Types of Bounty Posts on Cent

On Cent, despite - or maybe because of - the fact that there is only one bounty smart contract, it is amazing to see the wide range of applications that different users are able to imagine using such a seemingly simple tool.

What's more amazing is that distinct but complementary categories have formed around certain specific and repeatable types of bounty posts.

So far, in a broad general sense, I have sussed out three main categories along with a fourth 'other' type of bounty.

Those three main categories are:

1. Work-based bounties
2. Semi-formal bounties and
3. Playful Bounties

The fourth or other bounty is the traditional 'winner-take-all' bounty, which funnily enough, currently isn't (yet) possible on Cent.

Work-based bounties are bounties that put a premium on compliance and speed of completion with relatively little demand for creativity on the part of the fulfilling party. These bounty posts are looking for some non-trivial number of responses that meet their minimum requirements and are willing to provide a uniform award for each completed response.

A few examples of work-based bounties that have made frequent appearances on Cent include: posts asking Centians to user their referral links and provide proof, follower boosts (i.e. posts that ask Centians to follow them on whatever SNS they are using like Twitter), polls, surveys, and targeted feedback.

One degree removed from the relatively straightforward and joyless work-based bounties are what I call semi-formal bounties. These bounty posts definitely have a target in mind that delineates the range of acceptable feedback, but they provide a higher degree of freedom to the responders to be creative. These bounties work pretty well based on the existing bounty distribution method that Cent employs now: top answers (currently limited to 10) receive a percentage of the bounty that corresponds to the percentage of total up votes they received from users who sorted the responses from best to worst.

Some good examples include the weekly BOTI bounty that asks as many users as possible to submit what they think is the best of the internet from the previous week, as well as general recommendation bounties (e.g. what are some awesome under-the-radar Netflix shows), competitions like the current cryptoground bounty [here], and general idea sourcing bounties. In short, these are bounties that are looking for something where that something is unknown until many other people each show you examples of what you wanted to look for (but didn't know you wanted).

Playful bounties represent pretty much every other bounty on Cent. These bounties have no real clear target response in mind - they simply want responses. And they can be super fun for both the bounty poster and responding user. The current bounty distribution model on Cent works great for these bounties too.

In terms of loose examples, open-ended posts that don't seem to ask for anything (e.g. blog post, rant) and super subjective questions (e.g. what's your favorite 'x'?) fit the bill perfectly.

Now how will the product of Cent develop now that these categories have become apparent? That is the question.

Lists & Discovery

Discovery is the holy grail of monetization. It's so potentially valuable, but until now has proved impossibly elusive.

The main way sites and services are able to monetize their concerns today is by selling the intent of their users. When you search for CryptoKitties or porn or an umbrella or whatever online, you are signaling direct intent about those things.

Those things can then be paired with an ad or featured site of a more or less similar nature. And the advertisers behind the ad as well as site operator who was featured pay for that intent. The theory behind that assumes that you will continue to be interested in what you signaled interest in.

That's more or less true for some things, but not everything. Hence, the stupid banner ads showing you teaspoons for 7 weeks after you buy what will in all likelihood be your first and last teaspoon while you're alive.

What would be ideal, or so the ad men and women tell us, is if the ads could show you something that you'd like without you even knowing you'd like that thing ahead of time (i.e. showing you something you may like without using previously signaled intent).

Our intent-based search approach has yielded probably trillions of sites, apps, pictures, podcasts, newsletters and more that are incredibly specific, focused and niche. And basically a few algorithms (e.g. Google and Facebook) are determining what of that ocean of information is ever shown to us.

So we miss a lot and forget a lot.

On Cent I have a weekly BOTI bounty where I attach a modest bounty and call upon my fellow Centians to share the best (i.e. funniest, most important, or thought provoking) articles, podcasts, Tweets, Grams, Youtube videos, apps, Dapps or whatever from the internet last week. The user submissions are then ranked based on an army of Centians who iteratively compare pair sets of submissions and select what they think is the best.

If 100s or 1000s of users that are from all over the world representing as varied and diverse a population as can be imagined all progressively rank and choose information optimizing for the "best", that's no different than getting 100s or 1000s of algorithms to interoperate together for the same purpose.

And despite what is now a relatively low incentive of around $5, the resulting BOTI lists have been delightfully great! What's more, several other users repeatedly expressed their delight and thanks for being provided a list that contains many great things that they'd never have been able to discover previously.

Fuck. Doesn't that just say it all?

Pretty soon I can foresee a Best of List for every major platform and aggregator, from Facebook and Instagram, to Twitter and Snap and everything else on a daily basis with way higher bounties. Moreover, it's my feeling that the value these lists produce (in terms of discovery and utility to say nothing of the delight and joy) will be monetizable to a degree that now is simply unimaginable. The key difference will be that the value will be captured mainly by the content creators, sharers, and curators with the platform host receiving a small share.

As forecast, the future will be a constant battle for and of the algorithms, but it will be for the human algorithms that make up that perfectly diverse unique blend of quality sorters that will be able to reliably produce lists that provide immense discovery value and the algorithms that are used to determine that perfect mix.

This has been a bit of a ramble, and there is a ton that needs to be fleshed out, let alone tested, but this has got me pretty damn excited. Now I just need to get a few others to see what I see. Happy weekend everybody.