SUMMARYHey, we’re about to launch our Pre-ICO and would appreciate feedback and questions at this point. The details of the actual token sale will be published later, so please focus on whether this is something you’d see a worthy investment and whether you’d actually use a solution like this yourself.
Without any marketing jargon, here’s what we’re about to do:
We will launch a social media platform, that revolves around the things we buy, own, rent, lend, use and eventually dump. The platform will learn and grow to become more useful for you the more you use it.
Get the detailed description here in the whitepaper:
MEEKLA SITEWHITE PAPER
THE CHALLENGESWhether it’s a phone, a GPU, a tool or jewelry, they all play roles in our lives.
There isn’t a proper platform focusing on these out there yet. If you want to meet other people based on the things you own, you search for them and find different Facebook groups, subreddits, or maybe some discussion forums. None of them truly help to serve the needs or ways you’d need to be able to share information. Plus, through them you’ll probably never find out whether someone you know has that same thing as well, and if you’d only know that, you’d be able to discuss it with them instead of looking for it online.
There are a lot of social transactions occurring in our lives around the physical things we own or hope to own that have no digital outlet. When you visit your friend, you see they’ve bought a new television and it’s not simply small talk, when you start asking questions. You actually are interested and want to learn something: a person you trust has made a financial decision, and there’s some useful information there for you.
THE SOLUTIONMeekla platform is built to manage the lifecycle of any items after the item has been purchased. People are brought together based on the things they’ve added on the platform, and they’re able to share useful and fun information with each other, and sell, rent and borrow the things they own.
We’ve built an MVP with some of the features and it’s available as an alpha version on the Google Play Store. The focus of the MVP was to prove and test some of our theories, as our first app was too “sensible” for people.
Meekla is a platform built to manage the lifecycle of any items AFTER the item has been purchased. To find other people with similar interests, people scour the internet and find different forums, Facebook groups, maybe some subreddits, but there really is no centralized place for owners of items to share information, have discussions and learn from each other. They are scattered.
With Meekla, we bring all these people together with an easy to use app that has similarities to existing social media platforms, but differ entirely due to its focus on things/items. While people are socializing with each other, information about the things they own is stored for them, and eventually used for their benefits. When we see some new interesting thing at our friend’s apartment, like a new robot vacuum cleaner, it’s instinctual to ask “when did you get that?” and various other things. Maybe you’re considering getting it for yourself. Regardless of why you ask it, you ask it, and they’ll answer it. When this is done on Meekla’s platform, that information is stored for you, and now that answer can be used to let you know when you’re going to run out of warranty for that thing. It’s these social interactions we have with each other that Meekla platform is built on, and if we get this right, the platform will make sure you’ll get more out of the things you own. You don’t have to be alone with them.
ContentMain focus of the platform UI is on the social feed that shows the latest posts, comments, likes, sales posts, etc. There are a lot of current and future features in the platform, but all of our ideas require users to actually want to engage in social activities with each other, or the app will become less interesting. No one would re-open Facebook if it didn’t provide them with interesting content from other users. Unlike other social media, Meekla connects people not simply through your previous relationships, but through their interest in different kinds of items.
Social channelThe main view of the application is the Feeds view, that shows you all the posts created by other users accessible to you. People reach out to each other to ask advice on whether they should buy something or not or recommendations on what might be the best item for their needs. Some need advice on how to solve something, and an enthusiastic user a subject matter expert might provide the solution.
Most of the solution’s monetization comes through these item related connections, transactions and content updates posted by platform users. Discussions, selling, renting and borrowing are all a part of the social feed, and due to tagging, the feed provides an informative way to search, follow and join discussions. People meet new people through shared interests.
Personal belongings/itemsUsers are able to save their items and item related information like recipes, date-of-purchase, etc. Through saving this information, the item will get its unique identity. First of all, saving the item in the app needs to be fast and easy. All you need to create a new item is to take a picture of it.
