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Cherie Hu from Water and Music discusses Web3 at Consensys 2022
Water and Music, the newsletter and research DAO (decentralized autonomous group) creating the guide for innovators to the business of music, was created to facilitate conversation discussions between music industry professionals. technology. Now they're going one step further, actively engaging with the industry's hive of minds to design research projects and to give everyone involved a reward. The latest research conducted by the company has been into the chaos that is Web3 The future of the web built around blockchain technology.
"I believe a large factor in our growing is due to the fact that we're using collaborative models for research editorial," begins Cherie Hu, founder of Water and Music. Cherie Hu explains that the business conducts regular "research sprints" of up to 10 weeks when they pick a specific topic to glean as much information as possible for their customers; the most recent report was about Web3.
"We're trying to comprehend the State of the Union for technological developments in music, particularly the ones that generate a lot of noise," she explains. "Web3 is an excellent example, because there's so much chaos; nobody knows how it's all happening. It's the most extreme tunnel and it goes on and on. It's as if, "What's happening? ?'!"
Cherie's most popular mantras, especially in the context of business reports, has always been creating useful writing. "At the end of every article, you'll get an idea about what you can do in your industry or how you can improve what you do. Making sure that you are able to bridge the gap between what the community require, as well as our writing, is very important," Cherie explains. In these sprints of research, when they've settled about a subject, they go out and talk to people in the Water and Music community: "We inquire, 'What are your current concerns?', and then crowdsource the responses. Our report comes directly from those requirements," she tells me.
The music industry is it is not surprising that one of the biggest issues is the fan's opinions. "I consider that to be the top one reason why a lot of artists are not doing NFTs currently: out they fear the backlash of supporters," she muses. "We have released a report about concerns around Web3. Of course, in the field of music there are plenty of concerns about licensing and IP (IP) with NFTs. That was a whole chapter!"
True to form, the Water and Music research sprints are incredibly community-centric. "It's an open-ended ideation process and we engage a wide range of individuals to assist in the process of conducting study," Cherie says. So far it appears that the Water and Music community has published two research reports under this group structure. Keeping on-trend, they sold NFTs retroactively , which meant that, if anyone would like to contribute to the research, they could - and that the profits were divided evenly among the participants. "It's evident for me that the results of the research was much better than if one individual tried to study all of Web3. It would be impossible to make the work completed!" she smiles. "It's convinced me of the power of not just connecting people but collectively synthesizing knowledge."
The r6M3DkfqEiC4ADGxKc It was a Water and Music meetup at the NFT.NYC conference
Cherie adds that the next report collaboratively created within the community has already begun. "We're looking into even more mysterious subjects right now, like the metaverse, however that's defined!" she quips. "We're not building something right now, we're simply trying to understand the opinions of people about it and what people have a hard time understanding." The publication contains interviews with artists, startup founders and industry professionals on how they view the metaverse , the goals they're trying to accomplish within it, and what is proving problematic.
Cherie says that her aim is to combine this research with building online tools to tackle these issues. "We have done this in the past with a few Web3 themes already such as the secondary sale of music via NFTs and shares of royalties. A few smart contracts say that between 10 and 20 percent of secondary sales will go to the artist who originally created it and a lot of users have been expressing the idea as a profit. But I think the reality is that the overwhelming majority of NFT's don't generate a secondary sale," Cherie explains. She thinks that the value is in the direct relation and the connection that an NFT symbolizes, and not on the possibility of having something to sell onwards again after.
Along with the report, Water and Music will be developing a tracker dashboard that the users are able to input their NFT collection to see whether there were any further sales and if so what the NFT is performing in the marketplace. "We are looking to develop more interactive tools: it's similar to interactive data journalism particularly for artists as they're the ones who are thinking the most about releasing prices for their NFT drops. We're developing critical frameworks and tools to help people do this analytical work themselves."
Conflicting visions
Cherie observes that some of these cutting-edge terminology are getting more obscure and less clear with time "For the metaverse, for instance, there's an enormous gap between how the concept of metaverse was historically as well as conceptually been defined, from back in the '60s." She elaborates her Water and Music team is creating a framework to understand traditional definitions of the metaverse as well as the gaps between expectation and reality.
"The initial sci-fi works with a metaverse reference had an expansive concept of interconnected virtual and IRL worlds. It's a long way from this right currently. But at the same time there is a trend in the world of music the artists say "I've launched my own world!' but they are really talking about a virtual world.
"There are currently two distinct conceptions of metaverses," she adds. "You are dealing with Meta [Facebook's holding firm] as well as Epic Games on one side they are both centralized, and one entity owns everything, but then there is the concept of a Web3-forward, open, decentralized metaverse that has an interoperable identity and asset. It's logical to try at least experimenting with blockchain, and the roles it has in supporting that, but that directly opposes Facebook's stance."
Cherie believes that the metaverse "just become this nebulous word that anybody can utilize for their own benefit" and she is determined to cut through the nonsense. This is completely in line to Cherie's raison d'etre: Water and Music analyzes and critically look into the issue, and provide actionable knowledge to guide people on how to react. This has real-world use cases, too, such as providing assistance to artists and their staff to evaluate partnering with metaverse platform.
It's A5k8BJI7iTDsrW6aE The Water and Music team
Therefore, these research projects are a natural continuation of Water and Music's activities: "My 'why' for this membership is helping people to better understand the world, as well as understanding their place in the world," Cherie says. She wants to help people get the best education possible so that they are able to make the greatest influence on the industry they work in.
"For Water and Music the exact focus is the music industry, and it all comes back to an individual motive. I'm motivated by this work due to the fact that I played piano. I was able to spend a lot of time around classical musicians, but I love engaging with artists of all kinds and getting their perspective regarding where tech is headed. Hopefully, whatever knowledge we put out there helps the artists and teams get to know tech better, so they are able to create cool art!"
There's a sense of taking the control back' within this. Cherie is trying to convince the artists that they hold more power than what it appears: "Certainly, in the streaming industry, there's more and more consolidations, dominated by Spotify and other big tech companies. The rates for royalties are decreasing -- well, everything is going to go downhill! So we're providing artists the means to appreciate the variety of choices. We're helping artists and others around them with the ability to think more entrepreneurially."
A practice community
"It's more of academic concept, however I believe it really applies to Water and Music: we're a community of practise," Cherie continues. "The concept was first introduced in 1991 by the cognitive Anthropologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger] and represents a group of people who not only have an interest in common, but who come together for the sole purpose of finding out how to make something better."
The author explains that this could correspond to people who are in the same industry or with similar positions across industries. These people communicate regularly, and also exchange information. "Usually this is for professional communities but can also be used for communities of creativity for example, in the field of music. There's an element of not just producing media and building tools, but facilitating peer-to peer education. That'll be a really important element of our future: breaking down information silos in the world of music, and encouraging individuals to become more collaborative," Cherie adds.
The Water and Music meetup at the NFT.NYC conference
Cherie ends her show in a typical fashion by encouraging collaboration among her Water and Music community. "In the coming months, we'll be rolling interviews with musicians, platforms, and startup founders. Our research into the metaverse is likely to continue throughout this summer until the beginning of autumn, so if you are interested in getting involved with that, let me know. If anyone has suggestions for people to interview I'm open for suggestions!"
To get involved, join us on Twitter. Cherie to get involved, follow her on Twitter: @water andmusic. To become a member of the Water and Music community, and gain access to the community's in-depth research reports and Discord server, go to waterandmusic.com/membership.