Streaming music has been around for a long time, but how it’s distributed and paid for continues to change, leading to challenges. One company that’s addressing the morphing audio landscape is Volareo. I talked with its founder, Nick NM Yap, to find out more about Volareo’s smart speaker (see figure) and how it differs from more conventional distribution solutions.
Volareo’s smart speaker employs blockchain technology to track the music it plays, offering a different method of paying for what you listen to.
What is Volareo?
Volareo is a music streaming smart speaker that makes the benefits of blockchain accessible and cryptocurrency easy to use. Born out of the need for innovation in high-quality hardware, Volareo seeks to benefit active music makers and discoverers, looking to use breakthrough technologies in the music industry.
It’s also an open, decentralized platform that allows creators, developers, cryptocurrency enthusiasts, blockchain partners, and voice commerce to thrive within my decentralized ecosystem, where privacy and anonymity is guaranteed.
Why is Volareo’s Streaming Speaker different?
Volareo offers consumers an independent, trustworthy, fair trade alternative to devices made by the big conglomerates. It’s the first to offer voice integration with various blockchain-based platforms, for instance Musicoin, Emanate, Choon, Soundeon, and many more.
We believe that consumers should have a freedom of choice and a wider range of smart speakers to choose from beyond those currently on the market. Also, Volareo is completely private and fully open source, which makes it a very unique product.
The mission of Volareo is not to monetize its users, but to make it easy for people to support their favorite content creators, and ultimately build a stronger bond with them. This can be done using blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, which will be easily convertible to fiat money with Volareo.
Volareo's founder, Nick NM Yap.
How is blockchain technology employed in the system?
Voice control is integrated with streaming, concert ticketing, merchandising, etc. platforms based on the blockchain. Such platforms allow for direct cryptocurrency payments, which ensure fair reward for content creators and peace of mind for consumers. Secure data chains make this possible.
Why can these services only be provided with a technology like blockchain?
The decentralized ledger system allows data to be safely stored and tracked, and, therefore, content creators to be rewarded instantly and most fairly. Non-blockchain, centralized services do not offer this luxury (which should be commonplace). User data is therefore also kept secure and not exported to the cloud.
How do users, musicians, etc. actually use the system?
Users and content creators use their voices or clapping feature to interact with the speaker and the platforms linked to it. This is a welcome alternative to being fixed on a screen, typing, searching, and scrolling. The Volareo app provides an additional platform for a smartphone/tablet, where musicians can gain access to insights about their biggest fans unavailable before.
Also, Volareo will accept voice commands and can be controlled within the app in four languages—English, Dutch, Spanish, and French—with additional languages supported in the future. With voice commands, listeners can search by artist, song title, or even lyrics, thanks to, for example, Volareo’s partnership with LyricFind.
How did Volareo build the system?
I have over 25 years of experience in consumer electronics, and used my expertise to start the Volareo journey.
A mixture of in-house and external hardware and software specialists have been involved in building the Volareo ecosystem, which incorporates an open software platform as well as the speaker. Hong Kong-based accelerator Zeroth.ai has helped develop Volareo’s artificial intelligence.
Where can people find out more about Volareo?
People can subscribe for updates on our website, https://volareo.live, and look at our launch at https://volareo.live/launch/. There they can also read more about us and find answers to FAQs.