After saving basic information, item’s data can be expanded through smart image recognition and algorithms. All of the data concerning the item will be stored with the item, and if the user sells the item to another user, the data remains with the item, not with the previous owner. Currently this data is stored in a centralized storage, but a long-term solution will be to store this data in a blockchain using solutions like Ethereum smart contract and IPFS or swarm. Here decentralization plays a vital role, as the information will be more easily available for other systems, can act as proof-of-ownership records for the items and store some other useful information, like the item’s maintenance logs.
Smart ownershipCurrent MVP alpha version of Meekla is built on the idea of social communication between the users and will remain focused on it. There are, however, several benefits that can be provided to the users of the app in the long run. First of all, simply by connecting people who own similar items, these people can more easily share information about the things they own. Tips and tricks, where to get spare parts, new updates, etc. In the future, when we’ve built a larger database of different things, we have several features planned to make platform more useful. A word of warning though: this is the boring part.
When and where to buy spare partsAny device with a battery on it will eventually need a new battery, if it’s still functioning. It is not difficult to provide the user with a link for ordering a new one. With enough information, the ordering can be predicted and recommended before it happens. (“Based on other users of this item, 87% need a new battery within 2 years of purchase. Based on your item’s purchase date, this will happen in 3 months.”)
Maintenance logsWhen did you change the filters from your air purifier? When did you decalcify the coffee machine? Boring chores and very few people like to be reminded of these, but in order to make sure you get as long life as possible out of your items, these are necessary. In addition, if you’re looking to sell the item one day, it’s nice to have a maintenance log at hand to show that the item has been cared for.
Insurance reportsAgain, no one likes to keep a catalog of everything they own, but not all people live in secure areas. Whether it’s a burglary or a fire, you may end up losing just about every physical thing in your home. If something that tragic happens to you, it would be nice to have proof of ownership and a catalog at least of the most important and expensive items you had for the police report and for the insurance company. Depending on the laws and regulations of where you live, sometimes even a picture is regarded enough evidence that you owned something. Imagine having a full catalog stored in a blockchain with safely stored receipts at hand. Even with simply the social features of Meekla, you’ll be having fun interacting with other people without even realizing that the inventory you’re gathering can be used in case of an emergency. Depending where you’re reading this, have a look at the amount of burglaries in Great Britain from this The Sun article. Between 2011 and 2016, “there were 2,125,861 burglaries, of which 206,009 (9.7 per cent) were solved. But only 112,773 people - 5,3 per cent – were ever charged.”
“Londoners lost £928million in raids, but only £35.4million – just 3.7 per cent – was recovered.”
Peer-to-peer transactionsSeveral peer-to-peer selling solutions are already out there and more are popping up. We considered whether building our own solution for these is smart use of resources, but ended up going for it for the following reasons.
There are a few issues every time someone completes a transaction with the existing solutions in place, and these are (not necessarily in this order):
1. Trust
2. Payment
3. Delivery
4. Negotiation
5. Free giveaways with minimum effort (only niche solutions provide this)
When handling peer to peer transactions, usually the service provider’s role is to act as a middle man guaranteeing both parties their rights concerning the transaction and handling any issues that may arise for either party. Payment happens through said middle man and they usually act as an escrow service to guarantee a successful transaction for both parties.
Delivery is the most complicated part usually with any and all transactions: geographical location, arranging the time and method of delivery, how much and who does it cost and who pays for it. These all need to be solved somehow, and while some service providers assist with them, there’s still some leeway here.
Negotiating with unknown people over the internet seems like it involves a lot of effort. There are professional hagglers, trolls, and just weird people out there and from what we learned interviewing a bunch of people, it’s not always a fun task to wade through them to find the right buyer or seller.
After looking at the current solutions and what they offer and what they don’t offer, we came up with a two-fold solution. First functionality is already built into the application, and is called “Friend sales.” Meekla has a simple UI for posting anything you need to get rid of for sale or as a giveaway. Essentially this solves most of the issues listed previously, since when you’re transacting with the people you already know, you’re dealing with people you already know. Some of those people might even be so close to you, that you’ll take less money from them than you would from a complete stranger. You might even give your old washing machine for free, if a people you care about happens to need it. Currently there is no proper channel to handle this kind of transaction. Facebook comes closest, but since it doesn’t really provide an interface for a friend to friend sale, we felt it was lacking.
