Blockchain and AI-Based Video Commerce Service 'Fanji' CEO Kim Tae-jun of Underpin
"What Underpin advocates is an incentive economy. We want to create an ecosystem that returns economic benefits to users who are data producers." Kim Tae-jun, CEO of Underpin (pictured), spoke with conviction about the 'incentive economy.' This concept, introduced by him and the startup Underpin he founded, comes at a time when 'sharing economy' and 'subscription economy' are on the rise. It is embodied in Underpin's video platform, 'Pangzi.'
On the 23rd, in an interview with Asia Economy, CEO Kim stated, "Through Pangzi, users will receive more benefits based on their activities and be able to engage in economic activities, realizing a user-centric platform." Pangzi is a video commerce service based on blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. If the current ecosystem, where video content consumption is increasing and companies are utilizing videos for commerce, is 'V-Commerce 2.0,' then what Pangzi aims for is 'V-Commerce 3.0,' where all participants?including individual users and companies involved in marketing and sales?engage in economic activities and receive rewards, according to CEO Kim. He said, "The king of content is currently video, and I believe this will continue for more than the next 10 years. Ultimately, it must be utilized in daily life, and for that, it must lead to commerce." Pangzi was created to turn the video boom, represented by YouTube, into economic activity.
CEO Kim explained, "On Pangzi, users receive tokens as rewards just for watching videos, and these can be used to purchase actual products." It is not just about providing videos; incentives are given for uploading or watching videos, enabling economic activities such as purchasing products. In particular, users can watch videos and directly add menus selling products related to the videos. When sales occur, additional rewards are given to both the user who attached the sales menu and the one who uploaded the video.
Regarding the reason for creating such a service, CEO Kim summarized, "The goal is to monetize talent and pass it down to the lower tiers." The idea is not for a few with outstanding talent to monopolize earnings but to ensure that even modest talents receive rewards. He said, "I believe there are many hidden talents and hidden time in the world. Watching videos may be considered an unproductive activity, but the purpose is to assign value to even that."
Pangzi was launched last year and gathered over 10,000 users through word of mouth alone, without significant marketing activities. The full-fledged official version service started this year. Pangzi chose a strategy of actively utilizing YouTube's resources. It built its video ecosystem by adopting YouTube's publicly available application programming interface (API). CEO Kim said, "From a startup perspective, this is a strategy for rapid user acquisition and market entry. Once we secure one million users, we plan to focus on videos uploaded directly."
CEO Kim envisions a big picture that starts with Pangzi and leads to building an incentive economy ecosystem. After Pangzi, he plans to continuously launch services applying the incentive economy system in areas such as discussions and social networking services (SNS). Incentives earned from these services can be used interchangeably. CEO Kim emphasized, "Pangzi is the vanguard of the incentive economy. We will continue to promote the incentive economy with a 10-year outlook."
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