[Originally published on Cent]
I just took this survey that's looking to analyze how individuals interact with and use Ethereum.
While the results as compiled in this article by Steven Yuan weren't terribly surprising, the fact that most of the 100 or so respondents send more than $100 per transaction and only make a handful of transactions per month had me do a double take.
Anyone that uses Cent and engages in Seeding or bountying engages in way more transactions at way smaller amounts.
That's because Cent takes advantage of payment channels.
So go take a few minutes and take the survey so we can help reflect the reality of Cent users and how they use Ethereum.
2019년 1월 20일 일요일
Solitude in the heart of Seoul
[Originally published on Cent]
On the way to meet my wife for sushi near City Hall last night, I took a meandering detour.
I hooked a left at the entrance to Deoksoo Palace (덕수궁) and walked along the narrow stone walled alley (돌담길). It was cold, but peaceful. And quiet.
Finding a quiet place within a metropolis of 15 million souls is rare, but I found something even better last night: solitude in the heart of Seoul.
At the back end of the palace I veered off onto an even narrower path. I thought it would wrap all the way around to the other side where the sushi place and my wife were waiting, but after 250m or so I hit a dead end. But it was the best dead end.
In front of me a centuries old (looking) wall was half hidden in shadow. Beyond it a line of naked gingko trees failed to conceal the hyper-modern glittering urban vista of Seoul.
I took a few deep breaths, listened to Stripe CEO and co-founder Patrick Collison tell me I should bias towards older, time tested and proven books on The Tim Ferris Show beaming from my earbuds into my earballs, and then I turned around.
Cheers everyone, to a peaceful night and savoring those sweet, silent moments of perfection🍻
On the way to meet my wife for sushi near City Hall last night, I took a meandering detour.
I hooked a left at the entrance to Deoksoo Palace (덕수궁) and walked along the narrow stone walled alley (돌담길). It was cold, but peaceful. And quiet.
Finding a quiet place within a metropolis of 15 million souls is rare, but I found something even better last night: solitude in the heart of Seoul.
At the back end of the palace I veered off onto an even narrower path. I thought it would wrap all the way around to the other side where the sushi place and my wife were waiting, but after 250m or so I hit a dead end. But it was the best dead end.
In front of me a centuries old (looking) wall was half hidden in shadow. Beyond it a line of naked gingko trees failed to conceal the hyper-modern glittering urban vista of Seoul.
I took a few deep breaths, listened to Stripe CEO and co-founder Patrick Collison tell me I should bias towards older, time tested and proven books on The Tim Ferris Show beaming from my earbuds into my earballs, and then I turned around.
Cheers everyone, to a peaceful night and savoring those sweet, silent moments of perfection🍻
Living in the Future
[Originally published on Cent]
Last night I blasted out 14 small tips to 14 Centians located in different (unknown) places all around the world.
It took me about a minute to finish tipping everyone. And I did that after I got off the company shuttle on the way to the closest Seoul Metro entrance.
After I sent the last tip, I looked up, out into the glittering metropolis of 15 million souls, and just thought about what I'd just done.
We really are living in the future.
Then I got home and read @rockzu07's post about not having to starve for a night thanks to the money he's earned on Cent, and my mind was totally blown.
Last night I blasted out 14 small tips to 14 Centians located in different (unknown) places all around the world.
It took me about a minute to finish tipping everyone. And I did that after I got off the company shuttle on the way to the closest Seoul Metro entrance.
After I sent the last tip, I looked up, out into the glittering metropolis of 15 million souls, and just thought about what I'd just done.
We really are living in the future.
Then I got home and read @rockzu07's post about not having to starve for a night thanks to the money he's earned on Cent, and my mind was totally blown.
My favorite kind of post
[Originally published on Cent]
I love posts that I can't forget.
Posts that I read once, then again and then can't stop thinking about.
Posts that bother me. That force me to wrap my mind around.
Posts that excite me and make me wanna reply.
@digitalronin made my favorite kind of post earlier today. The title is great too: Why Cent is not the future of social media.
Check it out if you haven't.
What are your favorite kinds of posts, either on Cent or otherwise?
I love posts that I can't forget.
Posts that I read once, then again and then can't stop thinking about.
Posts that bother me. That force me to wrap my mind around.
Posts that excite me and make me wanna reply.
@digitalronin made my favorite kind of post earlier today. The title is great too: Why Cent is not the future of social media.
Check it out if you haven't.
What are your favorite kinds of posts, either on Cent or otherwise?
Deciding Which Books to Buy
[Originally published on Cent]
Last night I ordered two books: 'Battling to the End' by René Girard and 'We are the Nerds' by Christine Lagorio-Chafkin.
I was talking to a co-worker the other week about what books I was reading when she asked me a cool question:
How do I decide which books to buy and read?
Well, in the case of Girard's 'Battling to the End', the last book he published before his death, I was reading a long-form write up published in The New York Review of Books about a new biography on Girard's thought - a figure and topic that I find endlessly fascinating.
Within that long, hyper-detailed work, several books were mentioned, including the book that I ended up purchasing. The way it was described just sounded kind of perfect to me.
Purchasing 'We are the Nerds' was inspired by a direct recommendation from @max in the Cent Slack yesterday.
"Been reading “ We Are the Nerds” - the story of Reddit’s founding and rise. It’s crazy how much overlap we have with their story, and am learning much from it. Highly, highly recommend."
If you love thinking about Cent as much as I do (and I know there are a fair few of you who do) how could you not scoop this book after reading that?
So long-form articles about interesting topics along with friends and folks close to me whose tastes I admire are two of the main channels I utilize to source new reads, but there is a third and fourth channel that I should mention: Twitter and podcasts.
