they’ve become a prominent sector of FinTech”, 

CoinPipe founder, Alex Gorshkov, shared an experience of crypto replacing other money on Web Summit, “the atmosphere is amazing: lots of big companies and even more startups. Everyone interacts with each other, which I personally find great. One of the most memorable moments for me was when one of the attending CEO tried to borrow cash from someone at a crypto party, but no one there had any fiat”.

Regarding the discussions on the Centre Stage, metaverse, Twitter and Gen Z news consumption were among the most striking themes.

Meta has already been working on the Metaverse project, which received a decent amount of critique from different experts in the industry. Among the main critical points is a lack of knowledge about the target audience and its needs. Herman Narula, founder and CEO of VR and video game development company Improbable, claimed that the usage of VR in the overall project is “incredibly expensive, wholly unrelated to what customers want, and not yet compelling enough for use.”

Changes to Twitter have also become an object of critique, "Elon musk, judging by what he's said, is intending to march straight into Twitter and destroy trust, a sense of reliability, and the absence of good, acceptable practice.", commented Peter Mandelson, co-founder of Global Counsel.

The topic of how to be closer to audiences has been continued in the discussions about news consumption and younger readers from Generation Z.  Subrata De, Vice’s EVP, News, and Global Head of Programming and Development, commented on the role of Twitch for online presence,“I don’t believe that there is one set of people who want news, or that people age into the news. I think it’s up to us to find out where people are,” Subrata said. 

Discussion on Gen Z information practices led to a striking insight, it was concluded that younger people learn information from each other. Despite their differences, they feel that they can trust one another more than mainstream media sources. 

Overall, day one of the Web Summit 2022 has already been full of burning discussions, energetic networking and striking insights. Let’s see what awaits us later this week.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.