ForeverStories – in the words of its founder
For quite some time, we were keeping undisclosed this amazing interview with Ty Kroh, the founder of ForeverStories. Finally the moment to reveal this material has come, so if you want to know what this project stands for and what its plans are for the future, just tap into it.
Q: Hi there, Ty. Almost a month ago, you released ForeverStories in a quasi-stealth manner. Before starting to dive into your new project, can you tell us a little about yourself? When did you discover Arweave, and what’s the reason that kept you in this ecosystem?
A: I fell down the Arweave rabbit hole sometime in late 2020. I realised quickly that the combination of blockchain technology and immutable storage made Arweave both an amazing tool and exceedingly valuable, as its worth was not based on mysterious tokenomics but on the data it preserves. I saw Arweave as an entirely new digital medium that could enable anyone to replicate their thoughts and ideas across the planet while simultaneously preserving them for hundreds or thousands of years. The implication this has for content, creators, developers, history, and beyond continues to rent space in my brain. Since falling down this rabbit or maybe “elephant” hole, I have been learning and witnessing something new happening in this ecosystem every single week – the folks at Arweave News will never be out of work!
Q: From what I see, your take on permanent podcasting is rather different than what one can experience on Permacast, for example. It seems that you are actively seeking endangered media content in a curatorial manner while trying to cater the same ethos for new uploaders. Can you explain to us in a nutshell what ForeverStories is and what it stands for?
A: The goal of ForeverStories is to create and inspire the creation of cultural archives and artifacts through storytelling. As we have watched the technology powered by Arweave mature, we saw an opportunity for us to expand the use case beyond the scope of dApps, blockchain, and NFTs. By removing some of the technical barriers and language surrounding Web3 interaction, we could help more people to appreciate Arweave as a medium for preserving valuable cultural artifacts and communications. We use our Stories Worth Telling Forever episodes and the accompanying story archives to achieve that goal.
Additionally, we plan to expand how people can use our site to interact with the Permaweb. For example, recently, we have made it possible to upload your own audio story directly onto the Permaweb via our site’s integration with the Akord API. You can visit the site, press the button, record an audio message and receive a personalized link to your media file stored on the Permaweb – from there, you can share your message with the world! This is the first of many new and novel ways we plan on implementing to make it possible for anyone, anywhere, to experience Arweave and the Permaweb.
Q: The first episode you uploaded on the platform is a gem by itself, can you please share with us why you chose to start with the story of “The bike wanderer”? When should we expect a new episode? Should we expect a recurrence of this format – where you find endangered content that is worthy of permanent storage, make an introduction into it, and then offer help in preserving it?
A: We are so happy you enjoyed the episode! The Bike Wanderer (Iohan Gueorguiev) was an inspiration to many, and his story is one that I have wanted to share for some time. When Iohan passed away, he left behind a vast library of self-produced videos and amazing images of his journeys with no clear direction as to who should handle these valuable artifacts. Until now, no one has been able to reach any family or relation of Iohan’s for further instruction. The remainder of his content rests with a group of passionate friends who are doing their best to ensure it’s kept safe. We have communicated with them regarding his content and are looking at ways to make it accessible on the Permaweb. Currently, most of Iohan’s videos are still available on YouTube, but sadly, some have started to disappear due to minor copyright issues with music or YouTube’s policy changes. The copyright issues also prevent us from making his archive public at this time, but fans of Iohan’s work can rest assured that it is preserved.
As for the release date of future episodes and story archives, the goal is to release them every month – but the best way to stay in the know is to subscribe to the podcast itself or to follow us on our site or Twitter. So far, finding amazing stories and content that needs to be preserved has been easy, but researching and crafting them into stories worth telling forever takes time.
Q: We saw that Akord helped a lot in making ForeverStories possible. Can you help us understand how you are using Akord’s vaults? Should we expect in the future to be able to search for and play on ForeverStories all the media content that resides in Akord’s public vaults?
A: Partnering with Akord was a natural fit for this project. As mentioned, we want to make it possible for anyone, regardless of their familiarity with Arweave or Web3, to interact with the Permaweb. Akord’s commitment to Arweave and to further on-chain implementation while remaining focused on user experience aligned with our goals. As for future functionality, while we can’t discuss details at the moment, we can say that more functionality is definitely coming!
Q: Also, we discovered that FroeverStories is a Longview Labs project. From our perspective, Longview Labs is probably one of the most stealthy elephants from the ecosystem that is actually standing in plain view. I believe that every Arweaver stumbled upon at least one or two of your products, but they never knew that those projects were under a broader umbrella. Can you please elaborate more on Longview Labs’ goals? How far does your view stretch?
A: That’s correct! ForeverStories is a project from Longview Labs. Longview is focused 100% on Arweave and the Permaweb. While there hasn’t been a public announcement, there’s a lot of activity going on 🙂
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