Populemetry is the company behind the entertainment popularity market — a new financial marketplace where you can buy and sell shares of the popularity of entertainment (called "popularities") like television shows, movies, and music with a new cryptocurrency called the popularity coin (or "POP"). We discover, analyze, and measure the popularity of entertainment and create a score for all the entertainment content we index. The marketplace uses this score to drive the value of the shares you purchase. This score empowers you to put your money behind the entertainment you think will draw the most attention or significant reaction and gain the greatest score increase.
Making investing as common and relatable as going to a movie.
Populemetry lets people invest in the popularity of entertainment like movies, TV shows, and music.About Populemetry
We discover and measure the popularity of entertainment using data from social media apps, streaming video and music apps, and more. Then, we analyze that data to create a marketplace where you can invest in the popularity of entertainment.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Populemetry?
How do you pronounce "Populemetry"?
Populemetry is a mashup of the word "popularity" and the suffix "-metry," which means "to measure."
The phonetic pronunciation is: paa-pyuh-leh-muh-tree.
No worries if you still don’t get it. You may have to hear it a few times. And if it makes you feel better, at one point, we didn’t know how to pronounce the "@" symbol in your email address.
What is the Popularity Score?
The Popularity Score is the result produced by the algorithm Populemetry uses to measure the popularity of entertainment content.
Populemetry discovers and analyzes interactions related to an indexed entertainment property during dynamic time intervals. When a time interval is over, Populemetry calculates the new score of the entertainment property. Populemetry performs this comparison over and over until the entertainment property falls off the list of popular entertainment. The difference between the current Popularity score and the score from the last time interval determines the length of the next interval, the number of new shares Populemetry generates, the number of dividends we issue to shareholders, and more.
Populemetry distributes the responsibility of calculating the score using a sophisticated protocol to ensure fairness and prevent tampering.
So… is Populemetry like Robinhood or E*TRADE?
Nope. We may want to help the same people invest (or at least say we do), but the way we plan to go about achieving that goal is very different. Robinhood and other businesses like it are online brokerages that make it easier or less expensive for retail investors — or so-called "small" investors — to invest in stocks and other securities. Those businesses are built on top of existing financial markets, which we don't think works for most people. Populemetry's goal is to launch new, regulated Exchanges (think the NYSE or Nasdaq) to create venues for trading the popularity of entertainment content, so you can trade on something where you already have the expertise. We think letting you invest in something you know will give you the confidence to believe you can invest and, critically, regularly invest, which is so important to your financial success.
What is your mission?
We want to make investing as common and relatable as watching a movie.
Our goal is to make investing feel accessible to more people. There are already plenty of apps that make investing less expensive or let you put it on autopilot while you're shopping or buying your morning coffee. However, a lot of people still don't invest. We think that's because they don't see themselves as investors. After all, it's still challenging to understand what's going on under the hood and figure out how to make good investments. We think that's a problem because investing is historically the best way to build wealth. And with so many people not investing, the wealth gap will only widen.
The reality is that the stock market is rigged against the ordinary investor, and trendy investments like cryptocurrencies or NFTs only feel like a lifeline if you're tech-savvy. Meanwhile, everyone understands entertainment and pop culture. Our mission is to create a viable path for everyone to build wealth in a system that's truly designed to give them a chance to succeed. To make that happen, we are reimagining the value of attention, making the consumer a stakeholder instead of a commodity in the attention economy.
What is the entertainment popularity market?
Think of it like the stock market, but for entertainment popularity. The entertainment popularity market is the stock market if it was designed for everyone. It's a place where you buy and sell shares of the popularity of entertainment.
Is the entertainment popularity market the stock market?
No. Though it's an investment market, the entertainment popularity market is entirely separate from the stock market and existing stock exchanges.
Why entertainment content?
We want to create a financial market where everyone can feel confident about the subject matter. You often need to understand complex formulas to figure out the value of assets in traditional financial marketplaces. It's much easier to understand why the latest binge-worthy show on Netflix or the hottest song on the radio is popular. We think that knowledge could give you the confidence to be an investor.
Why the popularity of entertainment content?
Popularities represent entertainment popularity —— not entertainment content. This relationship means that when the popularity of entertainment falls, we can reassign popularities to represent the popularity of something else. In other words, even when the price of the popularities you own drops because you chose to invest at the wrong time, you'll still have a chance to sell.
