CHENNAI: "No matter what it is you provide, the greatest value lies in the knowledge, passion, and skill with which you provide it," writes American journalist Adam Davidson in his book The Passion Economy: Nine Rules for Thriving in the Twenty-First Century.
Little did he know that the COVID-19 pandemic, with its debilitating impact on the economy, would amplify the possibilities and potential of the passion economy for content creators to generate income and attract more investors.
Studies have also shown that the content consumption over digital platforms has doubled over the pandemic and is expected to be on an upward trajectory. While all this seems favourable to creators by increasing their opportunities, other aspects such as traction, engagement and monetisation have become more difficult in the competitive digital space.
Here's where Canvas, claiming to be the world’s first creator-centric ecosystem, aims to revolutionise the passion economy and help creators create, manage and monetise their work smoothly.
A safe space
Initiated by three creative entrepreneurs-cum-friends - Vignesh Ramaswamy, Raghava KK and Madhan Karky - the homegrown platform creates a safe space for creatives across genres and subcultures such as art, photography, podcasting, writing, music, filmmaking and more.
Walking us through the idea, Vignesh, founder, explains, "Today, almost everyone is a content creator in some way or the other. They take different aspects of themselves to various digital channels and are unable to get their dues both operationally and financially. The three of us wanted to build a tool to help creators build sustainable living out of passion and this was born. It helps them focus on their work, by taking care of the logistics and management through their intuitive interface and technology."
Explaining how Canvas is different from the existing tech platforms that are supporting artistes to fuel passion economy, Vignesh points out, "Most platforms emphasise on creations, discovery and monetisation. This leaves creators to run behind numbers instead of prioritising the quality of content. That’s not a healthy system. We've redesigned our model focussing on creation, monetisation, and distribution. It gives creators the freedom and control."
Exploring possibilities
Speaking on the ecosystem, Madhan, the chief creative officer, elaborates, "Canvas offers tremendous flexibility, using existing platforms. Imagine if WordPress, YouTube, Facebook and Amazon all merged into a single tool."
"The best of their features put together is what makes Canvas stand out. It’s a content-centric modular environment, taking care of publishing, distribution and direct audience engagement which allows creators to find novel ways to monetise. Overall, it offers multiple possibilities for creators across genres to build their brands and make an impact," he added.
So far, the team has reached out to culture creators and collectives to explore the model and spread the word. "We've taken a sub-culture approach. For instance, Nikesh Murali, founder of the Indian Noir podcast, is a user of Canvas. Students from the National School of Journalism are also using Canvas to interact with their professor and exploring independent journalism through paid media content. Fearless Collective, an art collective, is using Canvas. All of them are big names in their field of work. Now this is how followers of these influencers will get to understand how Canvas works in their respective fields," says Vignesh.
For a larger purpose
Further expanding remunerative possibilities for artists, Canvas has embraced cryptocurrency and is the first Indian company to use non-fungible token (NFT) integrations. "Vainika Rajhesh Vaidya, director Gautam Vasudev Menon, actor Abhay Deol and singer Karthik are a few who are exploring NFT with Canvas. This is foreseen to create an uplifting paradigm shift in the passion economy," Vignesh said.
"Additionally, the tool allows micro-transactions. In other words, creators can now put anything from a sentence to a word or even an audio/video file behind a paywall, opening up monetisation opportunities, furthermore. For example, an author may wish to provide almost all the chapters of their book for free to their audience, with only the final two chapters being paid content," assures Vignesh.
The team believes that Canvas is set to become the future for creators and is backed by notable investors and advisors. "The passion economy is booming in India and we wanted to ensure that creators get complete freedom to structure, monitor and own their work in a safe space without worrying about technology and distribution channels. With an easy to drop and play approach, we want content creators to think of Canvas as their ultimate toolkit with everything in one place," assures Raghava, the founding vision director.
The platform is currently an exclusive tool and can be accessed by invitation only. It's expected to be launched worldwide by the middle or end of July. "It's a working model and we are open to feedback. We will be sharing invites in our social circle and each person will have referrals. It’s not often that an Indian model gets to be used by creators around the world. We’re proud to have been able to introduce this creator-centric model to the world," sums up Vignesh.
(For details, visit: canvas.space)