Really though, Twitter and podcasts function as great book recommendation vehicles in a near identical manner to long-form reads and familar voices because, well, Twitter and podcasts are both full of familiar voices talking at length about interesting topics.
Cent could potentially become a fifth channel I feel - that's a large part of the reason why I'm so keen on @Justsomeguy's #dailyreadingclub experiment - but as of today, it isn't quite there. Soon though.
I'm curious if there are any other general good reads acquisition channels that I should be paying attention to?
Last night I ordered two books: 'Battling to the End' by René Girard and 'We are the Nerds' by Christine Lagorio-Chafkin.
I was talking to a co-worker the other week about what books I was reading when she asked me a cool question:
How do I decide which books to buy and read?
Well, in the case of Girard's 'Battling to the End', the last book he published before his death, I was reading a long-form write up published in The New York Review of Books about a new biography on Girard's thought - a figure and topic that I find endlessly fascinating.
Within that long, hyper-detailed work, several books were mentioned, including the book that I ended up purchasing. The way it was described just sounded kind of perfect to me.
Purchasing 'We are the Nerds' was inspired by a direct recommendation from @max in the Cent Slack yesterday.
"Been reading “ We Are the Nerds” - the story of Reddit’s founding and rise. It’s crazy how much overlap we have with their story, and am learning much from it. Highly, highly recommend."
If you love thinking about Cent as much as I do (and I know there are a fair few of you who do) how could you not scoop this book after reading that?
So long-form articles about interesting topics along with friends and folks close to me whose tastes I admire are two of the main channels I utilize to source new reads, but there is a third and fourth channel that I should mention: Twitter and podcasts.
Really though, Twitter and podcasts function as great book recommendation vehicles in a near identical manner to long-form reads and familar voices because, well, Twitter and podcasts are both full of familiar voices talking at length about interesting topics.
Cent could potentially become a fifth channel I feel - that's a large part of the reason why I'm so keen on @Justsomeguy's #dailyreadingclub experiment - but as of today, it isn't quite there. Soon though.
I'm curious if there are any other general good reads acquisition channels that I should be paying attention to?
Corporate overreaction
[Originally published on Cent]
Very few things are deadly important.
That's how I tend to look at life for the most part.
Especially within a large corp, any given task or assignment is rarely - if ever - a matter of life and death.
But for some reason, way too many people tend to work as if their life is on the line with every single task they're in charge of.
Working for such people can be exhausting.
Anyone that's worked in a corporate setting probably has a war story or two to share of a co-worker or boss that was a terrible over reactor.
So go ahead and share your war stories and let's see who's had the worst experiences.
Very few things are deadly important.
That's how I tend to look at life for the most part.
Especially within a large corp, any given task or assignment is rarely - if ever - a matter of life and death.
But for some reason, way too many people tend to work as if their life is on the line with every single task they're in charge of.
Working for such people can be exhausting.
Anyone that's worked in a corporate setting probably has a war story or two to share of a co-worker or boss that was a terrible over reactor.
So go ahead and share your war stories and let's see who's had the worst experiences.
75 Straight Days of Social Income on Cent
[Originally published on Cent]
I decided to do an in-depth review of my earnings on Cent over the last 75 days since Seeding🌱 went live. So if you're curious as to whether anyone can earn any kind of money on Cent, give this a read - because the answer is yes!
Social Income
Over the last 75 days I've earned a total of $429 (3.4011441 ETH) on Cent from posting, seeding other posts, replying to posts and sorting replies - in that order.
To be clear, my Cent account has received multiple new payments every single freaking day, 75 days in a row.
Now I'm not sure if this sort of earning can be classified as passive income or what, so I'm just going to call this 'Social Income*' or 'Social Earning': money that I've earned for engaging with and contributing to social networks.
My posts have been seeded 360 freaking times! Posts I've seeded have received 345 follow up seeds that paid me plus anyone else who seeded before and after me! Although I haven't had as much time to sort replies as I'd like to, I still managed to get paid for sorting replies to 161 different bounty posts. I also received bounty rewards for 33 of my replies to bounty posts.
Ok, now for the powerful part...and Beer Money🍻
Over that same 75 day period, I deposited roughly $422 (3.35 ETH) into my Cent Wallet. And I still haven't managed to spend it all.
I was not expecting that. I mean, I didn't realize I really earned that much over the last 75 days until I checked. And Jesus, that's like, $5.75 a day on average - that's enough to buy a decent pint! It's legit beer money.
So on a 'deposit to earned basis', I've earned more than I deposited. To get specific, I've earned $29 (0.22698472 ETH) more than I deposited after accounting for the 0.17584062 ETH that I deposited but haven't been able to spend yet.
But I've tried to spend every last gwei in my account. I really have.
Fun facts & Seeding🌱
Over the last 75 days I've seeded 340 posts. As many of you know, along with @mckie I am one of the most prolific tippers on Cent and I managed to make 148 tips** over the same period. Of course I've also attached a bounty to nearly every one of my posts (66 out of 75 to be precise).
The $429 earned figure over the last 75 days represents 94% of my all time earnings on Cent; and I've been on Cent basically everyday for the past 13.5 months.
That fact is directly attributable to the introduction of Seeding🌱 on Cent 73 days ago. So, if this isn't validation that seeding *can* work, I'm not sure what is.
Wrapping up
What Cent is doing is so new. As a result a lot of things are unclear. How does seeding work? Why do I need to bounty? Can you really earn any real money on Cent?
Therefore one of the most important jobs anyone on the Cent team has is trying to clarify all of those questions.
This post was conceived and written towards that end. I hope it's helped show that anyone who thoughtfully engages with Cent can earn.
A bit on process
The numbers and figures presented above were derived after I copy-pasted my 'SPENT' and 'EARNED' transaction histories into an excel and edited it lightly to make the raw data readable.