How do you measure popularity?
Popularity is about more than just how many people watch or listen to something. While we can't share the specific details of the secret sauce, we can share that Populemetry uses a trove of data to measure popularity, price popularities, and issue dividends. That data takes into account the various ways in which we demonstrate whether or not we think something is popular, including:
Consumption: ratings, sales, streaming numbers, etc.
Reaction: likes, mentions, follower counts, etc.
Expression: the sentiment of comments, reviews, tweets, videos, etc.
Populemetry's algorithm gathers a wide variety of the data described above for each indexed entertainment property and takes snapshots of the popularity at specific intervals. The data is weighted differently based on different variables. At the end of each interval, Populemetry compares the current popularity snapshot to the previous one to figure out whether the popularity of the entertainment property increased or decreased.
How do I make money on the entertainment popularity market?
You will see returns in three different ways:
Your investment in POP. The value of any popularity coins you have (whether you bought them or earned them as dividends) will fluctuate based on the demand for POP, the total supply, and the net asset value of the investment fund backing its minimum price. When the value of your POP increases -— just like how the price of a stock might increase under certain market conditions -— you can sell it for a profit.
Your investment in popularities. Like any other investment, your goal should be to sell your popularities at a higher price than the amount at which you purchased them to earn a profit. Selling your popularities for POP (and earning POP as dividends for holding popularities) also gets you a larger share of the underlying investment fund and an opportunity for a bigger return on your initial investments.
The dividends you earn. When you're holding your popularities and the popularity of the entertainment they represent increases, you will gain more POP as dividends. You may also receive periodic dividends from the investment fund backing the value POP for holding coins.
How do I invest in popularity?
You choose which television show, song, or movie you think will be most popular and gain the greatest score increase over time. Then you buy popularity coins and use them to purchase shares of entertainment popularity ("popularities"). As your popularities gain value, you can earn more popularity coins as dividends. When you're ready to sell your popularities, you exchange them for popularity coins. You can hold on to popularity coins for their investment value, reinvest them in other popularities, or trade them for cash.
We know — investing in the popularity of entertainment is a new concept. "Popularity" might seem like a nebulous thing because it isn't as concrete as real estate or bonds. But think about it. We all spend a ton of time tweeting about our favorite TV shows, dancing to our favorite songs on TikTok, and watching YouTube compilations of great action movie scenes. When we engage with entertainment, we generate additional publicity (and value) for recording artists, actors, movies or TV studios, etc. By creating a marketplace designed around that popularity, we're giving you the opportunity to cash in on the huge part we play in making their content successful.
Can I invest in any TV show, movie, or music?
A proprietary algorithm determines when an entertainment property has reached an appropriate level of popularity, pulling from well-known lists like the Billboard Top 100 and Neilsen ratings. Only those entertainment properties will be indexed on the entertainment popularity market.
Can I invest in individual artists?
You can invest in the popularity of the content that people create, not the people themselves. We don't want to commoditize people (any further). However, you can invest in Lil Nas X, for example, by proxy by investing in his most popular songs if those songs are on the index.
Do I own a piece of the entertainment property?
No. You are investing in the popularity of the movie, television show, song, etc. You do not have any rights or claim to the entertainment property.
What are popularity coins?
Popularity coins (or "POP") are the native cryptocurrency on which the entertainment popularity market is built. They are also shares of an investment fund, so their value can increase with demand as more people join the marketplace and the value of the assets in the fund grows.
You can learn more about popularity coins here.
What are popularities?
Popularities are shares of entertainment popularity. So, if you want to invest in the popularity of a new Hulu original show, for example, you would need to buy popularity coins and exchange some of them for shares representing that show's popularity. Investing your POP coins in popularities gives you the chance to multiply the number of shares of the investment fund you own, which could give you more dividends and help you achieve your financial goals faster.
Is this ANOTHER blockchain project?
It's generally a bad sign when people answer a question with another question. Still, we have to ask a couple of rhetorical questions to get you to think about our answer:
Do you know what database your bank uses?
Do you care?
We would be surprised if you answered "yes" to those questions. We only care that the software our bank uses is safe and works when we need it to.
