The missing roles in social network
Most popular social networks center around three key groups of players: the company, the users and the advertisers. That is the case with Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat but also with Quora which supposes to be “a place to share knowledge and better understand the world”. In this model, the network is owned by the company which is producing the software for the users and designing different features and tactics to keep the users staying as long as possible. At the same time, that attention is sold to the advertisers to generate the revenue and profit. Consequently, the company is exploiting user’s data as much as possible so that the maximal amount of advertising revenue could be earned. Users will also use the network only as long as the network keeps them happy but none would consider to be a contributor of the network.
Wikipedia is a wonderful example of the effort of the collaborators who care about a network and create a free encyclopedia which is accessible to everyone, everywhere. However, we don’t see the due recognition for the contributors to Wikipedia who work mostly behind the scene. But the advancement of blockchain technology and cryptographic tokens allows for the design of an open decentralized network that rewards and incentivizes participants in the network such as users, developers, investors, contributors etc. We are working toward reimagining a new social network that recognizes the important role of the contributors in building the network. There is also an important role for the coin holders who will be instrumental to the governance of the social network in the future.
In this model, the company is producing the software to the network but is not the eventual owner of the decentralized network which belongs to the collective of the coin holders. A part of the initial coin distribution goes to the investors of the network and a part will be distributed over years to the contributors of the network thanks to a network reward engine which is fair and cheat-resistant. Users take advantage of the benefit of the network for free and advertisers can pay a fair price to the network to get their messages to the willing users. In the network, there will be no intrusion of user’s privacy and no surveillance. The contributor’s role will be duly recognized. The token is given values based on a Proof of Contribution to the network which is similar to proof of work and the tokens become the native means of payment within the network.
Tomoapp and Tomocoin will be the first to apply these principles to build a decentralized question and answer and video blogging social network. Tomoapp focuses on building a useful library of instructional videos and setup a decentralized network of experts and helpers in multiple relevant topics that can be consulted and chatted with instantly. It is anticipated that if these building principles resonate, contributors will work together and with the software engineers to build the network successfully. On the foundation of this network, a decentralized identity layer can emerge and be used at other places and Tomocoin can act as a popular crypto-currency of the mainstream users. We made a short animated video introducing about Tomoapp and Tomocoin here:
Website and app https://tomoapp.com/ and https://www.tomocoin.io/
