BitShares Forum
Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: Method-X on September 17, 2014, 02:24:10 pm
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Once a DAC is created, how will people find out about it? For most DACs, it won't be enough to rely on the "if you build it, they will come" strategy. So why not leverage the religious community cryptos tend to create and transform them into an army of affiliate marketers?
A referral program (otherwise known as an affiliate program) is a performance based commission system that allows anyone to promote a product and make money proportional to their ability to continuously generate new business.
Since running a DPoS blockchain is extremely cheap, income generated by the DAC can be reinvested in referral payouts, as opposed to burning it. A decentralized autonomous marketing scheme for a decentralized autonomous company, allowing a DAC to autonomously perpetuate itself virally.
If the DAC is selling goods for BitUSD (i.e. decentralized marketplace like Open Bazaar), this would allow for a completely traditional referral program to be implemented. If the user makes a purchase within X number of blocks, the referrer gets a percentage of the fees incurred from the sale.
From a technical perspective, this would be no different than how any other referral program is implemented. I can't think of any way this could be abused other than users buying goods through their own affiliate link, which is easy to prevent and has never been a problem in real world use cases.
The point of PoW mining is to distribute tokens fairly and buy security for the blockchain. Since DPoS solves the security problem, that allows us to think of creative ways to distribute tokens and possibly use inflation to buy things other than security.
For example, inflation could be used to buy marketing. The better you are at generating sales for the DAC, the more shares you'll receive; analogous to block rewards for providing security. This makes for a much better value proposition than mining with useless hashing power. Inflation is, of course, optional. Income generated in the form of fees could be used exclusively.
Not all DACs will be as lucky as BitShares X. They won't have as strong an incentive to use them as BitAssets and BitYield allow for. When viewing a DAC as a company and not a coin, it makes perfect sense to incentivize and automate the marketing process. Generating new business is an essential part of any company, DAC or otherwise.
The importance of referral marketing on the Internet cannot be understated. Ads and referral programs are the incentive structures that make for sustainable online businesses. If a DAC is ever expected to compete with traditional online companies, it needs an autonomous mechanism to spread itself virally. At the very least, this is an idea worth putting more thought into.
If you're a developer and wish to speak privately, contact me @ methodx[at]gmail[dot]com
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Maybe something for a DPOS chain without any additional function. Wouldn't put that out in the wild though atm. ONnly when Bitcoin someone & the Bitcoin foundation decides to make a DPOS chain that honors bitcoin holders 1:1.
There is a third possibility besides hard coding the referral reward and having one or more delegates run a referral program (current model): The DAC workers proposal by Agent86 which is interesting https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=4660.0
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So the only thing complicating this right now is the lack of a widely accepted DPoS currency. I was under the impression the ability to send tokens from chain to chain was in the works?
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I agree with you that referral programs are a very powerful way of driving people to interact with services online. I haven't considered building the referral program directly into the DAC, but perhaps the delegates could have a 3 way slider to facilitate the referral fund if this ever did happen. Because this idea depends on being able to purchase stuff with BitAssets, maybe this would be better received a little further down the road.
I am interested in building a learning platform referral program to give people incentives for learning about the fundamentals of crypto-equities, blockchain technology and eventually specific projects (BitShares ecosystem would be my first focus). These lessons wouldn't necessarily have to be super technical, but more about introducing the overarching concepts and why they matter. I think wider adoption will happen when people understand what they are interacting with better.
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I think many people are resistant to this idea because it changes the current paradigm of what a DAC is (to them). Having thought this out more, I'll give a clearer example of how I envision a referral program working.
Lets say we create a Poker DAC and the internal currency (and shares) are PokerChips.
UserA refers UserB to the PokerApp. UserB downloads the PokerApp and registers his account name to the blockchain with UserAs referral code.
-The referral code can be the users account name that referred you.
-UserA is logged in the blockchain as having referred UserB.
UserB plays PokerApp and wins 100,000 PokerChips.
-The PokerApp blockchain takes a 1% cut (1,000 PokerChips).
UserA is rewarded 1,000 PokerChips.