The fact that some of our technical infrastructure uses blockchain technology is an implementation detail — which means it's not often important enough to be at the center of most discussions about the project. That said, we use blockchain technology to distribute the responsibility of calculating the popularity of entertainment and allow us to program unique safeguards that make the entertainment popularity market fair.
At some point, we will have a token sale event where you can buy popularity coins (or "POP") to let you trade on the regulated Exchanges that Populemetry is creating. However, and we can't stress this enough, we are not building another crypto project for tech-savvy crypto enthusiasts. We are trying to solve a major problem of economic mobility affecting many people. We want to make investing in POP and entertainment popularity shares will be as easy as renting a movie online.
How do I buy popularities?
You'll use our mobile app. We're still building the platform, but our goal is to make this process super easy. After you buy popularity coins, you'll simply choose an entertainment property with shares you want to buy, enter the number of shares you want, and submit your order. We'll take it from there.
How much do popularity coins cost?
The price of POP is driven by the net asset value of the investment fund that backs its minimum floor price. We will manage the fund's assets so they gradually increase in value over time. POP may sell at a premium (higher than the net asset value of the fund) when the demand is high or a discount (lower than the fund's net asset value) when the demand is low.
What risks are there when investing in popularity?
All investment involves risk, including the risk of losing your investment. However, we designed the entertainment popularity market with those new to investing in mind, so we put safeguards in place:
We built an investment model that everyone can quickly understand and master (compared to the steep learning curve necessary to understand the full scope of the stock market or other existing markets).
We backed popularities with POP, so you have the opportunity to earn a return on your investment even when your popularities lose value.
The price of POP is backed by the net asset value of an investment fund, so you can earn a return on your investment even if you never invest in entertainment popularity because you're invested in the fund.
When the popularity of an entertainment property inevitably fizzles out, you can add your shares to a special waiting list where they can be reassigned to a different entertainment property and sold at a price that you choose, allowing you to recover some of your losses.
We give you both historical and real-time data so you can make informed decisions based on trends or invest in what you know.
Are these long-term investments or short-term investments?
Both. Popularity coins are a long-term investment because they represent shares of an investment fund that Populemetry will manage to achieve an average annual return rate that is competitive with other comparable funds.
Popularities can also be short- to medium-term investments, depending on how you choose to invest in entertainment popularity. For example, a movie's popularity will peak early in its release and most likely wane as time passes, but a TV show's popularity may ebb and flow for years. We all know that everyone loves a comeback, and you never know when an oldie might come roaring back onto the entertainment popularity market. Regardless of how you choose to invest, investing in the popularity of entertainment lets you multiply your ownership shares in the investment fund by earning POP as dividends or selling your popularities at a higher price for more POP.
How much does it cost to invest?
You can trade the popularity of entertainment for just $1 per trade.
Why do you charge trading fees?
Some online brokerages can offer free trades because they use a model called payment for order flow. Payment for order flow is a controversial and ethically questionable practice where a broker receives payment for routing trades for trade execution to a particular market maker.
This practice incentivizes investing frequently over common investing fundamentals because brokers get more money the more you trade rather than the more money you make. Notorious fraudster Bernie Madoff famously supported and used payment for order flow, and, though the practice is perfectly legal as long as both parties to the transaction fulfill their duty of best execution for the customer initiating the trade, those who use it today are not in great company. It's already banned in Canada and the UK.
We think customers are the people who pay us to provide a service and our business model allows us to put our customers first. You're our customers — not market makers, banks, or hedge funds. We're building new regulated exchanges you'll be able to access directly, and everyone will pay the same fees for the same access, creating a level playing field for all market participants.
Where can I download the mobile app
We're still working on building the first version of the mobile app and launching our first regulated exchange. Some of our first users are already helping us test the early version of the mobile app. Sign up here if you're interested in helping us build the mobile app or want to stay updated about our progress.
Interested in investing in Populemetry?
Populemetry is partnering with bold, savvy investors who want to make a big impact in FinTech and create new opportunities for economic mobility.
Have a media inquiry about Populemetry?
We love working with journalists who want to share our stories. If you are a member of the media and you want to chat, please reach out to us! (Only media inquiries will receive a response.)
Have a question we didn't answer?
There is no way we can answer every question in our FAQs. Send us your questions, and we'll send you an answer. (We send a free cat GIF with each response!)