Award-winning global podcast platform Castbox has announced the release of ContentBox, a blockchain-based infrastructure for decentralized digital content. The project is backed by Bo Shen — the founder of Fenbushi Capital and an early adopter of Ethereum — who will serve as both a cornerstone investor and strategic advisor to the team.
Shen said, “The nature of blockchain technology is to take a slice of the pie from vested interest groups, where you are bound to encounter resistance. To get your project off the ground, you must have vast industry and product resources. I invested in ContentBox because it has a strong technical team and a wealth of industry experience, and I believe it will become the first killer app for the digital content industry.”
Founded two years ago by former Google manager Renee Wang, Castbox allows listeners to find, access and create spoken audio content in multiple languages through virtually any device. The company’s proprietary technology includes in-audio deep search so listeners can customize their audio experiences, and curated podcast recommendations powered by natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning. With over 16 million users in 175 countries, the company has raised roughly $30 million in funding from top venture capital firms like ZhenFund, SIG China and IDG.
Since the days of Napster’s inception, audio content publishers and creators have fought over who should have control in how content is monetized and distributed. Speaking with Bitcoin Magazine, Castbox representative Mark Lee says that the creation of ContentBox was inspired by the ongoing fight against copyright infringement and piracy in the digital content arena.
“Independent creators and publishers are under attack from all sides,” he said. “Take YouTube as an example. There was once a time when the platform democratized the creation and distribution of user-generated videos.
