Although WebX 2024 Japan has come to an end, when we look back on the unforgettable moments of this event, the wonderful performances of MEET48 idols at the official opening party, Fantasy Bullish Night, have been talked about many times.
In many people’s stereotypes, Web3 is an obscure space full of cryptographic terms. The current dilemma of more infrastructure and fewer applications has also deepened everyone’s perception that Web3 is a castle in the air. Therefore, in this cycle, users began to disenchant with infrastructure, the slogan of “embracing attention” gradually emerged, and consumer-level applications received much attention. MEET48 is such an existence that fits the trend.
At the official opening party of WebX, several idols who won the MEET48 GIPR2 on-chain voting event took the stage, bringing the audience an audio-visual feast that combined Web3 technology and entertainment elements. While enjoying the music and dance, we saw MEET48’s innovation in the online and offline interaction mode between idols and fans, as well as the effectiveness of building a fan-led decentralized idol development and fan economy entertainment ecosystem through Web3.
Following the guidance of the performance, we approached the MEET48 booth, and a grand social metaverse vision that includes a product matrix including NFT, games, AI UGC content generation, etc. was more clearly displayed: led by TON cheering and calling mini-game CoinIdols, idol model scene generation AI tool AIShowBox and many other products, it truly shows users the potential and possibilities of Web3 technology in the entertainment field, promotes the large-scale adoption of Web3, and leads the public into a new digital era experience.
How does Web3 empower the fan economy? How does AIGC lead the trendy entertainment content of Generation Z? What is the ultimate mission of the MEET48 metaverse?
With these curiosities, we had an in-depth discussion with MEET48 COO Kai Xu. Kai couldn’t hide his excitement about the many mini-games that will be available to everyone:
“User participation is the key to retention, and the threshold for content creation is the core that determines whether users participate in UGC creation. Our AI SaaS tool allows everyone to use AIShowBox to easily and at low cost create their own virtual human performance content, publish it to various social platforms, and participate in voting activities on the MEET48 platform to win rewards and greater benefits.”
Kai further described the metaverse that MEET48 ultimately wants to build:
“It is all-encompassing and is a community that is connected to the real world and operates and lives in parallel. In the future, it can be further connected with offline real life and industries to attract more people from different groups to join.”
In this issue, let us follow Kai’s sharing and enter the past, present and future of the MEET48 metaverse.
Idol storm sweeps WebX, MEET48 brings a successful demonstration of Web3 fan economy
TechFlow: I am very happy to have the opportunity to have an in-depth exchange with you. First of all, please introduce yourself (you can share some of your past educational experience, track-related work/entrepreneurship experience, the reasons for joining MEET48, etc.).
Kai：Hi everyone, I am Kai from the MEET48 team, and I am honored to communicate with you through TechFlow. Our MEET48 has a diverse team, including both traditional entertainment industry OGs and a group of young people with consensus in Web3. They have very rich qualifications and experience in artist management, large-scale performances, fan operations, game development, and film and television production.
I have been working in the media for almost 20 years. I first worked in TV stations and film and television companies. Now I work with our excellent team to develop and operate MEET48. I hope that our synergy can create a product experience that breaks the circle.
TechFlow: If you can only use one sentence to let everyone quickly understand MEET48, how would you express it?
Kai：The future star-making entertainment ecosystem will be led and created by fans. A decentralized idol development and fan economy entertainment ecosystem.
TechFlow: At the just-concluded WebX opening party, the girl group members of MEET48 brought wonderful performances, and fans from all over the world who came to support further boosted the enthusiastic atmosphere on the scene. Such a bustling crowd undoubtedly demonstrated the successful operation of the fan economy under the Web3 model. Behind the success, can you please share what empowerment do you think Web3 has brought to the healthy and sustainable development of the fan economy? As a pioneer in promoting the in-depth integration of fan economy and Web3, what advantages do you think MEET48 has that have contributed to its current outstanding achievements?
Kai：MEET48 is a Web3 experience built on a proven and very successful Web2 model. We use Web3’s new gameplay and new technology to break the original limitations, making the user-created star-making process more transparent, democratic, and easier to participate.
Originally, in the traditional idol development process, idol management companies redistribute resources through the income from fan economy. Fans have no dominant power or income distribution except for voting. However, through the gameplay of Web3, we can integrate fans into the entire operation system and give them more voice. At the same time, we can also more effectively feed back the value created by the development system to idols and fans, giving them a better experience.
