Topic: Peer-to-Peer Advertising, and Social Network Powered by Bitcoin + Stacks - page 2. (Read 1491 times)

The cold start problem, right! Well, first let's talk about the naming of actors in the platform: screen operators distribute ads via smart screens (what you call publishers), advertisers are marketers and regular people that wish to distribute ads via smart screens, billboards, or computers.

Now, the cold start problem. From day 1, the Bitfari foundation will distribute ads promoting the platform on every screen installed, we have budgeted a sizable number of the tokens for this (the budget for this spans five years). Meaning all the audited screen operators will be paid since day one. It will be in faris, but we can get a non-trivial number of screen operators that way.

Some screen operators and business owners will realize that faris equate to free publicity and will start valuing the tokens and installing more screens.

Marketers start coming in, not necessarily when there is critical mass but whenever there is a critical opportunity. This is a very important and key distinction. If you place a single billboard on the lawn of the Whitehouse, advertisers will book ads on it forever from day 1. So you don't need a critical mass to generate interest, rather you need critical locations.

Bitfari recruits critical locations in multiple ways:

1) The pricing model rewards bigger screens and bigger foot traffic making it more lucrative for owners of storefronts to join in.

2) Registering screens is free and doesn't require any affiliation so is only a matter of time until realtors realize they can make money showing ads in empty lots and use that to better advertise real estate or empty offices.

3) Bitfari screens are information centers, you can use them as ambient social networks (something we haven't discuss yet but soon will), you can use them as calendars, message boards, and translation stations. So you don't need a critical mass of advertisers to find the screens useful.

4) Everything posted on the platform is advertised. You post a screen in a cool location, we advertise it via 10 different social media channels, on our website, thru the marketing email list, etc. Most importantly, this screen will be advertised in the app with location photos, description, estimated foot traffic, and, at the cheapest price anywhere since there are no intermediaries.

5) The big tsunami: our platform allows any individual, agency, IT consulting firm, or freelancer to start their own agency network within Bitfari, install as many screens as they like and take whatever cut they like.

6) We advertise incentives daily, meaning, when there is ad auditing $$$, promos, etc customers fill visit locations where Bitfari ads are shown at a higher rate gaining bigger exposure to the platform.

7) Every Bitfari client is a potential screen, meaning the app you install on your phone, computer, smart TV and watch are all potential network screens. So about 5x per user in the developed world - let that sink in.

Having said all that let's play devil's advocate: very few people install/use the platform. That changes nothing. The system will simply start its exponential growth cycle later in time. But it will be an exponential growth cycle. I'll circle back with more demos and videos as soon as I have them.

Can you make another demo video but from the publisher perspective? After all, you're not going to get any advertisers if the number of publishers on your platform is too low, and vice versa. But admittingly before you try to attract publishers you need to get enough advertisers to actually keep publishers there.

The first Bitfari demo videos are here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPvmtrX1ZXE&list=PLdhvBFmB1JmhUp6CIq0KaS6U8_8dOGFrP


Here are the first demo videos explaining how to use Bitfari. These videos are taken from the perspective of an advertiser that interfaces with Bitfari screens at home, in the office, and in city storefronts. In terms of user experience, you log in with your Stacks wallet, make changes to a node/react client we call the "Community Connector" and then commit the changes to the blockchain. Every time you commit an ad or screen to the blockchain, auditors and social oracles (computer programs) audit for spam, DOS attacks and hate speech, etc. making Bitfari simple and safe to use.

Bitfari is a network of public and private screens. It is highly usable with one or one million screens. The smart screens are information centers, containing ads, dashboards, message boards, calendars, signage, web pages, and so on. You can install Bitfari on a personal laptop, smart TV home, etc, and choose whether you want to receive ads or not.

The network is built to be self bootstrapping, in terms of halving incentives and foundation ads which will pay in faris from day 1. Since ads are displayed using HTML and a web browser, even $100 screens can join the network and start making money. Please keep in mind that each screen is paid according to size, placement, and foot traffic.

In the second release, we will ship an app that will allow digital billboard operators to join our network and show Bitfari ads along with theirs.
  
With regard to the consumer-facing side of things, we are building smartphone ads where they can list their preferences and create an interest/shopping list allowing them to explore their cities more intelligently. Here is a walkthrough of that app: https://bitfari.org/the-bitfari-explorer-app/

We are preparing to let everyone in to check the apps on Testnet by late August. But although most things looked finished, please keep in mind that we are still coding very very hard!!

I second that.  I'm struggling to visualise how it would work from a user experience perspective.

You talk about billboards - how much infrastructure is needed to make this work?

