[Video Disruptor] UFO

Application by: nickhollins
## What is your project, and what problem does it solve?
Our project is creating an internet radio station built on Livepeer enabling artists, musicians, labels and orgs around the world to broadcast live for an established UFO audience.

We’re making it easier to build radio on Livepeer. Media is generally async which creates a problem through a lack of shared online experiences. A radio signal is a synchronous feed which we can experience together.

## Link to public GitHub repo (if applicable)

## Link to demo website (if applicable)
https://ufo.fm/
## Please describe in more detail why this proposal is valuable for the Livepeer ecosystem
This deliverable will be a live example of a radio station built on Livepeer which demonstrates the effectiveness of the infrastructure for live broadcasts, video on-demand and organising an archive. We aim for UFO to inspire other developers, arts, music and media projects to join the Livepeer ecosystem and contribute to its growth.

## Please describe in details what your final deliverable for this project will be.
At the conclusion of the grant time, UFO will be a fully functional internet radio station website broadcasting on Livepeer with a network of shows, presenters, and DJs. This includes integrating onchain social layers, reputation and subscriptions. We aim to publish about how UFO was built to open source the code and show other projects how they can do the same using Livepeer.

## How will this deliverable benefit the Livepeer ecosystem?
This deliverable will be a live example of a radio station built on Livepeer which demonstrates the effectiveness of the infrastructure for live broadcasts, video on-demand and organising an archive. We aim for UFO to inspire other developers, arts, music and media projects to join the Livepeer ecosystem and contribute to its growth.

## Please break up your development work into a clear set of milestones

## What is the total amount requested (in USD)?
15000

## Specify your team's long-term plans to maintain this software and upgrade it over time
We are establishing UFO with long-term plans to expand the music output and audience of the radio station. Continually pursuing innovation in emerging technologies to explore what radio can become. Our team will prioritise maintenance for our utilisation of Livepeer and be responsive to adapt and take advantage of product and technology upgrades, along with conducting our own research.

## Please describe (in words) your team's relevant experience, and why you think you are the right team to build this project. You can cite your team's prior experience in similar domains, doing similar dev work, individual team members' backgrounds, etc.
Nick Hollins and Ivano Salonia are co-founders of Apollo, a brand, design and production studio in Amsterdam. We have been innovators in onchain media with UFO since 2022. Over the past six months we've brought together technology partners to create a first of its kind onchain radio station.

Nick worked for 10+ years in radio, music and media in Sydney, Australia before starting work in the crypto industry in 2017. Ivano is an XR artist and Creative Director with 15+ years experience in advertising, brand and design for major global clients.

Fred Wordie is a critical designer and web developer based in Berlin. Creating things that explore how we as a society engage with technology and each other.

Our team is supported by contributions by UFO network members who are 100+ influential founders, builders and culture creators.

Links
https://apollo.computer/
https://fbiradio.com/
https://www.fredwordie.com/
https://hypersub.withfabric.xyz/collection/ufo-network-pass-yyy5zl1bh7nk

## Who is your target user group? How do you plan on getting your users to use this?
1. People who are active onchain
2. Radio listeners and music fans, particularly where our shows are based
3. Podcast listeners

We have an established UFO audience and graph of 75K unique wallets, 16K email subscribers. We will obtain new users by producing good radio. Enabling mutual discovery between projects who are participating. Growing the community with distribution and incentives.

## How did you learn about the Livepeer Grants Program?
We met with the team most recently at the Livepeer workshop which detailed information about the Grants Program during ETH Berlin. We spoke with them about our intention to build the radio station on Livepeer.

## Was this project started at a hackathon or another web3 event? Which one?
UFO has origins at ETH Barcelona in 2022 before launching the club and our first podcast. The radio station was announced after ETH Tokyo in 2023. Now it’s being launched as part of Onchain Summer in collaboration with Base, after collaborating with teams IRL at FarCon, ETH Berlin and EthCC.

## Please include any additional information that you think would be useful in helping us to evaluate your proposal.
Our team is available to answer questions and provide any further information if you would like to know more.

This is a grant proposal rather than a scoped repository task, and no public GitHub repository, files, tests, or entry points are provided. Start by reviewing https://ufo.fm/ and the listed Livepeer and StreamYard workflow and milestones. Done would mean delivering the radio website, archive/backend, open-source code, and described onchain integrations, so it needs maintainer scope before a newcomer can begin.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.