Entrepreneurs & Developers: Let's Improve Coinmarketcap & All Other Predatory Ad-Based Applications

in #steem7 years ago (edited)

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We're now in the 9th year since Bitcoin came into existence. So what's are some of the most successful eyeball-grabbing cryptocurrency-related web applications at the moment? The most prominent is Coinmarketcap.com. It's now coming close to the Top 100 websites in the global arena. To my knowledge, runner-ups are:-

As someone who's into Steem, naturally I'd want to see more (web) applications leveraging this piece of technology. It works, and in my opinion, has the potential to solve problems with monetizing web traffic and user activity. Today I'd like to focus on Coinmarketcap.com because I'm fairly confident that it's a path of least resistance to perform the following:-

  • Decentralising power and control. Becoming too large and centralised has always shown not to be a great idea as it becomes disproportionately profitable for exploits, usually at the expense of users and supporters (re: the recent Facebook and Cambridge Analytica fiasco). For Coinmarketcap, there's also a case to be made for replacing the Twitter / Reddit segments in the social tab into Steem-based community applications, while including actual social content functions that tap into the Steem ecosystem.

  • Getting rid of predatory advertisements with functional, battle-tested token economics. Applications built on Steem don't have to rely on the notion of ads at all, at least traditionally, as already proven on websites like Steemit and D.Tube. You just need community activities and votes. While advertising is not entirely a bad thing, I think we can all agree that advertisements ought to evolve into something more non-invasive, non-predatory. Let word-of-mouth and peer-to-peer communication work the magic of entrepreneurship and discovery.

Personally, I think utilising Steem in getting rid of predatory advertising and improving applications of such nature is one of the better solutions out there. There are others as well with useful and differentiated crypto-economic models such as Substratum and Oyster Protocol. However, they're still just not as intensively battle-tested as Steem, and not even available for mass use at the moment so it's hard to recommend at time of writing.

So if you're faced with a Coinmarketcap with ads versus a clone without ads, which will you go to? The ad-free one that works similarly like the original ad-based one, of course. Unless you really don't mind pesky advertisements. The same can also be said straightforwardly for just about any websites and applications from Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, and such. The Steem protocol and its applications is making such a convenience possible. App entrepreneurs and developers should just focus on the integrity of content and information.

In the near future, web users could all be co-owners of the applications they use through the power of Steem and Smart Media Tokens. Quoting myself from a recent private Discord channel recently after wondering about the store / marketplace function previously suggested back in 2016 - "In the end, I guess users will need some dashboard populated with apps for different things on the Steem ecosystem. Steemconnect V2? Or maybe V3.."

So if you're a developer, entrepreneur, or have family and friends with such skills, perhaps it's time to starting building on the Steem ecosystem! Spread the word.

Resources

Steem Whitepaper: https://steem.io/SteemWhitePaper.pdf
Steem Bluepaper: https://steem.io/steem-bluepaper.pdf
Smart Media Tokens Whitepaper: https://smt.steem.io/smt-whitepaper.pdf
Steemit Winter Update: https://steemit.com/steemit/@steemitblog/steemit-winter-update-2017-reflection-our-vision-statement-and-mission-and-a-look-forward
Steem Apps Listing: https://steemprojects.com/
Steem Dev Portal: https://developers.steem.io/


Note: I'm surely biased about ads, as I'm sick of seeing scammy or annoying crypto ads on Coinmarketcap, about 2 or 3 in every page that I go through! Even on Youtube multiple times a day.

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Hi, I was invited in a focus group discussion attended by economics lecturers from a number of prominent universities in Indonesia and Bank Indonesia (central bank). The FGD will take place in Yogyakarta on 5 April. FGD themes on cryptocurrency. And I want to promote Steem and SBD in the meeting. You know, many economics lecturers and central banks are very anti cryptocurrency.

The article for FGD was already I posted and got curation from you. I want to get criticism and suggestions, what else to say in the meeting? I want to make them respect to Steemit, Steem, and SBD.

Sorry if I use this space to ask you for suggestions. But this is related to the strategy of introducing Steem and SBD to the financial and academic authorities in Indonesia.

Thanks so much @kevinwong.