Is there some fraud potential with this? Sure, every system involving money has fraud concerns. That doesn't mean we should just give up and forget about a referral program.
I am interested in building a learning platform referral program to give people incentives for learning about the fundamentals of crypto-equities, blockchain technology and eventually specific projects (BitShares ecosystem would be my first focus). These lessons wouldn't necessarily have to be super technical, but more about introducing the overarching concepts and why they matter. I think wider adoption will happen when people understand what they are interacting with better.
And with a referral program you and thousands of others would suddenly be financially motivated to teach as many people as you could why BitShares is important and how to use it. An army of educators would instantly be at the DACs disposal.
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It could be powerful. I would love to see a referral network. But I think you're right that some of the technical DAC people are less interested in developing the business side to its full potential. Heaven forbid we involve any real people or contracts! One also would need to think through the fraud issues. Is a referral based on deposit size or address, etc.? Because one person can have many addresses. A big depositor could refer him/herself. So I think a referral bonus structure would need to incentivize referrals, yet keep the reward fairly modest.
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It could be powerful. I would love to see a referral network. But I think you're right that some of the technical DAC people are less interested in developing the business side to its full potential. Heaven forbid we involve any real people or contracts! One also would need to think through the fraud issues. Is a referral based on deposit size or address, etc.? Because one person can have many addresses. A big depositor could refer him/herself. So I think a referral bonus structure would need to incentivize referrals, yet keep the reward fairly modest.
I'm glad somebody sees the potential of this. So, what you're saying is: there's nothing preventing UserA from also being UserB. This is true. It's also not a problem. From the networks perspective, it doesn't matter who is being paid; only that it's generating revenue. If a savvy user wants to refer himself and save money on fees let him.
In the real world, this is a problem all affiliate networks have. If I'm an affiliate for Amazon, I can buy products through my own affiliate link / referral code. The best Amazon can do is require I make X unique referrals before I'm entitled to a payout. This is actually what most affiliate networks do in the real world.
All that aside, I've run many affiliate programs of my own for the past 8 years and this has never been a problem. I would guess about half a percent of my sales are bought through ones own affiliate link/code. And even if it WAS a problem, I wouldn't care so long as I'm making a profit. The point of a referral program is only to incentivise advertisers.
Come to think of it, the whole reason I'm so drawn to the notion of a DAC is because I've been creating semi-autonomous companies since 2006. The thing that makes them autonomous really all boils down to the affiliate program.
Advertising is what gives a company value.
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Could we refer people using Facebook? Rewards would only be distributed if the referred person has over 200 friends and a "seasoned" account
Other ides for proving unique sign ups?
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Could we refer people using Facebook? Rewards would only be distributed if the referred person has over 200 friends and a "seasoned" account
Other ides for proving unique sign ups?
This is completely unnecessary. A DAC with an affiliate program will not face any problem a traditional affiliate program doesn't already face. You guys are over thinking this WAY too much.
EDIT: When you buy a product on Amazon, do you buy it through your own affiliate link? Probably not but there is nothing preventing you from doing so other than a headache and the fact 99% of people don't know they can do it. And ultimately, Amazon doesn't care because to them, the sale is still profitable.
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Could it be a stand-alone third party site like a coupon or incentive program? It wouldn't need to be profitable, just break even. Or would it need to plug into BitShares X for the account info? If it were the former, someone like you might create something, and I'd gladly help you. If it needs to plug in directly to the code, that's where I think you'll hit a roadblock. There are a limited # of programmers working on BTSX and they'd probably much prefer to work on other aspects of it.
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I think many people are resistant to this idea because it changes the current paradigm of what a DAC is (to them). Having thought this out more, I'll give a clearer example of how I envision a referral program working.
Lets say we create a Poker DAC and the internal currency (and shares) are PokerChips.
UserA refers UserB to the PokerApp. UserB downloads the PokerApp and registers his account name to the blockchain with UserAs referral code.
-The referral code can be the users account name that referred you.
-UserA is logged in the blockchain as having referred UserB.
UserB plays PokerApp and wins 100,000 PokerChips.
-The PokerApp blockchain takes a 1% cut (1,000 PokerChips).
UserA is rewarded 1,000 PokerChips.
