SOMESING participated in the AMA session held at Bittrex Global TG Community
On September 14, 12:00 UTC, Jason Kim, a Chief Global Business Officer at SOMESING participated in the AMA session held via Telegram Community of Bittrex Global.
There were a total of 15 decent questions regarding SOMESING and Jason answered all the questions with a detailed explanation. Please refer to the detailed Q&A below.
Q1. Please tell us a bit about yourself
A.Hi, everyone! Good to have a chance to meet you guys at Bittrex Global’s TG AMA session 😊
My name is Jason Kim and I am in charge of Chief Global Business Officer at SOMESING and at the moment I am also working as a marketing team leader at the team. I joined the team in April 2019 so it has been almost 2.5 years since I joined SOMESING. Before joining the team, I worked at a global car component company as a planning team manager and was in charge of a 70M USD direct investment project in Vietnam.
Q2. Can you provide a brief introduction to SOMESING?
SOMESING is a blockchain-based global social mobile karaoke app. It allows anyone to enjoy singing and listening to the best quality recordings created by its users for free anytime and anywhere throughout the globe. It is characterized by its well-designed token economy through which users can transparently be rewarded for their contents as the tokens supported to the contents are automatically distributed by smart contracts on the Klaytn blockchain network. As of today, we have achieved 1M+ downloads with 543K+ registered users. Among 5K+ contents that are saved users’ private storage within the app around 2K cover song contents are posted on SOMESING platform every day (i.e 24 hours basis) and users support each other for these contents by donating SSX tokens in our token ecosystem.
Since our mainnet swap from ICON to Klaytn, a blockchain subsidiary of Kakao company in July 2020, the total number of accumulated token transactions on the Klaytn blockchain network is 9.8+M, which means that SOMESING’s token economy has been proved to have been working really well.
Please refer to our 3-minute introduction video to see the core features that SOMESING offers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsDYQ6jgG2I
Q3. What was the motivation behind starting this project?
A. The total number of users enjoying mobile karaoke apps throughout the globe is estimated to be around 500 M and there are many karaoke app service providers in the market. However, most are facing a limitation on the continuous growth due to a few major factors such as the continuous exit of users caused by paid service, lack of high-quality music resources in the service, and no economic reward for the content created and consumed by users.
SOMESING also had been operating a normal version of the karaoke application service before we started this blockchain version, but we also faced the same problems I mentioned above.
We wanted to provide our users with much better service compared to any other existing providers by adopting a well-designed token economy developed by blockchain technology. And we aim the following goals.
1) SOMESING aims to provide a platform where users can sing for free by utilizing the token economy and aims to expand its ecosystem of the service.
2) SOMESING tries to build a fair and transparent reward system for the content users create on a platform by adopting blockchain technologies such as wallets and smart contracts.
3) SOMESING aims to secure the ownership of the content created by our users by adopting NFT technology in the service.
4) SOMESING aims to provide users with various opportunities to make their dreams come true via the online audition programs that we collaborate with external entertainment partners and TV broadcasting stations.
Q4. Were there any major milestones for SOMESING this year?
A. Yes, of course.
1. We recently launched a new feature called ‘Sing Clip’ by which users can edit their video recording contents into a 15-second highlight short clip. Easily to say, it looks like Tik-Tok cover song content version 😊
As most of you are aware, short-form content is becoming more and more popular among MZ generations who are the leading consumer group in the mobile business industry, and SOMESING is also trying to catch up with the up to dated content trend.
2. We finally completed the patent registration of our 3 core technologies in August this year. They are
-. Point Management Method and System in the Karaoke Application using Blockchain Network
-. Duet Singing provide Method and System in Karaoke Application
-. Duet Singing provide Method and System in Karaoke Application
Please refer to the link for more details.
3. In June, SOMESING was selected as one of 5 Apps that were included in Google Play Store’s TV commercial and was featured via a lot of media throughout June. This was very meaningful in terms of the fact that our service was recognized by Google as a good and well-designed social entertainment service. Refer to the TV commercial via the below link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH3IL7uiIRA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu5t4qwY7BU
4. We started supporting SSX withdrawal feature from May this year. Since most users are based in Korea at the moment, users can withdraw the token to ‘Klip Wallet’ that is provided within Kakao Talk messenger. As we expand our targeting market into more countries, we will support the withdrawal feature in other countries after we make sure that SOMESING does not breach any legal compliances in any other countries.
5. Finally, we started our huge brand marketing campaign on 9th September. We made a brand film with a famous Korean Idol Group named ‘Brave Girls’. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud5Nog9aH3U)
=> Make sure you turn on the subtitle on YouTube as it will support English.
We expect that SOMESING is promoted to much more public via this brand marketing campaign.
Q5. What is your project’s business model?
A. It would be best to show our token economy to explain our business model.
1. Anyone who loves to sing on SOMESING is welcome to do so for free. No matter how many songs they sing, it is provided for free!
2. When users want to save the content in their private folder where other users can not access it, they are required to carry out just a one-time token deposit of $5 worth of SSX token to activate the storage within the SOMESING App.
3. Once users would like to share the content on the platform, they can post the content on the platform. As soon as the song is posted, a wallet is created for each content so that the owner of the content can be ready to receive SSX token donations from fans. Each content will be posted for 2 weeks and during this time, the creators can interact with other users or fans by our SNS features to get more SSX token donations.
4. At the end of 2 weeks posting period, the total accumulated token starts to be distributed to the contributors in the ecosystem. 50% will be given to the singer (i.e the owner of the content) and 20% will be given to the early supporters who donated within the 1st week from the posting time. SOMESING will take the last 30% to pay for copyright fee, music resource fee, and operation expenses. And all the donation and distribution history is recorded on the blockchain network that is open to everyone 😊
Q6. What do you think the development trends in the crypto assets realm will look like in 2021?
