FWB members with 75+ $FWB can download the new FWB social platform here. Not an FWB member? Apply here.

Nearly two and half years ago, FWB started as a collection of people from cultural industries who came together to make sense of web3’s impact on our shared worlds.

While we were brought together by this collective curiosity, we became bound together by a deep-rooted belief in the promise of a better internet. We envision a world where culture is properly valued, where communities and authentic connections thrive, and where the future can be collaboratively built.

Over time, we’ve come to realize that FWB, in a sense, has always been a social network—but one without allegiance to one specific platform. As an internet-native community, we’ve had to traverse Discord, Twitter, private group chats, and more to be connected. While useful in different ways, each of these platforms have fallen short in terms of fulfilling our community’s needs. So as a group of designers and builders and believers in the promise of web3, we decided to build our own.

Introducing the FWB Social Platform

Today FWB is launching the first iteration of our own social software. It’s an app-based platform where our members can convene, collaborate, share, and socialize. It’s a space that’s ours, with much less noise, that we all own and govern. No aggressive advertisers, no algorithms, no spam bots and shillers. It’s just us, with our friends.

FWB was already an organic social network in its own right, with a deep-rooted community and set of subcultures unique to us. Building our own platform to serve our community and optimize for social depth was the logical next step in our DAO’s evolution.

Inside of the FWB social platform, members can identify, search, and connect with other members, find and RSVP for IRL events all around the world, and stay up to date on governance proposals for the DAO. Members can also get a real-time rundown of what’s most relevant to the community in a collective feed that is optimized for meaningful interactions.

FWB will be the first social platform owned and operated by a DAO where our members will define the future of the platform through participatory governance, shared economics, and our own community currency.

A Cozier Web

In its most basic sense, FWB has always felt like a big group chat — a group chat that had a shared bank account powered by our own community currency, the $FWB token. With both a friendly vibe as well as a sophisticated architecture encompassing our own economic and governance structures, we’ve been able to forge a digital-first community that is both close-knit and wide-reaching; pioneering and rebellious.

With our new social platform, we will have a home for our community to interact with each other that we all play a part in building, maintaining, and evolving. Our platform isn’t meant to onboard millions of users as quickly as possible; instead, it is a human-scaled piece of software that optimizes for positive group dynamics, digital socializing, meaning-making, and hanging out. It’s a place of retreat for our members where we can be together, distractions-free.

We think that right now, smaller social networks are better—places where you don’t get lost in the noise, or feel like you’re being shouted at. We want a digital space that feels like a cozy living room, that’s been intentionally crafted, where all our friends have a seat at the table. It’s an app that feels like a home-cooked meal.

The new FWB is a home for our community that feels bigger than a group chat, but smaller than a large-scale public chatroom.

People > Platform

Web 2 corrupted the original promises of social networks as destinations for authentic connection, conversation, and discovery. While our massive, algorithmically driven town squares can serve certain purposes, many of us are now seeking digital destinations where our interactions can feel purposeful again, and where our capacity to build things together isn’t commodified.

Our aim is to reclaim the idea of a “social network” by building software that puts people first. Web3 tooling enables us to own our own data, and build our own networks and economies. It gives us the building blocks to design people-first platforms that function sustainably, on our terms. Our social software isn’t meant to alter FWB but rather accentuate it, by supporting our existing community and driving more meaningful, and focused conversations.

Community-Owned Software

The next chapter of FWB will operate as a community-owned social network, powered by community-first software that grows and evolves in alignment with our needs. We will build this software together, so that FWB members—as both users and owners—can control what features we build, and where we ultimately go with it.

We’re excited about a future in which the web transforms back into a series of micro-webs, driven by the communities and subcultures that stand to benefit from having their own close-knit digital gathering spaces. Web3 can enable this future by giving us the tools we need to build it. However, it’s clear that communities need more than just web3 primitives to be successful. Instead, the right building environments, incentives, and supporting tools must exist. We hope the new FWB social platform is a step in that direction.

When it launched, FWB was just a token-gated group chat in Discord. Now we’re a leading DAO made up of thousands of members all over the world. Our community treasury has facilitated global events in over 40+ cities, apparel lines, emerging startups, artist residencies, a three-day festival, and much more. All of this has been produced for the community, by the community, to bring us together around our shared interests, desires, and needs.

As we continue to break new ground, one truth continues to guide us forward: giving communities more control over their digital gathering spaces can only lead to better outcomes for all.

Forging a path that takes us beyond the Web 2-built world can seem daunting. But it’s up to us to build the social software we want to see in the world, and to do so alongside our community. So what are we waiting for? Let’s go.

FWB members with 75+ $FWB can download the new FWB social platform here. Not an FWB member? Apply here.

The app was designed and developed by Mike Bodge and Hirad Sab, with support from Dexter Tortoriello, Jose Mejia, Ruby Thelot, and the entire FWB contributor squad. Most of all, we couldn't have done it without The Canaries 🐤.