Kult — Grant Report #2

Project Update

Hello folks! We are glad to share with the Community Kult's Final report. It was a fun and challenging journey, and we enjoyed every second of it!

Progress on objectives

Since the Interim Report, we delivered new important features:

• Internationalization: Kult is now an international platform as it can be used by anyone in English or Portuguese – the app/website will automatically use your preferred language. This is an important step to bring more people to our community and it was one of our milestones as Grantees.

• Accessibility improvements: we added alt text to images and buttons, making Kult more accessible for people with disabilities. We also created a keyboard shortcut (press "A" to open it) for every interaction on Kult (image below). Now it is possible to navigate Kult using only the keyboard, which is a major accessibility milestone.

• One of the most awaited features was the Web Monetized galleries, which we also delivered recently! Now it is possible to support specific galleries of human curated content to show appreciation and support. In the images below, we can see a gallery entitled "Combating racial discrimination", created by Kult's profile, that is already receiving people's support through Web Monetization - link: https://kult.com.br/u/5f074c9b22bc31173a5dbe0b/g/61169448494f601d4f5fab56

We also delivered in the last months, among other improvements: (i) spoiler alert on posts; (ii) replying to comments on posts, making it possible for people to create more engaging conversations inside Kult; (iii) new influencers and partners, mainly from minority groups, bringing their communities to Kult.

With such news, we are delighted to inform that we delivered around 95% of the initial milestones, as we are going to see below:

Proposed features and status:

• Illustrated landing page presenting Kult: Done (https://kult.com.br/login)
• Hiring Marketing team: Done
• Discussion forums/comments inside content: Done (https://kult.com.br/c/6135f06d03e9416d84e9597b?source=6241c06a46becc0e100b7663)
• "Discover" page: Done (https://kult.com.br/s)
• Collaborative galleries (evolved into "Communities"): Done (https://kult.com.br/k)
• Increasing accessibility: Done
• Internationalization: Done
• Guest Blogging: Done (example: https://seriemaniacos.tv/como-escolher-as-melhores-series-sem-depender-do-algoritmo/)
• Paid partnerships with curators and creators: Done
• Where to watch content and read book previews: Done ("where to watch"/"read preview" button inside content)
• Feedback page to gather people's opinions: Done (https://kult.com.br/feedback)
• Adding books: Done
• At least 50 influencers using Kult: Done
• Asking friends for recommendations: Done
• Audio transcription service: Failed for technical infeasibility
• Distributing US$ 5 to be spent on Kult: Cancelled because of budget reallocation needs

Traction/growth KPIs (July 2022):

- 5254 registered users (we started the GFTW with 200, reached 2170 in March 2022)
- 1417 monthly active users (788 in March, goal was 1000 by the end of the Grant)
- 16771 content recommendations (8251 in March 2022)
- 26 Communities (top 3 have 586, 417, and 317 members)

Monetization with WM:

• Donations to Curators and Creators while scrolling the feed: Done (https://kult.com.br/d)
• Audio monetization: Cancelled (Spotify's new Terms do not allow)
• Monetizing personal galleries: Done (https://kult.com.br/u/5f074c9b22bc31173a5dbe0b)
• Monetizing Communities: Ongoing (prototype: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jYPOOsUePJG9rIEDzyrn9sxL0VY6Xhi-?usp=sharing)
• 4 curators monetized
• Total of USD 0,21 transactioned through Kult
• Total of USD 47,32 received by curators from Interledger Network

Comparing the final numbers with what we committed to do, we share our final conclusions:

• We overachieved our goals when it comes to monthly active users, total registered users, and content recommendations;
• Despite a few changes along the way, the Milestones were in the vast majority successfully delivered;
• The Web Monetization tool, although highly promising, has significant barriers to new adopters, as explained in our Interim Report (we will deepen into it again later in this Report). We believe that was a critical factor which affected the amount of money transferred within Kult – confirmed by people's feedbacks.

Key activities

• Platform: Kult proved to be a beloved community for people who want to discover, share, and organize movies, TV series, books, podcasts, and songs online. GFTW was essential to validate the initial idea, and evidently to improve it with several new features, as mentioned above. We also launched the Android and iOS app, besides the websites kult.pt and kult.com.br.

• Monetization: We managed to prove that human curation can and should be monetized. Despite significant barriers, Web Monetization has a huge potential to reward people for helping others to find amazing content amid endless options, while also organizing them in customizable and monetized galleries (as seen above).

