Hello everyone , I am new to the community but have been researching, investing and following the blockchain space for some time and will be releasing my own ICO this year. HandleMode started years ago when I had the realization in law school during my Antitrust class that social media companies do not have proven economies of scale and when a "better wheel" is presented to the masses and it's quick, easy and free to switch over they will , i.e. Myspace into Facebook. I realized this will happen again one day and started working on the better wheel to present to the masses. I spent years developing the name, logo and app itself before I ever even put it together that it belongs on the blockchain. Interesting enough the logo I designed years ago is the letters H & M on what looks like a block of a blockchain , so meant to be..
I then started researching blockchain and ICO companies extensively to see how blockchain could benefit HandleMode . My research led to a whole new path for HandleMode and I have spent the last several months re-designing the entire platform to incorporate principles of blockchain tech. The obvious decision is to make the entire network decentralized , I have seen several companies offering blockchain cloud services that are even cheaper and faster than AWS and are decentralized , I believe these will be a perfect content storage solution for the platform.
Next , my research has found that the masses and myself included are getting sick of the Facebook/IG ads and fake news proliferation. Facebook's extremely greedy ad system allows companies running scam ads to keep buying fake ad accounts that they can continue to run their illegal / scam ads over and over and all with Facebook's help. The way it works is huge companies set up click centers in Asia where they have warehouses full of cheap labor workers clicking around on Facebook all day to groom fake ad accounts that these scam companies use to keep running these illegal ads. Facebook loves the system because not only do they collect roughly 30% of their ad revenue from these scam ads , but the click farming operation makes it look like they have way more activity and active users on their network , a big reason for their inflated stock price. The only "monitoring" they do of this is to monitor the landing page of the ads , this however can easily be overcome with any one of many simple cloaking devices that shows Facebook a safe page or blog not selling anything , while users clicking the ad bait are being redirected to a scam.
This system is all legal because in 1999 the U.S. Congress passed a law that gave very wide immunity to content on an on-line providers system so long as they aren't actually contributing to the content themselves. Since it's these scammy companies actually making the ads , Facebook gets immunity from the numerous class actions filed against them for this practice that is killing businesses all over and scamming millions of people all over the world. The even darker side of these ads is that they have also been used to influence multiple political elections all over the world including the U.S. Presidency. It's clear this system is out of hand and something else needs to replace it.
HandleMode will forever be ad free , we are going to accomplish this through taking a complete influencer business model where we take a % of all influencer sales made on the system. This requires us to also build a decentralized sales network that companies can upload existing products , services or promotions into the system , upload some HANDLE coins into an escrow account and install a conversion pixel on their site. From there ANY user on the system can make a post with a tag ( that only their followers see ) advertising the product , service or promotion , if any of the users following clicks on the post and then completes the merchants desired action they will receive a micro payment for the conversion, all powered through smart contracts.
This influencer model is far superior than existing models because existing influencer methods do not allow for tracking . This puts companies in a terrible position of paying out large advertising dollars without any way to track to see if they are getting value from it. As the founder of Rider Clothing , I have dealt with this problem for far too long . The current system has influencers charging tens of thousands of dollars for a single photo , that often the influencer retains the rights to and only leases to you for 1 year. On top of that they have agents taking an additional 10-20% for being a middle man who does nothing , the HandleMode system completely fixes these issues by allowing for tracking and getting rid of the middlemen . It also allows companies to use their own margins when deciding how much to pay for each sale. Further, since we are never going to run ads ourselves, we will pass all the data on to the companies so that they can use the data to help them find better / higher converting influencers to work with their brand. On HandleMode anyone can make money , now that's Handling!
The HANDLE coin will be used to pay influencers , it can also be easily transferred between users by the use of simple @username addresses instead of the complex wallet addresses that scare some people. Our chat system will also be backed by the blockchain and allow for truly encrypted messaging between users.
