DAC proposal: BitMindshare -- a paid messaging service

[tonyk]

I think I understand what you're trying to do. Let's collaborate. I will PM you.

I do think your concept has merit, and I do think it can be decentralized. It's a matter of programming expertise and thinking out of the box.

I do agree that this idea have ‘luckybit’ written all over it. Do not ask what I mean, I just have that feeling all the time reading about it.

[luckybit]

One use for a BitAsset is price discovery. So if I want to discover the price of attention from a specific demographic I should have a DAC which allows me to determine the price.

So there has to be that so we can know how much the attention of a particular demographic of users will cost. The market would speculate on how much it costs and a BitAsset can help a lot there.

Another thing you could do is make sure users of your app recieve shares in your app. You would need a blockchain to facilitate that so that is another mechanism.

But it does not mean you have to do it all over Bitshares. Bitshares can do certain things well but it cannot do everything. Just because it cannot do everything it does not mean you cannot find a decentralized solution elsewhere.

[luckybit]

The DAC I am proposing is tracking ownership interest (shares) which MyMindshare does not control in an account balance which MyMindshare does control. The DAC wouldn't accomplish anything if MyMindshare did not exist.

I was thinking that it would be too big a project to make MyMindshare into a DAC -- to blockchain and distribute the message ledger, as well as identity/profiles that are the senders/recipients.

I think a saw that a message system is part of the Keyhotee project. Do you think it would be worthwhile to propose MyMindshare and its business model as an extension of Keyhotee?

I think I understand what you're trying to do. Let's collaborate. I will PM you.

I do think your concept has merit, and I do think it can be decentralized. It's a matter of programming expertise and thinking out of the box.

[jimbursch]

The DAC I am proposing is tracking ownership interest (shares) which MyMindshare does not control in an account balance which MyMindshare does control. The DAC wouldn't accomplish anything if MyMindshare did not exist.

I was thinking that it would be too big a project to make MyMindshare into a DAC -- to blockchain and distribute the message ledger, as well as identity/profiles that are the senders/recipients.

I think a saw that a message system is part of the Keyhotee project. Do you think it would be worthwhile to propose MyMindshare and its business model as an extension of Keyhotee?

[toast]

Sorry about that, I am just busy with development

Is it possible that a DAC is not necessary to accomplish what I am proposing?

I think this is the case - I still don't think you are proposing a DAC but rather you are trying to use a blockchain to track something which is ultimately under centralized control. Would the DAC accomplish anything if mymindshare didn't exist?

Can BitsharesX create a BitAsset called BitMindshare that tracks the value of the bitmindshare account at MyMindshare?

I don't think so - for the market peg to work there need to be several independent external price reference points, whereas the value of the account is determined by a single centralized entity which might as well just issue the assets itself

[jimbursch]

I thought this proposal was going well, but it seems to have faltered. How can I get this back on track?

[jimbursch]

Is it possible that a DAC is not necessary to accomplish what I am proposing? Can BitsharesX create a BitAsset called BitMindshare that tracks the value of the bitmindshare account at MyMindshare?

MyMindshare can be required to purchase BitMindshares with the funds in the bitmindshare account, which would align the interests of MyMindshare with the BitMindshare shareholders.

[jimbursch]

A great example is how bitshares X works - it can only make IOUs that track the value of a bitcoin, but it cannot actually control bitcoins.

So, BitMindshare DAC shares would be IOUs that track the value of the BitMindshare account at MyMindshare.

[jimbursch]

I'd like to lay this whole thing out using the dating analogy.

Here is the cast of players:

Alice -- a nice blue-eyed blonde
Bob -- a nice single guy
Eve -- brown-eyed brunette

BitDateDAC -- a dating service DAC that has an affiliate license with MyMindshare
BitDate.com -- a dating web site powered by MyMindshare

Bob is free on Saturday night so he has decided to try the new dating site called BitDate.com to get a date with a nice blue-eyed blonde. He registers and deposits $10 in his account. A 10% commission is transferred to the BitDateDAC account, leaving Bob with $9 to fund his message. Bob writes his message asking for a date on Saturday night that includes a link to his Facebook page. He attaches $1 to his message targeting blue-eyed blondes. He is betting that at least one of the nine recipients of his message will go out with him. If he wins the bet, he will continue to use BitDate.com; if he loses, he won't.

Eve thinks the whole BitDate thing is stupid and she wants to either scam it or short it, preferably both. To scam it, she needs to create an account and indicate in the profile that she is blue-eyed and blonde to receive Bob's $1 message. But in order to create an account, she has to purchase a share in BitDateDAC, which cancels out her short position and she loses $1 in transaction fees. It's not worthwhile to scam BitDate.com, but she might make some money shorting BitDateDAC.

Alice likes the BitDate concept, so she was happy to register and purchase a share in the  enterprise. She knows that it only works when people are honest, so she is honest in her profile and she receives Bob's $1 message. Alice also tells her blue-eyed blonde friends about BitDate, and they alse get Bob's $1 message. One of them agrees to go out with Bob on Saturday night, so Bob wins his bet and he plans on telling his friends about BitDate.

Eve's short position was countered by Alice's long position, and it turns out that Alice's position was the most profitable. But Eve is watching and waiting for the BitDate hype to blow up. Meanwhile, she is free next Saturday night, so she might give this BitDate thing a try.

[toast]

A DAC can "own" anything where you can define "ownership" from reading data off of the blockchain.

