It’s no secret that the digital economy relies on user engagement. Recently, industries such as pharmaceuticals, information technology and finance have standardized engaging customers as a way to develop new products and services. However, in most of these cases, user engagement is limited to the initial or final steps of development, rarely does a project’s development engage users at every stage of the process.

Recently, this paradigm has changed. User involvement across a wide spectrum of service and product development continues as the project progresses. In this new paradigm, the way a product or service functions depends on users’ activity and engagement.

This newly recognized need for user-focused products and services certainly could be due to the rise of digital literacy and the internet. Instant access to a broad spectrum of information allows users to know their options. As technology has advanced, consumers have better awareness of what they want. Products that will continue to provide value for users in the future will need to be built for, by and improved upon by its users.

Viberate, a crowdsourced booking and payment platform for the live music industry, is one such example.

Rewarding community contribution

The Viberate platform is a digital ecosystem consisting of a database and marketplace where users can find information on various artists. These artists are also rated and ranked in terms of popularity by the community. The crowd-sourced artist database started off as a pilot project that involved ranking DJs, which in turn evolved from its popularity into a database with over 50,000 musicians. Today, Viberate’s platform boasts more than 130,000 musicians, 50,000 music venues and 210,000 events.

On the platform, artists who qualify as live musicians each have a profile which includes their community rating, daily updates from various media and social media channels, touring schedules, concert ticket purchasing, contact information and more. Given the complexity of the the data in the Viberate ecosystem, blockchain technology was the best ledger system for efficiently maintaining and manipulating the information. From a community perspective, Viberate’s success as a platform depends on transparency and up-to-date accuracy.

To incentivize users to contribute valuable information, industry insights and community updates, Viberate uses the blockchain to provide rewards by paying out their ecosystem’s token,VIB. Registering for a service, referring friends, adding new profiles to the database or curating existing profiles are only just a few ways to contribute and earn VIB tokens.

Another particularly interesting feature to Viberate’s platform is the opportunity to crowdfund artists. Users have the opportunity to find and fund the musicians who they want to see perform. If a user is an event organizer or venue owner, they can create an upcoming event’s profile and sell tickets through the use of smart contracts. In context of the recent boom in cryptocurrency, Viberate is striving to make VIB the definitive currency for the music industry.

VIB Token Sale

During its recent ICO, the VIB token hit $10,7 million, selling out within the first five minutes. According to Viberate’s project calendar, the launch of venue profiles in August 2017 will be followed by adding contributor rewards. Because the user’s role in the network is central to the platform’s success, developing the contributor rewards will be one of the project’s foremost priorities.

Viberate’s employees emphasize their dedication towards executing what they have planned ahead, and, so far, it seems they are succeeding.

Positive indications for Viberate’s ability to disrupt the live music industry come from glancing at their team. The ‘back-end’ of the company consists of professionals coming from music, technology and blockchain domains. Bitcoin and blockchain experts and veterans Charlie Shrem, Peter M. Moricz and Collin Lahay have all joined in advisor roles.

Like its impact to the financial industry, application of blockchain technology in the live music industry would reduce the number of intermediaries. Moreover, it could create direct exchanges of contracts where money and information only flowed between consumers, artists, event organizers and venue owners. In this way, Viberate will simplify live music transactions while remaining user-centered.

“Viberate already has value and a supportive community,” explained Viberate’s CEO Matej Gregorcic. “That’s because Viberate is giving more power to people and artists. And that’s what conscious consumers want – to be included in products and services they choose in a simple and effecitve way.”