It's very well reasoned, I like your article @ayijufridar. You've included what I think are strong points. I'm not sure what else to add. In the end, I think most people in institutions are uncomfortable with volatility, which is the nature of unregulated markets. Regulation is all about stability, hence the requirement to be able to exercise some control on the markets to reduce shocks. However, doing that for a prolonged period of time just hides the risks, when in fact, things are going bad especially for something as large as national currencies. Faked market stability could lead to complacency, because people don't see any problems then. This is why regulated markets could blow up really badly when it happens. Unregulated markets like cryptocurrencies on the other hand, reflects risks and confidence of the people more clearly, which is why it's volatile. There are many kinds of cryptocurrencies, but I think Steem stands out as it's engineered to be a voluntary platform that's free to use, decentralised, secure, and is simply a public content platform with its own currency. Not sure what "collaborative commons" is in Bahasa Indonesia, but it's a term I like to use and it appeals to individuals - afterall, it's what communities are made of.

Thanks so much @kevinwong. Additional explanations from you can be my argument in the discussion later. I will mention the source from you if you allow.

You are right. Stability and protecting citizens' assets are often the reasons for the financial services authorities to make regulations that have the opposite effect. instead of protecting assets, it actually gives a disservice to the citizens. I think, in any country, the condition is almost the same in view of the existence of cryptocurrency.

The state seems to want to affirm its existence by making regulations, limiting and making restrictions. They don't see the problems from the aspect of the interests of the citizens.

The existence of Steem / it should be examined from various aspects, not just from the legal aspect only. The social aspect should also be studied, as many young people get jobs through Steem. Many young people can hone their skills through Steem. Steemit has helped a lot when the government (eg in Indonesia) cannot do much to reduce unemployment.

Thanks for the addition of your argument, @kevinwong!

Yeah that true ads are really annoying on coinmarketcap. I check coinmarketcap nearly every hour and these ads pissed me off. I would be great innovation if there is app like coinmarket app on steemit/steem. We want to get rid off these annoying ads. Thanks for article.
Resteem

I've always found it quite funny to see crypto services sticking to such obsolete manners; manners that resulted in the very creations of cryptos.

It tends to be a good way of telling whether a service truly cares for the adaptation of crypto, or whether they're strictly in it for the profit.

Kevin, I think you should create a fund for these purposes. Unfortunately, developers wont create complex things on Steemit for free. As developer myself I can tell that's because of a double risk (risk of creating something new + risk of the platform). I love steemit, but I have to admit that there is an additional risk.

So, the Steemit Developer Fund could solve this problem in some degree.

I think there are dev funds on the platform, although I'd need to hunt that out. Plus there are already ready-to-go ways to monetize (like the beneficiary split when votes go through a dev's platform) and build the budget for projects starting from scratch. In that sense, the risk is lower compared to most platforms. I'll look for it btw, thanks for the reminder!

Thank you for those resources!
CoinMarketCap is a big provider of crypto related data. Other Applications relate on them, because they got their name already big in the game. If you would ask me, i would rather go on cmc than on anything else atm. Nobody likes ads, but i like to see them as an way to appreciate an content developer on other platforms. The way steem work, is and will be far more superior.
Thank you very much for this big upvotes

A decentralizing CMC (maybe even an SMT?) would greatly benefit some of the components they have and incentivize crowd-sourced material like their lackluster "social" information that's super vital but poorly managed.

Sorely needed! Also, check this out.. very amusing info:

that is, all express each other. may be more to the motivator

Forgive me, if this somewhat off-topic, @kevinwong, but everywhere I turn, I hear talk of Facebookgate.

On FB & Twitter, talk of folks deleting their account after this latest privacy breech scandal. And, every opportunity I get, I pipe in about the alternative I’ve found, here on Steemit...

I hope this works out to our collective advantage! BTW, did you see this damning confession by Mark Zuckerberg? in 2010?

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Perhaps this is really the time to leverage on the growing Population in steemit and build more apps on the system. Developers and entrepreneurs need to come together to make this happen. I have a few developer friends inam hoping to talk to today and hopefully they will join the steemit platform and do a few things for us.

Decentralized all the way. Look at the recent trouble Facebook is getting into with user data. And even YouTube is getting controversial with demonetizing users whose "views/opinions" do not match those of the "advertisers" of YouTube. I also think Decentralized Exchanges will play an important role later in 2018. I like your ideas.

I think with user adoption, Steem's multiasset DEX will work wonders. Also time for whichever exchanges that are widely used to pivot into DEXs..