When you say "the blockchain" do you mean any blockchain? Could it be the bitcoin blockchain? So the DAC has its own blockchain, which is a ledger of ownership interest in a bitcoin private key.

No, only its own blockchain

So if you built your centralized service 'around' the DAC then the DAC could interact with it as you described.

I don't know what you mean by 'around'. I understand I would have to build an API that the DAC would hook into. Not a problem.

Other way around - make an API on the DAC that your site could hook into.

DACs can only read and write to their own blockchain. If you want it to interact with other systems, it has to be read-only. This way you could define ownership however you like but that ownership would have to be enforced by outside systems.

A great example is how bitshares X works - it can only make IOUs that track the value of a bitcoin, but it cannot actually control bitcoins.

[jimbursch]

A DAC can "own" anything where you can define "ownership" from reading data off of the blockchain.

When you say "the blockchain" do you mean any blockchain? Could it be the bitcoin blockchain? So the DAC has its own blockchain, which is a ledger of ownership interest in a bitcoin private key.

So if you built your centralized service 'around' the DAC then the DAC could interact with it as you described.

I don't know what you mean by 'around'. I understand I would have to build an API that the DAC would hook into. Not a problem.

[toast]

I am proposing a DAC affiliate, as described above. This may be where my proposal goes off the rails, because the DAC has to be the owner of the MyMindshare account. Can a DAC own an asset other than its own shares?

A DAC can "own" anything where you can define "ownership" from reading data off of the blockchain. So if you built your centralized service 'around' the DAC then the DAC could interact with it as you described.

[jimbursch]

At this point I am not proposing that the message platform be the DAC. I'm not proposing that the message ledger be blockchained, ala BitMessage. While that may be desirable at some point, right now it would be too huge a project.

I am proposing a DAC affiliate, as described above. This may be where my proposal goes off the rails, because the DAC has to be the owner of the MyMindshare account. Can a DAC own an asset other than its own shares?

Maybe the mechanism is not that the DAC owns the funds in the account, but that the DAC orders MyMindshare to purchase DAC shares with any funds in its account, thus converting the revenue to shares.

[luckybit]

Thank you very much for the feedback and the opportunity to  clarify my proposal.

A formatted version of the short biz plan for MyMindshare is available here:
https://mymindshare.com/businessplan/mymindshare_short_bizplanVERSION2.pdf

I am proposing "BitMindshare the DAC" which will be licensed to operate "BitMindshare.com powered by MyMindshare" which will generate revenue as a MyMindshare affiliate. The affiliate program is described in fuller detail here:
https://mymindshare.com/index.php?view=affiliate

So, in answer to toast, MyMindshare is and remains a traditional company (currently comprising one person).

One idea I have (this needs to be vetted) is to issue a share in BitMindshare to every member of the Bitshares community (however that may be defined). This will incentivize the community to use and promote BitMindshare. There is something elegant about the idea of users also being shareholders in the enterprise.

Now let's take a flight of fancy into the future, when Bitshares is wildly successsful and the forum and reddit are chock full of noisy chatter about this wonderful invention. This creates a problem for Bob Entrepreneur who has a great idea he wants to pitch to Alice Angel, who has gotten tired of all the empty chatter in the forums and on reddit.

Enter BitMindshare.com, where Bob can post his pitch targeting just Bitshares Angels. Bob deposits $11 in his BitMindshare.com account, $1 of which is paid as commission to "BitMindshare the DAC", which leaves Bob with $10, which he then uses to fund his post to 100 angels at $0.10 each.

To Alice, who is fabulously wealthy thanks to her investment acumen, $0.10 is a trivial amount of money. But Alice has found that the posts on BitMindshare.com tend to be of better quality than the cruft that gets posted on the Bitshares forum, simply because it costs something to get posts seen on BitMindshare.com. Also, posts on BitMindshare.com are targeted and rated, which also reduces the noise/signal ratio.

Eventually (surprisingly quickly) Alice finds herself with a balance of $10 in her BitMindshare.com account, which she decides to cash out. When she does so, $1 is paid to "BitMindshare the DAC" as commission and $0.50 is paid to MyMindshare, leaving Alice with $8.50 for a treat at Starbucks.

Alice also happens to be a delegate for "BitMindshare the DAC", which means that she represents all the shareholders in deciding what "BitMindshare the DAC" should do with the $2 it has recently accrued in its MyMindshare account. Basiclly she has two choices -- she can leave the $2 in the MyMindshare account and use it to fund promotional activities for BitMindshare, or she can cash out the $2 and pay a share-burning dividend to all the shareholders of "BitMindshare the DAC".

Thus ends our little flight of fancy into the wonderful world of Bitshares and Mindshares. I hope this helps clarify what I have in mind with this proposal.

I think the idea isn't so bad but you have to decentralize it completely. It doesn't have to exist on the blockchain but you should be utilizing the Bitshares toolkit technology. My advice would be to put the website itself on a decentralized backend if possible when the time comes such as MaidSafe and use a Bitshares DNS.

The concept has great value to the Bitshares community and most likely will be profitable. But can it be called a DAC? I don't know. I would say you need to make it more decentralized and totally autonomous so that it runs itself without your involvement or ours.

[toast]

Now it's making a bit more sense. The DAC is a messaging platform which makes it too expensive for dishonest users to participate. Seems reasonable, I suppose next steps are to make a more concrete description of the DACs operations: what are all the different transaction types and their costs.