[Feedback Needed] - A Social Network for Cryptocurrencies

[jmxcursi]

Hey guys,

I have been working on a social network designed specifically for cryptocurrencies, with the goal of helping bring crypto to a more mainstream audience. My theory is that the average, non-tech-savvy consumer isn't going to check subreddits, coin forums, coin websites, etc., (at least not actively) since most of these resources are pretty technical (no offense bitcointak!). By explaining the key points of crypto in laymans terms and wrapping it up in a social experience, I'm hoping to build a more approachable resource for the average consumer and ultimately boost mainstream adoption.

But this endeavor has brought me to a crossroads on a few different features that I don't think I can answer myself, so I am here to get some feedback from the larger community. Below I will list the pros and cons of these features I am considering, and some tentative solutions. I would love to get your thoughts before I proceed any further!

1. Users being able to review coins. What are your thoughts on each coin being "reviewable"?

Pros:
* Users can call out the ponzi schemes and shit coins for what they are, and hopefully save some people from losing a bunch of money.
* Users can get a quick glimpse into the legitimacy / enthusiasm behind a coin. Everyone has a fancy website these days, but only a few coins actually have a strong and vibrant community.

Cons:
* People might blur the lines on what it is they are actually reviewing. For example, if you have an issue with an exchange or some other service, that's an issue with the exchange or service, not the coin. Furthermore, if you buy high and the price goes down, that's also not grounds for a negative coin review because price is up to the free market, not the coin or its developers.
* I don’t want to deter developers from listing their coins on the app due to a potential fear of receiving negative reviews (devs can’t delete user reviews).

I understand that devs are creating open source software to make the world a better place, and I want to reward them for that. The purpose of creating a profile is to help them connect with new users and grow their community, not to hurt them with potentially negative reviews, but I can’t tell which impact a coin review system would have: a net gain or net loss.

Proposed Solution:
* Rather than having an open-ended review system of 1 thru 5 stars, I'm thinking about providing a rubric where I ask for a star breakdown on specific criteria, to help steer user reviews to the appropriate topics:
  * Rate 1 - 5 on "Community"
  * Rate 1 - 5 on "Innovation / Uniqueness"
  * Rate 1 - 5 on <Insert Category Here?>
  * Provide a comment to summarize the above star ratings.

In addition, since many users will still leave unwarranted reviews no matter how hard I try to prevent it, I can enforce that any coin reviews that focus on external forces such as price, services, merchants, etc. will be subject to removal.

In your estimation, would this be something worth building?

2. "Claimed" Pages. What are your thoughts on members from the core team being able to come in and "claim" their coin profile on the app? Coins evolve over time, and in a world where there are millions of coins out there, I would become a bottleneck if I tried to manage each profile and the information within it by myself.

Pros of claiming:
* I am no longer a bottleneck. Members of the core team can take ownership of keeping the coin information up-to-date, with changes published real-time.

Cons:
* The notion of “claiming” a coin page feels contradictory to the concept of decentralization, which essentially states that no person or group of people can lay claim to a coin.

Yet, most altcoins have a "team" section on their website, which makes it relatively clear who, if anyone, should have admin rights over the page. Examples:

* Ethereum has a core team and is even "verified" on twitter: https://twitter.com/ethereumproject
* Dash promotes the core team on its website: https://www.dash.org/team/
* The Litecoin core team can be contacted directly at contact@litecoin.org

But this doesn't feel to be the same for bitcoin. Here is a quote lifted directly from bitcoin.org:

"Bitcoin.org is not Bitcoin's official website. Just like nobody owns the email technology, nobody owns the Bitcoin network. As such, nobody can speak with authority in the name of Bitcoin."

So this begs the question... who would "claim" / administer the Bitcoin page?

Proposed Solution:
* I don't have one to be honest, but I’m hoping to find one here. My heart feels like the user experience would be far better if members of the core team had admin rights over their page in order to keep the content fresh and respond to user questions and reviews. But at the same time, I could see a "Claimed" badge offending some people in the crypto ecosystem.

Any feedback you have would be greatly appreciated! Thank You!

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[Qartersa]

Hi! I think putting Bitcoin in social media is a good publicity especially to those who have no idea about the said subject. However, publicity has its own share of advantages and disadvantages. Some might be too engrossed to even buy a huge sum of Bitcoins at once whilst some might be too conventional to consider ever resorting to Bitcoins. Nonetheless, publicity is publicity. It more often than not surpasses what it is confronted with.