Great website, by the way.

We have just published the Roadmap for 2021 and 2022! https://bitfari.org/bitfari-roadmap/

Forgot to send you the videos. I took a handful of videos this week, but we are still waiting on something more professional. Here are some random shots I took of the ad composer + web interface for advertisers and customers:

Placing an ad on a message board: https://twitter.com/jordhy/status/1407360001681854467
Social Dashboard + Gamification: https://twitter.com/jordhy/status/1407359611653574657
Adding todos like shopping lists etc: https://twitter.com/jordhy/status/1407359409538351108

You can also see screenshots of the mobile app here: https://bitfari.org/the-bitfari-explorer-app/

As you can see pretty easy to use. We batch client actions and then submit them to the blockchain as a whole when the action requires ad publishing or similar events. In this fashion, the experience is pretty smooth and uninterrupted by blockchain transactions except when absolutely needed.

The one video that is completed is the anticipation video for the beta launch, but that one is just a promo with no app screenshots. You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_atO1a0szA&t=14s

I'm finishing a web page with the release roadmap to share today. Next week I'll prepare screenshots, professional videos, and maybe a full walkthrough (if the bugs let me!!).

Thank you for wanting to join the platform. Auditors review ads at random from their homes and in the streets (where ads are shown). The incentive is for auditors to be truthful as they only enter bounties when they belong with 51% or more of the rest of the auditors selecting a given choice. Meaning as long as there are more honest people than not for a particular auditing task, bad actors will be automatically punished. Most auditing is done in the streets, so there is no room for machine impersonation there. Also, auditors are chosen at random for ads in their area. Let me entertain for a second the idea of an automatic program for auditing done at home:

Let's suppose you create a Selenium program to automate account creation, joining the platform, and auditing ads at random. Your program will fail social oracle auditing, which are programs that review publisher, operator, and auditor behaviors (https://bitfari.org/2021/06/19/what-is-a-social-oracle/), case in point you might fail prompts requiring to verify you're human. Your karma will stay at zero and you will have to wait weeks for a second task and eventually your karma goes negative and your account is blocked from auditing tasks. You can read our section on fraud prevention here: https://bitfari.org/how-bitfari-prevents-ad-fraud/.

This is good advice. Thank you. Yes, advertising is a minefield, child protection laws, anti-spam laws, defamation, libel, it's quite complicated and variable across jurisdictions so we have to be careful and conservative as we scale.

Maybe you should add some demo video so people can see how your ad network platform would work in real life.

I saw that it is possible for people to earn Bitcoin by reviewing Bitfari ads, so my question is can anyone participate in this and how are you going to fight with fake reviews and abusing with multiple accounts?
In theory someone could create hundreds of accounts and write multiple ads feedback to earn more Bitcoin.

Well, I think it's better to simply stick to Moral Ads rather than Legal Ads if you don't want yo be overwhelmed by the complexity of national laws or even get yourself in trouble in the future.
Anyone playing on global level needs to strongly hold on to morality rather than legality especially when certain laws are unclear or doesn't sound right..unless they have the resources to defend themselves in complicated circumstances.
And it's important to use those who actually understand what moral or immoral is and know how to use it properly to navigate through the complexities of national laws without really committing crime and getting themselves in trouble

Love this question. We have absolutely no traffic requirements whatsoever. Anyone can show ads with our platform, either on a website, physical screen, digital billboard or AR virtual billboard (support for these will be announced soon). But how can we do this:

1. The fari token is divisible up to 18 decimal places, so for example,  we can pay you 0.000000000000000001 faris for a one month period. That's a level of divisibility that only crypto can give publishers.

2. We expect to have advertisers for which traffic of 10 people per month will be valuable. These advertisers will be regular people from local communities looking to fill churches seats, increase attendance to public hearings, and boost engagement for their local movements. We also anticipate a crowd of hobbyists advertisers who want to enrich their social media presence and appreciate global traffic even at a small scale.

3. Fraud is not possible in Bitfari, I repeat, it's not possible. We have already discussed this for digital billboards (https://bitfari.org/marketer-fraud/), in the case of websites fraud is easily avoidable: just charge for clicks. I know it sounds simple, but that is the solution we will present later. Content publishers join our platform, users pay a fee to visit sites that have joined our platform, and the money from clicks is distributed proportionally to receiving sites. Please note that while this solution is coming we have not announced it yet in a broad fashion and is not part of our August 22nd release. However, it is coming and we'll be glad to have you as a publisher then!

Excellent questions. Let me take them one at a time.

