Scott Rosenberg

VP of Sales. PlayOnSports is the #1 High School Fan Engagement Platform in America. Former award-winning Athletic Director in New Jersey

[Scott Rosenberg @Scott_PlayOn]

I’m excited to share that @MaxPreps has joined the PlayOn family of brands! Together, we will transform the high school fan experience. @_playonsports #PlayOnMaxPreps

[PlayOn @_playonsports]

We’re thrilled to announce that PlayOn has acquired @MaxPreps. High school sports communities can look forward to a premium experience with improved fan coverage, more visibility for athletes, and deeper insights for coaches, parents, and recruiters.

https://t.co/PolwaTXR7i

[Scott Rosenberg @Scott_PlayOn]

Join the family! Comment with what this says to you

OPPORTUNITYISNOWHERE

use my referral link to get access right now.

https://t.co/6bfPQ1PKZC

[nader.deso @nadertheory]

Announcing a major upgrade to Focus.

Connecting a verified X account now gets you a minimum of $100 In $FOCUS, and referring someone with a verified account now gets you a minimum of $10 in $FOCUS, with uncapped referrals. Note because you receive tokens, the value could appreciate or depreciate after you join.

Accounts with high influence can get hundreds of thousands of dollars, this is just a minimum. What's your account worth? Find out on Focus 👇

We will be manually rejecting suspicious/bot accounts ruthlessly, but otherwise this is our official "long tail" portion of the bounty program.

Focus is retaining well in spite of a down market, and we're prepared to spend millions on this incentive if we see good results.

Public access is expected to open in a week or two after a few more updates to the app.

[Scott Rosenberg @Scott_PlayOn]

I’ve been on this journey since the beginning and would encourage my friends and colleagues to give Focus a shot. Here is my invite link!! https://t.co/6bfPQ1QiPa

[nader.deso @nadertheory]

The same battle that's happening between Google and ChatGPT is going to happen in social media very soon, and not how you may think. I want to explain to you what the future of social media will probably look like, 🧵

The drawbacks of today's social media platforms hint at how they'll be disrupted, and most issues come from centralization. A few "trusted" media outlets controlled our information for decades with little oversight (eg New York Times). They fell and got replaced by "social platforms" with the rise of Meta, X, TikTok, etc... The problem is centralization increased even more because network effects allowed these platforms to concentrate users across fewer "owners," with even less oversight. If TikTok decides to censor something, the impact is arguably much higher than if the NYT did in the "old days," and harder to detect as well. So what do we do?

The first step is not controversial, and many are pursuing it. It's to open up the "firehose" of content so that anybody can build on top of it, rather than keeping content "trapped" in a walled garden that's controlled by a single entity. If the content is open, then it's technically possible for anyone to "audit" what's being shown vs not shown. What's going viral and what's being "suppressed." It's also technically possible for alternative feed algorithms to be developed, and for you to be able to choose which algorithm is ranking the content for you. Open content is the first step, and it's widely-understood as a key component of what the future should look like.

Open content is also a key part of nearly all alternative social medias that people are working on. @jack started a solution called "Blue Sky" that's a non-profit instead of a for-profit, and still centralized, but whose content is fully open in the way described above (a big improvement). Mastodon allows anyone to run a "federated server" so you can have your own community running on a machine you control rather than someone else, and also promotes open content. DeSo, which I work on, goes even further and allows you to put all of your information directly on a blockchain that's not controlled by anybody (and can't be censored by anybody, like Bitcoin). Every "next-generation" social media is incorporating "open content" as a key component-- so why hasn't it created a better system if it's so good then?

I believe it's because "open content" is only half of the solution. The other half is "monetization." It's not enough to open the content if it costs millions of dollars to create a "feed algorithm" that improves on centralized players, and it's even worse if you don't have a way to monetize that algorithm after you've invested so much in creating it. Centralized social media platforms run a "closed content" model and then show ads on it, which turns out to be extremely monetizable. What we need is a new model to monetize social media that's compatible with the "open content" approach (and that ideally earns just as much, if not more, than the closed-content-with-ads model). What would that look like?

