Image by Decerry Donato
An Art Show in LA Brings Open Studios to Livestream Shopping
Last week, Los Angeles-based livestream shopping platform NTWRK collaborated with Known Gallery to host a two-day digital art fair. Similar to other livestream shopping, NTWRK only sells exclusive and designer items, some of which can be worth several thousand dollars. Unlike other livestream shopping platforms, NTWRK also stores the livestream video on the app for others to view later.
The lineup was curated by street art veteran Casey Zoltan and directed by mixed media artist Phil Frost and featured an array of L.A.-based artists including OG Slick, husband and wife duo DabsMyla and Joshua Vides. Other artists that were part of the lineup included Andrew Schoultz, Hueman, Askew, Nychos, 13thWitness and Shepard Fairey, creator of the OBEY brand, among others.
Photo by Decerry Donato
In the span of two days, each artist went live on the NTWRK app and showcased their collection and talked about their background. During this time, viewers and fans who were interested in purchasing any of the art pieces would go through a live-bidding process with other buyers.
The auction for each item would last several minutes and some artists also offered a "buy it now" feature for some of their smaller art pieces. The virtual show gave insight into the future of selling art with most of the artists going live in their own art studio. Others like OG Slick, however, got creative and drove around in their car to show viewers the murals they painted.
For the show, Fairey painted four OBEY art pieces that included the infamous icon face created specifically for the event—each of which sold for $5,000. Vides, a much younger artist, had a few hand painted skate decks for sale starting at $1,500 and the items that didn’t sell are still available for purchase on the app.
Similar to WhatNot’s format, viewers that tuned in to any of the artists’ livestreams also had the opportunity to interact and chat with some of their favorite artists in real time. Fans primarily focused their feedback on how excited they were for these collector’s items exclusive to NTWRK and the Known Gallery. Other viewers that tuned in were also chatting and responding to people who were new to the platform and gave them a rundown of how the auction went.
One fan told DabsMyla, “Love you guys so much. Met you at your Technicolor show and it was amazing.”
Since its launch in 2018, NTWRK has also created exclusive content with artists like Takashi Murakami and has collaborated with featured hosts like Billie Eilish, DJ Khaled, Odell Beckham Jr., Blake Griffin, Jonah Hill, Doja Cat and other prominent figures.
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Photo by Szabo Viktor on Unsplash
Built up with user-owned communities, Niche’s “owner-members” purchase tokens unique to each group. The tokens, which can be exchanged for real currency, can also be used to buy content and attend events on the platform. Gulczynski said distributing ownership among its members re-incentivizes people to invest in smaller, more personal online communities even as it removes ad-driven motivations.
“We saw all the good stuff about Web2, with like connection and facilitating good engagement, but then we also saw the bad of how the larger companies were using that to actually make money,” Gulczynski said. “So I think it's a really unique opportunity now to take that experience and apply it to Web3, so that we can deliver on those promises.”
While at Facebook, Nahapetyan said the company noticed more users turning to private groups and chat threads instead of the ad-heavy news feed.
“It's a big part of why I decided to build Niche because we were like, ‘Okay, people want to be in close-knit spaces around shared identity or interest,” Nahapetyan said. “And if the current apps are not serving that, then there's a huge need that we can fulfill here with what we're doing.”
Niche's company logo
Courtesy of Niche
Crypto scams are easier to pull off on social media, with the FTC stating that Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp users have lost over $1 billion. As people question the fate of different platforms, Gulczynski said that a platform like Niche has the potential to replace the current social media landscape.
“If we can prove value to like the groups of people that we're going after, we don't have to worry about taking on Meta and Instagram and all that kind of stuff because we'll have made evangelists out of the people that we're providing value for,” Gulczynski said.
Mainstream social media sites are also exploring Web3—Snapchat is testing a feature that would allow users to incorporate NFTs into lenses, and Twitter allows paying subscribers to use NFTs as profile photos.
Even as crypto faces increased scrutiny and creators grow wary of promoting it, there are a growing number of social platforms dedicated to Web3. NBA player Spencer Dinwiddie’s Web3 social media app Calaxy recently raised $26 million while Message seeks to give online chatting the Web3 treatment.
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