“Stop” (virtual reality name) started his career as a representative at TNM Media in 2010.
It was a power blogger network which had more than 400 followers as well as a media network with over 0.1 billion views a month. It had a variety of partners ranging from publication to lecture to performance and event management. It collaborated with large enterprises to create a series of applications, succeeded in creating and distributing 100 series of applications for the first time in the world as well as recorded 5 million downloads in a very short time period for the first time in Korea.
This translated to more investments being made, twofold or threefold sales growth on a yearly basis, and an explosive increase in the number of employees.
However, there were several factors that inevitably led to failure.
The structure for content creators and management was new and fresh but the structure of the business made it become reliant on a specific blog platform, and the revenue model itself was solely dependent on advertising commission.
Even if we wanted to reward our partners who were creating contents, in most cases, we had to use the resources of TNM Media if not using that of advertising. Getting advertisers was too difficult a task for a rookie CEO like me. Advertisers wanted to get directly involved with the content creators. Although they were receiving a commission, the content creators didn’t want any interference in the contents they created.
As I was an amateur, I couldn’t build the business model right or realize the revenue model. In most of the cases, our partners failed to create messages the advertisers wanted or manage their distribution.
In Korea, the copyright trust management system is designed in a way that a copyright belongs to a specific non-profit corporation or the creator himself/herself, and it is impossible to entrust management to another person. Even syndication was impossible.
It was difficult to manage the network of content creators who were highly individualistic, the development of service platform was slow and we weren’t attracting many advertisers and so it was difficult to reward our partners with the advertising or brokerage commissions. The emergence of ‘Power Bloggers’ dealt a critical blow to our business. Selling non-regular contents in bundles was tough, and reward algorithm per content was a near-impossible attempt.
During the course, it did not take long to use the billions of investment we managed to attract.
Quite some time has passed now since then. Stop was introduced to a new world called blockchain through which he can, as a network partner, create a win-win for all. I gained a lot of insight from the way I have been contributing to the start-up ecosystem since my first step into the ecosystem with media and contents.
The platforms in this blockchain ecosystem will also seek ‘valuable contents’ in the end, and the network made up of creators of such contents will become influential as well.
This is also the reason why I focused on blockchain over the last 6 or more months. The role of a content creator who brings a technology blockchain to life, an experiment on organizing such creators who don’t belong to any organization…
Tiring and exhausting, but I am going to do it again. But this time, this is not business. This is just a personal, vocation of a lifetime. It is a community, and it will be run only by the trust between its members.
What is Blockchain Technology to the Media?
- Redefining the simulacrum
· Finding the way to improve the conformity the real and the simulacrum - Why choose blockchain?
· Durability of records:
· Immutability of records:
· Fairness in profit distribution:
· Transparency in delegating authority:
· Variability in organizations:
· Accumulation and collection of value:
· Conformity with the purpose of a network:
· Possibility of integration with technology:
Reflection and Lessons Learnt from TNM Experience
- Feeble profit model
- Confusion in copyright management
- Infrequent and irregular postings
- Sense of affiliation felt by the participants
- Weak organizational power and influence
- Conflicts with laws and regulations
- Low level of technical completeness
- Being monitored and controlled by big competitors