TechFlow: We understand that during the WebX event, including TOKEN2049 and MEET48 in September, a series of activities will be held to further establish a closer connection between fans and idols through offline activities, while more vividly showing the new look of idols under the AI + Web3 system. Can you share more specific arrangements for the event so that fans can better participate?
Kai：MEET48 will invite 7 members of SNH48 to participate in our offline activities in Singapore. At the same time, we will gradually promote our MEET48 idol development system in Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Hong Kong, making full use of AI to lower the threshold for user participation, and use token mechanisms to encourage more people who want to become idols to realize their dreams.
From TON to AI UGC: GameFi and FansFi are deeply integrated
TechFlow: According to the news released by social media, MEET48 currently has many products and games such as AIShowBox, CoinFish, and CoinIdols in the testing phase, and will meet with everyone in the third/fourth quarter of 2024. Could you please first introduce to everyone the positioning and latest progress of each product in the MEET48 metaverse ecosystem?
Kai：AIShowBox is an AI SaaS tool suite that can help users easily create their own virtual idol images and conduct UGC virtual performance creation, and even collaborate with multiple users to create collective performances of virtual idols.
As we all know, the threshold for content creation is the core factor that determines whether users participate in UGC creation. The success of TikTok is because it has lowered the threshold for users to shoot and create short video content. Everyone can participate and become a KOL. For virtual idols, the technical requirements and costs involved in model establishment, music and dance performances are very high, and ordinary users cannot complete them by themselves. Our AI SaaS tool will completely break and subvert this tradition. Everyone can use AIShowBox to conveniently and low-cost virtual performance content of their own, and can publish it to various social platforms, and can participate in voting activities on the MEET48 platform to win rewards and greater benefits.
I get very excited when I talk about this. The product is currently in the internal testing stage and I believe it will be available to the public soon. Let us wait and see!
CoinIdols is an H5 game product operating on the TON ecosystem, combining the cheering and airdrop gameplay of idol culture. We hope that through this product, more users will be exposed to and understand the idol culture of MEET48 and convert them into users of the entire ecosystem.
TechFlow: While we are looking forward to the launch of the product, we can also clearly perceive that in the metaverse built by MEET48 for idols and fans, games occupy an important position. What are the considerations behind this? How can games better narrow the distance between fans and idols and generate more friendly interactions?
Kai：Based on user attributes, we proposed a concept of AIGC, which stands for Animation, Idol, Game, and Comic. Users who like anime and games and fans of idol culture are a common group, and it is easy for them to convert to each other, especially for virtual idols. Therefore, METT48 will not only attract and convert this type of users through games, but also through animation and comics. This is a very large user pool, which is enough to support the grand blueprint we expect.
TechFlow: The upcoming CoinIdols belongs to the TON ecosystem, which has also made more community members curious about this choice. With so many public chain ecosystems, why did MEET48 choose TON? How will TON help MEET48 build its metaverse?
Kai：TON has lowered the threshold for developers, allowing more teams with ideas to participate in the TON ecosystem. MEET48 itself is also open, and we also hope that idol entertainment can become a part of TON, and at the same time more developers can access our product ecosystem. TON has many functional possibilities that are worth exploring, and coupled with its own user base, it is likely to become one of the important reasons for Web3 to break through the circle and go to the masses.
TechFlow: In the past few months, we have indeed witnessed the rapid development of the TON ecosystem. From Hamster Kombat to Catizen, TON ecosystem games have frequently become popular. In such a competitive landscape, what is the unique charm of MEET48’s upcoming series of game products?
Kai：Currently, several popular products in the TON ecosystem basically use the MEME cultural attributes to resonate with people and obtain airdrop income. The way to participate is also relatively simple. This is what I mentioned before. Lowering the user entry threshold can attract a large number of participants.
However, TON still lacks a way to subsequently take over users and update the experience. The series of game products that MEET48 is about to launch will not only be closely aligned with our ongoing idol culture and fan economy in terms of cultural attributes, but will also be directly linked to our metaverse ecosystem in terms of gameplay and subsequent experience upgrades, which will provide users with greater expectations and future guarantees.
TechFlow: Economic model design is the core of any healthy ecological operation. Focusing on the TON ecological series of products, MEET48 launched the innovative gameplay of MEME2.0 ecological airdrop. Could you please give us a detailed introduction to the innovation of MEME2.0 airdrop? How does MEME2.0 airdrop achieve effective incentives for the ecosystem?
