Never Watch Sports Alone - TOK.tv Whitepaper_Public_v1.2.pdf · the next level, and transform...

Never Watch Sports Alone

A Blockchain DApp for Distributed Digital Sports Content

Fabrizio Capobianco

[email protected]

Version 1.2 (May 4, 2018)

TOK.tv: A Blockchain DApp For Distributed Digital Sports Content

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Abstract

With over 30 million users worldwide, TOK.tv is the #1 social network in sports, enabling fans

to watch exciting sporting events while interacting with their friends. TOK.tv is the chosen social

platform for multiple international teams and leagues including Real Madrid, Barcelona,

Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain, Italian Serie A, Italian Lega B, Beijing GuoAn, Shanghai

Shenhua, Tianjin Teda, the Chinese Super League, and The Los Angeles Clippers.

TOK.tv’s success has been fueled by the paradigm shift of consumers moving from a world of

centrally controlled content distribution channels, like television and radio, to a world of user-

controlled content absorbed through online streaming.

TOK.tv is now taking advantage of the innate capabilities of blockchain to take its platform to

the next level, and transform digital sports viewing and engagement, by re-platforming on

blockchain and creating the first Token Television.

TOK.tv will revolutionize how sports content is sold, distributed, and consumed (or

experienced), while benefiting all parties: users, rights holders and advertisers.

● Users gain access to great sports content and an expanding ecosystem of third-party

add-on apps that make their experience social and richer, while keeping total control of

their privacy,

● Rights holders (leagues and teams) make more money by not paying middlemen, and

gain access to a new world of fan monetization and engagement,

● Advertisers gain higher transparency, ROI and reduced click-fraud, paying only for

actual engagement.

TOK.tv will be built on the Dispatch Labs protocol, providing the scalability required for mass

adoption by millions of consumers, while reducing time to market for TOK.tv.

TOK.tv is backed by an experienced leadership team of sports fanatics with multiple previous

successful exits, who have built the success of TOK.tv in its current iteration.


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Contents 1. The Landscape 5

1.1 TOK.tv History and Current Capabilities 5

2. What is TOK.tv: the Token Television? 7

2.1 The TOK.tv Decentralized Application 7

2.2 The TOK.tv Token 7

2.2.1 Token spending 8

2.2.2 Token Earning 8

2.2.3 Content Access Models 8

2.3 The Social Platform 9

3. Technical Overview 10

3.1 Utilization of the Dispatch Protocol 10

3.1.1 The Dispatch Artifact Network (DAN) 10

3.2 Content and Rights Management 12

3.3 Interaction 13

3.4 Ad Management 13

3.5 Third-party Developer API 13

4. Roadmap 15

4.1 Community-Centric Design 15

5. The Company 16

5.1 TOK.tv Leadership 16

6. Conclusion 19


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Sports TV is Broken. The global sports industry is a massive economic entity, with the size of the total US Sports Industry estimated at $496.1 Billion in 2016, with a global size of $1.3 trillion USD. In the US alone, companies spent $36.6 billion on sports advertising in 20161. While fans continue to flock to live sports events, the outlook for traditional TV outlets is not looking up. Between the high cost for subscription, the lack of engagement opportunities, and the shift to mobile, sports fans are cord-cutting. Per Nielsen, ESPN lost 13 million subscribers in the last six years. This is also impacting ad revenues. Per MAGNA U.S. Sports Report (Sept. 2017), for 2016-2017 season, TV ad revenue is estimated to cover just 66% of media rights for sports. And unlike digital channels, TV advertisers lack ability to know who’s watching: leaving them with reduced incentive to remain with traditional TV outlets. Additionally, future markets will continue to trend towards new methods of content consumption as youth moves further away from television and more into online streaming, “The viewing figures we see on social media are really, really massive,” according to Ty Duffy of TheBiglead. “One third of 15 and 16-year-olds don’t watch linear TV at all.”2 Things aren’t much better for the rights holders (the clubs and leagues). Media costs are rising: $18.3 billion in 2016, up 50 percent from 20113. Despite increased costs, profit ends up with middlemen, leaving rights holders with little gain. TV has not changed in 70 years. It was born social (one TV per town, and everybody gathering to watch a game) but it lost it. Nowadays, people watch TV alone on a mobile device, a rather depressing exercise. To grow, TV needs to be social again, built on a new paradigm where the user totally owns its data and might decide to sell it to advertisers. Blockchain is the answer. A digital rights management system, with no middleman, a built-in payment infrastructure and advertising social network with total protection of user privacy.

