Since the dawn of man, entertainment has come shortly after food, water, and shelter on our list of priorities. We, humans, crave to be entertained. In the earliest days of humanity, humans passed the time by communicating stories and drawing on cave walls.

As humans became more advanced, entertainment has taken multiple forms from theatre, music, art, sports, comics, games, and more. The way it’s delivered has evolved too and the internet has played a major role in this evolution — from hardware devices like TV, mobile, tablets, to software applications like social media, OTT platforms, mobile & PC games, and more.

After the rise of the internet, online entertainment has become a battleground to capture larger shares of our attention. Today, attention has become the most precious resource, and the companies that have successfully captured our attention have become some of the most valuable companies in the world like Meta, TikTok, Fortnite, Netflix, and more!

Any product that can engage people better and capture a larger chunk of our attention will go on to win. That’s exactly what Tiktok did the past few years. So, what could be the next frontier in entertainment?

The Present: The decline of TV & the rise of gaming

The primary source of entertainment for a lot of millennials and boomers since their teenage years and until recently has been watching TV. It’s one of the most successful entertainment products and benefits from tremendous network effects.

But, for GenZ, watching TV is a thing of the past. Less than 10% of GenZ actually watch TV. For our generation, gaming is the primary source of entertainment followed by listening to music, browsing the internet, and engaging on social platforms.

A major reason behind gaming being the favorite source of entertainment for GenZ is simply because we are a participatory generation — We like to be a part of the experience. We crave new social and dynamic experiences.

All the social apps and some of the popular games have clearly struck the chord in cracking the users' attention and as a result, our online presence is slowly gaining equal or more importance than our IRL presence.

https://twitter.com/alexisohanian/status/1396869330877526021

NFTs push the boundaries even further by adding an economic layer. Likewise, virtual currencies are gaining increasingly more value as users spend more and more time in games and other digital worlds. An investment bank has released a report that shows that teenagers actually want cryptocurrency and Fornite “V-bucks” currency instead of actual cash!

To sum it up, in a world that’s so exciting and fun with a whole lot of games and social apps, TV is getting sidelined with very passive entertainment and no involvement or interaction of users.

The future

There’s a clear gap when we look at how the legacy media companies are struggling to get back the viewership they once had and what GenZ & the following generations actually want.

I believe the future of entertainment is interactive, real-time & social:

Interactive: Interactivity is key to unlocking a great entertainment experience, and it’s no more an option as the kids already have exposure to interactive experiences in games & social apps. It makes the users participate in the experience. Interactivity is also a way to fight the lowering attention spans which is one of the threats to a lot of products.

We’re already seeing a few products trending towards this direction. Netflix has released various interactive shows & movies where you make choices for the characters, shaping the story as you go. Tinder has released an interactive experience on its app called Swipe Night and recently reported that it resulted in a 26% increase in matches. There are also a few exciting products in web3 working in this space. Mad Realities is building an interactive TV that’s created, participated & decided by YOU! Shibuya is a decentralized film distribution platform that’s currently working on an interactive short film. More products will follow!

Realtime & social: Realtime experiences have something magical that isn’t captured in passive interactions. For example, you would enjoy speaking to your friend IRL more than chatting online, you would enjoy attending IRL events over Zoom events or Twitch streams. When you attend a concert, a large part of your experience is shaped by the energy of the audience. The visual sight of a lot of people cheering, hearing the crowd make noise, and having your friend by your side to giggle with and express your excitement is what shapes a large part of your experience.

The same applies to attending a sports game in the stadium, watching movies in theatres, attending parties, and everything IRL! The audience is shaping your experience and you’re one of the many, shaping someone else’s experience.

Now, simply imagine you being the only person in a theatre! 🤮

This is exactly what’s happening on a lot of the platforms today. The same social experience you would have in an IRL concert isn’t possible online!

Livestreams have a long way to go on this front. Moreover, all the live streaming and video streaming platforms have been built from a creator’s perspective (Youtube/Twitch primarily made uploading videos and broadcasting live on the web easier), and not a lot has been done on the audience front to enhance the experience. Live chat is just one of the many possibilities.

Enter the Sports Metaverse

There haven't been any products that have even remotely been able to build a successful interactive, real-time, and social entertainment product until now, except one: The Stadium Live App — aka. the sports metaverse and the app is replacing the legacy sports media channels like ESPN, Fox Sports, Star Sports, etc. But, HOW?

It’s evident that attention is the key; our attention is a zero-sum resource – every minute I spend playing a game, for example, is a minute I don’t spend watching TV. And, if any company “cracks” TV, it’s not that they’ve figured out how to do TV better, but that they’ve figured out how to win a greater and greater share of consumer’s attention by doing the same jobs that TV does, but better.

Stadium Live app is amazingly improvising one of the main jobs that TV does - broadcast live sporting events. Like the famous quote, “People didn't want a faster horse, but a car” - fans don’t want a better sports TV channel, they want a more interactive & dynamic sports viewing experience & with a rating of 4.8 stars on the app store, the app is clearly on track to make a mark in the sports industry. Watch out sports channels!

https://twitter.com/thek3vinkim/status/1479053826619543559?s=20&t=3gTSyRjzoBxjV_44hojX0w

Final thoughts

Clubhouse is an attempt to build an interactive, real-time & social product too. Again, only products and formats that can successfully capture our attention will succeed in the end.

I believe there’s a lot of potential for products in this space and there’s clearly a huge white space for a product that can combine the magic of IRL events, the fun of games, and the capabilities of live streaming technology to form a new radical experience online! Will the next breakthrough entertainment product reside on our phones? AR? VR? Only time will tell. It’ll be interesting to watch this space and new products getting launched, especially when coupled with the power of web3 to bring the community to the forefront.

If you are building in the space or thinking about the future of web3 and entertainment, I’d love to chat. My DMs are open.

Thanks for reading,

Tharun