The EOSIO Socials Voicers Have Forgot: Part 2
Welcome back to the second part in our The EOSIO Socials Voicers Have Forgot series. In case you missed it, in Part I - Microblogging Platforms of EOSIO we delved up close and personal into what was happening with Karma, Murmur, and Chirp as the primary hubs for short form content monetization on the EOS, TELOS, and WAX blockchains. In today’s post we will continue on looking at the Decentium, Discussions, and TRYBE.ONE platforms as avenues for those that wish to read and write longer content pieces built right here at home on EOS.
Decentium
"Decentium is a decentralized publishing and tipping platform where authors own their content and earn money and exposure through endorsements."
According to founder Johan Nordberg, Decentium is considered more of a publishing site rather than a blockchain social platform. “Decentium grew out of a desire to address some of the shortcomings I saw in Steem as well as wanting a gathering place for the EOS ecosystem where most articles were written on the centralized (and IMO user-hostile) medium.com”.
In terms of operations, Decentium does do things a little differently than almost any other site out there. Utilizing the EOSIO blockchain allowed the platform to incorporate an interesting and somewhat ground-breaking payment structure. “Users pay for the blockchain resources needed to post and host their content. These resources can be reclaimed by deleting the posts. They also give 30% of their post rewards to the contract if they opt in to have their articles included in the trending feeds.”
Decentium was originally deployed on the EOSIO mainnet with the end goal of growing a user base in preparation for a move to a private Decentium-specific EOSIO fork when Inter Blockchain Communication (IBC) finally landed. At present Decentium is working towards a UX for onboarding other EOSIO chain users. This is cited by the team as an initiative to securely manage users keys while at the same time providing a convenient and approachable mechanism to enable access for those that may not be all that technologically savvy when it comes to crypto and blockchain. They also noted that in light of recent issues on the EOS mainnet, a pre-scheduled migration may be in the cards should the network continue to be less optimal and fail to correct the issues that it has been having which is making it incredibly difficult for users.
“We have very few users who publish articles now with EOS mainnet currently requiring users to stake $100 or more worth of tokens to use it as well as a lot of UX problems with transactions getting lost and difficult to use and buggy wallet software. We have a decent amount of traffic on the main interface decentium.org though, one of the design goals for the frontend was to have great SEO so the few articles we have are getting a good amount of hits from search engines.”
Regardless of the complications, Decentium does have some pretty unique and notable qualities in comparison to some of the other sites available to users. As previously mentioned, the ability to use resources to post and then gain those resources back when the post is pulled is something no other site in the space seems to be doing. Furthermore, due to the way that the platform is set up and interacts with the EOSIO software, it’s likely the most decentralized and cost effective of any of the platforms out there both within the EOSIO space and beyond.
“All you need is the frontend app which can be run from anywhere, even locally on your disk, and access to an EOSIO node with the Decentium smart contract deployed to use the platform. That is in contrast to most other social crypto projects which rely on centralized and often expensive infrastructure to operate.”
Beyond this, there is no intent at present by the team to create a mobile app for specific use with the platform, instead focusing upon a web based front end that is optimized for full usage on all devices. The current beta in fact is quite friendly on mobile for the purposes of reading content, but the team does recommend the use of a desktop browser for authoring content in order to allow for the cleanest and least glitchy experience.
As for utilizing the site and posting, for those familiar with EOS it is pretty standard procedure. Simply head on over the main Decentium site and create an account or sign in with one of the options listed below.
“To create a blog on Decentium you need an EOS account. If you know someone with an EOS account you can ask them to create one for you."
Already have an EOS account? Sign in to create your blog”
From the main page follow the menu option for ‘write’ to create your first post. There are a number of categories to choose from, the majority of which are non-crypto related.
When you are finished simply click the ‘publish’ tag at the bottom right of the post and you should be on your way. Overall the experience is relatively smooth, barring the usual glitches that many sites still in progress of getting their technology aligned with their vision face at this stage in the game.
As for terms of content, “posts in the trending feeds are bound by our terms of service and can be removed from the feeds by moderators, currently the moderators are just us but as we grow that will be a role the stakeholders will fill. Individual blogs are owned by the users and they are responsible publishers for that content.”
And the added bonus to all this is of course, if you write content of value that the community likes you will hopefully walk away with a little bit of EOS in your account.
For those interested in learning more about the inner workings of the platform beyond the scope of this article ‘What Is Decentium?’ is a great place to start.