Kai：Our thinking on Web3 has always been about how to break the circle and take over. This is true for traditional entertainment culture and the TON ecosystem.
Due to the current characteristics of the TON ecosystem, there is no way to carry the products of the entire metaverse, but the lightweight bot on TON can easily reach the massive users on Telegram, convey our cultural information and attract their attention through airdrops. However, this step alone is not enough. We have designed a common gameplay from prop assets to incentive tokens, so that users can bring the assets and tokens obtained on TON to MEET48, a broader and richer platform, and achieve further value enhancement.
TechFlow: In addition, we can also see that another blockbuster product, AIShowBox, deeply integrates AI gameplay. Users can not only experience the ecosystem, but also participate immersively in creating the ecosystem, which brings a stronger sense of ecological identity, participation and user stickiness. Many community members believe that this is one of the core advantages of MEET48 that distinguishes it from other ecosystems. What do you think of this view?
Kai：AIUGC is a big trend. We believe that the effect will be very good if we leave content creation to users and encourage them to create content.
Through PARO LLM, we will first create virtual idols with IP co-branding, but we hope that users will create their own virtual idols and partners. We will also make the creation and cultivation of virtual idols richer and more fulfilling through activities and operations. This was not possible before, but in the next few years, through the continuous improvement of large models and AI Agents, we can bring you unexpected experiences.
TechFlow: It is worth mentioning that high barriers and lack of user experience are important reasons that hinder the development of Web3. In the series of activities held by MEET48 before, we often see hundreds of thousands of participants and more than one million on-chain interactions. Based on this series of impressive data, could you please share from the perspectives of technical support and product design how MEET48 can greatly reduce the user entry threshold and improve the user participation experience, help users seamlessly participate in Web3, and introduce a large number of incremental users to Web3?
Kai：Fan users are a very unique group. They are gathered together through a consensus and are willing to continue to pay for it. The star-making and star-chasing system itself is a high-threshold activity, combining the division of labor online and offline and in the community. The fans’ investment in time and money is far higher than that of ordinary users.
For this group of users, Web3 is not a high threshold. What we need to do is to help them switch to Web3 more conveniently and seamlessly, and bring them better experience and value feedback.
TechFlow: For ordinary users who have not yet joined MEET48, what is the attraction of participating in MEET48? How can we participate in the MEET48 ecosystem more efficiently?
Kai：We will soon have an upgrade in the experience, and through the new idol selection task system, more people will be able to realize their idol dreams in MEET48. At the same time, fan users will be able to grow with these idols during the participation process and share the benefits brought by their increased value.
Multiple milestones have been achieved, and the MEET48 Metaverse has taken shape
TechFlow: In many of the previous questions, we have discussed the sub-sectors and specific implementation paths based on the grand vision of MEET48 Metaverse. Now let us switch the perspective from micro to macro. Could you please share with us what the future form of MEET48 Metaverse will be like in your design and imagination?
Kai：Idols and fan groups are just the vertical track and initial goal of MEET48’s entry into the metaverse. The metaverse is a huge concept and a grand vision. It is a community that people will build in the future that is connected to the real world and operates and lives in parallel, just like what was shown in the movie “Ready Player One”. However, this ecosystem requires the logic that existing natives and users are willing to stay, otherwise it will be an empty utopia.
The channel we found is to use the stickiness between idols and fans, with idols leading fans into the metaverse and conducting various interactions in it to form a social ecology and activity. After this ecology stabilizes and grows to a certain stage, we can connect and introduce more metaverse content and forms, such as cultural tourism, e-commerce, etc., and connect with offline real life and industries, thereby attracting more people from different groups to enter, and ultimately truly organically and phasedly realize the ideal all-encompassing parallel universe.
TechFlow: In this cycle, the slogan of “embracing the attention economy” is gaining momentum. How do you view the future development of the trend of “attention economy”? In the eyes of many people, the interaction between idols and fans is a more intuitive and vivid embodiment of the attention economy. What role do you think MEET48 will play in the path of large-scale adoption of Web3 by riding on this wave of “attention economy”?
Kai：Web3’s current infrastructure projects have far exceeded current user demand, and it needs a larger scale of users to continue to prosper and develop. This requires more high-quality applications for C-end users and the use of them to generate a large amount of content for dissemination. It can be said that the most popular application of Web3 now is the trading platform, and trading users cannot generate content, which also hinders the further delivery of content and guidance of users to enter the cycle.
