Today we’re launching Oscillator’s first app: FanScore.
We started Oscillator to build in the design space of artist-fan data. We think it’s the most underexplored area of blockchain application within music… and maybe the most transformational.
Historically, platforms own the relationship between artists and fans — they own every like, every follower, every pre-save. We want to show what’s possible when that data is user-owned and open across different platforms.
FanScore is the first, small example of what you can do with this new open data.
How does it work?
Visit FanScore.
Connect your wallet
Get a unique fan score based on all your interactions with RAC onchain.
See where you rank against other fans.
You can also get a FanLink — an onchain attestation that proves you’re a verified fan. You can think of it like a living-breathing Spotify Wrapped, and the first piece of the puzzle we’re building at Oscillator.
Artist-fan relationships? Always has been.
The artist-fan relationship is the heart of the music industry, but platforms are in the way and gatekeep that audience.
As one example, I built a following of 5.5 million on Soundcloud over many years. The audience is still there to some degree, but they don’t follow me any more. I’ve got no way to interact with them. I had to rebuild again with Spotify, had to rebuild again on Instagram and it fragments the whole relationship.
The last audience you need to build…
Building an audience onchain, where the social graphs and interactions are fully open, could theoretically be the last audience you need to build, because you own it and can take it with you.
But even this open data is difficult to pull together. Artists can release NFTs on Sound, Nifty Gateway, Super Rare, as well as social tokens (like my $RAC token) and interactions with followers on Web3 social platforms like Lens. But there isn’t a place where you can aggregate all of this information in one place.
Oscillator is our way of pulling all that data together and making sense of all the noise, through a suite of different products — some built by us, and hopefully many more built by the community.
An under-explored space of blockchain
Artist-fan data is something that gets talked about a lot in crypto circles, but hasn’t been fully explored yet. And it’s something that is truly only possible through decentralization.
When exploring what we wanted to build with Oscillator, we purposely didn’t want to touch catalog or music copyright itself. Lots of platforms are already building around this use-case and doing an amazing job. We see ourselves as complementary to all these existing platforms, rather than competitive.
We also wanted to build in a design-space that can’t be blocked by the legacy music industry. When you touch catalog, you’re playing with something that inherently isn’t yours. It’s owned by rights-holders and there are strict guidelines and government rules.
Building with open data is an untouchable layer above the music. We’re working with something they don’t own, so there’s an open runway where we won’t run into existing rules and regulations.
FanScore
The first app we built on top of Oscillator is FanScore. In simple terms, it takes your past interactions with an artist onchain, generates a score, and allows you to see where you rank against other fans.
You can think of it like a living-breathing Spotify Wrapped. Except it’s not once-a-year, it’s real-time, and it’s not based on data from one closed platform, it’s based on many open platforms and interactions.
The first version is rolling out based on all RAC interactions — not for any selfish reason but because I have one of the longest histories onchain and hopefully it demonstrates how much information we can already pull from basic interactions since 2017. We’ll soon roll this out with other artists.
The data itself comes from thousands of different interactions, all weighted with different intentions to produce the score. For example, how long you held an NFT for or whether you were the first minter or the 100th mint.
A verified fan
After you get your score, you can create an attestation called “Fan Link.” It’s a simple but powerful tool that proves you’re a long-term fan, and that you’ve done lots of things onchain.
From here, as an artist, you can start to incentivize new things. You can create tasks or side-quests among your fans — “if you do this, you can raise your score.” It’s a way to tap into a superfan base that cares about close connections like this.
What’s next? Making sense of the noise
Although onchain data points are open and permissionless, they’re also noisy. Every platform has different standards and it’s hard for artists to pull all this data together. Our goal with Oscillator is to build a protocol that helps make sense of this noise.
You can think of Oscillator like a computer and FanScore is the first app built on top of that computer. We envision a world where lots of other people build apps on Oscillator and unlock new ways to play with artist-fan data.
If you have an idea or want to build with us, please get in touch.