• Communities: Since Kult launched its new Community feature, it has been thrilling to watch people exchanging knowledge, information, and curiosities about niche content. Communities are growing in a daily basis and the top 3 have already reached 586, 417, and 317 members!

• Influencers/curators/creators: We also managed to gather several culture influencers/curators/creators, mostly from minority groups, giving them voice and power to leverage content they value. Now they are engaging with their Community on Kult, by exchanging cultural tips and suggestions everyday.

• Open code and licensing: Kult's code is open and accessible to all (https://gitlab.com/phablulo/kult). All content and information shared on Kult is licensed as Creative Commons 4.0.

Communications and marketing

Through all of Kult’s communication channels, we highlight diversity, inclusion, openness, tolerance, and love. We have spread the word of Web Monetization in several channels:

• Podcast "Versão Beta": https://kult.com.br/c/61117f48494f601d4f5fa573 (about human curation and how Kult aims to monetize it using WM)

• Podcast "Eaí, assistiu?": https://kult.com.br/c/621638ea2115874b91b01b02 (about the growing influence of algorithms over what we consume and how human curation is a better way to discover good content)

• Meios & Publicidade Magazine (2 articles): https://www.meiosepublicidade.pt/registo/?id=262602&pgm=

• Interruptor online event (@ruteradio): discussing micropayments with another Grantee and presenting Kult's way of monetizing curators with Web Monetization

• UPTEC website: https://escoladestartups.org/kult-recebe-investimento-de-quase-100-mil-euros/

• University of Porto website: https://noticias.up.pt/mestrado-na-feup-inspirou-patrick-rahy-a-fundar-duas-empresas/

• Websummit Lisbon 2021 participation, in which Patrick spoke about the Future of Content in one of the stages, highlighting how Web Monetization could be interesting to monetize curators of content online.

• Social medias: https://www.instagram.com/kult.com.br/, https://www.linkedin.com/company/kultsocial, https://twitter.com/kult_com_br?s=20&t=MPN6f3P_4dQDeE16q0iThA

• Communication about Web Monetization on Social Media: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cb75fF5stfC/ and https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6867468462906765313

All the Marketing/Communication budget was conducted by a team composed of minorities. With very clear guidelines of tolerance, respect, diversity, and inclusion, we managed to gather a diverse team of cultural curators and influencers to communicate about Kult & Web Monetization.

What’s next?

During the GFTW experience, we saw in first person how WM is a great tool with amazing potential to monetize curators and creators online, but several barriers are preventing such potential to be unleashed.

That's why we spent the last months understanding and envisioning how we could work to help this technology become more accessible, mainly for our Brazilian Community. The final conclusion is that we could develop a native technology within Kult - a digital wallet - which can intermediate payments between people who want to donate and pay real money to content curators and creators.

So we were thrilled to find out about ILP-based financial solutions Grant opportunity. We believe that an ILP digital wallet could solve a significant part of the current barriers people have in order to adopt Web Monetization as an habitual tool. Therefore, our first step after the end of GFTW period was to apply for the new Grant opportunity.

In summary, what we propose is an open source ILP-based digital wallet that provides a smooth and simple UX to allow for payments between people in any website. On the other hand, we propose to connect such payment solution to PIX (a public, free, and digital payment solution created by Central Bank of Brazil), making it possible for our Brazilian public to easily receive the money in Brazilian territory.

What community support would benefit your project?

Cultural communities in general would be very useful inside Kult. Now that we have Communities' feature available on Kult, we want to bring people from other social networks to experience the cultural exchange on Kult.

Another essential support is sharing ways to diminish some barriers that WM have. We already identified possible paths to eliminate barriers and leverage WM potential, but of course, the more information we have, the better.

Additional comments

As a final note, we would like to send our love to Web Monetization and Interledger Community. We can feel the amazing energy of people working hard to make the impossible, possible. We strongly believe that ILP will be in the center of the new generation of internet, bringing possibilities to evolve today's ways of monetization – which are not sustainable on the long term.

Interledger/Web Monetization has a huge potential to be spread across the globe, and we are proud to be a part of it. Regardless of what the future holds, we are glad to say that we did our best to contribute to this lovely revolution.

With Love,
Patrick, Helena, Phablulo, Diogo (Kult's team)