Discussions
“Discussions is a reddit like discussion forum, trusted, and used by top Block Producers and EOS token communities. Using our ATMOS privacy side-state technology, we can ensure that our users stay safe and anonymous when expressing their opinions. On Discussions we support links both from traditional social media sites like Youtube, Telegram, Twitter as well as blockchain social media platforms like Steemit. Enjoy all your favorite contents in one place. - Unlike other EOS Dapps, you do not need an account to use. - Unlike Ethereum Dapps, you do not need to pay to use it. Visit Discussions today and see what the best of Dapps can be.” (From DappRadar).
Discussions App makes the registration process very simple. In order to create an account simply follow the instructions found within the ‘Signup’ tab at the top left hand corner of the site.
First, choose a display name and password. Next, copy down the Brainkey and secure it in a safe place. This “Brainkey is the seed phrase from which your public-private key pairs are generated. You can restore the public-private key pairs from your Brainkey if you lose the keys. The Brainkey itself cannot be restored once lost!” The final step is to confirm the Brainkey phrase before creation of your account.
In regards to the Brainkey, this is the initial step towards the UnifiedID, an innovative account identification and login mechanism that enables the platform users to fully participate in Discussions 2.0’s ecosystem. Discussions App actually subsidizes the creation and operation of users’ accounts that may require EOS resources. Furthermore, the UnifiedID feature is an effective identity system and frictionless on-boarding mechanism which third party developers can use when building on top of the platform.
In terms of content, Discussions App allows for the posting of both long and short form articles. In other words, although the platform supports long form content complete with pictures, videos, and links, there are no restrictions on the type or length of content that one can share. They are not platform agnostic like Steemit for example and allow users to post content that has been uploaded previously to other sites. It is also possible to upload links to other people’s content should you find them of value. Users then have the ability to upvote or downvote the content based on their perception as well as comment below any thoughts they may have. These comments can also be upvoted, downvoted, or commented upon.
Creating a post is as simple as navigating to the top left ‘Create Post’ menu item, entering a #category, filling in a title, and placing whatever you desire in the content field textbox. Links and images can be easily added by navigating to the appropriate icons at the top of the text field box. For the most part it is a fairly easy and hassle free experience, although there are a couple of things that the team is working on improving towards a better user experience. Of primary importance for the purposes of this post, it is worth noting that although the copy and paste function works really well if you are copying in an article from another source, even though the images show up in the editor previous to publishing, they don’t always show up in the post. In order to get around this simply add the image manually to the location you wish it to appear in the text. It will show up as a text string but once published the image will appear in the post. In regards to the links and videos, these show up perfectly fine without the need to add them manually. This is really nice as once you have compiled a post that you wish to share, all you have to do is drop it into the editor and not worry about having to go through the hassle of linking everything again as in the case of some other platforms that require their own coding of every individual post.
The ATMOS Protocol Token
“ATMOS is the native currency of the Discussions App platform and is the primary base unit of exchange between content creators and users. It exists as a means of gauging community sentiment and participation in the ecosystem. As the primary utility token in the ecosystem, it can be used to tip, reward and buy certain contents in the ecosystem. It also acts as a governance token as ATMOS token “stakers” will be able to vote on the developmental direction of the project. ATMOS is not only a medium of value exchange in the platform but a unit of measure of ownership and influence.
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Holders of these tokens can earn more ATMOS by staking them. Stakers will not only earn ATMOS but other tokens that might be supported in the future. This will come from fees in exchange for ensuring that the system is resilient, self-sustaining and private. Other sources of revenue are also planned in the future such as the unique decentralized advertising module which is part of the Discussions 2.0 upgrade. While we do not guarantee that the value of ATMOS will increase we are actively exploring different ways to increase the utility of token which should translate to positive price movements due to the increase of demand.
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ATMOS is currently trading in the largest EOS decentralized exchange, Newdex, and is paired with EOS. We have plans to list in other exchanges in the future. Since the ecosystem is designed to be self-governing any protocol-wide changes will require the participation of 10% of the ATMOS supply and a majority consensus decision. The token has a total supply of 100 Million tokens which means 10 million votes should participate and decide to effect changes. 1 ATMOS is equivalent to 1 Vote.”
