JENNIFER WOLFE

Los Angeles-based media strategist & technology storyteller

Web3 for Media and Entertainment, From Ownership to Distribution



TL;DR

  • The 2023 NAB Show presented a fireside chat with three industry leaders offering unique perspectives on the adoption of new Web3 experiences, shifts in the digital supply chain for premium content, and the use and adoption of NFTs across Media & Entertainment.
  • Moderated by Jay Williams, COO of the Infinity Festival, the panel featured Larry Johnson, global senior director at Oracle Strategic Clients Group; Michelle Munson, co-founder and CEO of blockchain network Eluvio; and Seth Shapiro, founding chair of the NAB Web3 Advisory Council and partner at Alpha Sigma Capital.
  • Before the promise of Web3 can be realized, the technology needs to be divorced from the early concept of the “right-clickable” NFT.
  • Friction and disillusionment are the two biggest roadblocks to success for Web3, the panelists agreed, but the technology underpinning it has the potential to be completely transformational.


Watch the full NAB Show 2023 session, “Web3 in Media & Entertainment from Ownership to Distribution: A Fireside Chat with Industry Leaders” above.

The 2023 NAB Show reminded us that Web3 and blockchain technologies have become more relevant than ever. A panel of industry leaders, including representatives from Eluvio and Oracle, discussed the transformative potential of Web3 for the Media & Entertainment industry, exploring how the blockchain will enable new opportunities for content distribution, fan engagement, and monetization of new multimedia NFTs and Web3-native interactive experiences. They also consider use cases for what’s currently working in Web3, and what isn’t.

The panel discussion, “Web3 in Media & Entertainment from Ownership to Distribution: A Fireside Chat with Industry Leaders,” offered three unique perspectives on the adoption of new Web3 experiences, shifts in the digital supply chain for premium content, and the use and adoption of NFTs across M&E.

The session was moderated by Jay Williams, COO of the Infinity Festival, and featured Larry Johnson, Global Senior Director of CME Industry Advisory Media & Entertainment at Oracle Strategic Clients Group; Michelle Munson, co-founder and CEO of utility blockchain network Eluvio; and Seth Shapiro, founding chair of the NAB Web3 Advisory Council and partner at Alpha Sigma Capital.

Watch the full session in the video at the top of the page.

L-R: Jay Williams, Larry Johnson, Michelle Munson and Seth Shapiro.
L-R: Jay Williams, Larry Johnson, Michelle Munson and Seth Shapiro.

While many view Web3 as mere hype, a decentralized internet based on blockchain authentication has great potential as a distribution platform for content, the panelists argued. But before that can happen, the technology needs to be divorced from the early concept of the “right-clickable” NFT.

Digital collectables as a concept were initially very intriguing, Shapiro said, but the reality has been much more mundane. “If you’ve ever been in the art world or dealt with consumer products, the idea that something can be proved to be authentic or inauthentic. Or the fact that a painting was owned by Jack Nicholson and then sold would increase its value over for generations potentially,” he detailed. “But then, when NFTs actually came into the popular culture, it became a JPEG that you sold for a lot of money, that you could often go up to a server and pull down yourself.”

Munson outlined Eluvio’s eco-friendly blockchain platform that enables content creators to store and stream content. “The notion of a non-fungible token, which is a great instrument on a blockchain to encode the ownership, what we call the provenance of a given asset, is a terrific and highly scalable technology, and can come in many forms,” she said.

“If you know this space, you know our customers are very concerned about churn, building fan experiences,” Johnson remarked about the enterprise commitment to Web3. “So that’s why they want to weigh in this in the space to help our customers and fans and community all in on Web3.”

The current NFT marketplace is filled with friction and disillusionment, Munson said. “When you get down to it, the thing, the asset, that that non-fungible token proof of ownership refers to is somewhere else. And the somewhere else is a loose tie,” she explained. “A perfect example of that is a URL to some media that you can then go and obtain. And to date, most of the Web3 world that has leaned into NFT technology has been built around some kind of token here, and media over here with no real intrinsic tie. And you see the problem.”

Shapiro described the trail of disillusionment that led from Web1 and Web2, commenting, “We’re very solidly there now, and the same thing happened the last few times where people went, ‘This is a sham and a mockery and it’s all lies,’ and it’s all, you know, imbeciles and Ponzi schemes. Were back there now. But the technology is completely transformational.”

Friction in particular is a major issue, the panelists agreed. “It’s hard to get at the media in relation to the token, [and] that’s where a lot of the friction comes in, when you have to sign on with the wallet, manage signatures, and you still don’t have the asset that you really wanted,” Munson said.

This friction, said Shapiro, reminded him of the dot-com era, when people where still skeptical about making online purchases. “There was a huge controversy about whether people would ever enter credit card into a browser,” he recalled. “Those of us who thought that they would were kind of castigated for a while and, of course, obviously, you don’t think about it anymore. But think about that being sort of where we are right now. This stuff is so murky and kind of janky and hard to use. And the rules seem very opaque and people lose their money.”

Intermediary marketplaces are another roadblock Web3 technologies seek to overcome. “That intermediary party is actually the thing that is determining the ownership, not the actual contract pointing at the media,” Munson said. “So you can see this whole ream of problem on the other side of opportunity.”

Jennifer Wolfe

A Los Angeles-based content producer and media strategist with 15+ years of experience in Media & Entertainment, I bring a broad-scope knowledge of M&E business and technologies spanning visual storytelling, creative post production, and digital content creation and delivery. Fluent across digital publishing platforms, including development and back-end management, I am highly skilled at translating technical workflows into narratives that showcase product features and capabilities.