AUGUST 3, SINGAPORE. — Well-known television host and SoCo SNP advisor Professor Changjian Jiang delivered a lecture on the “new generation of media and social trends” at The Hangar by NUS Enterprises last night.

The lecture was a part of NUS (the National University of Singapore) Enterprise’s “Kopi Chat”, a talks series meant to serve the university’s start-up community. The Hangar, NUS Enterprise’s on-campus base, was packed with people ready to listen to Professor Jiang, who is popular for his Chinese reality and talent show, “最强大脑”, or “Super Brain”.

Professor Jiang’s speech centered on the mass movement from large-scale, professional media production to today’s shorter, specialized non-professional media content. Because of the popularization and fragmentation of the modern video production usually found on social media, people are now increasingly participating in the creation and distribution of information and entertainment, he said.

A packed room listens to Professor Jiang at The Hangar, NUS Enterprise’s on-campus base that houses start-ups and entrepreneurs as they develop their business ideas.

Instead of more painstaking efforts to produce what is typically considered “professional” long form media (say a documentary by a news organization), people can now report on events, contribute their opinions, and spread shorter media content on their iPhone via social networking platforms. A large number of users are producing such content themselves, and are also watching and engaging in others’ content, he said.

Jiang’s emphasis on the transformation of information production is a distinct call for a new technology to support this rampant uprising of user-generated content. Currently, user-produced media is very concentrated in a select few social networking platforms, and users are not compensated for their efforts. The select few social networking giants are then able to profit from the users’ content and information, and monopolize their traffic, preventing other social networking apps from providing users new innovations.

Later, after the professor gave his speech, he conducted a dialogue with SoCo SNP Founder Mingliang Jiang. The conversation focused on topics similar to the aforementioned issues, such as user ownership of social assets (i.e. their media content), the excessive concentration of existing social media platforms, and the impact of blockchain on today’s social media networks.

The SoCo Team at the event.

Their dialogue was a testament to how today’s media tendencies require a blockchain technology similar to SNP (the Social Network Protocol), which naturally suits this new trend of specialized and entertaining user-generated content, because SoCo and SNP focus on rewarding and valuing users’ content production, and even further incentivize users to continue generating content.

Simply put, the days of old media (television, radio, etc.) by establishment institutions are long gone — the media is now in the hands of the users. Shouldn’t this mean that the profits and ownership of the media content be in the hands of the users as well? The current social networking ecosystem clearly does not fit today’s form of media production: large social networking platforms that take users’ content abuse their information and make profits for themselves, causing distrustful users, hindering the potential for new content, and preventing new innovations in the realm of user-generated media. Blockchain technology, with its promises in its decentralization, is a much more fitting solution.

SoCo SNP Advisor Professor Changjian Jiang and Founder Mingliang Jiang sitting front and center before the event. The two conducted a dialog discussing the issues that have surfaced due to the current user-driven state of social media.

NOTE: Professor Changjian Jiang will also be giving a lecture today, Aug. 3, at the Nanyang Technopreneurship Center from 4 to 5 p.m. Professor Jiang’s lecture is titled “Back to the Lion City”, and will also focus on the “New Generation of Media and Social Trends.” The event is being co-hosted by SoCo and Nanyang Technological University of Singapore.