What We Learned From The MEDIA Protocol And Loki Telegram AMA
As part of the ongoing development of MEDIA Protocol’s dApp, CryptoCatnip, the team have struck up partnerships with some exciting crypto projects. Loki is amongst the first wave of new crypto projects to partner up with MEDIA Protocol and use CryptoCatnip as a way of sharing their important announcements and blog posts.
On Friday 6th July 2018, MEDIA Protocol’s CEO, James Tabor, took the opportunity to sit down together with Simon Harman, Founder of Loki, for an AMA session, letting members of both communities ask questions via MEDIA Protocol’s Telegram channel.
In case you missed it, below is a summary of the interesting conversations that developed.
Working Together
Can you describe the collaboration between the two teams and how they benefit each other?
Collaboration is key for crypto projects to succeed. MEDIA Protocol and Loki occupy two very different parts of the crypto space. From a MEDIA Protocol point of view, Loki has a great headstart when it comes to thinking about privacy and rights to data. MEDIA Protocol allows brands and content creators to leverage various identity oracles and data services. So Loki could operate as one of those, but also the work they are doing on blockchain protocols means we can offer more solutions to our commercial partners moving forward.
How important is collaboration for Loki, as in focusing on certain aspects, and not duplicating the work others are doing in other areas?
Simon: That’s the great thing about Open Source development. We’re able to borrow quite a lot of work that others have done and combine them in a novel way.
James: Could not agree more. I believe that crypto is as much an Open Source revolution as it is anything else. The notion that projects need to overly protect or generate unique IP is at odds with the underpinning concepts of the space, in my opinion. We look closely at a number of potential collaborators, and make sure that we’re on top of the latest developments — especially around TPS and scalability. There are amazing teams tackling these challenges, and we are focused on addressing the challenges we see in our space first and foremost.
Do you have any content partners on board currently using the protocol?
We have a number of other crypto projects (including Loki) that are part of the TestNet application on CryptoCatnip. We are also speaking with major record labels, film studios, web infrastructure players, as well as content producers and publishers (the joy of NDAs prevents us from saying more).
However, you’ll see that our Advisory Board is made up of a number of influential people from across the industry.
About Loki
Loki gives the ability to transact privately — how does that desire for privacy co-exist with the transparency of the blockchain?
Most blockchains have no method of obfuscating transaction data at all. Every piece of information is published for everyone to see, forever. This is not a good property for many applications, especially if you want the currency in question to be fungible.
Loki is based on Monero’s transaction scheme (albeit with minor modifications to suit our project better). Monero uses 3 main techniques to hide the true nature of transaction: ring signatures, stealth addresses, and Rangeproofs (for RingCT) are all published to the blockchain. But without the corresponding private key, this data is essentially meaningless.
Will the capability of Snapps from Loki cause them to play more of a role as a Security since it is no longer classified just as a currency?
No. Securities are representations of certain ownership or rights within a company, association or business. Merely owning Loki affords users no ‘rights’, nor does it entitle the user to any dividends or voting rights within any organisation, formal or informal.
I put much hope in Loki due to it being considered Monero ver.2 and blockchain ver.3. However, PoS is a superior mining mechanism while Loki is still by PoW.
Loki is certainly not blockchain version 3, but we are trying to add functionality to what is already a great privacy protocol. As for PoS, I disagree that it is a ‘superior’ consensus mechanism. We are however using the ‘staking’ concept in our Service Nodes in the sense that they earn rewards derived from possession of the coin, but block creation will still be handled by miners.
I do however see the same theoretical utility in making block creators actually have a direct financial interest in the function of the network. However, there are concerns around centralisation that haven’t been ironed out yet. Who knows, Loki may eventually move all of its service nodes to become block creators too, but time will tell.
General Questions
How do you compare MEDIA Protocol with BAT?
Great question. We occupy two very different parts of the ecosystem — BAT is focused on improving / changing digital advertising infrastructure and quality. This looks to address the abuses consumers face from bots, malware, malicious tracking, poor load times, etc.
MEDIA Protocol is focused on identifying the consumers that bring real value to content through reading, liking and sharing, and then rewarding them. This creates a direct consumer-to-brand relationship that currently goes to centralised players. Content creators and brands decide how they want MPT to be distributed, and consumers will then use it to access paywalls or pay for content they love, making the internet frictionless.