All of this was done on my mobile phone, however, so things took a little longer to refine and analyze. That's also why I haven't included aggregate USD/ETH values of money seeded to my posts or seed earnings for example. I'll append those numbers below this post when I get around to doing that.
Feel free to ask me any questions you may have. I apologize if anything is unclear. I'll do a better job next time.
*Although I created the term 'Social Income' independently, after a Google search I found that J.R. Hicks appears to have originally coined the term around 1940 and carried out a ton of subsequent research. After a cursory perusal of said works though, it appears that by happy coincidence my conceptualization of the term appears to be additive to Hick's original concept of 'Social Income'. Potential connections warrant a deeper look at a later date.
**I didn't reflect the outlier 1 ETH tip I sent @charlesx for his illustration services in my calculations.
I decided to do an in-depth review of my earnings on Cent over the last 75 days since Seeding🌱 went live. So if you're curious as to whether anyone can earn any kind of money on Cent, give this a read - because the answer is yes!
Social Income
Over the last 75 days I've earned a total of $429 (3.4011441 ETH) on Cent from posting, seeding other posts, replying to posts and sorting replies - in that order.
To be clear, my Cent account has received multiple new payments every single freaking day, 75 days in a row.
Now I'm not sure if this sort of earning can be classified as passive income or what, so I'm just going to call this 'Social Income*' or 'Social Earning': money that I've earned for engaging with and contributing to social networks.
My posts have been seeded 360 freaking times! Posts I've seeded have received 345 follow up seeds that paid me plus anyone else who seeded before and after me! Although I haven't had as much time to sort replies as I'd like to, I still managed to get paid for sorting replies to 161 different bounty posts. I also received bounty rewards for 33 of my replies to bounty posts.
Ok, now for the powerful part...and Beer Money🍻
Over that same 75 day period, I deposited roughly $422 (3.35 ETH) into my Cent Wallet. And I still haven't managed to spend it all.
I was not expecting that. I mean, I didn't realize I really earned that much over the last 75 days until I checked. And Jesus, that's like, $5.75 a day on average - that's enough to buy a decent pint! It's legit beer money.
So on a 'deposit to earned basis', I've earned more than I deposited. To get specific, I've earned $29 (0.22698472 ETH) more than I deposited after accounting for the 0.17584062 ETH that I deposited but haven't been able to spend yet.
But I've tried to spend every last gwei in my account. I really have.
Fun facts & Seeding🌱
Over the last 75 days I've seeded 340 posts. As many of you know, along with @mckie I am one of the most prolific tippers on Cent and I managed to make 148 tips** over the same period. Of course I've also attached a bounty to nearly every one of my posts (66 out of 75 to be precise).
The $429 earned figure over the last 75 days represents 94% of my all time earnings on Cent; and I've been on Cent basically everyday for the past 13.5 months.
That fact is directly attributable to the introduction of Seeding🌱 on Cent 73 days ago. So, if this isn't validation that seeding *can* work, I'm not sure what is.
Wrapping up
What Cent is doing is so new. As a result a lot of things are unclear. How does seeding work? Why do I need to bounty? Can you really earn any real money on Cent?
Therefore one of the most important jobs anyone on the Cent team has is trying to clarify all of those questions.
This post was conceived and written towards that end. I hope it's helped show that anyone who thoughtfully engages with Cent can earn.
A bit on process
The numbers and figures presented above were derived after I copy-pasted my 'SPENT' and 'EARNED' transaction histories into an excel and edited it lightly to make the raw data readable.
All of this was done on my mobile phone, however, so things took a little longer to refine and analyze. That's also why I haven't included aggregate USD/ETH values of money seeded to my posts or seed earnings for example. I'll append those numbers below this post when I get around to doing that.
Feel free to ask me any questions you may have. I apologize if anything is unclear. I'll do a better job next time.
*Although I created the term 'Social Income' independently, after a Google search I found that J.R. Hicks appears to have originally coined the term around 1940 and carried out a ton of subsequent research. After a cursory perusal of said works though, it appears that by happy coincidence my conceptualization of the term appears to be additive to Hick's original concept of 'Social Income'. Potential connections warrant a deeper look at a later date.
**I didn't reflect the outlier 1 ETH tip I sent @charlesx for his illustration services in my calculations.
Voluntary Associations, Clubs & Collectives on Cent
[Originally published on Cent]
Thanks to @Justsomeguy the #dailyreadingclub channel is a thing. And it's got me pretty excited.
It's design is simple and elegant: post any articles, books, poetry or whatever else you read the previous day.
You can add your thoughts and feelings on what you read too, if you want.
Now you're probably thinking: What's so special about that?
Well, obviously there isn't anything distinguishingly special about this idea, *yet*.
But if you check out the short exchange that @Justsomeguy and I had below my reply to yesterday’s inaugural post, you'll perhaps see a glimpse of why @Justsomeguy and I are getting excited.
Thanks to the frictionless payments on Cent I proposed that we try to commission some custom artwork or photography that can be used in the daily posts to the #dailyreadingclub channel to differentiate us.
Using Cent's bounty mechaniam we can also come up with novel approaches that can powerfully appeal to potential supporters or new members.
That's a bigger deal than it seems.
While book clubs are more powerful than you'd probably first assume (e.g. check out goodreads.com or take a look at the tens of thousands of users that are subscribed to Patrick O’Shaughnessy's Book Club), thinking about the potential impact of being able to spin up a globally accessible digital association of like minds that have access to tools that make it trivially easy to facilitate complex trustless financial transactions with censorship resistant payments is just...well, it's pretty mind blowing.
Location independent associations, which is to say associations that are able to spawn independent and autonomous functioning chapters, are incredibly powerful levers of change.