1 “Sports Industry Statistics and Market Size Overview, Business and Industry Statistics”, Plunkett 2 “The Sports Bubble has Already Burst”, Ty Duffy, TheBigLead. March 10, 2017. http://thebiglead.com/2017/03/10/the-sports-bubble-has-already-burst/ 3 “PwC Sports Outlook 2016 North America,” PricewaterhouseCoopers. https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/entertainment-media/publications/sports-outlook-north-america.html


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1. The Landscape

1.1 TOK.tv History and Current Capabilities Originally launched as a consumer direct offering in 2012, TOK.tv quickly added Juventus as its first partner. Focusing initially on the largest soccer clubs in Europe, TOK.tv expanded to include: ● Real Madrid ● Barcelona ● Juventus ● Paris Saint-Germain ● Italy Serie A League ● Italy Serie B League

Expansion into Asia added: ● Beijing GuoAn ● Shanghai Shenhua ● Tianjin TEDA ● Chinese Super League

In 2017, TOK.tv added its first North American team (and not in soccer), the Los Angeles Clippers.

TOK.tv is in negotiations with a number of franchises in a variety of sports, with more NBA engagement, as well as planned NFL penetration in the near future. With TOK.tv integrated in their mobile applications, teams and leagues engage and retain their fans, without giving away their data to social networks. In addition, teams and leagues increase retention up to 80%, by allowing fans to talk to their friends while they are watching a match.


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With its advertising platform, TOK.tv allows brands - mainly team and league sponsors - to engage the fan directly, through a mix of static and video banners, branded sounds, social selfies, and unique chatbots (triggering one-to-one conversations with the fan). TOK.tv’s video player allows fans to watch matches on demand based on the time they have. Instead of being forced to watch the highlights prepared by the broadcasters, fans gain the ability to select which highlights to consume; to watch the top highlights, or every move of their favorite player.


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2. What is TOK.tv: the Token Television?

2.1 The TOK.tv Decentralized Application TOK.tv is moving to blockchain, leveraging its partnerships, relationships and industry experience to build the first decentralized sports viewing and engagement application on blockchain, establishing a new economy. The TOK.tv DApp will be a decentralized sports viewing, social network, and video streaming application, available on all mobile, web and TV platforms, which will enjoy the benefits and security of blockchain functionality. TOK.tv solves the challenges for Sports TV with an application built on a decentralized marketplace that bypasses the traditional middleman and directly connects fans with rights holders and advertisers. Rights holders upload content and specify the Content Access Models and Token Earnings and Usage for their content. Digital Rights Management is stored in a public blockchain, thus allowing transparent auditing (no need for Nielsen, anymore). The sports social network will be built directly on blockchain, giving users total access and control of their personal data, with opportunities to monetize it. Advertiser will be able to pay the rights holder or directly the user. By combining blockchain and smart contracts with Peer-2-Peer (P2P) file sharing, the TOK.tv application provides a flexible, low-cost, secure method of distributing and consuming content. The TOK.tv application will also allow the developer community to participate fully in the ecosystem. Developers will be able to add features to the platform (such as social gaming or expanded social features) through the TOK.tv API. The TOK.tv platform provides a flexible solution for not only wide audience content, but for niche, long tail content, where the audience may be limited or located in a small region. Additionally, content-quality based monetization can be easily implemented by properly slicing quality tiers (e.g. HDr, HD, UHD).

2.2 The TOK.tv Token The TOK.tv application leverages the TOK token, a cryptocurrency used by users to pay for content, play and acquire digital and physical goods, and by advertisers to purchase television slots.


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2.2.1 Token spending TOK.tv tokens will have an established fiat-currency value via public exchanges, allowing end-users to purchase: ● Digital services (e.g. a highlight, or a match, or a season subscription) ● Digital goods, such as collectible digital sport assets (with auctions), tickets, team

branded merchandise ● Access to participate in private group chat with a celebrity player ● Play time with other fans (such as playing against friends on the outcome of a game

using tokens) ● Voting on live television content, previously a fraud exposed process ● Interacting with live content, for example using tokens to have interviewers ask their

favourite players pressing questions

2.2.2 Token Earning Users can spend or obtain tokens, by taking an active part/role in the TOK.tv user community. For example, users can earn tokens by: ● Playing against their friends on the result of the game ● Actively selecting and proposing additional content to be placed on the platform, thus

promoting adoption and be rewarded based on actual paid usage ● Performing certain tasks during content watching such as voting, sharing with friends

