⛓Blockchain, The Evolution of The Internet
By: Eugene Hu
Tags: Social Media, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, YouTube, Clickbait

In the past 40 years, users of the internet have used the space as an open forum to trade information. Information that could only be accessed through libraries, and private collections were thrust upon users and available 24/7. Social media then started with its online communities where people from the furthest corners of the world could share interests, or discover new ones that they never knew existed. It grows still as, writers, aspiring actors, teachers, and business executives started airing their knowledge and hobbies on the worldwide Web. For years now the internet has been for everybody to create content, and for the open sharing of information, news, thoughts, and opinions.

Companies like Google have created open platforms for people to upload their own video diaries or vlogs, which has exploded in the past decade. YouTube alone gets roughly 300 hours of video content uploaded in a single day, and over 30 million visitors within that same timespan. With all that enormous content that YouTube is responsible for, it had to set rules for all the content that it shares, and ultimately, must own all the content that is uploaded to its platform every day.

Instagram, also similar in social media scope, shares a large userbase of 800 Million unique users. However, those users, have come under question, as has YouTube, which has made Instagram also set their own blanket rules for both content that gets uploaded. These rules that are set, don’t sit well, and don’t make all users and creators happy, but there aren’t many options available when both Instagram and YouTube are both the largest sources of advertising interest with over 1 million advertisers just on Instagram alone.

What if, instead, content creators could create their own site and their own stores, and market their own brand, on their terms. Why not create a system that empowers the influencers to create his own platform, that competes with the larger more centralized platforms that are established, but don’t give ownership of content to the content creators?

Blockchain is the answer, as a new distribution method, it goes beyond just coin based currencies, but it has also expanded into an entire platform for social media, and hosting content on your website, apps, and even managing revenue streams that serve as an extension of both the brand. Influencers can create their own dApp which promote their own brands creating vlogs, that also add a store, and get yourself connected in a network of influencers, instead of a website that connects you to suggested influencers who “might” be a similar taste.

What an influencer store looks like.

How often, have you wanted to make a purchase of a particular product or brand that was presented in your favorite influencer’s video, or post, and all you had to use was a coupon code, or a link to the brand’s store website. Now with DApps, and how blockchain purchases are made, the need for the clumsy codes, and third-party sites are over, and an influencer now has the ability to showcase the same product, on the same store, using their own cryptocurrency, to make a real-world purchase that benefits both the brand, and the influencer.

Centralized platforms cannot scale themselves in this way, they are oftentimes unable to expand in such a way that supports all the needs and functions that a modern day influencer needs in order to serve their audience. Decentralized apps created by influencers, become curators and masters of their creations and their marketplace. Decentralized data storage can provide faster upload and download speeds regardless of the size of the digital footprint a single video might be, but also, the case is of ownership. Giving just one platform provider absolute control over all content that is created and uploaded to their site, but with a Decentralized system, content belongs to the creators, forever. Tokens from users who frequent an Influencer’s Dapp would be subject to real views, and real comments from actual users, and not a fake bot, or a clickfarm computer. Also, information is secured within the chain.

a click farm in China

If they are hesitant to create their own dApp, then there are also companies like BOOSTO who've created the toolset that allow budding dApp creators to build on their own existing sites and would also benefit with joining our influencer network by finding newer users and previously undiscovered audiences.

Blockchain’s benefits and standards for social media stars and its ledger system with its multitude of checks and rechecks is a natural evolution of the user created internet that everybody uses today. It still remains a free and open sourced platform, that is also protected from outside influences who would otherwise corrupt the very nature of each decentralized network that many content creators have worked hard to build. This is the future of content creation, and thennew driver that pushes the internet to new heights.