“Every creator online at this point considers themselves a brand. And when we think about brands, we think about running a business,” Bamboo founder and CEO Nick Urbom tells Lori H. Schwartz. Watch their full interview here or below.
Urbom and Schwartz spoke ahead of NAB Show New York to learn more about Bamboo and its plans for the Show. Watch the full video (below) to learn more about the company, social media trends, and the #EmpireStateofMind photo contest.
“Bamboo is a new social platform for creators to post collaboratively and to monetize without the platform taking a cut,” Urbom says. “We have formed this platform out of a lot of feedback from creators over the years looking for new tools that better meet their needs to run their businesses online.”
“To really, truly have a robust economy, we need a lot of different business models,” Urbom says. “And so we believe that the infrastructure of the internet and what has been built out over time with social media and tools that exist, that there is now a real driving need on the internet for creators who are making a living to have better access to ability to create their own products, set their own pricing, run their own businesses, and not be taxed, or, you know, have to split every dollar that they’re making with a middleman every step of the way.”
Online Trends
Urbom says, “We’ve had 15-20 years where people put out a lot of content for free; there’s been a lot of investment and building out into the ecosystem of the internet itself.”
“A couple of years ago, the stat that we saw around the creator economy was that it was comprised of 50 million creators online. And today, this statistic shows that there’s over 200 million creators,” Urbom says.
He explains, “There’s people that are making a living online in various different ways. And we see business models on multiple different platforms, most of which are driven around advertising. And then the current iteration that we’re seeing become more popular is around revenue shares.”
Another trend that’s key to understanding the state of the internet is the collab, or collaborative post.
“Collab is a term that you hear about all the time online,” Urbom says. “People are doing it on different platforms. And the way they’re typically doing it is by hashtagging, or by tagging other creators, and then you’re kind of going up against algorithms who actually sees what you are doing in a collab.”
Because of the popularity of this type of content, Urbom says, Bamboo was purpose built to facilitate collabs. While in beta testing, creators told the company “that it was very tricky on the other platforms to really collaborate with other creators.”
“We’ve built this from the ground up to support creators collaborating in a shared space, evolving, iterating and growing their brands,” he says.
The end result is that “on Bamboo, you can actually collaborate with another creator, you can create a unique feed on any topic. And you can actually brand the content that you want to create under that space.”
#EmpireStateofMind
Bamboo is doing a three-way collab of its own. The company is sponsoring the #EmpireStateofMind photo contest at NAB Show New York.
The winner will have the opportunity to do a collab with creator Avori Henderson, centered around an upcoming merchandise release. They will shoot the merch launch
Urbom says Henderson has “really made a splash in the world of online content creation by doing merch drops and doing collabs with other talented creators and designers and put together a really cool team around some of the different products that she’s released online.”
Henderson will attend NAB Show New York and meet the winner in advance of the collab.
Make Connections, Share Some S’mores at NAB Show New York’s Campfire Sessions
NAB Show New York invites you to join us for our campfire-style networking sessions.
These peer-to-peer discussions will discuss trends and hot topics in a setting that facilitates connection and learning, the Networking Lounge.
How To Leverage Collaborative Social Posting To Successfully Monetize Your Professional Life
Wednesday, October 25, 12:15-1 p.m.
This meetup explores strategies for creators to monetize their online content and leverage social media platforms for collaborations and career building. Attendees will learn how to: create unique feeds; collaborate with others to co-host feeds; and tap suites of monetization mechanics.
Speakers: Bamboo Head of Marketing Dina Marovich, CEO Nick Urbom and founder/COO Hampus Wahlin
Leveraging New Tech for Storytelling
Wednesday, October 25, 2:15-3 p.m.
This meetup focuses on emerging technologies and creative use cases of current trends that inspire, challenge, and spur our creativity.
Speakers: Creative Producer and Visual Effects Supervisor Eric Alba, DotDotDash Executive Director of Technology Adam Paikowsky and Asher XR founder/CEO Christina Lee Storm
Startups and Pioneers Shaping the Future
Thursday, October 26, 3:30-4:15 p.m.
Join startups and pioneers to discuss what’s shaping the future of M&E. This conversation is for those looking to gain insights, forge partnerships or secure funding.
