In an era when people are increasingly disenfranchised with traditional social media, the Internet industry’s brightest minds are looking for new models of user-generated content distribution. Ted O’Neill has been working on this problem for over 20 years and is adamant that users should be rewarded for creating content. In an exclusive interview with Zichain, he shares the details of his next-generation content network Narrative.
Ted, please tell us a little bit about yourself and your career path.
I have been developing online engagement platforms for over 20 years. The first company I founded, Social Strata, has served thousands of companies with its SaaS solutions, including many large brands. We have pioneered many of the standards associated with online communities and user-generated content in general.
For those of our readers unfamiliar with it, could you please give a brief overview of your current project — Narrative? How did you first come up with the idea behind it?
Because I have been working with so many different online communities over the years, I’ve seen just about every issue associated with managing user-generated content: the clashes between the community owner and the community members, the contention over content ownership, the struggle to encourage good behavior and minimize the role of bad actors. And I was around long before the large social network came to prominence.
Narrative, as a concept, is something I’ve been noodling over for years. It was initially about two ideas — making online content more organized and ensuring that the consumers and creators of the content are the ones who set the rules and reap the rewards.
I created a whitepaper in the summer of 2017 that comprehensively described a new paradigm for online content. We would create a network where the members governed, where the content was organized by unique subjects we call Niches, and where 85% of all revenue is paid to the participants of the network.
We look at Narrative as a content economy. Its purpose is to be the fairest, most democratic content platform in the world. The members decide what subjects (Niches) are valid. All content is rated in terms of quality and age-appropriateness. And the reputation you earn via your actions determines how much influence you have.
We did a soft launch of our Beta for Narrative in April 2019 and we continue to add major pieces to the platform.
Could you please describe the project’s business model? What are the main sources of revenue and how is it distributed between users?
The business model is designed to incentivize all participants in the network. All incoming revenue (Niche and publication fees, advertising, token mint, etc.) is put into a Rewards Pool. Once per month, the system analyzes all activity on the network for that month and determines how much each person has earned (based on a published formula).
85% of the rewards are paid out to the members that and 15% is paid to the company for its role (which is limited to system design, software development, legal, and marketing). Content creators earn the biggest share of the pie (60%), but rewards are also paid to Niche owners, Niche moderators, the community-elected governing body (called the Tribunal), and to members in general for their overall activities (like voting and rating content).
The more that you positively contribute, the more you will earn. But we also have tools in place to reduce the impact of bots and bad actors who might see this as a means to earn easy rewards.
How would you describe the target audience of Narrative? Why would they choose it over other platforms?
If you create content, Narrative is a great option because you can be confident that no middleman will censor you or change the rules on you arbitrarily. Our business model is focused on creating a great environment for creators (and rewarding them fairly and transparently). Our Niche system will only grow in importance as the network scales, meaning that as you link your content to specific subjects, Narrative becomes a great way to link creators with audiences.
And from a consumer standpoint, Narrative is a good option because it respects your privacy and gives you control over your “feed”… you determine the subjects and people you are interested in and we don’t use algorithms to play games with that feed.
From what I gather, Narrative delegates content moderation entirely to its members. Does it mean that the company would have no control over offensive or explicit content if the members choose to include it?
Yes, exactly! Our company has no role in content moderation and it is up to the community to take action on content that violates the Acceptable Use Policy. This is a fundamental principle — that the company should have no role in deciding what content is good, bad, or offensive.
The company is only authorized to remove content unilaterally if it is issued a takedown notice from a legal/government entity. (I should point out, however, that currently the governing body that reviews appeals is manned by company staff, simply because Tribunal elections are not yet supported. The first Tribunal elections are scheduled for next April.)
All content in Narrative is rated by the community members. As a user, you can also choose to filter content by quality, as well.
I have noticed that you barely mention the words “cryptocurrency” or “blockchain” on the Narrative website. Is it a conscious choice for positioning your product?
Our principles are member governance and control, elimination of the middleman, and fair distribution of rewards. You can clearly associate those with the principles of blockchain, but we have never viewed ourselves as a “blockchain” company or even a crypto company. We happen to use crypto because we love the transparency it provides for our users (really useful for a reward system like ours), but our focus is on creating a truly great content economy.
It’s also important to us that Narrative is perceived not as simply a crypto project, but instead as a great content network that harnesses the power of crypto.
What are the next steps for the company? What milestones do you hope to achieve in 2019?
We continue to build out the core pieces of the platform. Our next major deliverable is support for Publications, which are branded spaces within Narrative that give their owners editorial control (who can edit and write). This is critical for organizations that wish to use Narrative. Publications should be available within the next month or so.
After that, we plan to add support for Moderator Elections, improved notifications, Tribunal Elections, and much more. We have a long road map that we are executing on as fast as we can.
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