Interview with Jack Cheng, Co-Founder at Social Entertainment Platform: GazeTV

GazeTV comes from the idea that creation is a collaboration process between creator and audience. It’s a give-and-take relationship. The first iteration of content platforms were largely one way – audiences could watch or comment, but they couldn’t engage any further than that. That felt artificial. At GazeTV, we considered the lessons and shortcomings of those platforms, and we built for improvement. We want vibrant online communities, not drip-fed content in those standard formulas.

We improved the interface for creators, because content creators drive the online space, but we also sought to find a way to build an engaged community, hence our rewards. We feel that our name reflects this, you gaze at something with intent. Intent indicates a conscious choice, which is a step away from previous platforms with their design and interface tricks to keep you passively hooked and consuming media.
 
 
GazeTV Launches Blockchain-Powered Social Entertainment Platform That Puts  Creators First | Business Wire
 

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

 
We believe that content creation is invaluable, but in the legacy world, content creators are being exploited. These people mean nothing to these platforms. Content creators contribute to them daily but most have to work another job in order to make a living.

Not only is there a broken censorship control mechanism, but the platform algorithm is also unfair and hidden, making it difficult for creators to reach new audiences. The business model of legacy platforms relies on advertising revenue, which you are forced to watch via multiple methods, such as in-stream and pop-up advertisements. These ads impact audience experience and create privacy concerns.

We asked, “Why can’t we build a better platform to have a win-win ecosystem for creators, audiences and the platform?” We know that we can eliminate all the blackbox rules behind the scenes which will allow alternatives to prevail over those big platforms. This was the beginning of GazeTV—using blockchain technology and tokenomics to build a social entertainment platform that puts creators and the audience at the center.
 

Why are you using blockchain technology for a content creation site?

 
The blockchain piece is critical for a few reasons. It removes our influence over the pricing for engagement (coins in, smart contract governs distribution). We are not the middle man in this ecosystem. We are the service provider. It builds trust, as creators understand how much they are getting paid and for how many engagements. For the community, it’s an avenue of engagement that’s transparent. Online crypto communities are vibrant.

Look at Reddit or Telegram, during the current bull market to see the truth of this. GME and investor groups prove this as well. Corporations have been trying to hijack that passion with viral videos for ages, largely not very well (Kendall Jenner and Pepsi anyone?) Youtube is not a community-driven platform, but rather a corporation looking to make the most profits. If you get demonetized, it’s difficult to try to understand why. We thought by being crypto people ourselves, we could marry that idea of passionate engagement with the massive world of online content creation, we thought we might be onto something. Turns out, we were.
 

What can we hope to see from GazeTV in the future?

 
We’d like to be the home of vibrant online communities. Whether it’s crypto videos, new musicians, indy gaming, skating videos or cosplay, we believe in the idea that everyone has a platform to share their passion. As long as you don’t upset others, everyone should have access to a place to create and share their unique brand of weird with the world. If in 12 months or 2 years we become the home of indie music or graffiti videos or crypto content, we’d be super happy and would look to build and work with those communities.