The biggest obstacle preventing NFTs from transforming society into something more efficient, advanced, and evolved, is that not enough people are using them. But people aren’t using them because of many obstacles.
It is the quintessential “Chicken or the Egg” paradox of South by Southwest 2022, and with good reason…
NFTs can make comment sections and chatrooms as manageable as a live studio audience. They could allow authors to get paid more for books, including multiple resale. The tech may also add a new level of authentication, eliminate a whole slew of temporary mobile apps, and let audience members join the creative process of their favorite shows. They can, apparently, do a whole freaking lot. But right now, NFTs are almost exclusively used like crypto beanie babies for tech savvy folks who treat them as investment assets.
Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban is betting that the solution – what will get everyone into NFTs –is to mesh them with popular podcasts/webcasts that have large communities of fans who would show up for live shows. NFTs can still behave like merchandise, but creators can use them to grant access to special content or participatory features. Fans might also be more motivated to sign up for crypto wallets and to purchase NFTs because they want to participate in their favorite show as well as support them financially. At least that’s the idea behind his new startup Fireside, and the topic of a Predicting the Future of Entertainment panel at this year’s SXSW where he shared his thoughts with attendees.
“Streaming keeps on expanding in ways that make it seamless, but what’s missing is participation,” Cuban explained. He continued that the current options for interacting with a community on live shows is very lacking – scanning text comments/questions on Zoom, for instance. In a live show, “you get immediate feedback, and that changes the energy and the content itself. The whole dynamic for creating changes.”
Mark Cuban views collectable NFTs & too many different crypto tokens as what’s holding the technology back from reaching its full potential.
Fireside’s platform makes it easier and more cost efficient to produce and distribute live shows across multiple streaming services and social networks – sort of an all-in-one production studio. According to cofounder Falon Fatemi it also wants to utilize the NFTs (and DOAs) to improve creators’ ability to interact with the audience, provide analytics and sentiment data on how they are responding, and even invite the community to be included in the creative and production process, she said.
But Fireside isn’t the only one pursuing this strategy. Ibble, an Austin-based startup just a few blocks from where Cuban and Fatemi spoke, has a similar platform that launched in 2018 and allows creators with any size community to join. Founder Raymond Kaminski told the Chronicle his company is actually launching support for NFTs next week with a major brand partnership.
Predicting the Future of Entertainment with Fireside
Featured SessionStreaming through March 21
This article appears in Guide to SXSW 2022.