I've thought about this a lot. Like for the last several years thinking about it. And... I think I have an answer. The solution is to create a subscription model for *feed algorithms*, the same way we have subscriptions for things like Netflix or Hulu (or ChatGPT and Claude). You pay a monthly subscription to someone who runs extremely sophisticated (and possibly extremely expensive) algorithms to rank the content just for you. This is really interesting not only because it allows for monetization on "open content" but also because you can have "tiers" of complexity. If you want really simple feeds, pay $0.10 per month and get something cheap. If you want something super complex, pay $100 per month (or more!) and get what you pay for. Even better, people can *compete* against each other to give you the best possible algorithm. Think this guy is censoring the rankings? Ok, switch to this other guy's algorithm and try their ranking. They can even let you tweak the "knobs" of their algorithm directly.

You can see that the internet is already moving more toward subscriptions. Google is literally getting disrupted by ChatGPT on an "ads-driven" vs "subscription" monetization contest of the century. And the ability to choose your AI model more easily is actively causing the model providers to iterate and provide a better experience. What people are missing is that the SAME CONTEST is going to hit social media soon. The reason it's easy to miss is you need TWO things to come together: 1) open content and 2) a marketplace for ranking that content. But it's going to happen, and when it does, I believe we're going to wonder how we ever let a handful of highly-centralized companies tell us what to think. I also think all the problems of misinformation and bias are going to dramatically improve, almost overnight.

Still skeptical? You should be-- this stuff is HARD to pull off. It would take someone YEARS of deep devotion and tens of millions of dollars spent on a super speculative idea, almost out of pure LOVE to make it happen. You have to put SO MANY pieces together JUST RIGHT.

Yeah, it's definitely tough. But I've been thinking about these problems, and working on what I believe will be close to the ultimate solution for basically since 2019 at this point (six years? wow that's a long time oof...). I don't know if our solution will even win, but honestly it doesn't even matter that much to me as long as the change that we need eventually ends up happening.

If you want to try what I've been working on, it's an app called Focus, it's built end-to-end on crypto, it stores all your content on the blockchain directly (though you probably wouldn't even notice), and it has a built-in Feed Marketplace that allows you to subscribe to anyone's algorithms that they build for a monthly fee. It's going into public access soon, and I'm really excited for you to try it. I can't promise it will solve all of our problems, but I can promise it will be unlike any social app you've ever used. And I can also promise that the IDEAS that it's pioneering are new and interesting, and that many will be a part of a more decentralized future.

If you read this far, thank you for caring about this stuff. It's very important to me, and I hope it eventually becomes important to more people as well.

[Scott Rosenberg @Scott_PlayOn]

Is it just me or does it feel like January 91st instead of 31st? Long month for sure. 😀

[Scott Rosenberg @Scott_PlayOn]

@nadertheory @scriptles I have more than that. Don’t see a whale though! You the man. Congrats on today

[Scott Rosenberg @Scott_PlayOn]

@scriptles @nadertheory Thanks. That $1k in assets includes focus?

[nader.deso @nadertheory]

In crypto, we have a superpower when we build apps: The possibility of getting rich by being early to something make crypto apps inherently more viral. But there's a problem...

The problem is this "Jet Engine" of speculative fever has generally been strapped to cargo that doesn't create sustainable long-term value. Until now, virality in crypto has been the product itself, rather than a growth tool.

This has frustrated people, and I think it's a big reason why a lot of people hate on crypto. They see the viral power of crypto products, and they see people getting rich off of this superpower, but without creating anything that "lasts," for lack of a better term.

I myself am guilty of this, though my intentions were pure. BitClout, an app I developed, was the most viral app I've ever seen, let alone actually used. But its core mechanics weren't "meaty" enough to keep people using it after the initial speculative fever had worn off.

Focus, launching this week, is designed to be everything that BitClout wasn't in this regard. Focus is an app that takes full advantage of the "Jet Engine" of speculative fever, and frankly innovates on prior art quite a bit. But to create a network effect around a real product, rather than a fleeting sensation.

I have high confidence that Focus's "Jet Engine" will work, and that the app will be extremely viral. However, whether Focus will succeed in achieving lasting value remains to be seen. In fact, one could argue that no app in crypto has ever achieved lasting value not inherently derived from speculative fever in some way (with some notable exceptions like stablecoins).

But I know one thing about Focus: It is the best attempt I've ever seen in crypto to create lasting value that sustains beyond the initial hype. We designed it to be THE example people point to when someone says there's "no lasting value being created by crypto."

Let's see if we succeeded...

