9 Months Into Our Web Monetization Journey
Tags: webmonetization, internethealth, grantfortheweb
Published: 2021-02-02 02:45:40

Hi DEV! @elliot and @sharon here :)

## Project Update
We're four months into our six month [Grant for the Web](https://www.grantfortheweb.org/) project, Akita. What is Grant for the Web?

> Grant for the Web is a $100M fund to boost open, fair, and inclusive standards and innovation in Web Monetization.

Check out our other [articles under the esse-dev organization](https://dev.to/esse-dev) for context around the Akita project. You can also read our [full interim report posted on the Web Monetization Forem](https://community.webmonetization.org/akita/akita-grant-report-1-3c1n). Now, onto the updates!

So far we've:

- created **["A Web Monetization Story"](https://esse-dev.github.io/a-web-monetization-story/)** for helping creators on the web engage with and understand Web Monetization;
[<img src="https://community.webmonetization.org/remoteimages/i/gq8zozqfipf3uvhchaxg.png" alt="A Web Monetization Story Screenshot" width="500">](https://esse-dev.github.io/a-web-monetization-story/)
- improved the **[Akita browser extension](https://github.com/esse-dev/akita)** and released it on the [Chrome Web Store](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/akita/phcipgphomfgkenfmjnbmajdiejnlmgg) (stay tuned for a post asking for feedback!); and
[<img src="https://community.webmonetization.org/remoteimages/i/3ipslo6j7shq9szwj29e.png" alt="Akita Screenshot" width="200">](https://github.com/esse-dev/akita)
- participated in: Creative Commons Global Summit 2020, Future of Micropayments Conference 2020 and hackathon communities to talk about Web Monetization!
<table>
  <tr>
    <td><img src="https://community.webmonetization.org/remoteimages/i/fhdpj464pn8qlep60q6h.png" alt="Elliot Future of Micropayments" width="300"></td><td><img src="https://community.webmonetization.org/remoteimages/i/hgw61w7zngab8zpotuyh.png" alt="Sharon CC Summit" width="300"></td></tr>
</table>

We've been enjoying coding, designing, writing and chatting as part of the Web Monetization community. Some of our big wins have been placing 2nd🥈 in the [BetaHack "Fix the Internet" hackathon](https://render.betaworks.com/here-are-the-top-projects-from-betahack-a-hackathon-to-fix-the-internet-c7bccf6f17aa) with ["A Web Monetization Story"](https://esse-dev.github.io/a-web-monetization-story/), having our projects and presentations featured on [developers.coil.com](https://developers.coil.com) and receiving our first [issue reported by a community member on Akita](https://github.com/esse-dev/akita/issues/82). Our main struggle has been balancing development of the Akita extension, along with community outreach and development of our website "A Web Monetization Story".

## How can I support Akita
<!-- Please let readers  know if there are ways we can help problem-solve, advance your work or make connections. -->

If you have some spare time, check out ["A Web Monetization Story"](https://esse-dev.github.io/a-web-monetization-story/) and fill out the survey at the end to let us know your thoughts! (If you’ve already checked out the website, but missed the survey, you can fill it out here: ["A Web Monetization Story" survey](https://esse-dev.typeform.com/to/H304mpsQ)).

Finally, we’ve created a Twitter account for us to communicate updates on our progress going forward — we’d appreciate it if you gave us a follow: [@esse_dev](https://twitter.com/esse_dev). Not much going on there yet, but stay tuned! :)


## Closing Thoughts
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Over the course of the project we've learned about open content and open source licensing, incorporation in Canada, privacy policies and browser extension development, among other things. Elliot gave his first conference talk and Sharon published her first browser extension: Akita!

Shout out to the Web Monetization community! We've appreciated all the support we've received since we started on Akita nine months ago. It's been awesome to speak at conferences, receive feedback from the community and meet so many cool people.

Thanks,

_the [esse-dev](https://github.com/esse-dev) team (Sharon and Elliot)_