As Simple Token, “OST” works towards delivering blockchain solutions to mainstream problems, we are working with a number partners who are planning to implement OST-powered token economies in their products. In the coming weeks we will introduce a variety of these partners to the OST community — partners who each come from different places with different objectives.

OST has been contacted by hundreds of potential partners to work with the OpenST Protocol and software, and previously announced a number of OST partners, including 11 new OST partners during the 1st OST Startup Day held on 15 January, 2018.

Look

Today, we present case study on: Look (by Vidi VR) who we first revealed as a OST partner in November 2017.

At its core, Look is a community focused on creating, sharing and discovering the best virtual and augmented reality content from all over the world.

Vidi VR is led by founder and CEO Brian Herrera, educated in optical engineering at the University of Arizona and former employee of Draper Labs in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Brian has worked on a variety of machine vision and 3D camera systems where he developed an interest in using virtual reality as a communication medium for sharing immersive visual experiences. Brian quickly discovered that no medium currently existed for truly enabling large scale adoption of both virtual reality content and the tools/equipment required to create it. This quickly developed into Vidi VR and subsequently Look.

Look — a mobile application developed by Vidi VR — makes the process of sharing, ranking, and consuming VR content as straightforward and simple as possible. With a community driven approach to unlocking and incentivising new creators and consumers, Look is the first social VR application to explore the potential of cryptoeconomics in solving some of the toughest challenges in VR.

In contrast with existing media networks, Vidi will be using OST-powered Branded Tokens to reward and incentivize various activity within Look. By rewarding users for participating in contests, evaluating content, creating/sharing experiences, and other actions within their application, Vidi looks to kick-start a new wave of VR consumers and creators.

Aware of the common adage, “If the product is free, you are the product,” Herrera approached OST with a desire to make his business less dependent upon traditional advertising-led models by opening new doors for creators and consumers to extract more value from the networks they support.

By using OST, Vidi VR will be able to deploy their services while taking full advantage of cryptoeconomics without the costly, technical and regulatory challenging, and operationally difficult task of ICOing their own tokens. Rewarding creators with great content in the form of OST-powered branded tokens will incentivize them to create amazing content and expand their viewership within Look.

As their product soon goes live, Vidi plans to assign real monetary value to actions inside the Look application. Using the mechanics of tokens to reinforce the network effects that drive popular applications, Vidi will provide real economic incentives to grow a new form of social content sharing powered by OST. While the team at Vidi is actively pursuing new forms of business models, their current build will use a “freemium” approach so users can watch and enjoy content for free but will need tokens to control and interact with said content.

Look is currently in a private beta but planning to launch a public test version of their product by the end of the first quarter of 2018. On their roadmap, Vidi will be integrating a wide variety of VR cameras to their platform while exploring new and exciting ways for creators and consumers to acquire the tools necessary to support this fledgling space.

We’re thankful that Look and Vidi VR have partnered with OST and we are looking forward to showcasing their implementation of OST-powered branded tokens in the coming months.