Entertainment is the field that is most accepted by the public and easiest to produce content dissemination. We should use entertainment to attract users’ attention and create our own content and IP through UGC, use Web3 technology to confirm the ownership of content and IP, and realize intelligent redistribution of benefits in the dissemination process and transfer transactions. This is what MEET48 wants to do, and we are confident that we will become pioneers and leaders on the road to large-scale adoption.
TechFlow: Finally, you are welcome to share with everyone the work focus and milestones of MEET48 in 2024.
Kai：In 2024, MEET48 made a major breakthrough in the Web3 field, relying on multi-dimensional innovation to create a new interactive ecosystem between idols and fans. Four iconic Web3 voting events were held throughout the year, namely the fashion-themed GIFR, the summer-themed GISR, the annual largest total voting GIPR, and the 4YA x MEET48 Web3 Thanksgiving Festival in cooperation with Binance for the fourth anniversary. This series of activities attracted more than 300 idols to participate, including SNH48, virtual idol Little Ghost NFT, amateur Dali and Hong Kong group RPG. The cumulative number of votes exceeded 140 million times, the number of on-chain interactions exceeded 33 million times, and the number of participating users worldwide exceeded 300,000, further strengthening the influence of MEET48 in the Web3 ecosystem, and the highest ranking of Social on DAPPBAY was No. 1.
MEET48 has not only achieved success in Web3 technology, but also brought a richer experience to fans through online and offline interactions. On international stages such as the Edge Summit and WebX, MEET48 idols presented wonderful performances to the audience, and even performed on the same stage with the famous DJ Steve Aoki in Japan. At the same time, MEET48 held a series of “Back to the Streets” flash events in Hong Kong and Singapore, combining Web3 experience with reality and creating unique interactive opportunities for fans.
In terms of product innovation, MEET48 has further enhanced the platform’s technical capabilities and user experience. Through the OPBNB mainnet upgrade, the platform has been greatly improved in terms of security and scalability. At the same time, the creative video mining function launched by MEET48 enables fans to earn income by participating in content creation. In addition, the most eye-catching is the NFT empowerment. Users holding specific NFTs can enjoy online privileges and even participate in offline exclusive handshake meetings, which provides fans with a more immersive interactive experience.
MEET48’s AIUGC series product AIShowBox uses MEET AI’s technology to empower ordinary users to create. Users can easily generate music, dance videos, and even create virtual idols. This innovation allows fans to no longer be just passive participants, but content creators, further deepening the infinite possibilities of users.
In terms of TON ecosystem product releases, MEET48 will launch TON ecosystem incubation projects CoinFish and CoinIdols in September and October respectively. CoinFish is a “Fish to Airdrop” fishing and cultivation game, where players can get airdrop rewards through fishing and cultivation, while CoinIdols has in-depth cooperation with MEET48 and adopts the “Call to Earn” model, where fans can earn income by calling for idols. These new products not only expand the ways for Web3 users to interact, but also provide a new incentive mechanism for the idol economy.
MEET48 becomes the platinum sponsor of Singapore TOKEN2049 and will host a large Web3 + AI party on the evening of September 18, with GIPR2 Top7 idols for a roadshow and fan meeting
Previously, TOKEN2049 has officially announced that MEET48 will join Singapore TOKEN2049 as a platinum sponsor. At the same time, MEET48 will also co-host the “Back To The Streets” large-scale AI+Web3 application side event with Hape on the evening of September 18, and will be strongly supported by partners such as ModelZoo, TraditioNow, OneKey, and BNB Chain.
MEET48 will also hold roadshows and fan meetings with the MEET GIPR2 Top7 idol group.
Through the deep integration of Web3 technology and the real world, MEET48 has created a new model of online and offline interaction. The performances at the Edge Summit and the “Back To The Streets” series of events not only allowed fans to get close to their idols, but also further expanded the application of Web3 technology in real-life scenarios. This large-scale innovation has promoted the Mass Adoption of Web3 technology, making MEET48 not only successful in the voting activities, but also a model for the integration of the global idol economy and Web3.
For MEET48, 2024 is not only a year of innovation, but also a key node to promote the popularization of Web3 technology and achieve large-scale user adoption. Through AIGC, NFT empowerment and product innovation, MEET48 is leading the idol economy into a new Web3 era.
This article is from a contribution and does not represent the views of BlockBeats