@kevinwong. this post is the great. because, talking about crypto, is indeed unique. because this is a new thing. some people understand crypto is only limited to high-tech modern applications. but some of the other crypto is a borderless business world

LOL :) Although I understand what you are trying to say, all the methods used by users at Steemit to advertise their own posts is also advertising, just in a different way but sometimes more annoying than the banners-ad websites. And I agree with you, too many ads run to try and get people to buy some new token with nothing solid behind it. I guess we will she this increased even more with more and more platforms emerging allowing anybody to launch a token.

Haha coz Steemit is still a free-for-all website (or Steem in general without the segmentations at the moment). I've not been looking at the ICO landscape. Seems like it's still going if the ads are still going..

Interestingly, when we consumers start paying for content, this will provide a business model for any content and service provider. I for one, am subscribed to a independent news agency; Their subscription fee gives me NO ADs + independent research not pushed by advertisers, or hold back by advertisers. Within a year they were able to gain about 60.000 paid members, all Dutch since the content is in Dutch language. 60.000 from a population of 17m is quite a bit. This tells me when done right, people are willing to pay for good and quality content. The blockchain and the money a blockchain creates is another way to finance; However I give it another decade to become more mature.

What is also an interesting development, but still not rolled out in to many sectors is the VRM model: the consumer indicates what he/she wants, and the producer/seller can make their offers. When we deploy this for everything we as consumers want to buy, advertisement as an art/task could be completely abandoned. What a nice world would that be!?

Great idea. Having advertisements on a site based on decentralization doesn’t make sense. The Steem platform seems like the perfect place.

Ad-less cmc is good but, in my opinion cmc ia not good to begin with. Only price info, there is little added value in in cmc. I am actually working on a website which will add some more value and hopefully help creating more blockchain believers instead of more speculators.

Cool, looking forward to it!

I applaud your call to action, because it will take decades until these new monetization models can fully take the place of the current ones. The whole infrastructure needs to mature, and the reason why many crypto-related services and businesses use the old models is simple: it is easy (and of course, many of them are just a cash grab). Even Steemit itself, arguably one of the most accessible blockchain applications is pretty cumbersome to use compared to similar non-blockchain platforms.

To be honest, I don't see how Steem's unique rewards mechanism and CMC would make sense. It feels an unnatural, almost wrong fit. It's not because it can be done that it also makes sense and should be done.

Only if tightly integrated with the DEX, but then it would be a better fit to use Bitshares chain as a platform.

Maybe I just don't see the fit, please elaborate if that's the case. This feels like one of those where spaghetti is thrown against the wall just for the sake of throwing spaghetti.

There are ways - just by having social, content, and a CMC community, it'd just be like another Steemit, but focused on the spirit of CMC with those added features. Sure, Bitshares might be good. However, I think adoption and network effects are the most important. Many projects have all sorts of knick knacks and solve different problem but I kinda feel that most will end up useless if people are just not coming back everyday to use it. With user adoption, a project can pivot or add more features / solve more problems as they go along. Steem also has its own DEX built in, the SMT expansion will be quite something :) and the platform already has quite a healthy amount of active users..

So basically what I’m seeing right now is rather:

Let’s rebuild Bitcoin Talk forums and marry it with CMC as approach.

Where CMC functions as the good old fashioned portal content around the central user enervated content (forums).

Basically chainbb meets CMC, or Bitcoin Talk ++.

Yup, or the dev can just publish a daily post about the app and its stats and get remunerated that way..

Really cool ideas but until the owners/developers of such websites like coinmarketcap feel that they have more to gain from implementing steem related application we won't see any serious moves to change the status quo.

I believe the way steemit is going and looking the future developments like SMT's and going into the bull market, steemit will be in top 100 list soon.

Other day I was having discussion with someone on steemit and we were like it is the best time to invest in steem if someone wants to make 2-3 times profit in near future.

How woyld you monetize a coin market cap clone?

Maybe by havimg people upvote prices or cryptos and posting analysis articles. Maybe a mix between them amd reading view would be a good alternative

Many possibilities :)

I have invested a lot of money here, but I can not extract them due to bad market.

We have to wait for the right and the good market, hopefully we will get a good market soon and our share market will be in good position, so we will be more profitable.

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Markets are not based on average opinion, so it's hard to say it's a bad market now. We can have 99% of people holding and just using the platform without caring about the price, while it'll only take 1% to sell really cheap to move the market downwards.

