Jul 8, 2018
Blockchain Connect: Key Takeaways on How Blockchain is Helping Content Creators and Fans Connect Globally
Xinyuan Wang is the operations director for two of Contentos’ biggest strategic partners: popular live broadcasting app LiveMe and short video app Cheez. Two weeks ago at the Blockchain Connect conference in San Francisco, Xinyuan shared his insights on how Contentos can help content creators solve their monetization problems, leveraging actual examples from the LiveMe and Cheez platforms and his vast digital media expertise.
The session was part of the MainNet pre-launch event for Ontology, a new high-performance public multi-chain project and Contentos partner, to discuss the future of blockchain technology solutions for real-world applications.
One of the cases presented involved Dyvon, a content creator on Cheez who also has 14,000 followers on Instagram. Dyvon cited value distribution as his biggest pain point as a budding creator. Xinyuan explained how centralized content platforms can easily terminate or change revenue share agreements or force unfair terms for their own benefit.
The reality is that Dyvon’s concerns aren’t an isolated incident; it’s an all-too-familiar sentiment echoed throughout the creator community. About half a year ago, YouTube updated its monetization guidelines, a move that demonetized the channels of many independent influencers and creators. Despite community complaints and protest, YouTube’s overly stringent policies have remained intact.
But the problem isn’t just limited to a single platform. In 2015, Apple began taking a 30% percent cut from any payments processed within iOS app ecosystem. Industry shifts like these have been detrimental to many creators, particularly for those who live on audience-driven direct revenue streams like virtual gifting, premium subscriptions, and user donations. This segment of independent creators remain powerless and can do very little to shift the tide.
Working closely with LiveMe, Cheez, and other digital content apps, Contentos is devoted to building a decentralized ecosystem for content creation and distribution. The team’s extensive experience and understanding of the content industry means they’re able to identify the best ways to leverage blockchain technology to solve the biggest pain points for creators.
Another major pain point Xinyuan brought up is trust building, especially between creators who don’t know each other. There are countless reasons for creators to collaborate with each other during the content creation process, like artwork and music. As an example, obtaining the rights to an original soundtrack for a new video is still a convoluted and slow process that involves many intermediaries beyond the musician and the video creator, including brokers, lawyers, agencies, and labels. But the alternative, having musicians and creators collaborate directly without their intermediaries, can be risky if they don’t have a pre-existing relationship.
According to Xinyuan, this is where Contentos comes in. “By introducing smart contracts into creator collaborations, we can provide a risk-free intermediate layer that can automatically calculate and distribute profit share the instant a set of predefined conditions is met.”
The final painpoint Xinyuan touched on is creators’ fear of piracy regarding their content. On this topic, Xinyuan praised Ontology for its contribution in fighting this issue through its property protection solution based on the cutting edge Distributed Identity Management Frameworks.
Xinyuan wrapped up the session by exploring the potential impact of blockchain technology for real-world scenarios through apps like LiveMe and Cheez. “As we all know, building the MainNet of a public chain is a tremendous undertaking that takes a lot of time and resources. In the meantime, we can still apply the technology to our apps, which millions of people use daily. The most interesting project that we are building on LiveMe and Cheez is a natural Production-Consumption model which provides different ways for the average user to earn and spend Contentos utility tokens called COS.”
Through the Contentos website, users can transfer their COS tokens to the wallet of their choice. For each of these operations, Contentos will be leveraging its influencer community of one million members around the world to create how-to tutorials and guide people step-by-step into the crypto world.
“Fans want to have intimate, direct connections with the influencers they love but these influencers only have a limited number of hours to interact each day,” said Xinyuan. “In a relationship of asymmetric supply and demand for the attention of influencers, we’ve implemented a free market solution where influencers can put digital price tags on their DMs. Anyone who wants to speak to an influencer can send a message with a COS amount matching or exceeding the cost set by the influencer, which the influencer can only collect by replying to the fan. In essence, users are are actually bidding for an opportunity to speak to their favorite influencer.”
As creators and audiences look for new ways to strengthen relationships and reward each other, the evolution of the digital content industry is imminent. By building the infrastructure and the applications of blockchain together, Contentos is opening the gateway for a new generation of content creators to benefit and use their influence to connect people all around the world.
