Improving a live streamer’s community’s engagement with use of blockchain applications: development project for Juffu Streaming

Abstract

This development project thesis investigated how blockchain applications such as Proof of Attendance Protocol (POAP) could be used to improve engagement for a live streamers’ community. The main objective was to design a loyalty point and ranking system for his community that would interlink with Twitch and Discord, improve engagement, be securely stored, and differentiate him from his competitors. The blockchain applications chosen for the project were influenced by the theoretical framework section deep dive into studies on what motivates engagement in live streaming audiences. For viewers of small streamers, a sense of community was found to be an important factor for engagement. Four key components of the definition and theory of sense of community were examined in the light of live streaming communities. From this, five key questions arose that would guide the decision for which blockchain application would be useful for the development project. These were POAP and social tokens. The four-week development project showed results for and against the usage of blockchain applications for a live streamers’ community’s engagement. It was found to be very difficult to encourage and activate the core audience to adopt the usage of POAPs. This was likely due to the higher-than-normal technological use requirements such as the requirement for owning a blockchain wallet to claim the POAPs. Great results were seen from outside of the core audience and the usual content, by venturing into a blockchain game community and providing knowledge to them through a comprehensive guide. The guide included a link to the Discord server to claim a POAP participation badge themed as “Basic Training Complete” for reading the guide. Discord community size grew from a small community of 15 to a much livelier community of 128. In the future it is worthwhile to analyse how this new Discord audience translates into Twitch live stream viewership and engagement.