Fintech Spotlight: How TaTaTu Rewards Content Producers, Consumers

TaTaTu, a new way for users to value and earn rewards for personal data, created the first sharing economy of data on its social media platform, available on desktop and mobile.

As part of the development, Benzinga chatted with CEO and founder Andrea Iervolino.

About Iervolino: Iervolino knows a thing or two about media.

An entrepreneur at his core, at 13, Iervolino sold websites during the height of the tech-and-telecom bubble, prior to working as a producer’s assistant on Broadway-style shows. He crowdfunded his first film by going door-to-door and asking for donations.

Iervolino co-produced several films with his mentor and business partner Luciano Martino, an Italian film director who died in 2013. 

Iervolino has since launched media companies and entrepreneurship initiatives, as well as produced movies like “All Roads Lead to Rome,” “The Poison Rose,” “Trading Paint,” “Finding Steve McQueen” and more.

The Beginnings Of TaTaTu: In 2017, Iervolino said he realized the tremendous scale of exploitation by social media platforms.

“In the world of advertising, you target perfectly a person, if you know information about that person,” Iervolino told Benzinga. “These platforms, with your approval, are collecting data from you, and you are actually part of the value creation.”

The value platform users receive in return is minute in comparison, he said.

TaTaTu is "a totally new concept that embraces and respects other platforms,” Iervolino said. “You get rewarded because you are creating value for yourself and the whole community.”

In a nutshell, every time a TaTaTu user makes a phone or video call, text or media posting, they receive TaTaTu tokens — TTU coins — as a reward. Users can receive TTU coins for adding followers, commenting and watching premium content.

Tokens can be redeemed in the app’s e-commerce store for products, celebrity and lifestyle experiences and more.

Why It Matters: TaTaTu comes in light of the blockchain, tokenization, and Web 3.0 revolution, in which consumers and producers of content are looking for new ways to assign and transfer value.

With TaTaTu, value is assigned and transferred based on the creation and consumption of content.

“TTU is not a cryptocurrency. It is basically a points system. You can only spend the TTU coin inside of TaTaTu by going into the e-commerce platform and buying products.”

Iervolino's goal? To build a community in which people are rewarded proportionately for the value they create.

The Innovation Outlook: To expand the depth and breadth of its product portfolio, and adoption, Iervolino is looking to list the company.

“My goal is to IPO TaTaTu,” he said. “Additionally, the new version of TaTaTu is [coming] at the end of June. From there, we will start our marketing campaign to build up and basically become a worldwide platform.”

Eventually, Iervolino said he sees a world in which consumers demand engaging, value-added experiences.

“I see this movement — a wake-up call — coming naturally.”