Having said so, I suppose you should not be bothered about the negativity that might be thrown at you since it is the idea that you are presenting them with that is the utmost concern. Differences can only open the floodgates of better understanding and reasoning especially when shared with a common goal of looking into the other perspective. And when worse comes to worst, you must know that it is best to agree to disagree. Perhaps we are all entitled to our own opinions. To each his own, as they say.

Best to present your cause in the most positive way you can, and let the world take its course. You cannot take control of everything especially with the power of social media.

[hatshepsut93]

Hey guys,

I have been working on a social network designed specifically for cryptocurrencies, with the goal of helping bring crypto to a more mainstream audience. My theory is that the average, non-tech-savvy consumer isn't going to check subreddits, coin forums, coin websites, etc., (at least not actively) since most of these resources are pretty technical (no offense bitcointak!). By explaining the key points of crypto in laymans terms and wrapping it up in a social experience, I'm hoping to build a more approachable resource for the average consumer and ultimately boost mainstream adoption.

It's impossible to launch a massively successful social network in these days, why would people leave Facebook and Twitter if all their friends are there? Besides, it would be just another, like you said, "technical" website about cryptocurrencies. If you want to bring some information to mainstream, you need to use mainstream channels - Facebook, Twitter, Reddit. It works well for news, social media are very well competing with TV and newspapers. Promoting cryptocurrencies in similar way is enough, people will come when they will start seeing massive benefits for them in it.

[worldmobilecoin]

Hey guys,

I have been working on a social network designed specifically for cryptocurrencies, with the goal of helping bring crypto to a more mainstream audience. My theory is that the average, non-tech-savvy consumer isn't going to check subreddits, coin forums, coin websites, etc., (at least not actively) since most of these resources are pretty technical (no offense bitcointak!). By explaining the key points of crypto in laymans terms and wrapping it up in a social experience, I'm hoping to build a more approachable resource for the average consumer and ultimately boost mainstream adoption.

But this endeavor has brought me to a crossroads on a few different features that I don't think I can answer myself, so I am here to get some feedback from the larger community. Below I will list the pros and cons of these features I am considering, and some tentative solutions. I would love to get your thoughts before I proceed any further!

1. Users being able to review coins. What are your thoughts on each coin being "reviewable"?

Pros:
* Users can call out the ponzi schemes and shit coins for what they are, and hopefully save some people from losing a bunch of money.
* Users can get a quick glimpse into the legitimacy / enthusiasm behind a coin. Everyone has a fancy website these days, but only a few coins actually have a strong and vibrant community.

Cons:
* People might blur the lines on what it is they are actually reviewing. For example, if you have an issue with an exchange or some other service, that's an issue with the exchange or service, not the coin. Furthermore, if you buy high and the price goes down, that's also not grounds for a negative coin review because price is up to the free market, not the coin or its developers.
* I don’t want to deter developers from listing their coins on the app due to a potential fear of receiving negative reviews (devs can’t delete user reviews).

I understand that devs are creating open source software to make the world a better place, and I want to reward them for that. The purpose of creating a profile is to help them connect with new users and grow their community, not to hurt them with potentially negative reviews, but I can’t tell which impact a coin review system would have: a net gain or net loss.

Proposed Solution:
* Rather than having an open-ended review system of 1 thru 5 stars, I'm thinking about providing a rubric where I ask for a star breakdown on specific criteria, to help steer user reviews to the appropriate topics:
  * Rate 1 - 5 on "Community"
  * Rate 1 - 5 on "Innovation / Uniqueness"
  * Rate 1 - 5 on <Insert Category Here?>
  * Provide a comment to summarize the above star ratings.

In addition, since many users will still leave unwarranted reviews no matter how hard I try to prevent it, I can enforce that any coin reviews that focus on external forces such as price, services, merchants, etc. will be subject to removal.

In your estimation, would this be something worth building?

2. "Claimed" Pages. What are your thoughts on members from the core team being able to come in and "claim" their coin profile on the app? Coins evolve over time, and in a world where there are millions of coins out there, I would become a bottleneck if I tried to manage each profile and the information within it by myself.

