A decentralized advertising and media production network
Hello world;
In this blog post, I present an overview of a digital advertising and subscriptions model for the post-television era. Advertising and content subscription industry today is plagued by two main vices, which throttle development of the media industry: Fraud and gatekeepers.
Advertising fraud is currently worth a staggering $50 billion, which represents an opportunity for blockchain-based, trackable digital advertising.
Gatekeepers hurt the industry through centrally managed curation of content. Decentralized financing of content production based on user voting and treasury model may bring out undiscovered talent and fund production that would otherwise not attract investors.
Decentralized smart contracts may benefit the advertising and subscription sales industry in a variety of ways. A common platform may finance independent production that would otherwise have difficult time getting funding, or it can aggregate advertising revenue across niche markets. A decentralized advertising and subscription platform allows good ideas to flourish, by removing gatekeepers from the market.
I present an outline of a decentralized film and TV production network as a case example.
When I discuss the business solution at the end of the article, I'll speculate a little, but I'll stay on the topic and highlight the opportunities a decentralized advertising and subscription-based content network would present, especially in developing markets.
I'll first discuss technology and then business side of the suggested approach.
Current notable advertising token platforms:
-Basic Attention Token, a token for advertising on the web, available through the Brave browser.
https://basicattentiontoken.org/
-AdEx Network, an online advertising revenue network, for targeted advertising.
https://www.adex.network/
-Adbank Network, an online advertising revenue network enhanced with AI for fraud protection.
https://adbank.network/
-Smart contracts needed to build a decentralized production and advertising network:
-Auction contract
https://medium.com/@bryn.bellomy/solidity-tutorial-building-a-simple-auction-contract-fcc918b0878a
Advertising timeslots are auctioned through an auctioning contract, for timeslots in popular places, or by default.
-Voting contract
Content production is voted by the audience. The revenue is collected within a treasury, and the treasury funds are made available for content production by content owners. This can include a default licensing model, or an open licensing model referring to a smart contract owned by the content owner.
-Utility token
The utility token may be an ERC-20 or ERC-223 token that simply represents value in the advertising network. The dumb token may be governed with a smart contract that gives the user access to purchasing advertising time tokens for a user-set timeslot in the network.
There can be a smart contract that tracks token ownership in an ERC-20 or ERC-223 token standard over a given period of time. A token that can be purchased to represent the advertising time may be leased to a client through a smart contract.
A simple token leasing contract can go as follows:
pragma solidity ^0.4.0;
/**
Basic expiry example using the expire cache on modify/read concept
based on block times (consider having a trigger method for metropolis)
/
contract MyToken {
/*- Minimal viable token, ERC20, ERC223, etc code here
*/
mapping (address => uint) public _balanceOf;
mapping (address => uint) public _expiryOf;uint leasePeriod = 100;
uint price = 1 Ether;/**
- Expire the leased tokens if the expiry time has passed and attach to
- all the functions which interact with balances
*/
modifier expiry(address _addr) {
if (_balanceOf[_addr] > 0 && _expiryOf[_addr] < block.timestamp) {
_expiryOf[_addr] = 0;
_balanceOf[_addr] = 0;
}
_;
}
function lease(uint _amount)
public
payable
expiry(msg.sender)
returns (bool) {
require(1 Ether == msg.value); // Assume we can only buy 1 at a time
require(0 == _balanceOf[msg.sender]); // Only permit leasing 1 value at a time
_expiryOf[msg.sender] = block.timestamp + leasePeriod;
_balanceOf[msg.sender] += 1; // use safe math for this
}function balanceOf(address _addr)
public
expiry(_addr)
returns (uint) {
return _balanceOf[_addr];
}
}- Minimal viable token, ERC20, ERC223, etc code here
Source: https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/28144/leasing-a-token-with-smart-contract/28152
A token that represents a second of airtime on the network can be built this way.
Perhaps even the actual timeslots may be integrated within the smart contract.
Of course, the leasing contract is just a simplistic example, and in reality advertising is an ever-changing medium. Actual advertising contracts may be developed by the network on demand and according to market trends.
-Token structure
The token representing the 'fuel' for the advertising revenue would be needed by every smart contract governing the network to operate.
The token held in a treasury, gathered by the advertising revenue would be directed towards media production, as voted by the users through the Voting Contract.
The token leased to the user for purchasing the actual advertising on the network's streaming service would be issued on demand through the leasing contract, where the leasing period represents the amount of 'fuel' tokens spent.