who then become users, social engagements and shares, etc. ● Providing a specific feedback on the piece of content consumed ● Monitoring the overall quality of the streams and providing feedback ● Engaging in surveys and other desired engagement content from advertisers or research

groups ● Farming - by hosting content in the system

2.2.3 Content Access Models Video streams are transacted via one of three Content Access Models:

1. PPV: Paid by users with a subscription or pay-per-view (PPV) model 2. Advertiser Enabled: Paid for by advertisers, provided that users maintain total control of

their private data 3. Hybrid: Users accept a certain amount of advertising in return for a discounted price on

the content


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2.3 The Social Platform TOK.tv features an integrated social button and social platform, which is a major benefit of the service over traditional consumption models (television, radio) which do not allow user interaction. Social features not only provide value to content consumers, but value to the rights owners and providers as they increase retention and engagement of fans. Traditional social networks (e.g. Facebook) are under attack because they mismanaged personal data of their users, with the only goal to increase their revenue stream. Users should be able to manage who access their data, and even monetize it directly. TOK.tv intends to bring its millions of users to the blockchain, while giving them control of their personal data, thus building a totally distributed social network. The new TOK.tv will include all of the social features from legacy TOK.tv, with additional functionality added as a result of blockchain. The integration of the TOK Token will allow users to not only engage socially, but to transfer value and earn benefits for those social engagements. For example, advertisers can pay users with tokens for shares on social media, while users can earn tokens for supporting their favorite teams or share advertiser messaging.


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3. Technical Overview TOK.tv is a Decentralized application built upon the Dispatch Labs blockchain protocol. TOK.tv is an evolution of Legacy TOK.tv, which is the current application in usage by 30 million users globally. Legacy TOK.tv will be migrated to the new, blockchain-enabled TOK.tv.

3.1 Utilization of the Dispatch Protocol The Dispatch Labs protocol extends the functionality of blockchain by integrating the management and distribution of off-chain artifacts, or programmable data on the private Dispatch Artifact Network (DAN). The Dispatch blockchain is a shared ledger that grows linearly while the data managed by the chain grows exponentially. Dispatch enables the decentralized management of data storage, allowing for DApps that build and run operations on the access, distribution, and manipulation of that data. Dispatch solves for transaction speed and size scalability issues with a combination of existing and new protocols. Dispatch uses the novel Delegated Asynchronous Proof of Stake (DAPoS) consensus algorithm to process orders of magnitude more transactions per second than Ethereum or Bitcoin with no transaction fees. The Dispatch Virtual Machine (DVM) allows for the creation and execution of stateful programs using the blockchain’s shared state. The DVM enables the execution of smart-contracts to handle artifact operations, and lets DApp developers build apps that require both the storage of data, and the running of operations on that data. Data is stored within the Dispatch Artifact Network (DAN) and governed by distributed protocols like Make-it-Happen (MiH).

3.1.1 The Dispatch Artifact Network (DAN) TOK.tv will utilize the Dispatch Artifact Network’s secure off-chain storage capabilities to allow streaming, sharing, and dissemination of advertising content. The DAN allows the Dispatch blockchain to grow linearly while the data-pool grows exponentially, in the case of a DApp like TOK.tv this functionality is key, as users will be able to enjoy streaming content and data access without needing large amounts of space to store chain operations. The Dispatch infrastructure is based heavily on the storage, transmission, and manipulation of off-chain artifacts (any piece of programmable data, aka a streaming file, user selfie, or interactive advertisement). The blockchain distributes information about the artifacts without sharing the artifacts themselves. The Dispatch Artifact Network (DAN) encompasses the interactions between nodes involving off-chain artifact storage and transmission. Downloaders


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find the nearest farmer of an (1) artifact in their own personal (2) Kademlia DHT4, and uploaders implement Proof-of-Replication (PoRep) security to stop farmer Sybil attacks5. Artifacts within the DAN are automatically sharded and encoded with the best available encryption. As such, rights holders content is protected not only by top quality encryption, but additionally by the nature of sharded artifacts. Because files are stored in segmented pieces across multiple off-chain storage locations, even if one piece of data is successfully decoded the overall piece of content will still be secure and protected, guaranteeing that monetizable content can only be accessed by users who have properly paid for or correctly gained access to that content. The following is a graphical representation of the Dispatch Artifact Flow:

The uploaders, farmers, and downloaders are nodes, each with their own Kademlia DHT, an identical copy of the shared ledger, and a various number of artifacts. The Dispatch protocol runs a DAPoS consensus algorithm that uses elected delegates to validate transactions, making transaction validation times limited by the time it takes transactions to physically travel across the network to the delegates.

