Spritely went to DWeb Camp: 2024 Recap

Last month, Spritely's Executive Director (Christine) and CTO (me) attended DWeb Camp. DWeb Camp is an annual tech conference unlike any I’ve experienced before. It's organized by the Internet Archive, and is focused on creating a truly decentralized web.

In lieu of a traditional conference space, DWeb Camp takes place at a campground in the redwood forests of northern California. On top being outdoors, the event has several layers of COVID mitigations in place to help protect public safety. It's a unique setting for discussing all the problems facing the decentralized web and the solutions currently being developed. Getting there from the east coast of the US was a long journey, but DWeb Camp was worth it!

The plan 🗺️

Some of Spritely’s many goals at DWeb Camp this year were to:

• Share the current state of our technology through presentations

• Generate excitement for our work with cool demos

• Talk to Spritely supporters/collaborators

• Make new connections with potential future collaborators and funders

Presentations and panels 🎤

To that end, we gave two presentations:

• Why Spritely is all-in on WebAssembly: A lightning talk about our Hoot project and why we’re investing in WebAssembly. This talk was recorded but, as of this writing, the video has not yet been posted publicly.

• Keeping decentralized networking fun with Spritely: A longer talk about why Spritely uses games as a way to generate excitement for decentralized web technology and make a very technical subject more fun and approachable. This talk was not recorded, unfortunately.

Additionally, Christine participated in a couple panels:

• Film Showing: Secrets in Your Data: An outdoor screening of PBS NOVA’s Secrets in Your Data documentary (which features Christine for her work on ActivityPub) followed by a Q&A session.

• Successful Cultures for Long-Term Decentralized Communities: An open discussion on what technical, structural, and cultural considerations engender sustainable, decentralized communities.

As if that weren’t enough, Christine also ran an in-person instance of the Hack & Craft workshop, a part of her FOSS and Crafts podcast project.

The Night Market 🌙

The best event of all for Spritely was the Demo Night Market, which gave us a chance for us to run in-person, live demos of our technologies. Tables were placed in a circle around a cluster of redwood trees and the space was divided up amongst the various projects on display.

We shared a table with object capability comrades from the Endo JS project. Our theme was the Spritely Arcade. We featured games like Cirkoban and Strigoform that show off our Goblins and Hoot projects.

We didn’t have room in our checked luggage for arcade cabinets (but how cool would it be to roll up to camp with a Taito Egret II?) so we made do with simply running the games on some spare laptops. What we did have room for, though, were a bunch of lovely, colorful cardboard displays made by tessa (Developer Relations) to attract passersby. We even had a DIY gachapon machine as a fun way to give out stickers and trinkets.

Our combination of displays and cute pixel graphics worked well… almost too well. We were busy entertaining from the moment the night market opened until a half hour after it officially closed! While I’ve never been to a true night market, we were told our table embodied the vibe and spirit of one. What a wonderful compliment to top off a fantastic night!

Speaking of lovely, colorful things… it’s safe to say that our merch game was on point this year, thanks to tessa. We had many types of stickers, postcards, coasters, stamps, and even coloring books (many campers bring their kids but these were a hit with adults, too!) Check out our pre-DWeb Camp post to see lovely pictures of all the wonderful merch.

All work and some play 🥽

During rare moments of downtime, we had fun doing things like:

• Singing karaoke

• Participating in the talent show

• Swimming in the nearby river

• Stargazing

Final thoughts 🏞️

In summary, DWeb Camp was an overwhelmingly good time! We left camp exhausted but with high spirits and optimism that we’re building the right things for the future of the decentralized web. It’s clear that many people like what we’re doing and for that we are very grateful. If these goals and activities sound at a tech conference sound up your alley, DWeb Camp might be for you, too!

As always, if you’d like to discuss anything Spritely-related then please join our community forum. Until next time! 🏕️

Unedited photo sources: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Original photos by John Bruhling and Brad Shirakawa