The Interledger Community 🌱: Peter-Paul Koch

OUTREACH TO WEB DEVELOPERS — ILF Grant Progress Report

Peter-Paul Koch — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 12:57:19 +0000

In my October 2023-February 2024 grant period I started working on outreach to web developers. Now that my grant period has ended I continue this work under contract with the ILF. This report treats the February to June period.

Target audience

The situation I sketched in my previous report hasn't fundamentally changed. Web developers, who I see as our early target audience, continue to be interested, and Web Monetization continues to be unavailable. Still, there are some improvements to report.

In late January we had the first Web Monetization Work Week in Cape Town, and there the web developers first strategy was formally decided on by the entire team: they will become our most important target audience in the early stages of Web Monetization. When we discussed the fundamentals and features of Web Monetization, we did so with web developer concerns in mind, and we continue to do so to the present day.

Banners

In January I wanted better banners. We got them in May: they said Web Monetization in large, soothing letters, and relegated the ILF logo to a secondary position. This is the way I think we should handle outreach to web developers in the short term: focus everything on Web Monetization, and don't talk too much about who is enabling it - that part is not yet important. In the future, we'll be able to introduce the ILF as "the people behind Web Monetization", and if all goes well web developers will understand what we mean and chalk up a few coolness points for the ILF.

We field-tested the new banners at the Beyond Tellerrand Düsseldorf conference that Alex Lakatos, Ioanna Chiorean and I visited in May. The ILF stand shared out t-shirts and stickers, but in the absence of Web Monetization we couldn't ask people to sign up.

Presentation

I held a 30-minute sponsored lunch talk for about 30 people. Since it was not possible to sign up for Web Monetization, the presentation was mostly a dress rehearsal for the next conference (see below). Nonetheless, it turned out that the people who came to the talk were really interested, asked the right questions, and sometimes even remembered Coil.

Describing WM "like Coil, but with real money" made the concept instantly clear to some of them, and the general tenor of their replies was "Oh, yes, Coil was a cool idea. Pity it didn't go anywhere." This is a really hopeful trend for the future. If we can succesfully link Web Monetization to the positive image of Coil in their heads we can win some web devs over.

We did get the old cryptocurrency question, and I now standardized on the reply: "What does the ILF have to do with crypto? A few of the old hands come from the crypto world, and there's 'ledger' in the name. That's it." So far this reply has been accepted by the audience with a slight smile. (If the audience is small and interested in linguistics I might also go into the etymology of 'ledger'.)

In September the Web Monetization teeam will descend on the Smashing New York conference where I will once again do a lunch session. In November we'll return to FFConf in Brighton. That will be the first time we sponsor a conference for the second year in a row. Sponsoring the same conferences year over year remains something I want to try; we'll see how well it works in November.

OUTREACH TO WEB DEVELOPERS — ILF Grant Progress Report

Peter-Paul Koch — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 11:42:06 +0000

Project Update

So far, in this project I made a first stab at evangelizing Web Monetization among web developers, and I got a feeling for how WM is being perceived right now. As a secondary goal I tried to define how future devrel efforts should be structured and what they should focus on.

I made modest progress with both; details follow below in this report. The effort is far from over - in fact, it's only after the experience we gained in the first four months of this project that we can design future outreach efforts for maximum success and impact.

Also, we need a simple sign-up process for Web Monetization. Without that, any future outreach is pointless.

Target Audience

The target audience of this project consists of web developers. They are uniquely placed to evangelize Web Monetization to site owners, since web developers interact with site owners on a daily basis. Before they'll start evangelizing WM, though, they themselves have to be convinced of WM's usefulness.

Thus we should get them to adopt Web Monetization - initially for their own projects, but at a later stage in their client projects as well. After the first four months of this project we're starting to get a feel for how to do that.

Activities and Progress

Evangelizing Web Monetization among web developers is definitely possible. But we have to get it right the first time.

The main outreach method so far was personal conversations with web standards and web development thought leaders at conferences. I discussed my experiences at these conferences in an earlier post. We also experimented with a conference sponsorship, where I conducted a 10-minute breakout session and made myself available for questions.

While among web standards creators and web development thought leaders WM is already known and generally regarded as positive, those less clued-in have not heard of it, but are willing to listen and agree it's be worth taking another look at. In other words, there is potential fertile ground: web developers are interested in what we have to offer, and the only reason Web Monetization isn't already seeing a modest uptake is the lack of a simple sign-up process.

A few Chromium engineers agreed to insert the Web Monetization module currently being created by Igalia into Chrome, though behind a flag. Quite apart from the obvious advantage of having native browser support, this will also make web developers take us more seriously. I already noticed at the conferences I visited in 2023. In 2024 we have to play this trump card for all that it's worth.

Problems to be solved

Although hallway conversations and conference sponsorships can definitely work to spread the WM word, we have to address two significant problems in 2024.

The most important problem is that it's not yet possibly to easily subscribe to Web Monetization. The sign-up process is still a mess that requires subscribers to understand the difference between a wallet and a monetization provider, and understand that, even though some browsers may support WM natively, you also need the ILF extension in the short run. All this makes evangelization complicated. The process should be simplified.

A secondary problem is WM's perceived alignment with crypto and the caution this instills in the target audience. Dispelling this myth will be an important part of future devrel efforts. Still, the situation is already improving. In 2022 many of my outreach efforts were greeted with "That's the crypto thing, right?" This reaction was mostly absent in 2023; I'd at most get a question about crypto much later during my WM intro.

Communications and Marketing

So far Web Monetization has not yet been discussed in public, such as on blogs or in web development magazines. The main reason is the lack of an easy sign-up process. Web Monetization will only get one opportunity to make a first impression, and without an easy sign-up that impression will be mostly negative. Thus, large-scale marketing will have to wait.