Is there some fraud potential with this? Sure, every system involving money has fraud concerns. That doesn't mean we should just give up and forget about a referral program.
I am interested in building a learning platform referral program to give people incentives for learning about the fundamentals of crypto-equities, blockchain technology and eventually specific projects (BitShares ecosystem would be my first focus). These lessons wouldn't necessarily have to be super technical, but more about introducing the overarching concepts and why they matter. I think wider adoption will happen when people understand what they are interacting with better.
And with a referral program you and thousands of others would suddenly be financially motivated to teach as many people as you could why BitShares is important and how to use it. An army of educators would instantly be at the DACs disposal.
great idea!
how could it look in BTSX?
we have not a BTSX fund so far to pay something out. so why not take a piece of the tradingfees for the referal?
something like if i use the client you spread you will get a lifetime cut of the fees - 5%
with this kind of incentive real affiliates will make in the future great profits and scammers with fake accounts will earn nothing.
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Could it be a stand-alone third party site like a coupon or incentive program? It wouldn't need to be profitable, just break even. Or would it need to plug into BitShares X for the account info? If it were the former, someone like you might create something, and I'd gladly help you. If it needs to plug in directly to the code, that's where I think you'll hit a roadblock. There are a limited # of programmers working on BTSX and they'd probably much prefer to work on other aspects of it.
This is not an idea for the BitShares exchange. It's a business model for other DACs built on separate blockchains.
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Gotcha. I'd seen you mention that earlier and had forgotten. For other DACs, I'd suggest contacting the developers (toast, cob, etc.) and see if they're interested.
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Could it be a stand-alone third party site like a coupon or incentive program? It wouldn't need to be profitable, just break even. Or would it need to plug into BitShares X for the account info? If it were the former, someone like you might create something, and I'd gladly help you. If it needs to plug in directly to the code, that's where I think you'll hit a roadblock. There are a limited # of programmers working on BTSX and they'd probably much prefer to work on other aspects of it.
This is not an idea for the BitShares exchange. It's a business model for other DACs built on separate blockchains.
Can you say for certain that it would not work in BTSX? Even for a particular bit asset?
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Gotcha. I'd seen you mention that earlier and had forgotten. For other DACs, I'd suggest contacting the developers (toast, cob, etc.) and see if they're interested.
I contacted Dan and gave him a brief overview but he didn't respond. I'm sure he's quite busy with the exchange at the moment.
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Could it be a stand-alone third party site like a coupon or incentive program? It wouldn't need to be profitable, just break even. Or would it need to plug into BitShares X for the account info? If it were the former, someone like you might create something, and I'd gladly help you. If it needs to plug in directly to the code, that's where I think you'll hit a roadblock. There are a limited # of programmers working on BTSX and they'd probably much prefer to work on other aspects of it.
This is not an idea for the BitShares exchange. It's a business model for other DACs built on separate blockchains.
Can you say for certain that it would not work in BTSX? Even for a particular bit asset?
Personally, I think they're very different business models, but I'm open to persuasion. :)
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I think many people are resistant to this idea because it changes the current paradigm of what a DAC is (to them). Having thought this out more, I'll give a clearer example of how I envision a referral program working.
Lets say we create a Poker DAC and the internal currency (and shares) are PokerChips.
UserA refers UserB to the PokerApp. UserB downloads the PokerApp and registers his account name to the blockchain with UserAs referral code.
-The referral code can be the users account name that referred you.
-UserA is logged in the blockchain as having referred UserB.
UserB plays PokerApp and wins 100,000 PokerChips.
-The PokerApp blockchain takes a 1% cut (1,000 PokerChips).
UserA is rewarded 1,000 PokerChips.
Is there some fraud potential with this? Sure, every system involving money has fraud concerns. That doesn't mean we should just give up and forget about a referral program.
I am interested in building a learning platform referral program to give people incentives for learning about the fundamentals of crypto-equities, blockchain technology and eventually specific projects (BitShares ecosystem would be my first focus). These lessons wouldn't necessarily have to be super technical, but more about introducing the overarching concepts and why they matter. I think wider adoption will happen when people understand what they are interacting with better.
