Development Update 012 — Roadmap & Estimated Release Dates
Hello all. Welcome to our twelfth development update post. Since we now have our full development team together and work is getting done, we have finally been able to come up with some estimated release dates for the initial launch of Social, along with some future releases. Of course, all dates are subject to change, although we feel very confident that we can hit all targets within the stated timeframes below or sooner.
V 2.0 — Initial Launch — Early March 2018
The initial launch of Social will be completed in early March. The entire team feels very optimistic that this could be completed sooner, although we need to allocate time for the third party security audits that we want to perform. These audits will be outsourced to a local security specialist firm that will check over all code and perform penetration testing on both client and server. As everyone in this industry knows, security is extremely important when dealing with money (SCL in this case).
We may consider an exclusive closed beta in late February while the security audits are being performed, although that is yet to be confirmed.
The initial launch will contain things such as logging in, signing up, posting, community section, events, groups, instant messaging, notifications, searching and image uploading (with Storj).
V 2.0.X — Bug Fixes & Improvements — Late March 2018
Once version 2.0 has been released and users begin to use the platform regularly, bugs will arise and improvements will need to be implemented. We will have a help centre within the platform where the community can recommend improvements, voice their feedback, and report any bugs that they may find. We have allocated a full two weeks for this so that we can get the platform cleaned up and working smoothly after the initial launch of 2.0.
Both the front end and back end projects will be open sourced during this release as public Github repos.
V 2.1 — Wallet & Third Party Account Integrations — Early April 2018
The initial launch will not come with a wallet integration as this requires a lot of work. We decided to distance the initial launch from the wallet so that version 2.0 could be released sooner, and so that we could begin marketing to attract new users and raise awareness about Social.
The wallet we plan on integrating will support SCL and ETH to begin with. It will be a very safe wallet where users can store both tokens on Social securely without worry. Encryption will happen both client side and server side.
We will also be integrating third party social network accounts, such as LinkedIn and Facebook. As stated in our previous blog post, these integrations are only for finding and inviting friends who you already know from other social network accounts that you may have.
V 2.2 —Ad Platform — Late April 2018
Our ad platform will be developed, integrated and released inside of April. Ads on Social will work a bit differently to traditional ad platforms. Impressions will be paid up front in SCL for the request amount. For example, if Bob wants 20,000 impressions on his ad, he will be required to pay that upfront in SCL from his account wallet instantly.
Basic statistics and analytics will be displayed to the user via their ad dashboard. These will be things such as how many impressions the user is getting from different countries, how many per day, how many used, how many remaining, basic charts, etc.
Ads will not be target specific upon first launch (besides country targeting), although that may change after a few months. We will not be saving detailed interactions on Social, yet instead plan on targeting users who belong to specific groups. For example, if Bob is a member in many different Ethereum groups and events, and Jane wants to target her ads to users who like Ethereum, she’ll eventually be able to do that. For the time being, ads will not be age or gender specific since we classify that data as private.
All ads will be displayed in-feed within the users main news feed and will consist of an image (strict dimensions), text content (strict length) and a URL. The platform will be self-serve, although all ads must be approved by our support team before going live.
V 2.3 — Marketplace —Mid May 2018
The marketplace is a huge feature of Social. It will allow users to upload products and services to the platform that are for sale. All pricing and transactions will be in SCL, and all purchasing will be automated. For example, if Bob wants to purchase a laptop from Jane for 1000 SCL, he can simply click the “Buy” button within the marketplace post that Jane created. The amount of SCL will be automatically moved from Bob’s account to Jane’s account, finalising the transaction and confirming that Bob purchased the item.
There will be no escrow based services on initial launch of the marketplace. We do plan on integrating such as service down the track. The marketplace will be regulated straight away, meaning that no illegal services or products can be sold or created.
All groups and events will have marketplaces where items can be uploaded directly to the dedicated news feed there. For example, if there is an Ethereum specific event, users can upload Ethereum merchandise products to the events marketplace section for purchase.
V 2.4 — Crowdfunds — Late May to Early June 2018
Crowdfund posts can be created by users wanting to raise SCL for many different purposes/causes. Different reasons include charity donations, emergencies (eg. medical bills), business (eg. raising capital) and many more.
Just like the marketplace posts, crowdfunds can be posted specifically on groups and events, along with being posted as a normal post publicly.
Crowdfund posts will display the amount raised, the total overall goal, end dates, possible rewards, donation history (users can choose to keep their donation anonymous if they choose) and much more.
V 2.5 — Multi-Lingual Functionality — Late June
The platform will support six major languages by late June, being the following:
- English
- Spanish
- Japanese
- Chinese (Mandarin)
- Korean
- Hindi
We have had many requests for both Korean and Japanese versions of the platform, so that is why we are prioritising both over many other popular languages displayed in the graphic above.
More languages will be added constantly as the demand for them grows. Different builds of the site will be created per version so that the build can be hosted in a location where the majority of the native speakers reside. This will allow faster loading speeds while using Social.
The translations will be for the static content of the website only — such as “Group” in English displaying as “Grupo” in Spanish. If a user has Spanish as their preferred language, posts created in English will stay in English. We will integrate further translation services in the near future to translate these on demand .
V 2.6 & Beyond — Rest of 2018
The rest of 2018 will consist of further feature releases that will be pushed fortnightly, along with more bug fixes and improvements. The following list of what we plan on completing in the second half of 2018.
- Further token compatibility (ERC20 tokens).
- ShapeShift integration for token swapping within the account wallet.
- Development and integration of the Social instant account debit card.
- Begin native mobile application development (both Android & iOS).
- End-to-end instant messaging encryption (mobile only).
- Send SCL instantly to another user via instant messaging.
- Self-governing by allowing users to become platform moderators.
- Further language support.
- Business/Company/Organisation pages.
- Open API for third party single sign-on capability integrations.
- Allowing self-hosted wallets with MetaMask.
- Continuously adding new features suggested by the users.
That sums up this weeks update. If all goes well, we could see the initial launch of the platform in just four months from now!
We’ll have another announcement at the same time next week regarding development and project updates. As always, email us at support@nexus.social with any questions that you may have, or if you would like to voice your opinion regarding a language translation that you would like to see prioritised.
