JAM Tour 2025: From Events to Community Resources
Sharing our learnings and insights from content production with the Polkadot JAM community.
TL;DR
Nine tour stops, a complete lecture archive, numerous short videos and interviews, and a documentary providing the broader context. Long-form lectures became the primary drivers of organic discovery and watch time on Youtube, transforming the tour into a lasting catalog of educational and web3 culture resources.
Find the full Pala Labs Content Map here (dark view).
Overview
Between February and March 2025 we followed Dr. Gavin Wood’s educational JAM Tour across nine world class universities and tech hubs and turned it into an open video archive, a short documentary and a series of social media friendly content.
Reach on YouTube and X exceeded targets, with engagement led by long-form lecture content. The work now serves as a public learning base and introduction to JAM for developers, students, and the wider Web3 crowd, and gives Polkadot an updated, durable content surface.
JAM Tour Recap
Locations
Total in-person attendance: 1,328
| Date | City | Venue | Local event partners |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 10 | Cambridge, UK | Launch event | Cambridge Blockchain Association |
| Feb 12 | New Delhi, India | IIT Delhi | Polkadot Now |
| Feb 13 | Mumbai, India | IIT Bombay | Edgetributor SubDAO |
| Feb 17 | Hong Kong | Keynote | PolkaPort East, EasyA, Cyberport |
| Feb 19 | Taipei, Taiwan | NTUST | NTUST Blockchain Society |
| Feb 26 | Beijing, China | Peking University | PolkaWorld |
| Feb 28 | Shanghai, China | Fudan University | PolkaWorld |
| Mar 3 | Hangzhou, China | Zhejiang University | PolkaWorld |
| Mar 5 | Shenzhen, China | Shenzhen University | PolkaWorld |
A Tour Built for Replay Value
The tour was designed as a content program from day one. Capture once, publish many, and keep the set coherent so one view can becomes three.
Core catalog
| Content Type | Description | Content |
|---|---|---|
| Lecture Archives | 9 lecture videos ~2h each | Link |
| Thematic Shorts + Clips | 15 shorts + 4 clips on PVM, JAM Toaster, DOOM, core Web3 concepts | Link (2) |
| Location Interviews | 15 interviews with local builders and community leads | Link |
| Location Highlights | 11 clips showcasing cultural & geographic context | Link |
| Recap Video | 5-minute overview of the JAM Tour 2025 | Link |
| Documentary: Safeguard Against the Post Truth Age | 25-minute feature documentary premiered in August | Link |
Placement Strategy
- Documentary, Lecture Archives, Thematic Clips, Interviews → published on Pala Labs channels
- Location Highlights → published on The Kusamarian
- Recap Video → co-published by Pala Labs & The Kusamarian
Reach and Performance (as of August 2025)
The tour’s “capture once, publish many” strategy translated directly into significant reach and engagement. By combining high-value educational content with a multi-channel distribution plan, the JAM Tour created a powerful and lasting digital footprint.
Key Performance Metrics (as of August 2025):
- Total Views: 2M+ across YouTube and X (Twitter)
- Documentary Success: Safeguard Against the Post-Truth Age reached 300k+ views and nearly 20k hours of watch time in its first month
- Organic Social Reach: Pala Labs’ X account generated ~1M organic impressions
- Community Growth: 5,500 qualified contacts captured directly by the tour
Channel Breakdown:
- Pala Labs (YouTube): 500k+ views, driven primarily by long-form lectures and the documentary
- The Kus (YouTube): 1M+ views, led by high-energy location-highlight shorts and the tour recap
Audience Profile:
- Age: primarily 25–44 (strong resonance with professional developers and young academics)
- Gender: predominantly male across platforms
What Worked (and Why)
Format strategy
- Long-form lectures were the engine for organic discovery and total watch time.
- Shorts created clear on-ramps and let viewers sample concepts before committing to a full lecture.
- Interviews localized the story and highlighted student and builder voices.
Distribution mechanics
- Search and Suggested on YouTube dominated average watch time.
- A consistent visual system improved recognition and CTR across the set.
- Smart-TV surfaces sent steady suggested traffic to the lectures.
Positioning and partnerships
- Framing JAM as practical infrastructure resonated with students and developers.
- Local partners and student societies were detrimental for full rooms and downstream sharing.
Media kit for community reuse
- JAM Tour photo gallery: A curated set of high-resolution images from the JAM Tour: keynote moments, audience reactions, group photos…
- Clips & shorts folders: Community-ready snippets to embed in posts and socials.
A Mission Beyond the Code
The tour was more than a sequence of technical lectures; it was an opportunity to present a broader vision for the future of the web. As featured in the documentary Safeguard Against the Post-Truth Age, Dr. Gavin Wood and the JAM Protocol were introduced as a potential response to the growing challenges of maintaining truth and trust in an era shaped by AI and centralized systems.
By presenting JAM as a practical tool for restoring truth and transparency, the tour resonated with developers and students dedicated to building a more resilient and user-sovereign internet. Highlighting the human side of the technology and its goals, from the first demonstration of the classic DOOM game running on JAM to the stories of local builders, helped anchor the innovation in real experiences and make it tangible.
The 2025 JAM Tour provides a clear direction for future efforts. Continuing to prioritize extended-form content and the use of local partnerships, we can continue to extend the reach of the JAM Protocol and build a healthy, active community of developers and thinkers.
Requests for Feedback & Ongoing Ecosystem Research
- What additional lecture topics should we prioritize for chaptering?
- Which developer communities should we target next for screenings or guest lectures?
- Most exciting use cases for Polkadot JAM. What would you like to see running on Polkadot JAM?
Start Learning About Polkadot JAM
- Watch the documentary Safeguard Against the Post Truth Age
- See the JAM Tour Recap, from Cambridge to Shenzhen
- Explore the full lectures playlist
- Read the JAM graypaper
About Pala Labs
Pala Labs is a techno-cultural incubator dedicated to advancing the open-source movement and committed to “People’s Technology”—technologies that place individuals above short-term financial gain or machine dominance.
Echoing Aldous Huxley’s final novel “Island”, we value human happiness, long-term vision, and the meeting of Eastern philosophy and Western science. Our lineage runs from hippies and hackers to cypherpunks, carried forward today by Bitcoin and the original Web3 vision.
We think Polkadot and JAM are the technologies which put people first with long-term thinking, and we accordingly supported the introduction of JAM with Gray Paper Tour, JAM Tour, and other initiatives.
We are currently focusing on bringing more transparency and stories from the Web3 ecosystems such as Polkadot & JAM. More details to come soon.