Vol 1, Issue 1. UNews, 10 April 2019
Welcome back, another month has gone by and much has changed. This time around we bring you a special discussion with U Network Project Lead Yi Lu, development and launch of Upbet, and an intro to UBuild. Let's dive in.
What is UBuild?
When it comes to blockchain and cryptocurrency projects, you can tell very quickly which will likely succeed, struggle or fail by the way their communities talk and go about promoting their project. The benefits of a strong community that engage with each other are two-fold; it incentivises the project’s team to keep working through any issues as they arise because they are encouraged by the spirit of those that believe in what is being built, and importantly a strong community can also help the project onboard new investors, capital and assist in product development or direction.
So, what is UBuild and how did it evolve into what is now? The initial incantation of pooling community talents together was proposed by community member Trevor on 4 November 2018 as part of a wider telegram chat about fostering community and developing projects to work alongside those from U Network. From these humble beginnings, UBuild has been Trevor’s private project for many months with expanded goals of facilitating community engagement through tools such as searchable user skill databases, community project systems and self-governed community subgroups for particular community functions.
I was recently invited by Trevor to assist in the final testing of UBuild and I can tell you now that what he has built for the community is nothing short of remarkable. There are many things you would expect to find, but my favorite is the ability to create your ideas and projects and manage these items effectively. The group's function is very helpful and will assist community members to engage with other like-minded individuals. As Trevor explained to me:
While users are free to create their own private or public groups on UBuild, there are 4 distinct "default" groups: Builders, Knowers, Creators and Influencers, each aimed towards a particular community function.
These default groups are as the names suggest and will help community develop and implement their plans effectively. What group might you be part of? Do you have a large social media following, you might be an Influencer. Or do you write, paint or make videos for instance, you might be a Creator? How will your contributions on UBuild affect U Network’s future? A strong community built on UBuild and existing U Network social tools will, in my opinion, have a great synergy that will assist in increasing U Network’s brand awareness and in turn will deliver results for the community.
I will be interacting with the community on UBuild when launched on 12 April. For updates leading up to launch and community projects that begin and develop follow UBuildHQ on Twitter. Join UNews in May for a follow up piece with UBuilder Trevor, if you have any questions you want asked please drop a comment below.
Upbet Developments
Upbet public alpha release officially went live on 19 March to great applause from the community. In little to no time at all Upbet had 20M UUU deposited in to the platform. At time of writing nearly 100M UUU is being staked or used in content betting markets that vary wildy between crypto price predictions, sports, politics and movie plots!
Before the public release though, the community was invited to take part in a systems test and assist in ironing out any of the products issues. There was also a competition for these testers to take part and create prediction markets with real UUU as prizes. All in all over the 2 weeks of testing, 6 testers ended up with over a 10% profit, with some over 43% up over the fortnight. In the end, user known as Ricky4444 took first place, with NKNUUU, totoro, QAQo and katakoto finishing hot on his heels. The 5 players split the 500,000 UUU prize that was on offer.
Though the product went through a thorough test before the public release, we have to remember that the product is only 3 weeks old and is still in a process of improvement and upgrading. Things which have been changed directly out of community feedback include:
- Direct linkages to result source
- Images can be added as part of the rules when creating a market
- Markets now validated (voting can’t end after the market ends), result sources are mandatory
- Result appeal process now available with the ended market
- Governance model under discussion
Further discussions are taking place within the team and wider community regarding product improvements and how to improve the user experience. Upgrades to Upbet are in development including 2FA and withdraw email verification for improved account security, along with many other community-suggested user interface improvements. Want to join in the discussion or have a suggestion, find the link below to Discord!
Why not check Upbet out yourself, deposit some UUU, create or bet on a market and collect your daily reward! Visit upbet.io.