4 Maymounkov, Petar, and David Mazières. “Kademlia: A Peer-to-Peer Information System Based on the

XOR Metric.” Parallel & Distributed Operating Systems Group, MIT, 7 Mar. 2002. 5 Protocol Labs. “Filecoin: A Decentralized Storage Network.” 14 Aug. 2017.


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The flow of a Dispatch DApp starts with uploader publishing an artifact to the network. To do so, the uploader creates a smart contract containing a hash of the artifact and rules for accessing it (1). Hashing the file serves the dual purposes of reducing the amount of data written to the shared ledger and keeping the artifact itself unknown to other nodes in the network. Rules for accessing the artifact can be based on time, price, user group, oracles, etc. Once the smart contract is published to the shared ledger (2), anyone can request the artifact from the uploader. Downloaders will know they received the right artifact when the hash of what they received matches the one in the shared ledger. Uploaders can pay farmers to serve encrypted copies of their artifacts (3) to service more downloaders and to mitigate downtime. Farmers are compensated for their storage as well as their bandwidth. When a downloader wants an artifact (4), they can check their Kademlia DHT (5) to find the closest available farmer (6). When downloading an encrypted artifact from a farmer (7), the downloader will still need the much smaller encryption key from the uploader.

For more detailed information about Dispatch Labs, please see their full white paper at https://dispatchlabs.io/

3.2 Content and Rights Management TOK.tv is at its core a content management system. Where initially only sports team and leagues partners of TOK.tv will have access to publish new content, eventually the platform will be open to any rights holder who wants to share their content. Through the Dispatch smart contracts, content can be published, shared, and monetized for mass consumption by viewers around the world. Content is hosted in the Dispatch Artifact Network, and revenue is programmatically split and distributed to the rights holder’s wallets. TOK.tv’s digital rights management capabilities will allow for rights holders with full control over their content, including a) how revenue will be distributed (ex. split between multiple rights holders), b) what payment for is accepted for the content (ex. pay-per-view or subscription), c) how many tokens are required to access the content, d) when content will be available for viewing, and when it will expire. User content can be managed from within the TOK application. New content can be published from any Dispatch node (or mobile light client). All content purchases and royalty payments happen with TOK tokens.


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3.3 Interaction End users interact with the TOK platform through the TOK.tv mobile, web and TV applications. There users can browse content, make purchases, and share their favorite content. Users can interact with each other through the social platform. To service users who don’t want to pay for the content, interactions with advertisers will be an optional way for users to earn TOK tokens. Those tokens can then be exchanged for the content itself. TOK will provide a core set of social features that will be universally available throughout the platform. These features include social sharing, gamification and messaging between fans, clubs and advertisers -- both at a micro-level within a specific content item (such as a game) or at a macro-level (across the platform).

3.4 Ad Management For rights owners and consumers, advertising plays an important role in the TOK platform. Advertising provides a powerful revenue source for the rights holders and users. Through the transparent qualities of the Dispatch blockchain, advertisers can get additional insight to their audience's preferences and viewing habits, allowing for more powerful targeting and higher conversions. For customers who have become accustomed to receiving all their content for free, the TOK Ad Management platform provides an alternative to traditional pay-per-view models. The user can watch ads that are relevant to them and view the content for free. Ads live on the DAN as free content, but the content behind it requires either (1) paying for the content or (2) the prerequisite advertisements have been witnessed.

3.5 Third-party Developer API TOK.tv features a third-party developer API allowing developers to create new applications which can interact with the TOK.tv application to unlock a host of new features. Possible use-cases for third-party applications include: ● Additional social interactions/integration with new social features and networks ● Rewards platforms for engagement or user predictions ● Fantasy-game software (fantasy soccer, fantasy football, etc) ● Gambling apps or applications that otherwise gamify token usage as tied to the sports

content itself, where legally allowed The Developer API will provide an easy to use set of integration tools and user-friendly interactions to add new functionality and benefits for users, advertisers and rights holders.


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Third party applications may be decentralized applications utilizing blockchain and the Dispatch network or can be totally independent centralized apps.


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4. Roadmap

H1 2018

Infrastructure for the core TOK.tv functionality Launch alpha version of platform, tied in to current application experience: Wallet and Content Purchase, including Digital Rights Management

H2 2018

Beta version of the platform Token Generation Event Content Management Module Interaction Module: App, Video Player, Messaging

H1 2019

Ad Management Interaction Module: Social, Gamification

H2 2019

Third-party Ecosystem and App-store Interaction Module: Live Streaming

4.1 Community-Centric Design Development roadmap will be adjusted on user feedback and market analysis. Planned updates will be added to the white paper and announced ahead of time, allowing for user feedback to be incorporated into the development process.