And with a referral program you and thousands of others would suddenly be financially motivated to teach as many people as you could why BitShares is important and how to use it. An army of educators would instantly be at the DACs disposal.
great idea!
how could it look in BTSX?
we have not a BTSX fund so far to pay something out. so why not take a piece of the tradingfees for the referal?
something like if i use the client you spread you will get a lifetime cut of the fees - 5%
with this kind of incentive real affiliates will make in the future great profits and scammers with fake accounts will earn nothing.
i thought a little bit about my idea.
the problem would be, that we would need in every client a coded BTSX address for the referral. i think would be a problem, because many people would not trust to download and install it!
BUT
maybe i have a new solution
lets assume a new transaction typ will be included
wallet_account_register <account_name> <pay_from_sponsor> [public_data] [delegate_pay_rate]
would also serve as a solution to register my wallet. so i could make a registration and my "sponsor" will pay the registration fees.
the sponsor needs the ability to set "sponsorship on" and maybe an amount who will be transfered "10 BTSX". In this case you can generate competing "Sponsors" .
the blockchain will take the registration fees from the sponsors account and not from the account who is registration.
as a reward, to be a sponsor, he will get a lifelong transaction fee for 1-5% for every trading activity (to be discussed how high it should be).
so with this solution we could serve 2 purposes
1. you do not need anymore someone to send you BTSX for register your account
2. someone with exposure to an audience can now market BTSX and be a sponsor to take the fees in the future
like
letstalkbitcoin will now provide a link "register your BTSX account with us and get 10BTSX" or something like this
the problem still exists for a sponsor, that maybe too many fake accounts will be created.
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the problem would be, that we would need in every client a coded BTSX address for the referral. i think would be a problem, because many people would not trust to download and install it!
I think what you're saying here is it isn't possible to pass a referral code from the browser to an app. To my knowledge this is true which is why I'm suggesting sticking with a manual referral code method (at least for now). In the future, when we've got .p2p and .bit domains, all DACs will be browser based and this will no longer be an issue.
lets assume a new transaction typ will be included
wallet_account_register <account_name> <pay_from_sponsor> [public_data] [delegate_pay_rate]
So if Andreas Antonopoulos were to promote a DAC, he would go on the Joe Rogan Experience, tell people what the DAC is, where to download it and say something like "enter referral code 'andreas' when registering". The DAC could easily be modified to debit 0.1 tokens from the andreas account, thereby simultaneously solving the issue with getting users set up AND providing a financial incentive for Andreas or someone like him to promote a DAC. I like it.
The GUI would look could look like this:
(http://i.imgur.com/Ng7q0ih.jpg)
the sponsor needs the ability to set "sponsorship on" and maybe an amount who will be transfered "10 BTSX". In this case you can generate competing "Sponsors" .
Definitely.
something like if i use the client you spread you will get a lifetime cut of the fees - 5%
Lifetime residual income is quite the motivator! :)
with this kind of incentive real affiliates will make in the future great profits and scammers with fake accounts will earn nothing.
Exactly. There would still have to be some mechanism in place to prevent one person from registering 1000s of useless accounting using a single referral. That's the only abuse hurdle I can see.
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I think what you're saying here is it isn't possible to pass a referral code from the browser to an app. To my knowledge this is true which is why I'm suggesting sticking with a manual referral code method (at least for now). In the future, when we've got .p2p and .bit domains, all DACs will be browser based and this will no longer be an issue.
Speaking on a technical issue is probably a bad idea for me but...
I think somebody is already working on opening the BTSX client from a (web) link. If this is indeed the case passing the ref code should not be a problem, I think.
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I think what you're saying here is it isn't possible to pass a referral code from the browser to an app. To my knowledge this is true which is why I'm suggesting sticking with a manual referral code method (at least for now). In the future, when we've got .p2p and .bit domains, all DACs will be browser based and this will no longer be an issue.
Speaking on a technical issue is probably a bad idea for me but...
I think somebody is already working on opening the BTSX client from a (web) link. If this is indeed the case passing the ref code should not be a problem, I think.