Yi Lu — Co-Founder and Project Lead of U Network answers your Community Questions
Everyday in Telegram and Discord I see community members asking tough questions about U Network’s progress, lack of marketing, and future vision among other things. So who is the right person to answer these questions? I approached Yi Lu, Co-Founder and Project Lead of U Network to answer some of the community questions that are commonly asked. His responses are insightful and will enlighten the toughest critic. Yi and I touched on a variety of topics, such as: what is the relationship between U Network and SV Insight, why there is a lack of marketing at present, Ask Me Anything sessions and Exchanges. Below is from our discussions.
Q1. What is the link between SV Insight and U Network? The community understands there is a link, but can you provide details?
A1. “SV insight is a very important strategic partner of U Network. Some of the core members are from SV Insight. SV insight share a lot of marketing resource with U Network”.
Q2. Speaking of our U Network’s partners how does the relationship between U Network and our partners work? Are U Network integrating functions from these partners into U Networks dapps for instance?
A2. “Right now, a lot of the partnerships are in community side, including online campaign and offline meetup, especially in China and the US. Whether we integrate function from these partners to suit out needs, we will decide this from our future product development” Yi continues, “Blockchain technology is evolving very fast, we don’t want to make rush decisions… we always try to find win-win opportunities with our partners”. When it comes to what future partnerships may be in store for U Network, Yi has made clear that there have been many proposals made by others to work with U Network, and “we usually refuse those that we don’t know, or see no potential value. We are still open for other partnerships”.
Q3. What progress the team is making? There is angst in the community about what happened to the ‘Steemit Killer’? Some parts of the community also ask about UCommunity, where is this product? Do the team take on board community suggestions? What items are under development and to what timeline?
A3. “UCommunity has (been) upgraded to Chongdongshequ”. For those that are not aware what Chongdongshequ is follow the link below for a more in depth detail on the project by Ken You.
“(The current) focus (is) on Upbet for Q2 and Q3 to grow our community. (The) Steemit like product international version will launch Q4 hopefully”.
Q4. In terms of getting the products in development or released to market such as Upbet, what strategies are in place? The community see a lack of marketing by U Network now and are concerned that the products being built will be ignored when interest returns in a bull cycle.
A4. “For product marketing (such as Upbet), we are more focused on user acquisition and user growth instead of marketing. Right now we are in still in alpha phase, and we are quickly updating or upgrading the function”.
“For U Network marketing, we will start more intense marketing globally, also exploring other countries like South Korea”.
Q5. Marketing and exchange listings run hand in hand. Ken You said on 17 December 2018 that a new exchange had been ‘secured’. Is that exchange still on track? Are U Network taking steps to be listed elsewhere?
A5. “(That) exchange is still on track. We are also working on other exchanges”.
Q6. Lastly, the community frequently ask in Telegram “where’s the team, there’s only this Ken guy”. It’s a fair question to ask, what steps are being taken this year to improve community engagement?
A6. “(I am) sorry for not involving the community (while) building in last year. I will start to do a regular Q&A and Ask Me Anything Bi-Weekly from next week”.
I thank Yi Lu, for his time in answering these questions for the community. We look forward to Yi, engaging with the wider community more often as well as delivering on Upbet and the Steemit like project later this year. Yi is often found in Discord, where there are multiple discussions ongoing regarding Upbet in particular. A link to the Discord channel is found below.
Other News from U Network this month!
- UGot-Blockboost partnership elected as a IoTeX delegate.
- Mainnet developments included the optimization, testing, and updates of the Mainnet UChange’s on-chain governance and preliminary research on the Bancor protocol functions.
- Community developer of the Telegram bot decided to redeploy on U Network development server
Want to interact with UBuild from 12 April? Find it here — https://www.buildunetwork.com
Interested more in what UCommunity became? Check out Ken You’s feature on it from 21 November 2018 — ChongDong: A Blockchain Tech-Driven Content and E-Learning Platform Build on U Network
I am community member of U Network and follow their official channels. All opinions in this piece are my own and may not reflect that of U Network.
If you want to follow me, I am active on Twitter @tennisnick1 and @UNewsHQ. You can also find me on the U Network official Telegram and Discord channels with the tennisnick1 handle.