The social media platform will be available on desktop or through any major app store. It will also include many features that I spent years developing to create the "better wheel" of social media. Some of these features include a split at the top of the Home feed to give the user an option to scroll down a feed of all photos / videos posted by their following or to scroll down a texts feed that has status updates and web-articles shared by their following . Users can also jump into the "CAT" or Category section of the app which allows them to scroll up and down through different categories and then swipe right to left within each category to view more photos posted by anyone on the HandleMode network. The system works by forcing users to select a popular category when uploading photos or videos , this allows users to scroll the CAT feed as well as the ability to uncheck certain categories in their settings , so that they will never see those types of photos again, Selfie Haters Rejoice Worldwide...
I am currently finishing the white paper and ICO web-site , I could definitely use some help and advice with certain parts so I am going to post some questions below and hopefully find some developers / advisers to help me with this project. Here are some of the things I am still researching and thinking about :
1. Content storage - need to be able to scale quickly and hold a lot of user content , I am thinking a decentralized cloud hosting solution would be ideal , any recommendations ?
2. Coin - The more research I do , the more Ethereum makes sense to me for this project to use ERC20 for the HANDLE token. I think the culture of Ethereum being all about decentralization and running smart contracts that run exactly as programmed , that's the same mission at HandleMode : "A decentralized and forever ad free social media network" , my main objective is to make sure there is NO possible way that ads could ever be forced into peoples feeds without them following that account. I believe Ethereum smart contracts could accomplish this end goal, Any other suggestions ? My main concern is I step down from running HM at some point and a greedy CEO wants to run ads, I need to make sure this could NEVER happen.
3. Coin Distribution - I haven't decided on what % of the pie each gets yet and could use some advice on that . Here are the pie pieces I am considering : 1. Developers , 2. Escrow accounts to attract companies / customers into trying the HandleMode system , they can't withdraw the money , only pay it out in the form of micro payments for influencer sales , so in turn these coins will get passed down to early users of the network for making influencer sales. 3. Founder and Advisory team 4. ICO ... What are peoples thoughts for and against a Pre-ICO ? Any other pie pieces you recommend ?
4. Company structure - I still need to do more research in this area and need some advice on how to structure the company itself and it's relationship to the token and how to maintain control of both.
5. DAICO Model For ICO's - I have read Vitalik's research article about this and it seems interesting . Since I am charging hard on HandleMode and really getting things done at a fast rate right now , is this something worth waiting for or looking into further ? It looks like it's in an idea stage right now and I don't really want to create a bottleneck but I also want to do this ICO the right way with transparency and credibility , two major pillars of the HandleMode philosophy that is accomplished through users being responsible for the content they post , if someone posts about a scam ad , their friends who buy aren't going to be too happy with them and would likely unfollow them or never trust their influencer posts again ( a solution not available in the current system where ads are FORCED into user feeds from pages they don't follow ) .
6. Development Team - I would prefer to stick with the overall Handle Philosophy to stay decentralized and use different programmers from all over the world to help me develop HandleMode . My biggest strong suit is in reviewing work done by others , I can usually glance at a screen and see all the mistakes within seconds. I would like to put that skill to use and spend my time working with and reviewing work done from programmers from all over . I am however still open to having office space and having a team under one roof but I need some advice on the pros and cons of both situations and also on best way to structure a decentralized programming environment if we go that route.
7. Overall advice and feedback on the project would really be appreciated . Please keep it constructive , I don't need any ICO hate speeches , I would agree with the majority of what anyone would have to say on that subject anyways . I'm here to build something that fixes a major society issue for the world while also creating a system that allows the masses to make money and I could use some help in making that dream a reality.
I can be contacted through e-mail or skype at :
handlemodetaylor@gmail.com or on twitter: @handlemode currently , personal page will be moved to @handlemodetaylor soon .
Thank you so much for your time everyone and I really look forward to reading your responses. Taylor -
