With Web3 companies and applications on the rise, we’re seeing new avenues for growth. Since many silicon valley giants including Meta and YouTube doubling down on Web 3.0 as the next big thing, we’ll be looking at how it’s impacting the market. This article could serve as a great resource for understanding the state of the industry and generating new Web3 business ideas.

In this article, we’re covering the major businesses in the field, the state of new social media, and the promise of Web3 gaming.

Web3 Businesses & Industry Stats

The industry is expected to display a CAGR of 44.9% while growing to USD 2.86 Billion in 2023.

Currently, the biggest Web3 stocks are as follows:

• Coinbase: the world-famous crypto exchange is still going strong.
• NVIDIA: Aside from their graphics card production, Nvidia also launched Nvidia Omniverse, a platform assisting developers with Web3 projects.
• IBM: the company has been offering blockchain-based services since 2017.
• Advanced Micro Devices: NVIDIA’s main competitor is also benefiting from the well-spring of computer part sales.
• Unity Technologies: producer of development platforms for immersive video games and movies.

NVIDIA’s stock has been climbing since it announced a higher investment in blockchain tech:

Currently, the top Web3 companies are in crypto (Coinbase, Binance, etc.) but this depends on whether you count companies that are currently only adjacent to Web3 like YouTube, Meta, or NVIDIA.

Web3 startups are popping up, although growth has been slower by a quarter since 2022. While the number of deals has decreased, the year’s funding still constituted USD 22 billion (the previous year was USD 29 billion).

Web 3.0 Social Media

The metaverse concept is probably the most popular conception of social media on Web3. Meta is the company most invested in the model though their plans are less reliant on blockchain than a lot of other visions of Web3 metaverses.

Facebook appear to be playing into the Web3 vs metaverse discussion by integrating many blockchain applications into their VR platforms but using them a bit more lightly. The metaverse, as a concept separate from Meta’s virtual business, is a plan for a virtual world built on blockchain. Meta’s plans are different in that they somewhat involve blockchain but are not designed around it from the ground up.

Other types of decentralized social media (DeSo) include sites/apps like Mastodon and Diamond. These gained a lot more popularity in the past year and present a new way of organizing social platforms. DiamondApp runs on blockchain and aims to mix Bitcoin-style architecture with traditional social media. Mastodon, on the other hand, is an open-source model that emphasizes decentralization, crowdfunding, and ad-free models.

Another name that often pops up concerning Web3 companies and social media is Sapien. It’s a great place for building a web3 community and receiving news using a system built around blockchain.

Web3 Marketing Companies & Growth

Web3 agencies have become a common prospect, especially since crypto and NFTs became a trend last year. Digital marketing and web3 clients are slated to grow as a market with many major marketing internationals vying for the attention of major companies in the sphere.

New movements like Zero-party data or server-side data collection may play an increasing role in Web3. As the decentralized nature of many sites is a significant draw for new platforms, new styles of marketing will be necessary.

One of the major concerns with Web3 will be how decentralised environments affect data-gathering, communication, and advertising. Future projections also highlight that Semantic Web may be very useful for metadata and many of the features we expect from search engines. Similarly, content optimization for AI may play a big role in the future.

Web3 Websites & Apps

Web3 search engines like Google are a theoretical prospect but are, as of today, still in development. However, there is promise in smaller, less general applications like “Neeva.xyz”, which is useful for crypto and NFTs. It can index a vast number of Web3 databases to produce a readout like on a traditional SE. We expect these types of sites to grow as Web3 companies and users increase.

Determining the popularity of specific Web3 applications and websites is tricky due to a lack of reliable data, very few official sources, and issues of what fits into the category of Web3. While it’s difficult to ascertain just how popular websites and apps are, some names pop up more often than others, however, these tend to be exchanges and wallets.

Similarly, here’s a warning for anyone researching the most popular sites and apps: A lot of the information is bullshit. We ran into so much unsubstantiated nonsense and AI-written, SEO-optimized promotional content disguised as objective reviews. An example of the kind of pablum we encountered is that one blockchain “social media platform” claimed they were on track to getting a billion users yet little to no information was available about it.

In this sense, we can’t deliver an informed analysis because of too much junk data.

Tech Giants & Web3 Plans

A number of the biggest tech companies on the planet are looking into new applications. With YouTube changing CEOs to someone enthusiastic about Web3, we’re seeing a major player enter. According to sources, new CEO Neal Mohan is a massive advocate of Web3 and is looking to incorporate Metaverse and blockchain into YouTube in some capacity.

Google is also dipping its toe in the industry with their Blockchain Node Engine. The program is supposed to enable “a fully managed node-hosting for web3 development”. Google has launched a new team dedicated to digital assets and this tool is one of the projects they have developed.

Similarly, Microsoft and Consensys were teaming up for new blockchain applications. This venture has garnered USD 450 million in a new round of funding based on Consensys’ NFT platform. This is also part of a larger trend where Microsoft is allegedly looking into Metaverse applications for games (the company was spending a lot of money acquiring Activision Blizzard).

Speaking of gaming…

Web3 Gaming Companies

The graphics card industry has been one of the major beneficiaries of Web3, particularly due to crypto. Aside from hardware sales, Web3 games have also become a way of mining tokens and engaging in crypto buyouts.

Unity Technologies, which we mentioned earlier, is developing platforms for video games and digital movies while expanding its market by creating development tools for Web3 applications. The CEO of Unity, John Riccitello, has stated that the company is making tools to support every Metaverse and Web3 application type.

Games like Star Atlas are already live and have a mining framework one can use to win rewards. We expect other games to follow suit in the future as the industry advances. This is further bolstered by the interest Microsoft and Facebook have shown in the Metaverse gaming concept.

If you’re looking for a Web3 marketing agency, you can check out our services page and see if we fit the bill. We provide everything from social media to content to web design and much more and are also developing our own Web3 art curation platform, the Forever Collection.