As a photographer, you probably have two ambitions: to use your craft every day, and make a decent living out it. Sure, you’ve sold a few photographs in local shops, or craft fairs here and there, but the income is more like a bonus than a sustainable wage. Your trusty camera enables you to indulge your hobby, but that’s about it.
Photography is a wonderfully expressive form of art, practiced by millions of people worldwide with varying degrees of success.
The problem with amateur photographers (assuming they are good enough) is that
access to the top tier of the industry is quite centralized and controlled by a handful of agencies, which exert undue pressure on photographers and force them to give up most of the potential revenue and their intellectual property (IP) rights in exchange for limited exposure.
Wemark is a brand new ICO that proposes the elimination of this middleman, of this
major hurdle that exists between photographers and the world beyond.
Wemark: Creating a content marketplace for photographers worldwide
Photographers enjoy freedom. The freedom to go out in the field and snap that moment in time, the freedom to live their life the way they want, with the camera on, and making good money out of their creative passion.
Wemark’s platform offers photographers the freedom to share their creativity by licensing their photographs directly to customers, make a profit out of it, and retain creative control.
Starting with photos, Wemark creates a new kind of marketplace for digital content.
What do you think about our video starring Van Gogh? https://t.co/fdKaIXntVz#blockchain #stockphotography— Wemark (@_wemark) April 4, 2018
Wemark uses the blockchain as the middleman, but this middleman does not impose
draconian conditions, nor does it get in the way of creativity. Instead, the blockchain enables freedom.
The Wemark protocol
The core of Wemark’s value proposition is a set of smart contracts that come together to establish the Wemark Protocol.
According to the marketing blurb, the protocol utilizes blockchain to enable the creation of distributed marketplaces across all types of content, and connect them in a decentralized network, creating an alternative distribution system without intermediaries.
Wemark in figures & quick facts
Want to get whitelisted for Wemark's token sale? Here's a quick overviewhttps://t.co/8YjfRbKQkm
— Wemark (@_wemark) May 17, 2018
- Token name – WMK
- Total amount of tokens issued – 135m
- Token price – $0.20
- Token Generation Event start date – July 24th, 2018
- Token Generation Event end date – August 7th, 2018
- Soft cap – $1.5m
- Hard cap – $8m
The WMK token
Wemark Tokens (WMK), are intended to serve as a native payment system for the network, and reward all the relevant parties for creating and promoting digital content.
Watch Wemark's Co-Founder & CEO, Tai Kaish, explaining what Wemark tokens are all abouthttps://t.co/YaMSYKA5TI— Wemark (@_wemark) May 2, 2018
The Wemark token (WMK), which is based on Ethereum’s ERC-20 Standard, according to the whitepaper, is intended to serve as a native payment system for the network, and reward all the relevant parties for creating, distributing and promoting digital content.
Once created, the tokens will be allocated as follows:
- Token sale – 38%
- Community – 37.5%
- Advisors & Partners – 12%
- Founders – 11%
- Bounty – 1.5%
Social media presence and digital footprint
Even though there are hundreds of millions of contents creators and customers, the power and control over distribution lies in the hands of fewer than 100 companies.
Watch our Co-Founder & CEO, explaining about decentralization of digital contenthttps://t.co/juoKGAHo8h— Wemark (@_wemark) May 14, 2018
Here are the numbers for Wemark at the time of writing (early June 2018).
- Twitter – 3,600 followers
- Facebook – 7,300 followers
- Telegram – 3,500 followers
- LinkedIn – 164 followers
Competition
Wemark, a new way to share (and sell) your creativity @_wemark #photography #blockchain #stockphotography https://t.co/IIXjLzXEKM
— martino/pietropoli (@mpietropoli) May 2, 2018
Wemark’s value proposition is appealing but hardly unique. There are quite a few other ICOs out there offering blockchain-based platforms for the distribution of content. REOS, BitImage, and IPStock, to name but a few.
Wemark offers a solid and simple-to-use platform, sure enough, but it will have to go against many other players in the field.
Consult the Wemark Whitepaper for more information about the platform, additional features and services, etc.
See Wemark’s review on ICObench.
Conclusion
#blockchain week NYC pic.twitter.com/sPnFjlQSQW
— Wemark (@_wemark) May 12, 2018
The distribution and monetization of digital content through the blockchain is likely to generate good buzz among investors, particularly from those with an interest in photography.
ICOs such as this always inspire that ‘David v Goliath’ scenario, the small man rising against mighty corporations, and winning.
Wemark offers photographers the freedom and satisfaction to distribute and monetize
their craft, which is no mean feat, photographers may have spent years seeking an opportunity like this.