Whereas the impact of such associations in the past was limited - for the most part - within national boundaries due to constraints imposed by geography, technology and the inability to easily access global financial infrastructure channels, those constraints no longer exist.
For the first time ever in the history of the world, anyone anywhere can spin up these kinds of associations and collectives. And we're starting to do that on Cent. With a reading club😂
So, to abruptly conclude, @charlesx, @CryptoMemes, @127kgs and any other artists on Cent, look out for a RFP post in the near future where you can submit your ideas for a chance to get chosen and most importantly paid for your work.
Thanks to @Justsomeguy the #dailyreadingclub channel is a thing. And it's got me pretty excited.
It's design is simple and elegant: post any articles, books, poetry or whatever else you read the previous day.
You can add your thoughts and feelings on what you read too, if you want.
Now you're probably thinking: What's so special about that?
Well, obviously there isn't anything distinguishingly special about this idea, *yet*.
But if you check out the short exchange that @Justsomeguy and I had below my reply to yesterday’s inaugural post, you'll perhaps see a glimpse of why @Justsomeguy and I are getting excited.
Thanks to the frictionless payments on Cent I proposed that we try to commission some custom artwork or photography that can be used in the daily posts to the #dailyreadingclub channel to differentiate us.
Using Cent's bounty mechaniam we can also come up with novel approaches that can powerfully appeal to potential supporters or new members.
That's a bigger deal than it seems.
While book clubs are more powerful than you'd probably first assume (e.g. check out goodreads.com or take a look at the tens of thousands of users that are subscribed to Patrick O’Shaughnessy's Book Club), thinking about the potential impact of being able to spin up a globally accessible digital association of like minds that have access to tools that make it trivially easy to facilitate complex trustless financial transactions with censorship resistant payments is just...well, it's pretty mind blowing.
Location independent associations, which is to say associations that are able to spawn independent and autonomous functioning chapters, are incredibly powerful levers of change.
Whereas the impact of such associations in the past was limited - for the most part - within national boundaries due to constraints imposed by geography, technology and the inability to easily access global financial infrastructure channels, those constraints no longer exist.
For the first time ever in the history of the world, anyone anywhere can spin up these kinds of associations and collectives. And we're starting to do that on Cent. With a reading club😂
So, to abruptly conclude, @charlesx, @CryptoMemes, @127kgs and any other artists on Cent, look out for a RFP post in the near future where you can submit your ideas for a chance to get chosen and most importantly paid for your work.
MV - I don't know
[Originally published on Cent]
Boy do I have a MV for y'all. I just watched it like 10 times in a row, back to back to back. It's sooo good.
The Korean rapper G2 paired up with Lyricks, one half of the Korean-American rap duo Year of the Ox, and recorded this MV to their song "I Don't Know" and it's really freaking good. Oh, did I say it's good? Check it out.
On top of a super chill beat, the lyrics and MV perfectly capture Seoul nights, Korean drinking culture, and a somehow super relatable feeling of lonely selfishness.
The song is off G2's new album "tHROWING uP bUTTERFLIES" and if it's any indication of what the rest of the album sounds like, I think I may have found my first favorite album of 2019.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a green bottle of soju calling my name.
Boy do I have a MV for y'all. I just watched it like 10 times in a row, back to back to back. It's sooo good.
The Korean rapper G2 paired up with Lyricks, one half of the Korean-American rap duo Year of the Ox, and recorded this MV to their song "I Don't Know" and it's really freaking good. Oh, did I say it's good? Check it out.
On top of a super chill beat, the lyrics and MV perfectly capture Seoul nights, Korean drinking culture, and a somehow super relatable feeling of lonely selfishness.
The song is off G2's new album "tHROWING uP bUTTERFLIES" and if it's any indication of what the rest of the album sounds like, I think I may have found my first favorite album of 2019.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a green bottle of soju calling my name.
Distributed Working
[Originally published on Cent]
I just listened to an episode of Product Hunt Radio and the topic of distributed teams and work came up at around the 20 minute mark.
The Cent team is distributed and our demeanor, communication and trust in one another are turning us into a force to be reckoned with.
After I brought up my personal experience working for a 10,000 employee global EPC contractor in the Cent Slack, @max said:
> a 10,000 person corp...I think we can change the world with under 10.
That's awesome. And I agree. But we can always get better. We can get better in part by learning from other businesses who have significant portions of their organization distributed just like we do.
So I want to ask you all to share any meaty write up, overviews, introductions, analysis - whatever - about companies with successful distributed working cultures that you read before. Or share your own experiences working in a distributed workplace. What worked? What didn't?
Some exemplar companies that I hope you can find articles on could include Automattic, InVision and Buffer.
I just listened to an episode of Product Hunt Radio and the topic of distributed teams and work came up at around the 20 minute mark.
The Cent team is distributed and our demeanor, communication and trust in one another are turning us into a force to be reckoned with.
After I brought up my personal experience working for a 10,000 employee global EPC contractor in the Cent Slack, @max said:
> a 10,000 person corp...I think we can change the world with under 10.
That's awesome. And I agree. But we can always get better. We can get better in part by learning from other businesses who have significant portions of their organization distributed just like we do.
So I want to ask you all to share any meaty write up, overviews, introductions, analysis - whatever - about companies with successful distributed working cultures that you read before. Or share your own experiences working in a distributed workplace. What worked? What didn't?
Some exemplar companies that I hope you can find articles on could include Automattic, InVision and Buffer.
Seeding history revealed
[Originally published on Cent]
As many Centians noticed over the last 24 hours or so, if you click on the seed icon in the top right of any post you can now see the seeding history of all the users who've seeded that post.
After Seeding🌱 itself, this is probably the stickiest action we've unlocked on Cent.
Other social networks have likes, claps, hearts, upvotes, gold and most confusingly power.
