Blockchain in Content Industry: All You Need to Know

Introduction Blockchain for Content Industry is in its beginning stage, particularly because the industry is still developing. However, blockchain technology is evolving quickly, and it may become one of the biggest disruptors to the Content Industry. Blockchain’s transaction model can be used to track and connect influencers, writers, content creators, and advertisers to brands that sell, share, analyze, develop, and distribute content. These capabilities are particularly promising for the Content Industry. Because blockchain is decentralized – there is no middleman that can alter it – it is an inherently more trustworthy way to track transactions, including content. This article explains blockchain and explores ways in which the people with various job roles in the content industry can integrate blockchain into their day-to-day activities.

What is Blockchain?

It seems the blockchain revolution is in full swing. Over the course of a one-year period, Google search requests for the keyword “blockchain” have increased by 250%. In simple terms, a blockchain can be described as an append-only transaction ledger. What that means is that the ledger can be written onto with new information, but the previous information, stored in blocks, cannot be edited, adjusted or changed. This is accomplished by using cryptography to link the contents of the newly added block with each block before it, such that any change to the contents of a previous block in the chain would invalidate the data in all blocks after it. Blockchains are consensus-driven. A large number of computers are connected to the network, and to reduce the ability for an attacker to maliciously add transactions on the network, those adding to the blockchain must compete to solve a mathematical proof. The results are shared with all other computers on the network. The computers, or nodes, connected to this network must agree on the solution, hence the term “consensus.”

Content Industry Without Blockchain

Content Marketing has evolved from ads and articles printed in newspapers and magazines to the blog posts, paid ads, meta titles and descriptions, marketing videos, and so much more. Everything is online, instant, and wide-reaching. This new wave of the content industry isn’t without its issues, though. “Content is king” is the motto that businesses and content marketers everywhere have adopted. While some companies have taken that phrase to heart and worked to produce high-quality, informative content, many have taken it to mean they only need to produce as much content as possible. This has resulted in a lot of low-quality, link-stuffed content littering the Internet. In turn, this trend has resulted in a lot of misinformation and even completely fake information circulating social media and news sites. Also, while tracking the content marketing results, the content marketers aren’t obtaining the results in the manner they want. So, there is vast room for improvement in this area as well.

How Blockchain Could Revolutionize the Content Industry?

The blockchain is a powerful technology that has the potential to address various issues pertaining to the content industry. Because of its security and detailed record-keeping, blockchain can be used to address the issue of fake news. By tracing news to the source and examining its origin, it will be easier to tell the difference between legitimate news pieces founded on facts and those that are baseless and full of misinformation. B2B content marketers can use blockchain to monetize content by whitelisting. Whitelisting is a way for users to decide if a publisher is reputable through a cryptocurrency called “adToken,” developed by the DMA and ConsenSys. Most content agencies currently work with freelance writers, producers and possibly editors to make sure client briefs are filled and quality content is produced. But in the future, the marketing middleman could be cut out as content creators may connect with publishers directly. Freelancers could also exchange value propositions with one another in an online portal where smart contracts are signed and sent directly to the client. There is currently a lot of control over how and where content is consumed, thanks to brand affiliation and media control. But if you took this away and allowed consumers to pay for content directly from the publisher without dealing with a media company, this would change. Blockchain will also enable closer relationships between newsrooms and their audiences, as there will be a protocol that is monitored by regulators.

Conclusion

Content Industry is evolving every day, which makes it very difficult to predict its future. Nonetheless, when you ask people from the content industry what the future has in store, blockchain is one trend that everyone seems to agree on. The blockchain isn’t our savior just yet. But, given time, it could be. Know More About Guest Post Author: Savaram Ravindra is working as a Content Contributor for Mindmajix.com and Tekslate.com. His passion lies in writing articles on different niches which include some of the most innovative and emerging software technologies, digital marketing, businesses, and so on. Follow him on LinkedIn and Twitter.