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Cherie Hu of Water and Music discusses Web3 at Consensys 2022

Water and Music, the newsletter as well as the study DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) developing the innovative's guide to the music business, was created to facilitate conversation with people working in music technology. Now they're going one step further by actively engaging with the industry's hive mind to create research projects and to give everyone involved a reward. The company's latest deep dive was in the chaos of Web3 The new generation of internet built upon blockchain technology.

"I believe a large part of why we are growing is that we're using collaborative models for editorial research," begins Cherie Hu, founder of Water and Music. She explains that the company regularly holds'research sprints' lasting up to 10 weeks where they choose a topic to gather as much data as possible for their customers; the most recent report was on Web3.

"We're trying to figure out what's the State of the Union for the latest technological trends in music, particularly the ones that generate a lot of noise," she explains. "Web3 is a perfect illustration, because there's so much confusion and no one knows exactly the exact nature of what's going on. It's the most extreme web and the rabbit hole just goes on and on. Then it's like, "What's going on? ?'!"

One of Cherie's key mantras, especially in the context of business reporting, has always been creating useful writing. "At the end of every article, you'll get an idea of what to do for your business or to be better at what you do. Making sure that you are able to bridge the gap between what members of the community require, as well as what we write about, is vital," Cherie explains. In these sprints of research, once they have decided to focus on a particular topic, they go out and speak to people in the Water and Music community: "We inquire, 'What are your current concerns?' then we ask the community to provide those responses. The structure of the report is derived directly from these requirements," she tells me.

In the music industry it is not surprising that one of the top concerns is fan opinion. "I consider that to be the top one reason that lots of musicians aren't doing NFTs right now: because of fear of backlash from the fans," she muses. "We have released a report about concerns around Web3. Naturally, in the music industry there are plenty of issues with licensing as well as IP (IP) as well as NFTs. This is a full chapter!"

As is the norm, Water and Music research sprints are extremely community-focused. "It's an ideation process that is bottom-up and we involve a lot of individuals to assist us do the research," Cherie says. As of now, this Water and Music community has published two research reports under this collaboration model. In keeping with the trend, they offered NFTs retroactively so that anyone who would like to contribute to the research, they could do so - and that the profits were divided equally among those who contributed. "It's evident to me that the output of that research was so much better than if one individual tried to study all of Web3. This research would not be fully completed!" she smiles. "It's been a great experience for me to see the power of not just linking people, but also synthesising collectively knowledge."

The r6M3DkfqEiC4ADGxKc The Water and Music meetup at the NFT.NYC conference

Cherie says that the next report collaboratively created in the group has begun. "We're researching even more nebulous issues right now, such as the metaverse -- however that's defined!" she jokes. "We're not making any plans to create anything right now; we're simply trying to understand the opinions of people about it, and also what they are confused about." The publication includes interviews with artists, startup founders and industry professionals about how they define the metaverse and the goals they're trying to achieve through it, along with what is proving problematic.

Cherie says that her aim is to integrate this study by creating online tools that tackle these issues. "We have done this in the past with a few Web3 themes already such as secondary sales of music through royalty shares and NFTs. A few smart contracts say 10% to 20% of the secondary sales will go to the original artist and lots of users see this as an advantage. However, my opinion is that the vast majority of NFT's don't generate a secondary sale," Cherie explains. She says that she thinks that the value is in the direct interaction and relationship that the NFT is a part of, and not so much in the opportunity to having an item that can be sold on to others later.

In addition to the report, Water and Music will be building a tracking dashboard where customers can enter their NFT collection to determine if there have been any additional sales, and if yes, how the NFT is performing in the market. "We would like to create new interactive tools that are similar to interactive data journalism particularly for artists as they are probably those who think about the best ways to release or pricing NFT drops. We're developing crucial frameworks and tools that will help people do this analytical task themselves."

Conflicting visions

Cherie notes that some of these newfangled terminology are getting more obscure instead of clearer, with time "For the metaverse, for instance, there's a massive disparity between the way the metaverse has historically and conceptually been defined, from back in the '60s." Cherie explains her Water and Music team is creating a framework to understand traditional definitions of the metaverse, and then the gaps between what we expect and what is actually happening.

"The first sci-fi books with a metaverse reference had an expansive concept of interconnected virtual and IRL worlds. We are so far off from that right today. Yet, in the meantime, in the music industry musicians are now saying 'I just launched my personal metaverse!' even though they really mean a virtual world.

"There are now directly conflicting visions of the metaverse," she adds. "You can find Meta [Facebook's holding company] as well as Epic Games on one side Both are centralized where one corporation owns all the assets and everything else. But then you have the idea of a Web3-forward decentralized, metaverse with interoperable assets and identities. It's logical to explore blockchain and the role it plays in facilitating this, however it directly is in opposition to Facebook's strategy."

Cherie believes that the metaverse "just turned into this vague word that anybody can utilize for the benefit of their own" and she would like to cut through the nonsense. This ties back in perfectly to Cherie's purpose: Water and Music will critically and analytically look into the issue, and be able to deliver actionable knowledge to guide people on how to react. It has practical applications in addition, like providing assistance to artists and their staff in evaluating partnerships with certain metaverse platform.

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The Water and Music team

So these research projects can be seen as a natural extension of Water and Music's work: "My 'why' for this association is to help people understand the world better, and also to understand their place in this world," Cherie says. She wants to help people be best prepared so they can make the most influence on the industry they work in.

"For Water and Music the exact focus is the music industry, and it all comes back to a personal reason. I'm motivated by this work because I grew up playing piano. I spent a lot of time around classical musicians and I enjoy being around all artists and hearing their perspectives about where technology is heading. We hope that whatever information shared with the world will help the artists and teams get to know technology better so that they can use it to make awesome artwork!"

There's a little bit of 'taking control back' with this. Cherie is trying to convince the artists that they hold more influence than they think: "Certainly, in the streaming space, there's growing consolidations that are that are dominated by Spotify as well as other major tech companies. Royalty rates are going down and it's all going downwards! So we're providing artists the means to appreciate the wide range of alternative choices. We're helping artists and individuals around them to think creatively."

A practice community

"It's more of academic concept, however I believe it's really applicable in the context of Water and Music: we're in a group of practitioners," Cherie continues. "The concept was coined in 1991 by the cognitive sociologist Jean Lave and educational theorist Etienne Wenger] and is a term used to describe a group of individuals that do not just share a shared interest and passion, but also come together to focus on discovering how they can do things better."

She explains that this can relate to individuals from the same field, or with similar positions across industries. These people communicate regularly, and also exchange information. "Usually this is for professional communities but can also be for creative communities like music. It's creating media, but also making tools, but also encouraging peer-to peer education. It's a crucial element of our future: eliminating information gaps in the world of music, and encouraging everyone to become more cooperative," Cherie adds.

The Water and Music meetup at the NFT.NYC event.

Cherie ends her show in a typical fashion by encouraging collaboration among the Water and Music community. "In the next few months, we'll be carrying out interviews with artists, platforms, and startup founders. Our research into the metaverse is likely to continue throughout the summer into the autumn, so if you would like to get involved in this, inform me. If anyone has recommendations of people to talk with, We're open to suggestions!"

To get involved, follow Cherie to get involved, follow her on Twitter: @water andmusic. To become a member of the Water and Music community, and gain access to the community's in-depth research reports and Discord server, go to waterandmusic.com/membership.