This subject interests me for obvious reasons. I had the thought on a Mumble session then mulled it over on air... Anyway..
I am not sure what you mean passing things to an app, but usually when anything calls a sub-process/plugin etc it will have some sort of parameters passed along. It might be very well possible to pass a referral link to an app embedded in the parameters even if it wasn't designed for that. The context itself would need to be examined.
As far as login through btsx. This is partially guess, partially first hand.
BTSX provides a protocol and register's itself as a content-type. So thats how we can click on slates/votes etc. They also have one for a login. So through private/public key handshake you are able to authenticate via a protocol provided by bitshares x and the DNS DAC. I'm working on a mod (hopefully plugin) that does this for SMF. I keep being distracted by various things but it seems pretty easy just a matter of learning 2 small existing php codebases and merging them. Easy as in not technically challenging, but still requires ramping up etc so can be a bit time consuming.
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It's not enough to pass a parameter to the app, you have to pass it to the download.
Check it you: btsx:delegate.methodx/approve
EDIT: Go to the bottom of http://bitsharesblocks.com and test it
This will work if the app is already installed.
I've thought about this a lot, which is why I'm suggesting referral codes as a way to bootstrap the idea (for now).
EDIT: As an affiliate, to make it easy for the user, you could always say "download the app here" and then "when you're done installing click this link to register".
btsx:andreas/sponsor
It's not as elegant as clicking an affiliate link and having a cookie take care of everything else but this implementation will be powerful nevertheless.
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Maybe the people running those affiliate promotions can provide own downloadable client with the code already coded in the software.
I know you will say that people will not be willing to download from random place on the web, but I think that most people are far less concerned about that, than the majority of the folks visiting this and similar forums. I might be wrong, but I do believe that most people mindlessly click on links and download stuff.
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Maybe the people running those affiliate promotions can provide own downloadable client with the code already coded in the software.
I know you will say that people will not be willing to download from random place on the web, but I think that most people are far less concerned about that, than the majority of the folks visiting this and similar forums. I might be wrong, but I do believe that most people mindlessly click on links and download stuff.
I like your thought process. Having affiliates provide the download would certainly decentralize distribution. However, I'd still be very worried from a security standpoint. It would be very easy for someone to provide a version of the app that sends the private key elsewhere. I would be cautious with this.
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We are already designing and building such a referral network.
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We are already designing and building such a referral network.
Is there anything you guys haven't thought of? 8)
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Is there anything you guys haven't thought of? 8)
Not much for the rest of us to do, is there? Collect some pennies and buy some more BTSX, I guess!
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The affiliate idea is tremendously important and yeah, why not build an army of affiliate marketers.
I mean, the 'giveaway' community is a big deal, giveaways have worked since the beginning of time for bitcoin and many projects before the digital currency space.
I think affiliates earning more than the traditional 'input your wallet address to get coins' is a far more effective model, and it gets them invested for the future.
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We are essentially building something with BeyondBitcoinx that would serve as a wonderful platform for DACs like these to be better used. I give a +5% for this post.
Essentially anyone can go on Mumble and start up their own events or interviews with new DAC Devs (there will probably eventually be far too many for our little crew to cover alone). Either create content from the event and/or ask people to enter your referral code in the polished and edited content or before/after the event...
Of course people can also make their own blog sites for this, but even they can be all quickly viewed from the BBx Homepage. I really think this should be used not only as an affiliate program but also as a means by which people who buy into DACs can choose to reward others they believe are valuable to the DACs ecosystem in general.
For instance, I buy shares in BitShares Poker and give credit to CLains for the referral even if he didn't refer me...just because I know this means that my love of gambling will also have a natural side effect of paying CLains, who works on many outreach initiatives and to my knowledge has never received payment. Or Xeroc, who answers many questions and is also considered a priceless member of the team--but does not get paid for his services.
...Oh and btw, MeTHoDx, answer your pms man!
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We are already designing and building such a referral network.
Will you elaborate?
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please read my thoughts on how a similar referral program can be implemented - it doesn't require new DAC or serious software modification, it focused only on new users acquisition
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=11356.msg149525#msg149525 - any comments, questions or suggestions are welcome