A. For sure, NFT will be a very hot trend in the blockchain industry in 2021 and now I meet a lot of new and interesting news regarding NFT tech. As SOMESING falls into the music & entertainment category, I have been very interested in the potential opportunities for SOMESING to adopt NFT tech within the service in collaboration with Korean famous K-POP artists. For sure, NFT will be a very hot trend in the blockchain industry in 2021 and now I meet a lot of new and interesting news regarding NFT tech. As SOMESING falls into the music & entertainment category, I have been very interested in the potential opportunities for SOMESING to adopt NFT tech within the service in collaboration with Korean famous K-POP artists.
Q7. When it comes to music, one of the first things that come to mind is “Copyrights”. How will you regulate the copyrights of the recordings and music used in the SOMESING application? What kind of security measures will you implement to prevent malicious use?
A. That’s a good question indeed :) SOMESING always tries to meet all the legal compliances for the ongoing service and of course we have signed an official copyright contract with the relevant associations where we offer our service. We also have a partnership with Korean No1. music resource supplier named TJ Media so that more than 40K+ hot and latest K-POPs and other POPs are available on SOMESING.
Our internal team monitors all the posted content every day and handles the inappropriate content. Furthermore, we have a report feature in the app so that users can also report any bad or malicious content at any time.
Q8. While reviewing your roadmap, I read that you signed a partnership agreement with SEL Records for the development of the NFT business in Q3 2021. We know that many projects cannot remain indifferent to the development of NFT technology, and I think you have plans for NFT too. How does the SOMESING team plan to leverage NFT technology? What NFT products will you offer your users?
A. Including SEL, we have been talking to many entertainment agencies that have top-tier K-POP artists and people who do have wide networks in the industry to make sure that we have IPs for NFT business so please stay tuned. Another idea for adopting NFT is that we might be able to open the NFT market where users can trade the ownership of the content so that the users who are not good at singing also can receive SSX token donations from those who love the contents.
Q9. How do you think you will differentiate SOMESING from a regular Music sharing platform beside the token infrastructure? How will the people with know-how get attracted to the platform?
A. Offering unlimited singing karaoke for free itself would be a very strong point for SOMESING to be differentiated from other services. However, we will try to offer as many chances as we can for K-POP fans to be able to sing duets with Hot K-POP artists on SOMESING. Furthermore, we are planning to adopt additional features that are very popular among MZ generations such as virtual avatars, various emojis, and filters while users sing in a video format.
Q10. There are huge barriers in the content market that are difficult to spread easily by country, continent, and culture. Then how SOMESING plan to do spread with global markets such as the United States and Europe?
A. It is true that it would be very difficult for SOMESING to get into those European and US markets by ourselves. That is why we have been collaborating with many external partners and our advisors to prepare our global expansion. The partnership with Ditto Music, which is one of the biggest online music distribution companies based in the UK, would be one of our strategies for our global expansion, especially for the European market. Lastly, we also look into the chance for expansion in collaboration with strategic VC investors who are interested in the SOMESING project.
Q11. How will SOMESING attract content consumers — not just content producers — to the platform? What incentives are in place so that viewers of material will want to come to SOMESING more than established sources like Youtube, Instagram etc.
A. As explained earlier in the token economy of SOMESING, the early supporters who donated SSX tokens will be able to get the reward as a content consumer which means that they are not just spending money but can get a part of the token reward. Also, if we open the NFT marketplace where users can trade the ownership of the content, there would be a chance for the consumers to get the bigger reward when they secure the ownership of good content.
Q12. Can you explain how scalable the SOMESING network is? Are you going to establish or make use of a Content Delivery Network or edge servers for low latency and high throughput?
A. For the blockchain network side, it would not be an issue as the Klaytn network is fast and reliable enough for SOMESING, and for the content storage side, we have been using AWS and it will be automatically scalable every time we need more capacity required by new coming users.
Q13. In the eyes of investors, the factor proving whether a project has long-term sustainable development and practicality is the specific application by business users or individuals, so who has really used your protocol solution yet?
A. We have successfully supplied our customized mobile-based online audition solution to JYP Entertainment, which is one of the top 4 K-POP artist agencies. We also provided our audition solution to one of the TV stations in Korea for a weekly online singing competition. Many big companies also asked us to provide our mobile karaoke solution for their internal singing competition events as well and we did so. Since the COVID breakout, we have had lots of new users and new business opportunities and we believe that there would be a lot more chances for SOMESING project :)
Q14. All projects created in the crypto world create STAKING programs to provide liquidity and attract investors. Will you provide STAKING service to your users on the SOMESING platform? If you are going to provide it, can you explain the details about the system you are designing?
A. We are offering SSX token staking service in collaboration with Delio special crypto finance company. There is also KLAY-SSX pair in Klayswap protocol where investors can provide liquidity and get KSP tokens as a reward. SOMESING is also interested in developing an additional De-Fi model if we find an appropriate partner(s) in the future.
Q15. On moving forward through your roadmap, what are your most important next priorities? Does your team have enough fundamental (Funds, Community, ect) to achieve those milestones?
A. Since our official launch on blockchain mainnet to date, SOMESING has received plenty of token revenue generated from content that our users created and consumed on the platform. Furthermore, there are some promising VCs who have been cooperative with SOMESING in regard to equity investment, therefore, there would not be a financial issue for us to achieve our long-term business milestones.
