Using a Livepeer grant, the team behind cutting-edge fashion operating system DIGITALAX is building the KinoraSDK, a software developer kit (SDK) that will make it easy for anyone to create engaging video quests on Web3 social platforms such as Lens Protocol.

“Quests are everywhere, in games, online, IRL, but we don’t notice them. In games and fantasy stories, quest mechanics are so useful it’s hard to imagine what it would be like without them,” said Kinora’s creator, DIGITALAX founder Emma-Jane McKinnon-Lee.

“But no one’s really managed to bring quest mechanics over into social video yet, or into the niche communities and micro-economies it creates.”

The KinoraSDK makes that possible. With its user-friendly components, developers can easily set up metrics-based, token-gated quests with flexible rewards tailor-made for Web3 social platforms. Kinora supports the whole process: from data encoding to verification to the Livepeer-powered logging of video metrics.

The KinoraSDK, named after a motion picture device created in France in 1895 that worked like an animation flipbook, is all about tapping into the power of video.

Every quest created through the SDK will include a set of milestones that reward players for completion with tokens. When a milestone is added to a quest, videos are uploaded to Livepeer or chosen from a pre-uploaded library linked to that milestone.

To complete a given milestone and claim the associated rewards, players must achieve the metrics associated with each video. These can include traditional video metrics (e.g. average view duration, click-through rate, or play count) or yardsticks related to social media shares and virality (e.g. number of comments on retweets, number of likes on a comment).

Milestones such as these take audiences on social platforms beyond passive viewing into active engagement: they are creating data simply by watching.

“On the old platforms, your view time, comments, and all other activity is feeding advertising algorithms. They give viewers an illusion of choice and personal agency, but only enough to keep them coming back to a platform,” said McKinnon-Lee.

Quests on Web3 social platforms, in contrast, hand control back to the viewer, allowing us to play an active role in the exchange of value that happens any time we watch, listen, or interact with content online.

McKinnon-Lee believes the ease with which developers can build quests will open the door to non-crypto audiences: those who may not understand Web3 well but who are intuitively drawn to video and the niche communities it attracts.

With the Kinora SDK, indie creator microbrands can use video quests to build communities on existing and new Web3 social platforms without having to create everything from scratch by themselves.

McKinnon said the partnership with Livepeer was essential to the success of the KinoraSDK, and not just for funding reasons.

“It wouldn’t make sense to do this without Livepeer. Video communicates more, and does it better than any other form of content. And it may sound obvious, but content is still king. With generative AI, perhaps more than ever,” she said.

“I don’t think most people realize how much technical lift goes into processing and delivering video content, or why decentralization is vital, so we don’t get stuck in algorithmic feeds that someone else controls.”

On a quest to learn more about the KinoraSDK and how it can help you create your own social quests? Find out more here.