Ideally, any outreach attempt should include handing over a flyer of at most A5 format with a simple, three-step process for signing up presented in a large, soothing font. For online marketing we need a web page with the same content. At present the process does not yet exist, let alone a flyer or web page.

There are a few smaller marketing issues we should solve:

I need to create what's essentially an elevator pitch for WM aimed at web developers. My earlier attempts were too long and meandering, and I need to focus my story more.

The banners we use at sponsored conferences should be more focused and more in-your-face. Personally I believe they should spell out "Web Monetization" in a huge font, with a much smaller "by ILF" tagline. We want to become recognizable at a glance, and the one banner I used at the one sponsored conference didn't do that sufficiently. This is something to be discussed with marketing.

At first I didn't like the "Send a payment as easily as email" tagline because I was afraid it'd be discounted by web developers as marketing fluff - and the entire ILF with it.

Meanwhile I partly changed my mind. Web developers didn't react as negatively as I thought, and there is some truth in the statement: we do want to make payments as easy as email. However, it needs quite a bit of explanation about how email secretly isn't all that easy, and that, like sysadims, the ILF will take care of the tricky parts for us etc etc. A tagline that you have to explain is not a tagline, so I'm not sure if it'll work on its own.

The comparison could work as part of a longer presentation, where I can take five minutes to explain what we mean. I'm going to try this approach in 2024.

What’s Next?

In 2024 I will continue to hold informal conversations, though the main marketing thrust will have to wait until an easy sign-up process is available. Once it is we can expand to a series of blog posts, magazine articles, and other forms of outreach.

We'll continue conference sponsorships as well. They are excellently suited for bringing the ILF and Web Monetization to the attention of web developers, provided we create a long-term string of sponsorships where we return to the same conferences for at least three years in a row. The ILF has to become part of the furniture, as it were.

Conference report Autumn 2023

Peter-Paul Koch — Wed, 22 Nov 2023 15:26:55 +0000

In Autumn 2023 I visited three conferences:

TPAC, W3C’s annual gathering
Smashing Antwerp, a design-focused web conference
FFConf in Brighton, a web conference; the ILF was a sponsor

Here's a brief report about all three.

TPAC

The purpose of visiting TPAC was spreading the word about Web Monetization, identifying interested parties, and making clear that I am an ILF Ambassador. TPAC was a resounding success for spreading the word.

Alex and I talked to many people, and one of the things that struck me was that most of them were already aware of and interested in Web Monetization. There were only two or three people that I had to explain the concept to; most others started asking detailed questions, and made clear they’re interested, even though not all of them could help in a direct, practical way.

I also talked to a few people that might help us get in touch with the right people at Microsoft, Samsung, Brave, and possibly Meta. I followed up and will expand the conversations in the next few months.

The fact that a group of Chromium engineers are supporting us and will add WM behind a flag in a future Chromium was quite important; this made other parties take us much more seriously, as I also noticed at the other two conferences.

Incidentally, it’s important to communicate the help that we’re getting properly. We found a group of individual Chromium engineers who are willing to spend their 20% time on Web Monetization, and to merge the WM module currently being created by Igalia into the main Chromium branch – though behind a flag.

Smashing Antwerp

I visited Smashing Antwerp mainly because I was offered a ticket and the Smashing series are important web conferences in good standing – potential engagement targets.

While there I decided I could just as well talk about WM, but found that the audience, which consisted mostly of people on the design side of web development, was less receptive to the message. They showed vague interest, but our core ideas are one step too far removed from their zone of experience.

Other Smashing conferences (in 2024, Freiburg and New York) focus more on developers, and I visited one in the past and feel that these ones would be good engagement options for 2024 – though we should forget about the Antwerp edition specifically.

FFConf Brighton

FFConf in Brighton is another important web conference in good standing and allows us to talk to most of the influential people in the UK web dev world. The ILF sponsored this conference, but due to the timing of the ILP Summit, I was the only one able to make it there.

The WM message fell on fertile ground. Most attendees had not heard of it, but were interested after I explained the basic concept. I held one 10-minute talk during one of the breaks, and while only about 8 to 10 attendees were present, they were genuinely enthusiastic, one of whom engaged with the ILF afterward. Later I talked to a few more attendees and found the same receptive frame of mind.

Web developers tend to agree with the basic premise of making web payments easier, approve of the -based form WM is currently taking as well as the support of the Chromium engineers, and I think that if there had been an easy way of joining WM several of them would have done so.

I also discussed WM in a smaller setting with a few prominent web conference speakers and organisers and found the same reception.

Conclusion

Concluding, I feel that web developers are a fertile ground for our core message, but we have to hone our core message and our ways of delivering it. Specifically, for any 2024 engagement, I would like the following:

A simple way of subscribing to WM, with the full instructions fitting on a small A5 flyer that we can give out. This requires a simple way of subscribing to WM to be available, and a bit of design and copywriting.
A clearer sense on which aspects of WM we should call out during conversations – sometimes I went all over the place and went into details that weren’t quite needed yet. This should lead to a 10-minute talk to be held during breaks at sponsored conferences, as well as a full 45-minute on-stage session. We will discuss and refine this in the Web Monetization Work Week happening early next year in South Africa.
Banners/roll-ups that focus on “Web Monetization” or “Interledger Foundation”. These are not household names in the web dev community yet, and we should make them so. This requires any visual assets to clearly focus on the brand names. The roll-up I used at FFConf contained too much information. Also, I am skeptical about the “as easy as email” tagline: I’m not sure it will resonate with web developers. Creating new Web Monetization specific banners and roll-ups requires some design work.