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Yes I agree with you, but here I can not expect anything good about the market, because we still have nothing to do.

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@kevinwong, I'm also focus and check coinmarketcap very near hours and it has access to solve some problems. Good way to understand what kind of cryptos more profitable or loss via coinmarketcap. I've seen these predatory Ads on there and perhaps trouble gives. So need to remove from there. Steem blockchain come to top list in blockchain and need to good promoting ads. Thanks your article.

I think you have put in a lot of the words in that. Am not sure, if there's anyone who would not prefer the ads free version of CMC over the present ads-infested one.

One thing is sure, if CMC will not do this, then soon enough a competing firm will take the advantage and the Steem blockchain and beat them to it. I have very high hopes that by the launch of SMT, will have a lots of web based applications build on the Steem blockchain that we will not need to look outside for most of what we need.

Stop HOLDING start BUILDING.

Thanks for listing all your resources.

It would be amazing if something like a decentralized version of coin market and bittrex can exist on this blockchain I know people will say I'm bluffing but it's possible, this will decrease monopoly and make the crypto world more expantiative

Steem and its future multi-asset DEX protocol and user adoption? its part of the game :)

What do you think specifically about wildspark? Seems like an interesesting idea to me...

Steem is much better lol. Not much to say about synereo's implementations..

You bring up some good points and I have a question. Can some one on steemit make a live cryptocurrency coin prices update? Is it even possible?

Give it a little more time and we will watch all the centralized platforms vanish into thin air. The best decision anybody can take is to give Steemit and STEEM blockchain the best shot. STEEM to the world!

Thanks for sharing...I appreciate your post.
upvote and resteemit

This is good news, motivating when the price is unstable, thanks

The advertiser companies are earning a lot of money from here.They come from outside and they are doing business in this way that I can not seem to be too close to me.When we are going to different sites, they are showing our advertisements and many people forget to click on the amount of fat money leaving the advertiser hands in the organization.Especially when we are going to the site of Bitcoin, I'm getting too much trouble, and I think it's not right.

Very nice you give us insight. Briliant has paved the way to bitcoin.

The statement "Advertising is the engine of progress" ceases to be true.

This is a very good review :)

Thanks sir,,
@upvote and resteemit

I'm very fortunate that I found this platform and through my hardwork of two months, now I own my steemit account (That is @steem Undelegated initial 14.5 SP). Yes,the news that doing rounds in last one week is indeed embarrassing. I never thought FB would allow other firms to exploit it's user data. That's where steemit wins! I'm gonna learn more technical aspects such as programming and all to contribute to steemit in whatever way possible!

i agree with you on ads free websites and apps. steemit and its apps are amazing as its ads free and i hope it remains the same.

really very informative post...hope that all kinds of people like it..keep it up bro

Great advice. Steem can actually do wonders...advertising is good but sometimes very toxic to the platform it is leveraging on.

... utilising Steem in getting rid of predatory advertising and improving applications of such nature is one of the better solutions out there.

And this is the best workable solution to the nonsense. Thanks for sharing.

@eurogee

I love the ad-free platform. It keeps you focused on what exactly you want to do. The ads popping up from every angle leaves you confused and distracted. Sometimes, you do not even get to see what you are willing to read.

information and spirit who is very valuable ,,, i hope all steemians can read and understand it. greetings and success ,,, thanks brother @kevinwong

great post bro

A decentralised coin market cap in steemit would be great and bring out a revolution in the process of steemit. And I would never think that Facebook could do this to its users. Anyways I think advertisement is not a bad option but word of mouth is better, spreading the knowledge about this economically too. Lol

That steemit coming up!

From your article I am so excited and love the @steemit crytocurency related applications that get rid of advertising predators with functional, tested the token economy. Applications made in the Steem do not have to rely on the idea of ads at all, at least traditionally, such already proven on web sites such as Steemit and d. Tube
To be honest I do not like the ad and I really love the @steemit not complicate
Thanks for this @kevinwong

Imagine steemit get to the Top 100 websites in the global arena. How big it would be ? About the Cryto ads can you use adblock to block it @kevinwong ? I'm blockimg ads on my router using tomato firmware and adguard dns and adguard app on my laptop and phones, therefore I don't see much ads.

Of course the websites would be even better without the ads.
Would be definitely a good improvement if the steem protocol would change this in a bigger way.

very good job for development.

great post

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it

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