In short — we address similar issues — centralisation, consumer experience abuse, fraud — but in different ways. Big fans of BAT.
How did you come up with the idea for MEDIA Protocol?
The MEDIA Protocol origin story!
The team has been working in the space for a number of years. We are tired of having to start interactions with each website afresh e.g. why can’t I use extra value from seeing YouTube ads to access paid articles?
When we read the Ethereum protocol it was the missing piece of the puzzle. AI and Big Data only get you so far, there are always question marks. Smart Contracts give us the ability to distribute value to other parties. It took us a long time to come up with a viable token model.
Tom Graham (Co-Founder) had a “lightbulb” one day and suggested we create “Smart URLs”. As they are the backbone of the digital world, it’s the best way of encouraging mass-adoption. It’s such a game changer!
For Content Creators
I’m a content creator, how simple can it be for me to promote my articles over CryptoCatnip?
Right now we are happy to accept feeds from any project that we know. Simon and I met in Hong Kong and got along, so here we are.
But seriously, we’re going to be launching a CryptoCatnip Publisher Portal soon, where you will be able to add your URLs, put MPT against them, and then see the information that comes back from your campaign.
If you are interested in taking part now, or joining our Alpha list, please get in touch via Telegram!
How do publishers/content producers go about implementing MEDIA Protocol?
We currently have a set of APIs / v1 of our dApp SDK that people can use to create their own applications. Our end goal is to make it as easy to add MPT as it is to add Stripe to an eCommerce stack. To do this we are working with Web Infrastructure partners and OEMs to make it as easy as possible for brands, content creators and marketers to implement our Open Source protocol.
How can MPT be used for advertising?
MPT can be used to understand the value of the network that brings value to pieces of content. Currently, we send URLs and money to centralised platforms that are incentivised to hoover up consumer interactions / data and then send them, piecemeal, back to the creator.
You can use MPT to understand which paid platforms are performing as desired and reward them accordingly. More importantly, it can be used to identify and reward the actors that bring the best quality interactions to content. We don’t think of ourselves as being content networks, but we actually participate in hundreds, and also own hundreds of our own.
MPT can be used to change the diagram from blanket “personalisation” to real interactions.
Will there be an easy to use interface, like a sort of publisher tools?
Yes, very much so. We are building an open source “Publisher Portal”.
This will be similar to the way that people already buy ads, or promote content online. Instead of teaching a user to code solidity, they will be able to easily add URLs, specify interactions and publish their “Smart URLs” to the blockchain.
Can you assign different amounts of MEDIA tokens for different engagement actions? And if so, how is that worked out, is it through a smart contract?
Yes and… yes!
To use MEDIA Protocol you hold MPT, you then log-in to the Publisher Portal and upload your URLs, e.g.: https://url1....; https://url2…
You then set the types of interactions, identity oracle and weighting of the distribution that you are looking to achieve. This is then created as a SmartWallet for URLs and written to the blockchain. After each interaction tokens are distributed to those that have performed it.
For Consumers
How do consumers actually earn MPT?
Whenever a user interacts with a piece of promoted content using any MEDIA Protocol dApp (for example CryptoCatnip, or a publisher website that uses the MEDIA Protocol SDK), they will receive a share of the MPT tokens that were set against the content by the promoter.
Can I earn MPT by sharing content outside of specific apps like CryptoCatnip?
Yes, as adoption grows each website or application that uses MEDIA Protocol will become a place to be rewarded with MPT, as well as a place to redeem it.
We see a future where your Grandmother gets MPT for sharing links with you on Facebook, and then uses them to access premium content about gardening, sport, news, music, and skateboarding (some Grannies skate!).
For more information regarding MEDIA Protocol find us on our social channels below:
Website: www.mediaprotocol.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MEDIAProtocol
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MEDIA_Protocol
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/media-protocol/
Telegram: https://t.me/Media_Protocol_Community and https://t.me/MP_Announcements
Medium: https://medium.com/@mediaprotocolsm
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MEDIAProtocol
You can find Loki at:
Website: https://loki.network
Telegram: https://t.me/LokiCommunity/ and https://t.me/LokiAnnouncements
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Loki_Project
