Current Media — Community Update #11
This weeks update is primarily focused on product and development progress. We understand many of you are anxiously awaiting an update on token distribution. We’re still working alongside advisers and legal to gauge appropriate timing. Soon, we will have a revised plan in place for the community.
We can’t emphasize enough that albeit slower, a thoughtful, more measured approach regarding the distribution is to protect the best interests of our backers and community members as well as to secure the longevity of Current.
Product
Week over week, the product and development teams continues to deliver significant progress on the Current Music app, now on both iOS and Android. From March 1st to September 1st, the development team has made around 900 improvements involving more than 3,700 Github commits. These improvements encompass iOS, Android, CRNT (In-app Credit system), Radio API, the CRNC Portal, CRNC Smart-Contracts, Websites and more. The development team is committing these almost daily!
Next week, on iOS, the Current app will be getting a significant overhaul. We’re very excited as these upcoming changes were driven by months of research, listening to user feedback and ultimately implemented to improve the overall user experience. We found that our users are predominantly free service users, that are price sensitive and non-premium service subscribers. The following changes will allow us to improve our relationship with our users.
The most significant change you’ll notice is the shift to curated radio, and the removal of Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music. While we still plan to offer a variety of these as premium subscriptions as a form of redemption, the inability to use these services right away due to limitations and users willingness to pay for a subscription, hindered the overall experience for the overwhelming majority of users (i.e., you must have a premium subscription to access Spotify in any app other than Spotify). With this change, any user will be able to listen to any of the stations right away — in many more geographies. Right now our curated radio service works in over 100 countries and consists of over 100,000 radio stations.
Also, removing these features will narrow our focus, so we can improve the experience of one integration, and allow us to prioritize on the one thing that we sought out to do — enable users to monetize their time, data and attention and redeem their earnings in a meaningful way. As more users gain access to premium subscriptions and there is a demand for access, Current still has the ability to add the integrations back into the product.
Other updates coming in this next release include a variety of user experience improvements, including new sign in screen, discover screen, settings screen, search screen, library screen, media player and the first update to the wallet screen with a change to the transaction details.
Last week, as many of you know, we made the BETA of the Current app for Android public on the Google Play Store! For those of you that participated in our Private BETA, we thank you for all of the feedback! We’re incredibly excited to begin expanding Current’s offering and enable more people to monetize their data, time, and attention through streaming. This product will follow a similar schedule of feature releases as iOS, first with the earning feature waitlist and invitations to soon follow. We are in the midst of squashing bugs 🐞 from the public beta release. Currently hiring Android Engineers if interested!
Concerning user growth, on iOS we’re just under 1.7M users and based on our growth rate, expect to hit 2M users in Q4. A total of around 430k users have requested access to the earning feature, with over 32k invited. With the Android product live, we’ll be using similar marketing strategies that have helped us grow tremendously on iOS over the Summer.
From now through the end of October, Current will be dedicated to optimizing a lot of the iOS updates from this release — especially, the library and search screens, but will also include a new wallet design, new ways to earn and redeem, and the first stage of ad monetization. Also included in this time frame will be improvements to the first-time user experience — clearly coaching the user through each aspect of how to stream, how to earn and how to redeem.
Beyond that, with ad /monetization partners already in place, discussions are being had as to a variety of different ways to help users monetize further, including, but not limited to, credit-card linking to determine purchase history and shopping habits, surveys, market research, videos, game downloads, etc. As we add and test features further, we’ll make adjustments based on the research and feedback we receive from our users.
With each new release on iOS, features will trickle down into future releases in the Android BETA. There will be a few month period of periodic changes and stability testing, but the goal is keeping them relatively close in sync. Overtime, we also plan on introducing other media types such as Audiobooks, Podcasts, Movies & TV shows to Current’s product offering.
If you have visited us at Current.us recently, you will notice a complete overhaul as we’ve really simplified things to focus purely on the Current app.
Finally, in the coming weeks, we’ll begin a series of posts as a continuation of Weekly Update #9. The first post will be dedicated to a transparent look at our financials (spoiler alert: we are in good shape ❤️), our YTD expenditures, and what we’ve accomplished thus far. Subsequent posts will cover topics separately, due to the complexities inherent to each of them.
We’re confident that these upcoming posts will provide the context and clarity everyone is looking for, as it relates to token distribution. The team is working very hard to include as much detail as possible.
Stay tuned for these, and other product updates in the coming weeks.
Cheers,
The Team at Current
Please read important legal disclaimer: No money or other consideration is being solicited by this communique, and if sent in response, will not be accepted. Our discussion may contain forward-looking statements that are based on our beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to management. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the following words: “may,” “will,” “could,” “would,” “should,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “is designed to,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “project,” “potential,” “continue,” “ongoing,” or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words.
These statements involve risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from the information expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Although we believe that we have a reasonable basis for each such forward-looking statement, we caution you that these statements are based on a combination of facts and factors currently known by us and our projections of the future, about which we cannot be certain. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about: developing and designing the Current network, including the $CRNC token and its future utility; the anticipated development and growth of the Current network; maintaining and expanding our base of users; our anticipated growth and growth strategies and our ability to effectively manage that growth and effect these strategies; our expectations regarding regulatory developments and their effect on the Current network, including the ability of applications on our network to develop a user base and a successful business model; and potential future listings on an exchange or ATS. We cannot assure you that the forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate. Furthermore, if the forward-looking statements prove to be inaccurate, the inaccuracy may be material. In light of the significant uncertainties in these forward-looking statements, you should not regard these statements as a representation or warranty by us or any other person that we will achieve our objectives and plans in any specified time frame, or at all. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
