Loungeroom Innovation
Are NFTs the future of news and the way to monetise the loungeroom?
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The ‘streaming wars’ and the road to the consumers lounge room and leisure time is littered with potholes. In just the last thirty years we’ve seen the rise and fall of VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, Pay TV, Satellite TV, the set top box and even traditional coaxial television. This constant state of disruption and innovation is quickly moving beyond the current cloud recording and on-demand viewing. The challenge for competitors is plotting a path that avoids becoming the next Blockbuster. While that may sound obvious, the pace of change created by the 4th industrial revolution makes it difficult for firms to select which technology or offering is the right direction to head in. Making this tricky terrain increasingly difficult is the mounting pressure of obsolescence as the number and scale of competitors rapidly expands. According to Ampere, in 2015 there were less than 1m unique subscription video on demand (SVOD) users in Australia, today there are now over 7.5m and more than seven competing providers. The pressure of competition and the fear of losing has inspired deep vertical integration, market consolidation and product and service innovation. While incremental innovation is a key to success there is an opportunity to seize a sustainable competitive advantage by leaning into megatrends and third horizon technologies such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and blockchain.
NFTs leverage blockchain to monetise and promote the creation and trade of digital assets. The market for NFTs is in its infancy today with no standard GAAP guidance for corporates to utilise but by making an early small bet on NFTs there’s the potential for outsized first mover advantages and learnings. Disney’s partnership with VeVe Digital Collectibles for ‘Disney Golden Moments’ is an excellent example of small bets and experimentation with this frontier technology. The Disney Golden Moments NFTs have enabled fans, investors and collectors to purchase the ownership rights to digital assets such as images of Mickey Mouse, Homer Simpson and Walt Disney. These digital assets can then be resold and traded in secondary markets with the NFT acting as the digital certificate of ownership traceable on blockchain. The non-fungible token is in effect acting as a collector’s certificate of…
