Vodra — Decentralizing the Creator-to-Audience Connection
Allowing Creators to Monetize Their Content Without Any Middleman Interference
Vodra is a decentralized platform built for creators to connect with their audience without any pesky middleman interference. Using the Vodra Token (VDR) and a Proof-of-Stake bridge, the Vodra Platform enables audiences to “donate” to their favorite creators and unlock a variety of content and features while entirely eliminating gas fees. That means followers can consume and support content from their chosen creators with the least amount of friction possible. It also means that creators can get paid for their work while avoiding the all-too-familiar pains involved with advertising revenue, platform commissions, and algorithmic discrimination.
How The Middlemen Are Unfortunately Shaping Our Digital Content
While the total “creator economy” is expected to reach over $100 billion by the end of 2021, only a portion of the revenue involved goes directly to the people making the content. According to CB Insights, over 75% of revenue streams for creators are built on brand deals. The other 25% is basically spread across ad share, personal brands, affiliate marketing, tips, and subscriptions.
There are two major problems with this paradigm. The first is that creators are clearly unable to make ends meet by simply utilizing the monetization features that content platforms have baked-in. For example, Google takes 45% of ad revenue from monetizable YouTube videos while TikTok is still working out most of the kinks in its rev-share models. And that leads to the second problem. Most content producers need to form partnerships with brands outside of the platforms they create on in order to make a real living.
Traditional advertising and other forms of branded partnerships have played a significant role in shaping the world’s consumable content since the early days of radio. Back then, it wasn’t uncommon for a single brand to sponsor an entire broadcast show. Inevitably, the content of those shows had to be molded to suit the needs and moral inclinations of its sponsor.
Fast forward a century or so and we’re still seeing very similar relationships between brands and influencers or content creators. The only real difference is the mediums that these relationships occur within (primarily social media channels). While there’s nothing inherently wrong with these partnerships, they often lead to a cheapening of the content with things like forced product placements, inorganic messaging, and an inescapable wedge placed between the audience and the creators.
Similar issues arise with a purely ad-revenue share system that doesn’t involve any “sponsored content”. Within this structure, platforms are built with algorithms that are designed to generate the most ad revenue possible. This leads to a further cheapening of content since creators are forced (or are willing) to adjust their production efforts in an attempt to meet the demands of these algorithmic engines.
How Is Vodra Solving the Problems of the Creator Economy
In order to escape this paradigm, a number of platforms and monetization features have been rolled out to service a direct creator-to-audience connection. Relatively newer platforms like Patreon, Locals.com and OnlyFans have enabled creators to easily place their content behind a paywall with the hopes of sidestepping the ad revenue share and branded partnership structures that pervade the industry. And even most advertising-based platforms enable some form of premium content or “tipping” that give users a chance to support their favorite creators directly.
Still, the issue with these current solutions is that they take high commissions and they usually maintain at least one foot in the door of the advertising-based model. Regardless of the monetization features for any creator platform, having an ad-revenue model inherently muddies the waters. This is because algorithms are put in place to showcase content that will attract the most advertisers.
That’s why Vodra has set out to establish a direct connection between the makers and the engagers. Using the innovative transactional elements of blockchain technology, Vodra is capable of delivering a platform that allows users to pay creators directly without any fees or commissions. With the Vodra Platform, creators can get paid in VDR through donations, tips, suibscriptions, NFT sales, or “however they see fit.” Audience members can then use VDR to engage with creators, vote on or crowdfund upcoming projects, and essentially have a direct hand in the content they are engaging with.
VDR Token & Vodra’s Breakthrough Features
Vodra has positioned its VDR token to have a fixed supply of 2 billion. A portion of this supply will be automatically given to content creators who join the platform at a rate that’s based on their audience size. Of course, that rate will diminish over time as the platform gains mass participation.
These tokenomics are designed to attract content creators to the platform first, without the need for Vodra to establish a huge audience base. This effectively flips the script on most social media apps or digital content channels by onboarding creators before engagers. By doing so, Vodra will ostensibly be able to rapidly expand their premium user base without having to bog down their platform with ad revenue or costly content production tools (e.g. TikTok).
Another innovative feature of the Vodra Platform involves the use of VDR to allow audience members to support and/or vote for their favorite creators’ upcoming projects. Creators are able to connect their existing content channels to the platform and can upload project proposals. They can subsequently allow their followers to pay for the projects that they want to see or simply use their tokens to vote on the future outcomes of their content. This truly places the control of the content back in the hands of the audience/creators rather than the pesky middlemen advertisers and brands that hope to capitalize on pre-existing engagement.
If you’re interested in being one of the first creators on Vodra you can sign up here. And if you’re looking for more information on this project, you can follow the links below:
Links:
Website: www.vodra.io
Email: Contact@Vodra.io
Twitter: https://twitter.com/VodraToken
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VodraToken/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vodratoken/
Discord: https://discord.gg/uhANwQmE