In order to tip users on the platform simply reply in a comment to the post with #tip xxx ATMOS. These tips are between users so the balances will be reflected in the users wallet. From here balances can be topped or dispersed to other wallets beyond the Discussions App site. At present the Discussions App wallet supports the Deposit, Transfer, and Withdrawl of ATMOS, EOS, Boid, MPT, Puml, and BBT, strategic partners of Discussions. Of course, these other tokens can also be used to #tip other content creators to encourage user generated content.
In addition to the regular wallet functions, you will also notice a few other options within the settings function as well that can be utilized. Of particular interest seems to be the ‘Airdrop’ function: a tool that can be used to do a bulk airdrop to EOS account holders from directly within the Discussions App wallet.
In terms of future developments there are a lot of planned updates and integrations set to hit the stage with the release of Discussions App 2.0. Beyond updates in the UnifiedID identity layer and tweaks to such things as moderation and usability in a drive towards fully realizing the potential of a decentralized social media site where the users maintain not only freedom of expression, but also some semblance of control, the team will introduce a secondary token AURO to the mix. Unlike the ATMOS token however, the AURO token will be directly tied to the decentalization incentive of the identity layer of the platform “primarily used to establish reputation and unlock customization and user experience enhancements”. Not tradable on exchanges or sold openly, the AURO token will be purchasable using ATMOS enabling users to quickly unlock enhancements and features without too much commitment required and will become the primary utility token within the Discussions 2.0 platform.
For now the first interitation of the site is well worth a gander if you are familiar with it. It’s clean and concise look and easy to navigate interface is a nice compliment to many of the social platforms out there both within the crypto space and beyond. Add to that quite a number of daily active users and some really great posts keeping people up to date on any number of topics and the ability to actually get some #ATMOS should your content come across as valuable to other users, and the fact that keeping these tokens on site provides an avenue for passive income in the form of dividend payments, Discussions App seems like a good place to not only learn some great things but also have your say by both posting your own pieces and utilizing the comment threads below others.
By utilizing the different technological innovations in relation to tokenomics, UnifiedID, and innovation towards easy setup, onboarding, and usability utilizing the EOSIO blockchain technology and EOS blockchain, Discussions App has their sites set on bringing “the masses a new breed of decentralized social media platform and content delivery system without the typical barriers and difficulties associated with using them.”
Be sure to check out the Discussions Whitepaper to learn more about the Discussions App platform, mission, and future goals.
TRYBE
TRYBE.ONE is a social blogging site on the EOS blockchain. Joining the platform is really easy and only requires entering a display name, username, email address, password, and optional referral ID. From there an email verification is necessary and then your good to go.
One of the things that sets Trybe apart from some of the other social sites in this list - whether be good or bad depending upon your own personal perspective - is that you don’t actually have to be logged in with your EOS account to create and vote for content. To clarify, Trybe utilizes the EOS blockchain for such things as staking and un-staking tokens as well as depositing or withdrawing tokens to your on-site balance, but for posting and rating articles all that is required is logging in with a username/email and password.
In regards to interacting with the wallet, Trybe is compatible with a variety of EOS wallets allowing users to choose Scatter, MeetOne, Lynx, TokenPocket, and Wombat.
Content on a variety of topics is acceptable provided it meets the general guidelines as stated by the platform:
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Content must be 100% your own
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Post titles cannot be all capitals and should look presentable
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There must be a minimum of 300 words in the article
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Upload a featured image and select one category in the metadata section
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All quoted material should be in quotation marks and sourced
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To earn tokens you must create content that is educational or informative
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Any photos that are not your own must be sourced
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If your article is in a language other than English, please select that language
as your category
In terms of posting requirements, Trybe.One does have some requirements to ensure quality content preventing spam and uphold a system whereby original content creators can be paid in TRYBE tokens for their work. According to the Trybe team, for videos the 300 word limit can be shortened to a brief introduction and the 300 word limit is not necessary provided the videos are created by the author. Embedding other peoples videos in a post is also acceptable but something original should be written around it. The same goes for quotations. As a general rule of thumb at least 80% of the post must be written in your own words, as TRYBE.ONE really wants to create a home for original and high quality content creators. For this reason the team is quite strict on the content they allow to be published and are on the lookout constantly for plagiarized material.
For post creation TRYBE.ONE uses Wordpress, so anyone familiar with that should be fine. Even for those that are not, it’s a pretty short learning curve. It also allows the addition of video links, meaning they must be hosted on another site but will play direct from within the post itself once published. The editor is actually top notch and allows users to copy and paste posts written elsewhere directly into the textbox with ease. In general the majority of the links, images, and videos will be automatically recognized and appear without the need to physically mark and use the editors tools at the top. In regards to images, the real time sizing box allows for easy drag type formatting allowing users to see the configuration of how the image and post will look upon being published.