While Seeding isn't a like button per se, it does create a signal for the post that it's linked to, and the list of users that seed is reminiscent (at least to me) of the list of users who've hearted your tweets on Twitter or liked your posts on Facebook, but way, way freaking better. Why? Because they're actually *worth* something.
No other social network has anything like this.
I've been obsessively clicking on the seeding button not just for my posts, but on posts of other Centian's to see who likes what.
: :
As profiles get built out and following becomes a thing, the true value of this monetized intent will become clearer.
Until those next updates arrive, familiarize yourself with your supporters. Get to know them. You are all a part of the greatest experiment on the internet that's allowing *all* of you to benefit financially. With greater power will come greater responsibility. So get ready👊
p.s. I may have been the last to find this out, but when you type a username, like @Zubs for example, after you click publish or reply a hyperlink will automagically be generated - no more copy-pasting urls anymore🙌
As many Centians noticed over the last 24 hours or so, if you click on the seed icon in the top right of any post you can now see the seeding history of all the users who've seeded that post.
After Seeding🌱 itself, this is probably the stickiest action we've unlocked on Cent.
Other social networks have likes, claps, hearts, upvotes, gold and most confusingly power.
While Seeding isn't a like button per se, it does create a signal for the post that it's linked to, and the list of users that seed is reminiscent (at least to me) of the list of users who've hearted your tweets on Twitter or liked your posts on Facebook, but way, way freaking better. Why? Because they're actually *worth* something.
No other social network has anything like this.
I've been obsessively clicking on the seeding button not just for my posts, but on posts of other Centian's to see who likes what.
: :
As profiles get built out and following becomes a thing, the true value of this monetized intent will become clearer.
Until those next updates arrive, familiarize yourself with your supporters. Get to know them. You are all a part of the greatest experiment on the internet that's allowing *all* of you to benefit financially. With greater power will come greater responsibility. So get ready👊
p.s. I may have been the last to find this out, but when you type a username, like @Zubs for example, after you click publish or reply a hyperlink will automagically be generated - no more copy-pasting urls anymore🙌
Monetized intent
[Originally published on Cent]
When I hear anyone talk about intent or intentionality, I do two things.
First I get pretty excited because I can basically count on the fact that whatever comes next will be intellectually stimulating. That's what happened after I read @tor's post from a couple days ago entitled 'Social Media and the Power of Intention'.
The other thing I do is think about monetizable intent.
Monetizable intent - specifically the capture, tracking and exploitation of intent - is what made Google and Facebook what they are today. Think AdWords or AdSense for Google and Facebook's insanely hyper targeted advertising capacity.
Intentions are desires, needs, wants, and likes. The ability to aggregate every intention of basically every person on earth (e.g. via a Google search or by clicking 'like'), every result list provided, and then every next step taken as result overlaid on top of webs of social context, well this essentially allows companies to reliably 'predict' or 'guess' what you want to see.
And their guesses are pretty good. But they have made hundreds of billions of dollars for guesses that're based off of *your* monetizable intent; and you, well, you get another cat meme or buzzfeed listicle.
What if the need for guess work (i.e. the work in the form of algorithm development and complicated targeted advertising infrastructure that is the justification of these companies to pocket all that money) largely disappeared? What if you could monetize your own intentions?
In a pretty conspicuous way, that seems to be the case on Cent. Intent is literally monetized when someone Seeds a post or tips another user's reply.
Instead of an algorithm serving up content that Google or Facebook were essentially paid to present you with based on them monetizing your previously expressed intentions, anyone can add bounties to their posts to draw engagement and support from others.
Moreover since money is involved users seem to be extremely supportive of one another and thoughtful in their interactions.
In their post, @tor's main critique of older social networks seems to be the fact that those social networks don't provide anywhere near the amount of personal, emotional and professional support that makes life for everyone good.
Cent seems to be solving for that, but by also allowing users themselves to aggregate their own monetized intent in the form of seeds and tips they've given, based on the fact that Google and Facebook are earning tens of billions of dollars a year guessing what you'd spend money on and like, Cent could also be unlocking the potential for users to earn way more money down the line - whether that would be from Advertisers paying individuals directly or by some other way remains to be seen.
The fact that these TXs of monetized intent take place on Cent's state channels (which are pretty opaque to outsiders) could also be beneficial to Cent the business...perhaps.
When I hear anyone talk about intent or intentionality, I do two things.
First I get pretty excited because I can basically count on the fact that whatever comes next will be intellectually stimulating. That's what happened after I read @tor's post from a couple days ago entitled 'Social Media and the Power of Intention'.
The other thing I do is think about monetizable intent.
Monetizable intent - specifically the capture, tracking and exploitation of intent - is what made Google and Facebook what they are today. Think AdWords or AdSense for Google and Facebook's insanely hyper targeted advertising capacity.
Intentions are desires, needs, wants, and likes. The ability to aggregate every intention of basically every person on earth (e.g. via a Google search or by clicking 'like'), every result list provided, and then every next step taken as result overlaid on top of webs of social context, well this essentially allows companies to reliably 'predict' or 'guess' what you want to see.
And their guesses are pretty good. But they have made hundreds of billions of dollars for guesses that're based off of *your* monetizable intent; and you, well, you get another cat meme or buzzfeed listicle.
What if the need for guess work (i.e. the work in the form of algorithm development and complicated targeted advertising infrastructure that is the justification of these companies to pocket all that money) largely disappeared? What if you could monetize your own intentions?
In a pretty conspicuous way, that seems to be the case on Cent. Intent is literally monetized when someone Seeds a post or tips another user's reply.
Instead of an algorithm serving up content that Google or Facebook were essentially paid to present you with based on them monetizing your previously expressed intentions, anyone can add bounties to their posts to draw engagement and support from others.