1. The product is not built to bypass the law. All the screens should comply with local regulations. Let me give you a key example: we have about 10K areas in the software, every area is roughly mapped to a city and a country. In this fashion, we know which laws apply, depending on the jurisdiction different disclaimers are shown in other to ensure compliance (let screen operators know which ads can or can't be shown in their jurisdictions). Auditors and pre-auditors are local customers tasked with screen/ad review under the network's guidance. Meaning they complete basic training letting them know which ads are appropriate, etc. Beyond that, we have social oracles (bots) that run on and off-chain to prevent spam, foul languages, superlatives (for China), name targeting (to avoid defamation), etc. We will launch with about 50 social oracles but I can picture it growing to nearly a thousand.

Given this very strict review process, there really is no room for fraud, there are many economic incentives for actors to complete a fair review and only show appropriate ads. We also devoted an entire section of our website to ad fraud prevention (https://bitfari.org/how-bitfari-prevents-ad-fraud/). But please remember this key fact: screen operators can delist ads and is in their best interest to do so because advertising laws are very actively enforced.


2.  Users are not anonymous, they are pseudonymous. The is no way in which they can abuse their pseudonymity. All ads have to undergo auditing unless the screens in which they will be projected are not public (for example private screens in offices and homes). Next, placing an ad costs money, about $25 a month in the US for example, so spammers are out of luck. Finally, auditing charges are non-refundable so, if you engage in content pollution, you might end up broke pretty soon. The bottom line is we have no tolerance for spam, hate language, foul language, or illegal ads.

Are there any minimum traffic or Alexa rank requirements for publishers to sign up like other ad networks have? As a publisher myself with an Alexa ranking of around #2,000,000, will I be able to register to this network?

 Intersting
I wonder how feasible this is considerig other things it may  likely  try to bypass to serve  any kind  of ads without restrictions.Does it bypass fair rules used to regulate ad companies?  And Can users who abuse their Anonimity with the service be held accountable? How easily can they be held accountable? I wonder how safe it will be if you can bypass lots of things without accountability

New video out. This one addresses the civic networking capabilities of Bitfari.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_atO1a0szA

Bitfari will be available globally from day 1. Docs, websites, and apps will be available in English, Spanish and French before Jan 2022. Testnet launch is Aug 22. There are no restrictions depending on the location to use the platform, however, some legal disclaimers will be different according to the region in which you deploy the screens. Two quick examples:

- You install Bitfari on your personal laptop to see contextual ads of your community and pre-audit ads to make extra money - no limitations anywhere. You get paid in faris from day one. If you happen to see an ad that was paid (not a free ad and not a Bitfari Foundation ad, you also get paid for that ad in BTC, STX, or DAI, your choice).

- You install a Bitfari connected dashboard app as a favorite link in your Smart TV in your home - no limitations anywhere. You get paid in faris from day one. The developer of the dashboard app also gets paid a cut. If you happen to see an ad that was paid (not a free ad and not a Bitfari Foundation ad, you also get paid for that ad in BTC, STX, or DAI, your choice).

- You install a storefront screen anywhere in Canada, for example. You will see a legal disclaimer that reads along the lines of: "In Canada, all advertisements should be displayed in English and French", therefore, as a screen operator you should only choose ads that meet this condition in Canada, Ads will come pre audited and flag to help you with this, but it is ultimately the responsibility of the screen operator to abide by the law of his/her jurisdiction. We understand that people want to make BTC and that mining with your screen will be easier than with a server farm of Asics but we do not advise breaking the law anywhere. Each screen is mapped to an area (lat, long plus country), in this fashion, we identify applicable laws and notify you beforehand. We also select local auditors whenever available. BTW, on average storefront screens are expected to earn about 100x more than private screens.

-  Let's assume you live under a government that is banning all sorts of outdoor advertisements. This happened in Brazil in 2006: https://newdream.org/blog/sao-paolo-ad-ban. Now, Bitfari is used for more than advertising. You can distribute messages or art, you can display store signage, etc.

In this case, you will still be able to use the platform in Brazil but we would show a legal disclaimer with a link to the law and a brief description. In this case, several agencies (the term we use for ad distribution channels) might disable ads in Brazil, but the blockchain will always be opened to all due to the nature of the service (it can be used for messaging and signage as well as advertisements).

- There are other markets with complicated rules (see this controversial article https://www.wired.com/story/google-ads-sanctioned-countries-iran/). Again, we show the appropriate legal disclaimers, maybe some advertisers choose to only show contextual ads on mobile phones due to the nature of the market, maybe screen operators need an additional feature that will allow them to make money and comply with regulations. In this case, we ship an updated screen projection app (essentially the wallet app used by screen operators), and then the market can keep growing.

