Please describe your proposed solution.
Answer:
Problem:
The problem we aim to solve is the lack of artist empowerment and limited global financial inclusion of the African music industry. Talented artists struggle to monetize their work effectively - often at odds with unaccountable predatory industry actors and unsustainable business practices. Additionally, fans and collectors from across the world lack meaningful engagement and participation opportunities with musicians in the African continent.
Alongside this, entrepreneurs and developers lack publicly scrutinized tools and SDKs to incorporate token-gated membership of music NFTs into their platforms and marketplaces.
Approach:
To address this problem, Firebird Media and Afrocharts team will implement a token-gated membership portal in the Afrocharts platform for artists and fans to utilize NFT sales. By issuing NFTs as membership tokens, fans and collectors will get access to the portal to view exclusive songs, digital collectibles (NFTs), programmable Discord roles, and the ability to claim a percentage revenue share from artist’s Afrocharts.com streaming royalties.
The revenue share percentage will be defined by the musician as to how much the collector may claim.
The functionality for this web3 portal will be built by Firebird Media as an open-source SDK. The SDK will provide a well-documented standard framework and set of tools. This will empower Cardano developers to leverage the solutions within their own projects. This will promote project extendibility, public transparency and scrutiny, encourage collaboration, scalability, and foster community growth.
Engagement Strategy:
We will engage popular African artists, music enthusiasts, and the greater Afrocharts.com community of over 150,000 registered users and 15,000 musicians. Enthusiasts, fans, and collectors can benefit from owning NFTs to claim a percentage of streaming revenue generated by Afrocharts.com. Fans will enjoy access to exclusive interaction via digital collectibles and programmable community roles on artist’s Discord servers, deepening connections between artists and their fans and collectors.
Impact Demonstration:
To demonstrate the impact of our solution, we will analyze user engagement metrics of Afrocharts.com and the on-chain metrics of the NFTs such as sign-ups, sales, interactions, and active participation in community roles. These metrics will showcase the level of fan engagement and the portal’s overall vibrancy.
Additionally, we will gather feedback from artists, fans, and collectors through surveys to assess their satisfaction and gauge the solution's effectiveness. Through these impact demonstration strategies, we aim to provide evidence of the positive outcomes and benefits brought about by our web3 portal.
The impact of the SDK will be measured by Github interactions, downloads, and user feedback.
How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?
Additionally, according to IFPI’s Global Music Report 2023, Sub-saharan african music revenue grew by 34.7% in 2022, making it the fastest growing region in the world.
According to EMURGO Africa “State of Web 3.0” Report, Africa's cryptocurrency market grew by over 1200% between 2020 and 2021 with Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania ranking in the GLOBAL top 20 for crypto adoption.
Our project brings value by demonstrating the real-world application of blockchain technology in the music industry and to reduce inequality for indigenous African musicians. It showcases Cardano's capabilities in enabling secure and transparent transactions, while also highlighting the potential for NFTs and decentralization to revolutionize creator’s revenue models and fan engagement to create a more equitable, fair and progressive music industry in the African continent.
By implementing a Cardano-based blockchain solution to Afrocharts.com, the most popular independent African music streaming platform, we have the opportunity to engage with over 15,000 African musicians and 150,000+ users with the mission of Cardano for financial inclusion and sustainable development of the growing African music industry.
It will provide the Afrocharts.com users with tools for financial inclusion in a global market where African-based music demand is growing in Western countries such as the UK, France, and USA.
Our solution will
- increase the number of Cardano-based products in Africa by enriching the current ecosystem with a new use case for music.
- Increase the number of integrations by bringing the existing solution of Afrocharts.com together with Cardano’s African vision.
- Increase and enhance the quality of the Afrocharts.com platform by building new functionality for artists, fans, enthusiasts, and collectors.
- Increase the number of SDKs for music NFTs and overall NFT utilization
How do you intend to measure the success of your project?
The integration of a web3 portal into Afrocharts.com will bring several benefits to the Cardano ecosystem.
- African & Global User Adoption: As an integration into the current Afrocharts.com platform, the project will onboard the current Afrocharts.com users to the Cardano ecosystem. This will bring a vibrant and diverse set of musicians, fans and collectors that will result in user adoption and an increased transaction volume from users across the globe. The new user sign-ups, interactions, and transaction volume can be measured as a quantitative metric to assess the growth of the user base.
- Community Engagement: The features of our portal such as digital collectibles, programmable community roles, and streaming revenue sharing will drive community engagement within the Cardano ecosystem. Qualitative metrics, such as user feedback, success stories, and active participation in community roles, can be used to gauge the level of engagement and the impact of the project on community dynamics. Additionally, the number of comments, github interactions, and utilization of the SDK will provide invaluable insights into what areas and parts of the code to focus on and what parts that need to be improved.
- Token Utility: The NFT Membership tokens will have utility within the Cardano ecosystem beyond Afrocharts.com. By measuring the number of NFT transactions and the variety of use cases across different platforms and applications, we can assess the growth of token utility and its impact on Cardano's ecosystem.
Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?
We will ensure transparency and accountability by issuing milestone reports that detail the progress, achievements, and challenges faced throughout the project. These reports will be made public to all via our websites, twitter, discord, and other relevant channels.
Furthermore, to showcase the success stories of artists benefiting from the web3 portal and token-based membership rewards, we will highlight the journeys and achievements of artists who have experienced increased revenue, fan engagement, and artistic empowerment through our platform. By sharing these success stories of African artists, we aim to inspire and engage the wider music community, further promoting the adoption and impact of the project.
We also plan to showcase the success of the web3 portal integration to Afrocharts at speaking engagements at conferences like NFTxLV, Rare Evo, Twitter spaces, podcasts, and other events.
Additionally, the Afrocharts.com 100,000+ users email list and mobile app push notifications will serve as a powerful communication tool. We will periodically share updates, milestones, and opportunities related to the project with the user base.