Moreover since money is involved users seem to be extremely supportive of one another and thoughtful in their interactions.
In their post, @tor's main critique of older social networks seems to be the fact that those social networks don't provide anywhere near the amount of personal, emotional and professional support that makes life for everyone good.
Cent seems to be solving for that, but by also allowing users themselves to aggregate their own monetized intent in the form of seeds and tips they've given, based on the fact that Google and Facebook are earning tens of billions of dollars a year guessing what you'd spend money on and like, Cent could also be unlocking the potential for users to earn way more money down the line - whether that would be from Advertisers paying individuals directly or by some other way remains to be seen.
The fact that these TXs of monetized intent take place on Cent's state channels (which are pretty opaque to outsiders) could also be beneficial to Cent the business...perhaps.
Cent Home Screen Shortcut Challenge
[Originally published on Cent]
Recently on Twitter a couple of Centians, @ColeGotTweets and @DisruptBanksy, shared screenshots of their respective home screens showing off the sweet Cent favicon.
While Android users have been able to create shortcuts to sites that look like legit apps for a minute, apparently iOS users just got that ability with the latest iOS 12 upgrade. Better late than never, I guess.
Anyways, since it's Saturday and 70~80% of all Centians access Cent on their mobile phones, I thought it'd be cool if everyone could create a Cent shortcut on their home screens and share a picture or screenshot of it.
If you're an iOS user refer to the above gif for how to add a shortcut to your home screen, and if you're an Android user simply visit beta.cent.co in any mobile browser, click the three vertical dots that are typically in the top right, and then select 'create home screen shortcut' or 'add to 'home screen'.
That's it.
Oh, and everyone who shares a picture or screenshot will get a tip from me.
Recently on Twitter a couple of Centians, @ColeGotTweets and @DisruptBanksy, shared screenshots of their respective home screens showing off the sweet Cent favicon.
While Android users have been able to create shortcuts to sites that look like legit apps for a minute, apparently iOS users just got that ability with the latest iOS 12 upgrade. Better late than never, I guess.
Anyways, since it's Saturday and 70~80% of all Centians access Cent on their mobile phones, I thought it'd be cool if everyone could create a Cent shortcut on their home screens and share a picture or screenshot of it.
If you're an iOS user refer to the above gif for how to add a shortcut to your home screen, and if you're an Android user simply visit beta.cent.co in any mobile browser, click the three vertical dots that are typically in the top right, and then select 'create home screen shortcut' or 'add to 'home screen'.
That's it.
Oh, and everyone who shares a picture or screenshot will get a tip from me.
Check out the re-organized 'Help' section
[Originally published on Cent]
PSA: The Cent 'Help' section has been totally re-organized and updated.
Please give it a look over by clicking the hyperlink above or clicking '二' in the top left of your screen followed by 'Help' and then leave a reply if you think it's helpful.
Just know that it's a work in progress, and we are in the process of adding more refined screenshots/gifs in addition to entirely new articles, but we published what we have now because we wanted to get a more helpful version of 'Help' out to users asap.
If you happen to see a new user who is having an issue figuring Cent out, please direct them to this 'Help' section.
Many thanks to all the Centians who have asked quesions and given us feedback on what's not clear about the Cent experience in addition to the hard work of @pavan, @dgerm for helping to get this put together. Teamwork makes the dream work👊
PSA: The Cent 'Help' section has been totally re-organized and updated.
Please give it a look over by clicking the hyperlink above or clicking '二' in the top left of your screen followed by 'Help' and then leave a reply if you think it's helpful.
Just know that it's a work in progress, and we are in the process of adding more refined screenshots/gifs in addition to entirely new articles, but we published what we have now because we wanted to get a more helpful version of 'Help' out to users asap.
If you happen to see a new user who is having an issue figuring Cent out, please direct them to this 'Help' section.
Many thanks to all the Centians who have asked quesions and given us feedback on what's not clear about the Cent experience in addition to the hard work of @pavan, @dgerm for helping to get this put together. Teamwork makes the dream work👊
The third space of the internet
[Originally published on Cent]
I spent about 18 or so hours flying to the other side of the world yesterday.
My flight was great, but I basically passed out before I could write this last night, so that's why this post is a little late.
The other day I was scrolling through Twitter when a tweet from @devonzuegel caught my eye:
> Fortnite the new hangout spot, replacing the mall, Starbucks or just loitering in the city... It's become the coveted 'third place' for millions of people around the world.
Third space? That sounds interesting.
So I dug into the replies below the original tweet and came across this beautifully succinct video overview of that what 'third spaces' means by Sequoia Capital's Stephanie Zhan:
She describes "a shift from passive to active forms of entertainment" and "interactions with both hosts or posters and the greater community" as core aspects of so-called 'third spaces'.
Underlying that description of what third spaces are is the assumption that, at least today, most content is consumed passively or created without a strong expectation of active interaction.
There are myriad reasons why that's the case, but essentially it's because when it comes to active engagement or interaction, it's been super hard to figure out how to encourage *thoughtful* interactions or just any interactions at all. You either get trolled or you get ignored.
On Cent though, users are posting all kinds of different media from videos to podcasts, articles, blogs, memes and pictures and below those posts Centians are starting thoughtful conversations with the OP and with other Centians. That's the default Cent experience.
And that thoughtful interaction is *the* reason why I use Cent.
So that being said, Cent feels like it's starting to become the third space of the entire internet. At least that's how it feels to me. What about y'all?
I spent about 18 or so hours flying to the other side of the world yesterday.
My flight was great, but I basically passed out before I could write this last night, so that's why this post is a little late.
The other day I was scrolling through Twitter when a tweet from @devonzuegel caught my eye:
> Fortnite the new hangout spot, replacing the mall, Starbucks or just loitering in the city... It's become the coveted 'third place' for millions of people around the world.