The seller can create a new sale post in less than a minute letting the possible buyers/takers know the terms of the sale (these are selected through a few drop-down menus.) Buyer/taker clicks on the post, can ask any questions if they have them, and leave an offer based on the options the seller provided. (For example, if the seller is willing to give it for free, the buyer still has the option to offer some money for it if they feel like it.) These offers are shown only to the seller, and from this list a winner is picked by the seller. After transaction completes, the item’s ownership is transferred to the new owner and the sale post is removed. The functionality in itself is quite simple, but the beauty of it comes not having to solve deal with an escrow agent or figuring out whether you can trust these people, and any and all discussions concerning “I can take it for free” are left out if the seller has specified a price they want. It makes the communication concerning the transaction clear, precise and easy for both parties.
The second portion of the peer-to-peer sales concerns sales outside of your friend circle. Here trust and escrowing start to play a more vital role. This functionality will be built using blockchain with smart contracts, and since the idea is that this is something the owner was unable to sell to their friends, now a fee can be charged for assisting in the sale. The sale post is made public and using the information we have of the previous sale posts and offers, we can attempt to connect people who are selling and buying certain items within a certain geographical distance from each other. User A has offered user B a certain amount of money for a television, but someone else won the deal. User C is selling a similar television, but has no offers. If both parties have consented to it, the seller will be charged a small fee for getting a purchaser through the platform. Smart contract will act as an escrow agent and once the deal is confirmed, seller receives payment and the ownership is transferred to the buyer.
Upgrade chainsMeekla’s goal is not to simply get people to acquire more stuff they end up not needing or wanting, but rather helping people make more informed decisions about what they’ll acquire and enjoy the things they have as much as possible.
While looking at the peer-to-peer economy and circular economy, a trend exists that has become a common practice for select items. Someone wants the latest piece of equipment available on the market, but the item they already have is still rather usable and has value. Depending on what that item is, you may be able to use it as a currency directly at the store (for example, a car) or you may resell or even give your old one to someone you know (for example, a graphic card.) However, with all these scenarios we’ve recognized a hidden feature: there are people who are willing to upgrade their previous equipment, especially if they are able to sell the old one for a certain price at the same time. This is a common practice already in the real estate business, but even there no solutions seem to exist (we didn’t try to find one that hard though, so there could be.) Some service provides “silent sales” and “silent interest”.
It’s a chain of transactions that only occur, if all of them occur at the same time. User A buys a new graphics card and gives their old one to their younger brother, User B. User B sells their graphic card to their friend, User C. User C jumps at the chance to get the newer graphics card, but now she’ll have to find a buyer for her old card or it starts gathering dust. Somewhere along this chain the final card has so little value, that it either ends up in a cupboard or in the garbage bin. If we’re lucky, it’ll end up recycled.
We call this the “kidney chain” due to how kidney transplant donors and receivers are connected. It’s a chain where before IT solutions were available, people requiring a new kidney were simply waiting in line and even if someone close to them was willing to donate them a kidney, without a match it was useless. Along came IT and a bunch of smart people created a database and started matching these people across the country. Now if you need a kidney, it doesn’t matter if the people willing to donate it to you is a match or not: that kidney may go to someone else and you’ll get a kidney from someone across the country who is a direct match. It’s a chain of donors and receivers that simply needed someone to figure out how to connect the chain.
Similar principle could be applied to a lot of physical items people own, if we had a database with enough users owning enough similar items. Our idea is that a user can reserve a certain amount of Meekla Tokens to upgrade selected items, and when someone in the chain is looking to purchase a new or enhanced version of that item, the upgrade chain is suggested and realized and tokens exchange owners while the items exchange owners.
MEEKLA TOKENMeekla Token will play several roles on the Meekla platform.
It will eventually be the only currency used.
The following features will require it:
- Purchasing ads
- Promoting posts
- Tipping other users
- Betting on sales outcomes (your friend made a silly sale post: will he be able to close the deal or not? Bet on it.)
Read more about them from the white paper.
