Content is the essence of the Internet and comes in many different forms supported by the current Web2 Internet iteration – text, audio, video or a mixture of the three. However, the content is not a free resource. It’s the content creators who are now becoming thought leaders, influencers, and the cornerstones of so many essential services that businesses rely on, such as advertising, marketing, and PR management.
The need for content and its quest for independence – embodied by thousands of bloggers and independent artists – has spawned a huge online economy that trades talent and often generates sales volumes that many top artists would salivate over. to win. This economy has been dubbed the creator economy: a financial framework that allows independent individuals to earn on their self-expression by providing audiences with the kind of content they are willing to pay to consume.
A rising force
The creator economy is a formidable force: a unique online phenomenon that surpassed the $104 billion market size threshold at the end of 2021. Given the soaring demand for new content on popular platforms, such as than TikTok, which allow independent artists and performers, experts are hesitant to make predictions about the potential market size of the creator economy in the near future.
The reason for the lack of tangible forecasts is that the creator economy is an extremely young phenomenon that started with the COVID-19 pandemic. The lockdowns evoked a surge of talent among those confined indoors, resulting in a release of creativity that others sharing the lockdown were eager to consume as much-needed entertainment.
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Considering that micro-entrepreneur builders are closely linked to influencer marketing, which represents a market size of approximately $13.8 billion, it is possible to understand the prospects that a further expansion of the phenomenon may offer. More importantly, experts believe that the transition to a new technological medium will allow content creators to overwhelm markets and industries with new opportunities to promote products and services.
Decentralize talent
Over 50 million creators run their own talent economy, attracting over $800 million in venture capital. These numbers are only a shadow of what they may become later as new locations quickly become available.
The development of blockchain technologies has brought about a radical revolution in financial markets, empowering individuals over institutions and transferring ownership of data and funds to their holders. The qualities of blockchain – immutability, complete transparency and the trustless nature of operations – have permeated many industries, shifting the balance of business orientation from centralized corporate reliance to decentralization. This evolution of the basic concepts that govern the relationships between participants in transactions, facilitated by smart contracts, has not gone unnoticed in the creator economy.
With the decentralized finance and GameFi sectors coming together in their respective industries and distracting many users from conventional approaches to banking and gaming, it was only a matter of time before influencers and creators of content do decide to change the paradigm in their operating environments. The content creation model has been changed forever with the incorporation of blockchain technologies that allow users to incentivize content creators, while creators can truly monetize their talent without having to share the profits with content platforms. centralized and often unfair accommodation.
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Switch to metaverse
The development of metaverses – fully digital environments powered by blockchain on Web3 and virtual reality – will herald a new era in content creation. Never before has talent had access to such an advanced set of tools to embellish even the bravest ideas on the threshold of the real and digital worlds.
Metaverses allow creators to visualize in stunning graphical detail anything from an opera concert in the vacuum of space against a backdrop of nebulae to a blog feed on a desert island. Anything that creativity can comprehend can be implemented in the metaverse for the benefit of all parties involved. By leveraging the boundless possibilities of the metaverse in its incorporation of virtual reality, content creators will be able to unleash their creativity and allow it to run wild. Such promises of unseen content quality can only be described as honeysuckle for an avid audience of viewers yearning for more variety in the types of content consumed – and, more importantly, new experiences.
The blockchain base of the metaverse offers even more benefits to content creators, as it allows them to use various mechanisms to monetize their content thanks to the versatile nature of internal cryptocurrencies. Users can stake their digital assets on specific creators, encouraging them to post more content of a certain type. Others may pay to access special content, while others may simply reward their favorite creators with donations. Monetization avenues are plentiful, and content creators can always be sure that their talent will be rewarded and no hosting platform can strip them of their earnings.
The outlook for companies in terms of penetrating the content creator economy into the metaverse is even more lucrative. Marketing, advertising and promotion in general are gaining an evolutionary new lease of life with content that can be personalized in an endless variety of ways and integrated seamlessly into select creator channels. The metaverse offers businesses a whole new frontier for audience deployment and reach, and creators are the take-off pads who can showcase products and services in front of their subscribers – for a price.
In digital retrospective
The Metaverse is the next iteration of the Internet as we know it today: an entirely user-centric environment with the goal of taking creativity to a new level. Audiences won’t be the only source of revenue for content creators, however, as companies are eager to tap into this lucrative niche and take advantage of the possibilities offered by native, organic, and highly versatile ad integrations into content. virtual reality.
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The views, thoughts and opinions expressed herein are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
Johnny Lyu is the CEO of KuCoin, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, which was launched in 2017. Prior to joining KuCoin, he had accumulated abundant experience in the e-commerce, automotive and luxury industries .
