How Tokenization Is Changing The News Industry

about 3 years ago

We're witnessing how blockchain technology and tokenization is changing social media. It's a process that started years ago and it's not over yet, but gaining a lot of attention as it's proven efficient.

Search engines are also going through major changes, we already have Presearch a blockchain based search engine that rewards you with tokens for searching, unlike others.

The Old Model

This morning I was going through my Twitter feed to see the news and came across an article published by The Guardian, and when I wanted to read it, I got this message, letting me know that I've read 15 articles last year alone and asking for my support, a donation as little as 1€.

screenshot source

Donation is not mandatory, if you get rid of the message, you can still read the article, but I guess it will keep popping up every time you visit their webpage.

Other newspapers are subscription only, even if you read the digital version.

source

According to American press Institute,

Weekday circulation for U.S. daily newspapers in 2016 declined for the 28th consecutive year, according to a 2017 Pew Research Center analysis. That analysis found weekday and Sunday print circulation numbers fell to their “lowest levels since 1945.”

Advertising has also taken a revenue hit, as unlimited web space has driven down the cost of online ads that previously were worth much more in print. Additionally, Facebook and Google take in the majority of online advertising revenue. In the U.S. market, no other digital advertising platform had a market share above 5%, Reuters reported in July. And according to Pew, the newspaper industry saw “a double-digit decline in advertising revenue” in 2016, and its $18 billion in revenue is just more than a third of the estimated $49 billion it was worth a decade ago. source

It is sad as people have lost their jobs and newspapers are struggling, but the numbers are speaking clearly.

Weekday circulation for U.S. daily newspapers in 2016 declined for the 28th consecutive year.

It's not just some temporary issue due to some disruption, it's a downward trend that continues with each year, without exception. It's an irreversible process that leads to death.

A New Way

One of my favorite crypt news source is Decrypt.

Decrypt was founded in 2018 with a simple mission: to demystify the decentralized web.

We are a site dedicated to helping people understand this brave new world: Whether it's trust-less networks, privacy coins or oracles, we strive to produce original coverage of the biggest stories, insightful profiles on the industry’s movers and shakers as well as engaging educational content to connect the dots. source

At the beginning of this year, Decrypt decided to take things to the next level. Not only the use of the platform is free of charge, no monthly subscription is needed but they also reward their users for reading, sharing and reacting to Decrypt articles in the mobile app, with Decrypt Tokens.

Daily earnings are capped as this is not a get rich quickly type of activity, but earning 20 tokens/day for something you would do anyway is nice.

source

Rewarding readers is not exactly new, but tokenizing the activity is. I can see these giant media entities moving to blockchain, tokenizing their activity and build a better relationship with their readers. Advertising can also take a different turn on Web3.

Every newspaper article on the internet is shared on the major social media platforms and most of the discussions about the article happen on those platform, driving away readers from the news platform, basically. Why send them away when you can offer them immutability, tokenization and ownership.

Having a blockchain based newspaper with it's own cryptocurrency is the future I believe. It's time for a change.