Third space? That sounds interesting.
So I dug into the replies below the original tweet and came across this beautifully succinct video overview of that what 'third spaces' means by Sequoia Capital's Stephanie Zhan:
She describes "a shift from passive to active forms of entertainment" and "interactions with both hosts or posters and the greater community" as core aspects of so-called 'third spaces'.
Underlying that description of what third spaces are is the assumption that, at least today, most content is consumed passively or created without a strong expectation of active interaction.
There are myriad reasons why that's the case, but essentially it's because when it comes to active engagement or interaction, it's been super hard to figure out how to encourage *thoughtful* interactions or just any interactions at all. You either get trolled or you get ignored.
On Cent though, users are posting all kinds of different media from videos to podcasts, articles, blogs, memes and pictures and below those posts Centians are starting thoughtful conversations with the OP and with other Centians. That's the default Cent experience.
And that thoughtful interaction is *the* reason why I use Cent.
So that being said, Cent feels like it's starting to become the third space of the entire internet. At least that's how it feels to me. What about y'all?
Making bank on Cent
[Originally published on Cent]
Some users may have noticed, but I'm currently no. 2 on the Cent leaderboard. If you're curious how someone can earn over $300 a month on Cent, this post is for you.
Engage. Engage. Engage.
Rule number one is simple: Stay engaged.
Engage with other posts by leaving a reply or comment. Engage with users who reply to your posts. Shout out users you think are doing great things. Check in multiple times a day to see what posts are new. Sort replies to posts, and do it thoughtfully. Our thoughtfully engaged user base is a key reason why new users are joining, staying and spending on Cent.
High engagement will get you paid too. If you give a tight reply to a bounty post you'll (probably) get rewarded. Sorting replies to bounty posts will yield small change on a per-post basis, but over time it becomes non-trivial. By engaging with the community you'll become a familiar voice - imho this is super helpful for when you really want to start earning money on a more regular basis by posting.
Posting
Pushing out daily posts has been one of the two major ways I've been able to earn and climb the leaderboard. Every post I make isn't a home run - and home runs for me aren't common to begin with - but a steady group of users have been seeding my posts everyday for over two months now.
While only 25% of seed money goes to me, 25% of all seed money over 30 posts really add ups. Although I don't engage in this practice (yet), seeding one's own posts is a way to earn more than that base 25% rate, especially when you seed your own post *first*. [Note: The reason why I haven't seeded my own posts is because I don't want to artificially inflate my earnings - as a member of the Cent team that just wouldn't be a good look. When seeding history is revealed y'all can check.]
Seeding
The second major way I've earned a lot (perhaps even more than I've earned from my daily posts, I'm not 100% sure - I'll do a deep dive on my earnings at some point) is through seeding. I'm pretty obsessed with Cent, so I'm checking the site to see if any new posts have been made all the time. Since earnings from seeding are maximized if you seed early, diligently checking Cent is crucial. Like I said above: Engagement, engagement, engagement. It helps that there are a ton of interesting posts popping up all the time though.
My tipping philosophy is two-fold. I'll seed posts that genuinely interest me regardless of whether or not I think many other people will seed after me. That's my seeding-as-tipping approach. My other approach is to seed posts as early as I can that are made by bigger names or that provide a whole bunch of value and/or are extremely high quality (e.g. NFTY News, Week in Ethereum, @Kelechief videos) that I think a significant number of users are likely to give follow up seed money to. The ROS (Return on Seed) of being the first seeder on those kinds of posts can be in the range of 300~500%.
Tipping
A low key powerful way to earn on Cent in a way that'll boost your leaderboard ranking is to accept payments over Cent's state channels from other users utilizing the tipping feature built into the top right of every reply card. The breadth and depth of talent and skill sets contained within the Cent community is growing by the day, and paying someone for doing something for you or getting paid for providing a service to another user over Cent is lightning quick. For example, I paid @charlesx on Cent to make a series of unique digital drawings for my daily posts.
Get Money👊
Well that's pretty much it, at least for now. In the future as more varied content gets posted across various mediums, I hope to provide analysis on what content earns users the most. As always, let me know it you have any questions, ideas or suggestions.
And finally, just to avoid any potential mis-understanding I want to make the following clear: In my particular case, my leaderboard earnings don't necessarily reflect pure profit. I put a lot into Cent in the form of bounties and seeding posts that may not yield me any additional earnings, so on the whole I may be putting more into Cent than I earn back, but *if* I wanted to focus on profit maximization, that is totally attainable.
Some users may have noticed, but I'm currently no. 2 on the Cent leaderboard. If you're curious how someone can earn over $300 a month on Cent, this post is for you.
Engage. Engage. Engage.
Rule number one is simple: Stay engaged.
Engage with other posts by leaving a reply or comment. Engage with users who reply to your posts. Shout out users you think are doing great things. Check in multiple times a day to see what posts are new. Sort replies to posts, and do it thoughtfully. Our thoughtfully engaged user base is a key reason why new users are joining, staying and spending on Cent.
High engagement will get you paid too. If you give a tight reply to a bounty post you'll (probably) get rewarded. Sorting replies to bounty posts will yield small change on a per-post basis, but over time it becomes non-trivial. By engaging with the community you'll become a familiar voice - imho this is super helpful for when you really want to start earning money on a more regular basis by posting.
Posting
Pushing out daily posts has been one of the two major ways I've been able to earn and climb the leaderboard. Every post I make isn't a home run - and home runs for me aren't common to begin with - but a steady group of users have been seeding my posts everyday for over two months now.