Pros of claiming:
* I am no longer a bottleneck. Members of the core team can take ownership of keeping the coin information up-to-date, with changes published real-time.

Cons:
* The notion of “claiming” a coin page feels contradictory to the concept of decentralization, which essentially states that no person or group of people can lay claim to a coin.

Yet, most altcoins have a "team" section on their website, which makes it relatively clear who, if anyone, should have admin rights over the page. Examples:

* Ethereum has a core team and is even "verified" on twitter: https://twitter.com/ethereumproject
* Dash promotes the core team on its website: https://www.dash.org/team/
* The Litecoin core team can be contacted directly at contact@litecoin.org

But this doesn't feel to be the same for bitcoin. Here is a quote lifted directly from bitcoin.org:

"Bitcoin.org is not Bitcoin's official website. Just like nobody owns the email technology, nobody owns the Bitcoin network. As such, nobody can speak with authority in the name of Bitcoin."

So this begs the question... who would "claim" / administer the Bitcoin page?

Proposed Solution:
* I don't have one to be honest, but I’m hoping to find one here. My heart feels like the user experience would be far better if members of the core team had admin rights over their page in order to keep the content fresh and respond to user questions and reviews. But at the same time, I could see a "Claimed" badge offending some people in the crypto ecosystem.

Any feedback you have would be greatly appreciated! Thank You!

Good idea. Especially about coin review. We need this a lot so we can create awareness among public. Just do it. No body know what will happen later. Good Luck 

[OROBTC]

...

jmxcursi

You have an interesting idea, but I am not sure if there is a large enough community sufficiently dedicated to Bitcoin to support a social network.  Already Facebook has groups that follow BTC.

Allowing Signature Campaigns like this forum does might bring in more users as they could make some pocket change from posting...

You might consider checking with the owners of bitcointalk to see if they would work with you (and hope they don't STEAL your idea).

Good luck!

[iamTom123]

I am in favor of this idea and this can really help to further popularized Bitcoin and many other altcoins. We are in the age of social media and it is about time we have niche-focused social media which is in this case cryptocurrency. I just hope that it would really achieve the critical mass as soon as possible as a social media with no adequate number of members would just slowly die as participation and sharing within the site can be so important.

[ikilledcobain]

It's an interesting idea, but I don't see it gaining much traction at this point. I don't think the average person knows what cryptocurrency is, let alone are they interested in it - even in a easier to swallow format.

The review process is, as you mentioned, tricky. Reviews can be manipulated pretty easily.

Best of luck with your project, though.

[theRattler]

Hey man, it lack any kind of draw for the average person, I think it has potential but a social media creative mind is needed.  I have significant experience working on altcoins in various social media capacities if you want to have a chat some time about the idea and possible draws.

[arwin100]

Unique ideas dev and this one would be great if it really be made by your team but you should also need some good promotion so that New altcoin devs will notice your service and paste their coin so that your site will be valuable to us. And also if you have a plan to give some credits on your site user then don't make it so cheap so that they will not be bored to stay in their. Remember people's traffic are more valuable since it could make you successfull.

[d5000]

I had a similar idea once, but still haven't begun to realize it and as at the moment I have no time for it, I'll share some thoughts.

1. Users being able to review coins. What are your thoughts on each coin being "reviewable"?

I think it's great, but it has to be well done. It must be as differentiated as possible (without sacrificing usability) because trolling, fudding and on the other hand, critique-less advertising is a major problem in the cryptocurrency community, because everyone is invested in some asset/coin/token and wants naturally to protect his/her investment.

So I support your idea to offer reviews on specific categories.

An idea to combat trolling could be a fact-checking section that allows to "lock in" a fact if there is a reliable source for it (e.g. "was premined", "is not open source", "was the first with innovation X" etc.).

I would also be in favour of providing a large amount of facts & data about each currency (e.g. blockchain.info style charts about transaction volume, trading volume etc., so people can see instantly if the currency is really being used/traded or not).

I would provide these data in conjunction with widely used linked data standards (RDF(s), JSON-LD etc.)

2. "Claimed" Pages

That's a difficult question. Cryptocurrencies who have an "official" team tend to have a centralized development model, so I wouldn't encourage that openly.

I would more be in favour of an "wikipedia-like" administration system with administrators that are voted by the community and can change/delete controversial edits and block users.