There can be advertising auction for most popular advertising spots, or auction by default.
The content would be stored in IPFS.
The media content can be represented by ERC-721 non-fungible tokens. This type of token allows licensing of the media and awarding the content owner for their work, based on their licensing contract.
-App deployment
Netflix -like model:
Online streaming in the United States is set to surpass traditional media measured in advertising revenue in 2018. Much of this success is held by Netflix, YouTube, Google and Facebook. While social media -based model is a success story in it's own category, broadcasting and film production have moved increasingly towards online platforms as well, most notably on Netflix.
The main problem with social media and online streaming companies is that while they do give way to user-created content, the platform still is centralized, and thus controlled by the operator. The operator may still throttle content, control ad revenue and act as a gatekeeper as to what gets published, or broadcasted. Inevitably, the problems in advertising revenue fraud follow the centralized model, and plenty of talent (and potential revenue created by the talent) in the market remains neglected.
Legacy tools:
Legacy tools based on the client-server -model include API -based and server-based content management and livestreaming servers, most notable of them being Red5, which is currently used by Facebook and Google to manage their user-based video streaming services.
https://www.how2shout.com/tools/free-best-open-source-video-streaming-servers-software.html
Facebook's deployment of video streaming embedded in the content field is actually ingenious from an UI -developer's perspective. It gives both instant access to the content, as well as a way to promote it. Video content increases user engagement on a given topic, and provides increased ad revenue.
YouTube and Netflix provide highlights in addition to the search engine, which aid the user look for the relevant content through the service provider's massive library. From a broadcaster's perspective, this may be a little daunting: The user's preferences are tracked, but the advertising revenue is still controlled and the content curated by a central party.
In order to develop the social media and online streaming media -based model the process of decentralization would ideally go further.
Not only content production would be decentralized, but also hosting it would, financing production would, and the advertising platform would, be decentralized through a blockchain-based platform.
In theory, this approach would remove the bottlenecks of legacy media production at the both ends - fraud and gatekeeping.
-App structure
The application would be a frontend similar to client-server based video streaming servers, with the notable difference that the backend is an IPFS network.
A good example of a video library -type application based on a central server:
In addition to the IPFS deployment, the app ought to include an Ethereum wallet capable of handling tokens.
I suggest Ethereum or QTUM as the deployment network, for the fact that the both are already practical and support the abovementioned technology.
Current deployments of decentralized video libraries:
The dtube application working on IPFS and STEEM blockchain is a decentralized production network, type of which might find use for advertising revenue-sharing tokens and subscription-based tokens. Currently, dTube earning model is based on user-generated upvotes, which earn the producer STEEM currency.
Adding live streaming into a broadcasting application:
The open source KickFlip -SDK can provide live video for any application
-AI -based curation
Human language interpreter as a content filter is already commonly used by social media networks to filter content that doesn't comply with community standards. This kind of AI may be deployed equally well in decentralized networks. The AI may be enhanced with pattern recognition skills to filter out ie. nudity or other offensive or illegal content, with flags for exempt content such as historical documents, obvious fine art, or culture.
-TV show advertising example
Traditional media is somewhat a dinosaur in regard to production and advertising models. A TV show may be produced over a decentralized advertising and production network as follows:
-The content producer posts a production plan and requested investment into the auction service hosted on the network.
-The users of the network vote on the production. Subsequently the production gets selected by the users.
-The production is filmed. It earns a timeslot on the network.
-The advertising contract on the film is auctioned.
-The advertisers purchase tokens that give them rights to embed their content in the film, according to the leasing contract or any other types of advertising contracts.
-The network airs the show on a mobile app.
-The network airs the show on legacy television contracted by the network.
-Conclusion:
The approach presented here addresses two major flaws in legacy media production - fraud and bottlenecks. Once deployed, blockchain-based advertising revenue has no longer the question of fraud, as the advertising is by default tracked by a smart contract. Gatekeeping is addressed through user voting and a treasury model, giving way to democracy in the system.
I'm not sure if eventually the preferred model in decentralized media production in the blockchain age will be identical to the approach proposed here in my blog post, but I try to make an educated guess.
The megatrend is evident, though - media is moving from centralized TV & radio towards online platforms and from centralized platforms towards decentralized platforms, and decentralization is overall on the increase in new projects.
Perhaps, one day we'll live in a media production environment less based on the location of the producer, and more on the popularity of the content.
My proposal is just a crude outline.