Main Highlights:
- Creators with 2500 or more Drops can exchange them for USD 25 once a month.
- The clash raised $9.1 million in a round led by ACME Capital and Seven Seven Six, Alexis Ohanian’s investment firm, participation from M13 Ventures and Plug and Play.
- On Clash, the creator takes precedence over brand-driven algorithms and advertising models, removing entry barriers and making the content creation and reward ecosystems more accessible, transparent, and democratic.
Clash has secured $9.1 million in funding as part of its ongoing development. Drops, which are fan-purchased in-app digital consumables, will be made accessible to Clash producers. To put it another way, virtual drops are the virtual counterpart of real-world tips in terms of value. When fans purchase them and hand them over to the artists who produced them, they act similarly to a tipping bucket in front of their favorite local performer.
Creators who have 2500 or more Drops can swap them for US money worth $25 once a month if their Drops total 2500 or more. The creators have received full remuneration. As of right now, Clash isn’t making any money off the table.
Brendon McNerney, the former drummer of the Clash, has devised a new strategy. McNerney used to have more than 700,000 followers on Vine, the short-form video-sharing network that developed out of the popularity of the Twitter platform. On the other hand, McNerney found out about Twitter’s plan to shut down Vine while on a flight in 2017.
McNerney claimed that [being popular on Vine was a fortunate accident for him when he was in his early twenties and that he was grateful for it. “I was shooting dark, self-deprecating Vine videos and building up an audience. That feels like a lifetime ago. It was the glory days of Vine. When it had its unfortunate demise, it was crushing and heartbreaking in many ways. And after that, I shifted over the professional side of the creator business.”
Following Vine’s downfall, he immediately began working on a new project. He was still engaged on social media, but he was now becoming more interested in business ideas. Clash, which he co-founded with P.J. Leimgruber, a digital marketing expert and content strategist, was launched last year. Created to show their support for creators, who require all of the assistance they can get to make a living from their work, those who designed it did so to show their support for creators.
Patreon is something McNerney enjoys thinking about, and he has speculated about what the site would look like if it were established today.
Having been a creator himself, McNerney believes that his most significant contribution will enable other creators to devote their entire time to their respective projects. Consequently, if they’re making films while working at a coffee shop, it won’t help them achieve their goal of becoming a full-time filmmaker. Mr. McNerney noted that if they can start with a creative who has 1,000 or even 100 admirers and enable them to earn a few dollars, they will notice by the end of the month that the scales are tipping in their favor as creators.
Producing Drops
There have been whispers about dropping for some time now. Clash earlier this year bought a video platform dubbed “the sequel to Vine” (Vine founder Dom Hoffman built it). Now, it’s reimagining the entire process of creating, sharing, engaging with, and monetizing content by fusing the best features of Byte with its proprietary monetization and engagement capabilities.
McNerney reported that he witnessed this enormous emptiness. He felt he could make it enjoyable and straightforward for his creatives who film videos on their phones to shoot videos and earn support from their fans. McNerney continued by exclaiming that he began with that notion, and last summer, they created the platform’s video version. Additionally, it was lovely that people could send a Drop with a bit of message of encouragement, encouraging them to keep going.
McNerney explained that this reinvented short-form video platform challenges the current social media paradigm, prioritizing follower count over genuine connection and interaction with one’s most devoted fans.
Globalizing the creation of content
The creator is given priority over brand-driven algorithms and advertising models on Clash, which incorporates well-established transaction methods and removes entry barriers, making the content production and reward ecosystems easier to use, more transparent, and more democratic.
On Clash, a user’s follower count does not necessarily have the same weight, as the platform prioritizes the depth of a user’s following above its breadth, McNerney explained. Drops, he explained, enables fans to interact with and support their favorite authors in a variety of ways. These digital things can be gifted endlessly to any/all creators of the Clash economy and are fully redeemable each month.
Sending Drops to your favorite creator is as simple, widespread, and smooth as liking or commenting on a video on Clash, building a culture of reciprocity based not only on traditional engagement measures but also on real-world acknowledgment and money reward for one’s work.
Additionally, Clash created Fanmail, a direct line of communication between creators and their most devoted followers. Fanmail lets fans send personalized Drops and notes straight to their favorite creators, who can then acknowledge and communicate with their most incredible supporters.
Clash will distribute hundreds of free Drops to new users at launch to jumpstart this sustainable and shared support economy, empowering all users to begin paying it forward within the Clash creative economy. It operates on a “zero-barrier-to-entry” model, which implies that a user’s follower count, engagement statistics, and verification status (among other variables) do not influence their ability to earn, share, and redeem inside the program.
With today’s launch, Byte’s five million existing users will seamlessly transfer to the new Clash app environment and be greeted with a surprising reward: hundreds of gratis Drops.
Funding Round
The clash began fundraising last year and has raised $9.1 million in a round led by ACME Capital and Seven Seven Six, the investment fund founded by Alexis Ohanian (co-founder of Reddit), with participation from M13 Ventures and Plug and Play.
“The strength of connection to the community will dictate the future of the creator economy,” Ohanian stated in a statement. “Clash is pioneering a new model that doesn’t just create a new, healthier way to monetize than banner ads but also fosters deeper connections between creators and their fans. This means better content and stronger communities.”
App users can get the Clash app today by visiting Clash or downloading it from the App Store and Google Play. The company employs seventeen people.