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5. The Company TOK.tv is a Delaware C-Corp headquartered in Silicon Valley, California with a wholly owned subsidiary in China (谈观（上海）信息技术有限公司 / Tok.tv (Shanghai) Information Technology Co. Ltd.) and in Italy (TOK.tv Srl). TOK.tv has previously raised $6.7M in Venture Capital from Angel Capital Management, Heyi Capital, Opea, Techstars Ventures, TEEC, Social Starts, XG Ventures, Jet Ventures and individual investors. In addition to its San Francisco headquarters, TOK.tv has offices in Shanghai China, London UK, Mumbai India, and Milan Italy.

5.1 TOK.tv Leadership

Fabrizio Capobianco Chief Executive Officer A serial entrepreneur, Fabrizio founded in 1994 the first Web Company in Italy, Internet Graffiti. He moved to Silicon Valley in 1999, joining Tibco and then Reuters. In 2002, he started Funambol and made it the #1 open source project in wireless. He raised over $30M from US Venture Capitalists to create the leading personal cloud solution for mobile operators. He still serves as Chairman and President of Funambol. Fabrizio has a Ph.D. in Computer Science and is a Knight of the Italian Republic.

Jeff Slack Executive Vice President Jeff Slack joined TOK.tv from IMG, where he was Senior Vice President, Global Football. He has more than two decades of experience in athlete management, sports investments and content creation and distribution. While at IMG, Jeff ran the global football business practice. Previously, he established and managed the European operations for the Wasserman Media Group. He joined Wasserman after four years serving as CEO of FC Internazionale, also known as Inter Milan.


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Paul Lin Chen General Manager, China Paul is a recognized expert in mobile advertising and gaming. Born in Taiwan and raised in the USA, Paul started his career at T-Mobile. In 1998 he became VP BD of Performance Designed Products, then in 2007 he moved to Hasbro, still in the video games business. In 2011 he moved to Shanghai, to become GM China for Rovio, maker of Angry Birds. In 2014, he became CEO of Beintoo APAC.

Matt McGraw Blockchain Strategy Matt is an entrepreneur & CEO with expertise in quickly scaling successful businesses. After leading and shepherding a versatile range of tech companies, Matt’s current focus is on technologies at scale, that disrupt hierarchies and disseminate control of secure information to data users.

Simone Giacomelli Blockchain Partnerships

Zane Witherspoon Blockchain Architecture

Simone has, for over 3 years, been leading teams that provide next

Zane is an experienced blockchain architect, and distributed systems


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generation blockchain solutions for both the private and public sectors. Passionate and diligent about exploring relational economies and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, he conducts research in novel cryptocurrency models, ICOs and incentive mechanisms that empower cooperation and value creation.

specialist. He is firmly entrenched as an expert in the blockchain world, sitting on the board of advisors for four California-based blockchain companies, and an author in the space. His ceaseless pursuit to build something at the bleeding edge of what is currently possible makes Zane an invaluable addition to the TOK.tv team.

Jake Vartanian Blockchain Tokenomics

Jake Vartanian is the founder of Cryptodex, a contributor to Blockchain News, and an advocate of decentralization since early 2011. He has worked with high profile startups including Bancor, TokenCard and SingularDTV.


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6. Conclusion TOK.tv is a successful, functional product with tens of millions of users, which is actively generating revenue. By utilizing the benefits of blockchain, TOK.tv can move from a successful product to the foundational technology which will fundamentally change the way sports content is distributed and consumed. The TOK.tv decentralized application will use blockchain to benefit all parts of the content consumption and dissemination ecosystem. Users will have more engaging access to the content they want to watch, with included social interaction elements and total control of their privacy. Advertisers will have better value for their money, while simultaneously increasing engagement and reducing fraud. Rights holders will more effectively monetize their content while cutting out middlemen and gain access to a new world of fan monetization and engagement. Because TOK.tv will be built upon existing systems, the time to deployment will be minimal, and will enjoy the benefits of Dispatch Labs architecture and off-chain storage solutions. The new TOK.tv is different from many blockchain DApps. Instead of a new application, it is the transition of an existing successful application to a new superior architecture with added functionality and a more robust, decentralized economic model.

Never Watch Sports Alone - TOK.tv Whitepaper_Public_v1.2.pdf · the next level, and transform...

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