Web3 has become the most popular investment sector in 2022 as use cases for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), metaverses, and other blockchain applications come to fruition. So it’s no surprise that different segments of the publishing industry have started using his Web3 technology to transform the traditional model.
For example, textbook publishing giant Pearson recently announced plans to use NFTs to track digital textbook sales and capture revenue lost in the secondary market. His Time magazine, founded 99 years ago, has also used NFTs to create new revenue streams along with a sense of community within the publishing industry. Time magazine president Keith Grossman told Cointelegraph that the magazine is demonstrating the new potential for engagement that Web3 brings to the publishing industry. He said:
“Web3 enables brands to evolve in a world where individuals are moving from online lessors to online owners, and privacy is beginning to shift from platforms to individuals.”
Web3 enables a community of content owners
It may seem untraditional for one of the industry’s oldest and best-known magazine publishers to host an NFT gallery, but Grossman explained that Time has dropped nearly 30,000 NFTs to date. Did. These are collected by over 15,000 wallet addresses, 7,000 of which are connected to Time.com, allowing you to remove paywalls without providing any personal information. “In the process, the TIMEPiece community has grown to over 50,000 people,” he points out Grossman.
To give an overview of this, Grossman explained that Time launched a Web3 community initiative known as TIMEPieces in September 2021. The project is a digital gallery space hosted on his NFT marketplace OpenSea, which brings together 89 artists, photographers and even musicians. “The number of TIMEPiece artists has grown from 38 to 89, including Drift, Cath Simard, Diana Sinclair, Micah Johnson, Justin Aversano, Fvckrender, Victor Mosquera, Baeige, to name a few,” said Grossman. says.
It’s worth noting, but the more important aspect of this growth lies in the difference between “audience” and “community.” Few people in the publishing sector distinguish between these two groups, Grossman says, but Web3 offers “a tremendous opportunity for those willing to explore this oversight.” For example, Grossman explained that viewers only have a momentary interest in content. However, he noted that communities are aligned around shared values and provide opportunities for continued engagement.
“A healthy ‘community’ has moats that make it difficult to disrupt and avoid. However, it requires a lot of work to develop and nurture. The long-term benefit of the community is stability, and publishing has never been. “
In fact, NFTs could be key to providing the stability and audience interaction the publishing industry needs to move forward. As Cointelegraph previously reported, brands are using her NFTs in a variety of ways to build better relationships with their customers.
Other sectors of the publishing industry are starting to adopt NFTs for this very reason. For example, Royal Joh Enschede, a 300-year-old Dutch printing company, is entering the Web3 space by offering customers her NFT platform for “crypto stamps.” Gelmer Leibbrandt, CEO of Royal Joh Enschede, told Cointelegraph that the world of stamps and philately is very traditional, and non-fungible tokens allow expansion. He said:
“Crypto stamps will open up a global market that appeals not only to traditional stamp collectors, but also to collectors in their teens, twenties and thirties who buy, store and trade NFTs. It is very attractive to our main customer, the national postal organization of
According to Leibbrandt, Royal Joh Enschede began thinking about how to use blockchain technology more than two years ago, but the Dutch printing company decided to start with cryptographic stamps for their practicality and market suitability. did. Leibbrandt said that besides allowing a philatelist to uniquely own his NFT, the non-fungible token is intended to provide an additional layer of security and authentication to physical products. It also functions as a “digital twin”.
Leibbrandt also noted that linking physical objects with their digital counterparts offers customers additional functionality. He said that crypto his stamp is just the beginning of his Web3 journey for Royal Joh Enschede, while the company is a “notable one” intended to compete with secure printed banknotes. I explained that I started development. he explained:
“By using special printing technology, we are able to add augmented reality, which provides access to special online promotions and communication platforms. Celebrities are unique and NFT elements are It can be used as a collector’s item along with a means of payment in the Metaverse.”
Like Time, crypto stamps and celebrities allow Royal Joh Enschede to build a platform and community of interconnected collectors. “All kinds of new applications can be linked to these, such as access to real events such as Formula 1 or Tomorrowland. Entitlement to VIP packages is given with a small note. We are looking forward to the next 100 We are building our business for 2020,” he added Leibbrandt.
Additionally, independent news organizations are beginning to apply Web3 technology to solve one of the biggest challenges facing the media industry today: “fake news.” Bywire, for example, is a decentralized news platform that uses artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and blockchain to identify false or misleading news content. Bywire CEO Michael O’Sullivan told Cointelegraph that the platform has built and deployed a “trust or not” algorithm. “This gives readers ‘at a glance’ reassurance that the content offered on the Bywire platform is trustworthy and that the people who created it are actually responsible,” he said.
O’Sullivan explained that Bywire’s AI technology can “read” articles in seconds before they are published to determine the credibility of the content. Once this is established, the algorithm will generate recommendations along with the reasons behind the decisions. “The reason is very important because it helps consumers become aware of the motivations and intentions of content creators,” he said O’Sullivan.
O’Sullivan noted that while innovative, any independent news organization can aggregate news content on Bywire and publish it to tens of thousands of readers each month. O’Sullivan said Bywire, like other publishers using Web3 technology, has a community of readers associated with the platform, and these individuals are motivated to read the content. increase. “Every reader can get a free her EOS account and start earning token rewards right away, which can later be used for democratic oversight of the network.”
Will Web3 move the publishing industry forward?
Web3 has the potential to transform the publishing industry by enabling different sectors to reach and interact with new audiences, but its impact remains questionable. For example, there is still a lack of clarity among publishers about how blockchains can and should be used.
Lars Seier Christensen, chairman of Concordium, the Swiss blockchain company that powers Royal Joh Enschede’s NFT platform, told Cointelegraph that non-fungible tokens currently mean nothing to most organizations. rice field. But he believes NFTs and other of his Web3 technologies will soon become the norm.
“Let’s take a step away from the NFT acronym because it can be confusing. What has been proven is that blockchains can store immutable data, which means records are final and unbreakable. , this data is completely transparent to everyone with easy access to chain search engines.”
Regarding consumers, Grossman also said individuals should not use the term “NFT,” adding that they do not need to know the blockchain platform powering these applications. “They should engage with brands based on the experience they offer,” he said. Grossman went on to say that the rise of computers has sparked a constant debate about technology, with Steve Jobs explaining that his iPod can hold “a thousand songs in his pocket.” Grossman says he thinks a similar moment will happen with Web3, but it’s yet to come.
“Most people’s perceptions of NFTs and blockchains are defined by extremes of extreme good and extreme bad. We need education to provide businesses and individuals with the many methods they can use to provide