[nader.deso @nadertheory]

It's time...

[Greg Berge @GregBerge]

7 Reasons HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS Are the Best

As we kick off 2025, let’s take a moment to appreciate why high school sports are simply the BEST.

These experiences are one-of-a-kind, unforgettable, and create memories that stick with us forever.

Here are 7 reasons they mean so much:

1. PLAY WITH CHILDHOOD FRIENDS 🤝

- Small towns, small schools.
- No recruits, no transfers.
- Just kids who’ve grown up together since 2nd grade.
- Like brothers or sisters, the bond is unmatched.

2. RIVALRY GAMES 🏀

- Nothing beats the intensity of high school rivalries.
- A close game.
- Bragging rights are on the line.
- It’s what makes the season electric.

3. STUDENT SECTIONS 📣

- Your friends cheering their hearts out.
- School spirit alive and thriving.
- A packed gym or stadium shaking with noise.
- Nothing compares.

4. THE PEP BAND 🥁

- Classmates playing their hearts out.
- Loud, proud, and adding to the crazy atmosphere.
- It’s pure magic.

5. PLAY FOR FRIENDS, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY 🏟️

- Fans in the stands, rooting for you.
- Brings the school and community together.
- A shared experience that builds lifelong connections.

6. PURE JOY AND PASSION ⭐

- The energy, passion, and pure joy of the game.
- Authentic, raw, and unforgettable.
- One of the greatest feelings you’ll ever have.

7. MEMORIES FOR A LIFETIME 🕰️

- These moments will stay with you forever.
- When you look back on your high school years, these memories will be some of the best!
_____

Do you like this post?

👉 Follow me @gregberge for actionable coaching, leadership, and team culture tips.

📬 Subscribe to my free newsletter, Great Teams - Better Leaders, via the link in my profile.

[PlayOn @_playonsports]

We're excited to announce that PlayOn has been recognized on the 2024 Deloitte Technology Fast 500! This distinction reflects our team's commitment to elevating fan engagement for schools nationwide. #Fast500

Learn more: https://t.co/1xhGyFQsY1

[PlayOn @_playonsports]

High school athletics and activities build community. This week, take some time to give back! Tag a charity or nonprofit below to raise awareness for a cause that matters to you!

#CommunityServiceWeek #HSActivitiesMonth

[Scott Rosenberg @Scott_PlayOn]

Amanda is amazing and Sr. Nights are incredibly important to student-athletes and their families.

[PlayOn @_playonsports]

Senior nights are right around the corner!

Amanda Waters-Nelson, AD for @DNHSNighthawks, joins AD 360 to share how ADs can make senior nights special.

YouTube: https://t.co/QZI5cIh2bC
Spotify: https://t.co/lJGawbGc2F
Apple: https://t.co/OgX2zoVbzz

#AD360Pod

[Scott_PlayOn @rSchoolToday]

Due to inclement weather in the Southeast, our support services may be limited. We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your patience and understanding.

Find answers to frequently asked questions here: https://t.co/YJvMCKqoBI

[Scott Rosenberg @Scott_PlayOn]

@BoxOutSports 🔥

[PlayOn @_playonsports]

We're honored to be featured in the @coach_ad TechTime series! Our very own @Scott_rSchool and Greg Vandermade spoke on the importance of ADs to prioritize self-care, manage expectations, and embrace technology.

Check it out: https://t.co/BwzfRwjQtY

#highschoolsports

[Scott Rosenberg @Scott_PlayOn]

@nadertheory A simple user guide that we can all post that allows the masses to understand the greatness of what you’ve built. As of now, I don’t think the average person, outside of crypto, will grasp enough of it.

[Scott Rosenberg @Scott_PlayOn]

@PocketAD_ 🙏

[Scott_PlayOn @rSchoolToday]

We're thrilled to be at the CADA Conference and Trade Show in Breckenridge! Stop by our booth to meet our experts, explore cutting-edge solutions, and discover how we can empower your athletic department.
🔗: https://t.co/00mdrvxy6G

[Scott_PlayOn @rSchoolToday]

Join us at the WSSAAA Annual Conference in Kennewick! Stop by our booth at the Three Rivers Convention Center to learn how our solutions can optimize your operations. See you soon! #FacilitiesManagement

More info here: https://t.co/omq8XHfQI6