The 2018 Marketing plan of the year- The buzzword filled BS that is KODAK's cryptocurrency

Shares of Kodak (KODK) have nearly tripled in value on Tuesday after the iconic photography company formed a partnership with Wenn Digital to enter the cryptocurrency and digital licensing markets. Though their initial coin offering won't open until January 31, 2018, Kodak and it's investors have already made real-world money through marketing itself as a forward-thinking blockchain company. 

KODAKCoin, a photo-centric cryptocurrency to empower photographers and agencies to take greater control of image rights management. 

“For many in the tech industry, ‘blockchain’ and ‘cryptocurrency’ are hot buzzwords, but for photographers who’ve long struggled to assert control over their work and how it’s used, these buzzwords are the keys to solving what felt like an unsolvable problem,” said Kodak CEO Jeff Clarke. “Kodak has always sought to democratize photography and make licensing fair to artists. These technologies give the photography community an innovative and easy way to do just that.”

In 1996, Kodak was the 5th most valuable brand in the world. In 2013 the company that went bankrupt. Kodak lost out in the digital photography revolution and is determined to be a player in future. However this a very interesting use of Crypto-marketing. In its own press release, Kodak CEO Jeff Clarke states "For many in the tech industry, 'blockchain' and 'cryptocurrency' are hot buzzwords". Kodak has created buzz and an actual rise in value through a simple well-timed press release without providing any info on the expense, revenues, or investments required regarding the newly announced image rights management system. 

Kodak also has plans to install rows of Bitcoin mining rigs at its headquarters in Rochester, New York. Customers will pay up-front to rent mining capacity from The Kodak KashMiner further creating a revenue stream for Kodak. 

Kodak is the latest in a series of companies to see its value jump after revealing plans for blockchain-related activity.

Many thought leaders in the blockchain/crypto world are calling BS on Kodak's great crypto plan.

"This is a phenomenon we saw back during the dot com days in the late 1990s where traditional companies would mention some kind of internet strategy and their stock price would jump- University of Cambridge Cryptocurrency & blockchain researcher Garrick Hilman

"it is unlikely that the cryptocurrency, which is simply a secure payment system for users, will generate revenues significant enough to be reported in its financial releases for years or ever"- Seeking Alpha

Update: 

According to Coindesk, the Vancouver-based Global Blockchain Technologies Corp. announced today that it is investing $2 million in KodakCoin, the initiative announced yesterday by Kodak and WENN Digital, which is licensing the former's branding. WENN Digital, which is developing the digital media rights platform that was unveiled yesterday, is managing the sale of the tokens.

Decentraland looks to be the decentralized VR creators paradise built on the Blockchain we have all been dreaming of since last year.

Gamers spend upwards to 20 hours a week building, gathering, teaming up with other gamers, and fighting over digital good in virtual worlds owned by central organizations like Facebook and Blizzard. As VR grows we see value in Virtual worlds like AltspaceVR pop up but issues still exist like l the imitations of what 'rules' can be modified as well as issues of the ownership of content built by the users.

The lack of a true 'creators paradise' as well as the incentive to invest time and effort creating unique VR experiences has created some of the lack of content issues VR is currently facing. 

Decentraland is looking to tackle the creators paradise head on with its distributed platform for a shared virtual world in which participants can navigate, discover, and interact with other people and entities. Ownership of virtual land is blockchain-based and the land itself is a non-fungible, transferrable, scarce digital asset stored in an Ethereum smart contract that can be acquired by spending an ERC20 token called MANA.

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To fund the continued development of the platform a token sale has been announced for August. https://blog.decentraland.org/the-decentraland-token-sale-terms-81861704c086

The platform could very well help to create those Ready Player One ecosystems that VCs are expecting today without understanding the massive leaps VR needs to make. It can also help make the Blockchain more appealing to content creators looking for a new avenues of monetization and discoverability. 

Also I am pretty sure there will be porn on there...and the Decentraland team is aware of how complicated this may be in a decentralized virtual platform as noted in their white paper. This is a discussion I see debated very much in the early stages of the platform.

Example User feedback on the ongoing discussion of Adult Content on the platform.

For many Blockchain and VR are sexy silicon valley buzzwords, for many more they are potentially the backbone of a new ecosystem of trade, information, financial and societal growth just like the Internet was promised to be. Also much like the internet it may still be a new platform for adult content and cat videos. I personally am trying to be the cat king of Decentraland. 

Word.

By the way they are working with Aragon very closely. Pretty sure Aragon will be the reason Ether will be wayyyyy super valuable in the future. You prob should know what they do. https://aragon.one/

Also is you want more tech news from a cat perspective check out my new site ARKittens.com