While only 25% of seed money goes to me, 25% of all seed money over 30 posts really add ups. Although I don't engage in this practice (yet), seeding one's own posts is a way to earn more than that base 25% rate, especially when you seed your own post *first*. [Note: The reason why I haven't seeded my own posts is because I don't want to artificially inflate my earnings - as a member of the Cent team that just wouldn't be a good look. When seeding history is revealed y'all can check.]
Seeding
The second major way I've earned a lot (perhaps even more than I've earned from my daily posts, I'm not 100% sure - I'll do a deep dive on my earnings at some point) is through seeding. I'm pretty obsessed with Cent, so I'm checking the site to see if any new posts have been made all the time. Since earnings from seeding are maximized if you seed early, diligently checking Cent is crucial. Like I said above: Engagement, engagement, engagement. It helps that there are a ton of interesting posts popping up all the time though.
My tipping philosophy is two-fold. I'll seed posts that genuinely interest me regardless of whether or not I think many other people will seed after me. That's my seeding-as-tipping approach. My other approach is to seed posts as early as I can that are made by bigger names or that provide a whole bunch of value and/or are extremely high quality (e.g. NFTY News, Week in Ethereum, @Kelechief videos) that I think a significant number of users are likely to give follow up seed money to. The ROS (Return on Seed) of being the first seeder on those kinds of posts can be in the range of 300~500%.
Tipping
A low key powerful way to earn on Cent in a way that'll boost your leaderboard ranking is to accept payments over Cent's state channels from other users utilizing the tipping feature built into the top right of every reply card. The breadth and depth of talent and skill sets contained within the Cent community is growing by the day, and paying someone for doing something for you or getting paid for providing a service to another user over Cent is lightning quick. For example, I paid @charlesx on Cent to make a series of unique digital drawings for my daily posts.
Get Money👊
Well that's pretty much it, at least for now. In the future as more varied content gets posted across various mediums, I hope to provide analysis on what content earns users the most. As always, let me know it you have any questions, ideas or suggestions.
And finally, just to avoid any potential mis-understanding I want to make the following clear: In my particular case, my leaderboard earnings don't necessarily reflect pure profit. I put a lot into Cent in the form of bounties and seeding posts that may not yield me any additional earnings, so on the whole I may be putting more into Cent than I earn back, but *if* I wanted to focus on profit maximization, that is totally attainable.
Goodbyes
[Originally published on Cent]
Holidays come and go for everyone. That's life.
But family can't always go with you after the holidays pass. That's what makes leaving home when the holidays are nearly over so tough.
I remember when I was about 13 years old. It was my first time having to head back to my dorm after a long winter break spent with family.
My parents had driven off hours ago. The dorm was silent. I left my room on the second floor and walked to the end of the long corridor where I curled up in the window nook. I just sat there, staring out the window.
A few cars were still cruising along Lincoln Highway. Tears turned those head and tail lights into multi-sided geometric splashes of color.
All I could think about was the warm memory of the holiday - now long gone - spent together with my family, and how I had been so cold and withdrawn. I felt so sorry. Why hadn't I played that board game with the family like my mom wanted? Why did I just sit on the couch reading the whole time?
But then I remembered the afternoon I spent with mom doing some last minute shopping before Christmas. We had lunch at a Friendly's. I sipped on my strawberry Fribble and listened to my mom talk before telling her all that I had been up to at school. I remembered all the football I watched with my Dad and waking up on Christmas morning with my little brother and sister.
Closing my eyes, I swallowed past the lump in my throat, got up, and went back to my room. The 'KYW // news radio // 10-60' jingle was coming out of my portable Sanyo am/fm radio as I closed the heavy wooden door behind me. Laying down I closed my eyes and replayed the good memories before I drifted off to sleep.
Tomorrow morning my parents are taking me to the airport so I can head back half way around the world to the foreign land that I now call home. I can almost feel that same lump in my throat and those same sad thoughts that went through my mind when I was 13.
Goodbyes are never easy, and no one is ever perfect, but thinking about the good times spent with loved ones makes the bitter pill that one is often forced to swallow after saying goodbye to loved ones and before getting into a regular routine again just a little bit more bearable.
Holidays come and go for everyone. That's life.
But family can't always go with you after the holidays pass. That's what makes leaving home when the holidays are nearly over so tough.
I remember when I was about 13 years old. It was my first time having to head back to my dorm after a long winter break spent with family.
My parents had driven off hours ago. The dorm was silent. I left my room on the second floor and walked to the end of the long corridor where I curled up in the window nook. I just sat there, staring out the window.
A few cars were still cruising along Lincoln Highway. Tears turned those head and tail lights into multi-sided geometric splashes of color.
All I could think about was the warm memory of the holiday - now long gone - spent together with my family, and how I had been so cold and withdrawn. I felt so sorry. Why hadn't I played that board game with the family like my mom wanted? Why did I just sit on the couch reading the whole time?
But then I remembered the afternoon I spent with mom doing some last minute shopping before Christmas. We had lunch at a Friendly's. I sipped on my strawberry Fribble and listened to my mom talk before telling her all that I had been up to at school. I remembered all the football I watched with my Dad and waking up on Christmas morning with my little brother and sister.
Closing my eyes, I swallowed past the lump in my throat, got up, and went back to my room. The 'KYW // news radio // 10-60' jingle was coming out of my portable Sanyo am/fm radio as I closed the heavy wooden door behind me. Laying down I closed my eyes and replayed the good memories before I drifted off to sleep.
Tomorrow morning my parents are taking me to the airport so I can head back half way around the world to the foreign land that I now call home. I can almost feel that same lump in my throat and those same sad thoughts that went through my mind when I was 13.
Goodbyes are never easy, and no one is ever perfect, but thinking about the good times spent with loved ones makes the bitter pill that one is often forced to swallow after saying goodbye to loved ones and before getting into a regular routine again just a little bit more bearable.
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