Hope that helps clear things up.

This looks like a great deal to purchase domain for $5 valid for five years, if regular websites can also work with that domain.

Thank you for detailed explanation about auditors and screen operators, last question I would ask if this service is available in all countries or there are some restriction?

- You can go to btc.us to purchase the decentralized domains and get more info.

- Social oracles are blockchain smartcontracts + client functions primarily built to prevent spam not to censor. They block DOS attacks (ultra fast posting), ads that do not contaictionary words, bad words, and that sort of thing. Auditors cannot censor an ad, they only evaluated. Screen operators scan block an ad, but they have an incentive to show it. Auditors are rewarded by the publishers, our platform is the first to make auditing transparent. The dynamic between auditors, publishers and screen operators occurs within the social oracles programmatic bounds, ensuring a fair treatment for all. Auditors and social oracles are there to prevent fraud: report malfunctioning screens, non-existent screens, covered screens, etc. Social oracles are mainly programs to block spammy ads.

Who audits the auditors? The publisher and others. When you deploy an ad to multiple locations, auditors create a body of data that spans the city. This data sort of evens out as you add auditors (central limit theorem and similar theory applies here). Meaning, the more auditors you have, the better the reporting gets.  Again, ads are not blocked based on auditing, they are only evaluated.

- We are building the platform for 100M screen operators. Anyone can be a screen operator. It's as easy as installing an app or going to a website in your Smart TV. You can show ads indoors, in your storefront, at your church, the gym, your office, etc. The ads could be shown as stand alone programming or be intertwined with apps like message boards, dashboards, online content, etc. The the money coming from ads shown is distributed to screen operators, app developers, auditors (if applicable) and son on. So a new economy is created for smart screens. Before you had many operators with independent platforms, now we plan to consolidate everything on a single platform, pay via crypto and renew the privacy social contract between marketers and consumers.

Anyone wanting to operate a screen can be up and running in 10 minutes. There is no contract to sign, no special equipment required, and you can set everything up online. We launch on Testnet August 22nd. To get ready install a Stacks wallet (https://bitfari.org/wallets/) and read our getting started guide (https://bitfari.org/get-started/). If you join the waitlist I will personally call you to confirm everything went well and provide free assistance if necessary.

Ok that is interesting.
How and where can people purchase this domains and see more information about them?

This is where I see potential problem, because youtube and google is also using machines and their algorithms to censor everything they don't like, and machines are programed by humans.
People on the other hand can be influenced with money and I don't know who will audit the auditers.

Who exactly are screen operators, your business partners maybe? And how easy can someone become screen operator?

Excellent comment. Our bet here is the redefinition of advertising's social contract. While it is weird to be retargeted and shown ads for new cars at CNN right after you were looking for baby strollers on Youtube we hope to bring the weirdness out of contextual ads.

See, if you have a shopping list in your wallet (this is part of what we call the disclosure matrix), where you specify that you are out to buy a stroller, shoes, and Thai food, Bitfari can show those matching ads only when you are in the vicinity of businesses with matching products offering a discount or promo that meets your preferred thresholds (say 10% for example).

Rewiring this social contract to clear up the expectations of the parties is what takes the weird factor out, because you are expecting, and even looking out for these ads. You can disable them in your phone, or only see them on your phone for added privacy. Anyhow, the ads are shown with a pseudonym we prepared called AlterEgo, from the whitepaper:


AlterEgo makes it easier to select better-looking pseudonyms that look great on an ad. Now, let's look at this scenario at scale. Say that 100 people walking thru a shopping mall have the app installed and running.

When looking at things at scale we have to realize that most of the ads shown will be matching ads, not directly in front of the customer (our solution doesn't use NFC but reference GPS targeting). In this scenario, the screens will not only calculate which ads to match to a particular customer, but which ads to match to a particular group of customers. And here is where it shows its true power. As soon as a couple of customers walk by with the app, it will be easy to identify whether they are a group of tourists, vegan eaters, or poetry lovers.

The app can then show ads for the group and enjoy a heightened matching probability because now it has information on segments of the crowds and not the individual per se. This is what all the literature in the field has been striving to find: how can we identify masses of people with certain commonalities and advertise to those in order to maximize results.

Finally just wanted to add that matching doesn't come at an extra cost. It only a single cost billed on matching/display. To give you an idea matching could cost you between 1 and 5 cents (depending on foot traffic) and ad displays could run you about a dollar a day for community ads and about $2 a day for agency ads if you show them on a 70 inch smart TV.