Genie Music sets itself apart with focus on metaverse, NFTs

Audio streaming platform Genie Music Corp. has held four metaverse concerts for K-pop singer Jamie Park so far this month. 

At one point during the concerts, up to 300,000 concertgoers logged on to watch the metaverse concert L1STEN.

Genie Music, a subsidiary of KT Corp., specializes in the production and distribution of music content. The company collaborated with Haegin Co. to host the concert on the latter’s online game platform PlayTogether. 

The four concerts were respectively timed with the Korean, North American, Southeast Asian, and European time zones in mind. 

Over the course of two days, Google Search results for Jamie Park and K-pop skyrocketed more than 1,000% in Southeast Asia. In Taiwan, searches related to Genie Music surged 800%. 

Metaverse concerts are part of Genie Music’s new business plans to target the global market. 

“We began hosting metaverse concerts to differentiate ourselves in the already crowded audio streaming industry,” CEO Park Hyun-jin said. “This year onward, we will launch new businesses in the metaverse, NFT, and AI-based music production sectors.” 

Park is a veteran in B2C marketing, having served at the parent company KT’s marketing department for years.

Telecommunication and audio streaming markets are similar in that the competitors have to battle it out within set market boundaries. 

In terms of competing for users’ time, the streaming service providers not only compete against each other but also with other content providers such as Netflix or Naver Webtoon. 

“In a market where the pie size is fixed, growth is unlikely unless you can create new services,” Park said. 

This is why the new CEO is turning to NFTs. 

Park's plan is to turn live concert streaming footages, past music ranking, or even related data into tokens.

“Genie Music has a large amount of data that can satisfy music fans' needs.” 

Artificial intelligence-based music production is set to grow as well. 

The company will increase the amount of background music, sports team anthems, and ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) content created by AI. 

The Genie Music AI ASMR service that began last November saw a triple-fold jump in usage this month. 

“With the increasing number of users in their teens and 20s, we will continue to increase the AI ASMR content,” explained Park.

The company is also eyeing ways to incorporate the AI-created music business into the metaverse. 

Write to Han-gyeol Seon at always@hankyung.com
Jee Abbey Lee edited this article.