At this point in time all posts that are submitted to TRYBE.ONE must be reviewed and checked by an ‘editor’, so unlike some other social crypto sites the post will not be published directly upon submission. In the future the TRYBE team has hinted that this may change and a number of options are being thought about, some of which include a community vetting system or whitelisting regular high quality posters after some time. The platform has been criticized for this in the past, ironically enough, even on posts on the platform itself. That being mentioned, thus far, a least from what we can gather, the editors at Trybe are not practicing any bias towards anything other than plagiarized content or content which does not meet the standards laid out in the criteria.
For the most part the bread and butter content on TRYBE.ONE is crypto orientated, although there are posts revolving around a variety of other popular subjects such as technology, politics, self empowerment, computer software, and travel to name a few. Overall the quality of content on the platform seems to be generally pretty high and the spam posts kept to a relative minimum. Beyond individual bloggers and vlogers, there are projects that also post regular updates on their projects as well.
All members of the site have the ability to rate any post on a 1 to 5 star scale which is how content creators gain TRYBE tokens. Although the reward is calculated in an algorithm considering the amount of ‘on-site’ tokens of both the content creator and voting user, in general a vote of 1 or 2 is considered a downvote meaning a loss of TRYBE tokens to the content creator, a 3 is neutral meaning no TRYBE tokens are either gained or lost, and a 4 or 5 is considered an upvote meaning and increase in TRYBE tokens to the content creator.
In addition to this long form post content, TRYBE.ONE also has a less restrictive social page that allows users to post shorter content pieces with all the same bells and whistles of the main content blog. The editor allows for the customization of headings, quotation blocks, links, images, and videos. Unlike the long content submission form however, these posts are not monetized at present and thus free from the need to have them reviewed and published by the team. In other words, members are free to post whatever they wish here including posts that don’t meet the criteria of monetization as well as links to content that may be of interest but are not authored by the poster themselves. In addition, users can customize their feeds by following certain authors on the Trybe.One site and thus limiting spam from users that may not post things of interest.
Another important feature of the site is the onsite wallet. As previously mentioned, the TRYBE.ONE platform can be used simply by creating an account by registering a username and providing an email. Under the ‘Settings’ tab in the ‘Wallet’ menu users can designate an EOS account name. Upon doing so, the wallet will display the number of on-site, liquid (i.e. offsite TRYBE in your EOS wallet), and staked tokens. Trybe offers tokenized incentives in the form of both weekly activity bonuses and via 180 and 90 staking mechanisms.
For the weekly activity bonuses no action on the part of the wallet is necessary. Percentages are awarded to onsite activity for such things as posting, commenting, liking, and powering up. “Weekly payouts are defined by your rank, the higher your rank the higher your reward.” For whatever tasks users choose to complete in full the payout will calculate in the percent for that task and the rewards will be added to your onsite token balance automatically at the end of the week.
Other functions of the wallet include powering up or down TRYBE tokens to your on-site balance, which of course will affect both your voting rate on the platform and weekly engagement reward, and staking TRYBE tokens. For more on the intricacies of the Trybe.One wallet please check out the following posts:
TRYBE.ONE Social Platform & Wallet Basics
Simplifying TRYBE: Understanding the TRYBE.ONE Wallet Q&A
Overall, despite still being in beta, TRYBE.ONE offers a fairly nice user experience and a wealth of knowledge from both the regular and occasional posters on the site. With a small team and dedicated community behind them, Trybe.One is continuing to push forward towards gaining traction beyond the EOS space from which it was born. Although there are things that are in the process of being improved, the site is fully functional and offers a really nice aesthetic user experience, easy registration and content creation interface, and some really solid content beyond the traditional spam often seen in many crypto and non-crypto social sites.
Closing Remarks
As you can see, EOS offers some very interesting options when it comes to long content form platforms. Although in many ways Decentium, Discussions App, and Trybe.One all have taken advantage of utilizing the EOS platform towards building a monetization avenue for content creators, each project has come from a different yet meaningful way. Although there are many differences in approach and product, none of these platforms relegates users towards exclusivity of content. In other words, for long form content creators interested in monetizing their work it’s possible to utilize all of these platforms in tandem to spread your work throughout the space and be rewarded.
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