Decentralized News Network (DNN) ICO Review 4/16/18

Pre-ICO Basics:

Token Name - DNN

Pre-ICO - Ends 5/3/18

ICO Basics :

ICO Price - 3000 DNN for 1 ETH

(At current ETH price of $497 USD, 1 DNN = $0.17 USD roughly)

Hard Cap - 35,000 ETH

Country - USA

Whitelist KYC - Whitelist

Restricted Areas - China

(Above Information from https://icobench.com/ico/decentralized-news-network)

Image From: pixabay.com(pixel2013)

The Problem With Traditional Media:

Media in today’s day in age is completely frustrating and infuriating. Mainstream media often takes information and twists it, to make it seem as though the entire public agrees, when in fact, only a small percentage agrees. This can often result in viewers seeing reality in a false manner. This applies to media on almost any topic.

Mainstream media also often uses facts and information that is simply not accurate. For example, CNN stated “breaking news: 64% say less confidence in Trump”. There are a multitude of problems with this statement by CNN. First of all, 64% of whom? Who did they poll? They likely polled people that would agree with the sentiment that CNN was trying to convey. Secondly, less confidence in Trump since when and with regards to what? This statement is very vague. Media uses completely biased and sometimes completely inaccurate information to support its’ sentiment, in order to attempt to convince and sway the public.

Image From: pixabay.com(geralt)

An underlying cause of the aforementioned is due to the fact that media is currently seen to be largely centralized. “In 1983, 90 percent of the U.S. news industry was owned and controlled by 50 different companies. Thirty-four years later, 90 percent of American news coverage, whether read, watched or listened to, flows from just six media conglomerates: Comcast Corporation; News Corporation; The Walt Disney Company; Viacom Inc.; Time Warner Inc.; and CBS Corporation” (DNN Whitepaper, p. 2, via Columbia Journalism Review). These companies likely have very biased views that they spread throughout all news platforms and gateways.

This appears to cause a lack of balance in power. In contrast, the government system, upon original conception, desired to implement several checks and balances to achieve distribution of power in the system. This does not appear to be present in mainstream media, and the forces that control the majority of mainstream media. It would also make sense that the funding for said media likely comes from a few centralized sources. This leads to their agenda being forced, with threat of loss of funding as a result of declining to comply.

The above mentioned has led to the public rightfully doubting everything construed by the media. “According to a September 2016 Gallup poll, Americans’ trust and confidence in the mass media “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly” has dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history, with just 32 percent saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media” (DNN Whitepaper, p. 3).

This problem also occurs in social media and other sources on the internet. This can be a problem, in that many people have shifted focus to receiving their news information from social media. When an article or statement is posted on social media, it is now almost always necessary to fact check the source and search for its actual validity. There are vast amounts of media articles, statements, and videos, spreading around the world that can be completely false and invalid. The Decentralized News Network (DNN) looks to solve the aforementioned prevalent problems with media and information.

Image From: pixabay.com(TheDigitalArtist)

DNN - A Decentralized Solution:

In short, DNN Media is “A decentralized news network backed by incentives for individuals to create, review, and consume news” (DNN Whitepaper, Title Page Abstract). DNN is a place where writers will be be rewarded for articles that have accurate information. In the current system, there often can be no risk or reward for writing of presenting inaccurate information. So it would make sense that media and individuals would simply write or report anything at all. There can often be very little accountability and transparency to the public.

DNN looks to utilize the benefits of decentralization in order to build a community of content producers, editors, fact checkers, etc, that will give the public a reliable source of media. One possible fear of threatening the current status quo, is the fact that people may desire to take shut down DNN. This would be near impossible due to the fact that DNN will be decentralized. In order to shut down DNN, hackers, etc would need to take down a multitude of sources, instead of simply one centralized source.

Image From: pixabay.com(OpenClipart-Vectors)

Incentive for Truth and Quality:

As per mentioned above, DNN will offer the ability for involved creators, editors, etc, to be compensated for their work. The DNN system will not look to be fueled by ad revenue. This protects against the bias that may come with such corporate involvement. DNN states that compensation will come from community engagement. The DNN system will be run on the Ethereum blockchain, and will utilize smart contracts as well. “Since the blockchain contains data in time-stamped blocks that chain together, being continuously added and archived, it becomes nearly impossible for outsiders to manipulate existing data or information within the distributed ledger” (DNN white paper, p. 6). This is beneficial on many levels, and provides transparency and security that are often only found within blockchain solutions.

The DNN system allows for news and media without censorship. Censorship is often used by governments and large entities for a multitude of reasons. According to DNN, real facts and information are often withheld from the public, thus providing citizens with a lack of true information and facts, that may be crucially important. An example of this would be in the presidential elections of 2016. Hillary Clinton had engaged in many events that were thought to be a potential compromise to United States security. However, mainstream media withheld this information and made it seem as though it was all speculation and rumor.

With regards to censorship, the above information has its obvious benefits. It can be fairly obvious that the current system of media has far too much secrecy of questionable accurate facts/information. However, it can be a difficult dance, so to speak, when talking about censorship or lack thereof. It is important that some information be kept secret, as it may be pertinent to security and safety of citizens. There has to be a balance. 100% of information should not be readily available to any average citizen. However, there should definitely be more transparency and less censorship than there currently is. It will be interesting to see how DNN goes about this balance in days to come.

Image From: pixabay.com(ar130405)

The Product/Technology/DNN Ecosystem:

As mentioned above, the DNN platform will be run on the Etheruem network. This has its pros and cons. However, the Ethereum network has proven successful for many different projects and ICOs thus far. The DNN platform allows for content creators to submit articles that will be reviewed in congruence with a public set of standards for the network. Whenever an article/piece of news is published, it is replicated across a series of community-hosted nodes and made available to the public. Readers, writers, reviewers, and publishers earn tokens in proportion to the amount of positive contributions they make to the platform” (DNN Whitepaper p. 8). This replication would obviously then make it extremely difficult for a hacker to take down the system because they would have to hack many different sources to even affect one article/news piece.

Image From: pixabay.com(OpenClipart-Vectors)

There are 4 roles in the DNN system:

Writers:

Writers contribute via writing of news articles. Any person is able to submit content as a writer on the DNN system, but there is no guarantee of work getting published. (This makes sense in that if the work is untrue, etc, then it would not make sense for it to get published). To increase the likelihood of content getting published, writers should refer to the DNN guidelines for content.

Reviewers -

“Reviewers, or editors, read and vote upon submitted articles before an article is available for public consumption on the DNN’s article feed. The review process includes basic tasks such as noting grammatical errors, pointing out inaccuracies and questionable statements, as well as content classification. Most important, however, is that reviewers ensure articles adhere to the DNN content guidelines” (DNN Whitepaper, p. 8). Reviewers are not in charge of changing/editing articles. They are however, in charge of voting for acceptance or rejection of said content. This seems to be a democratic process in that a number of votes from different people are required for a decision/movement. The reviewers are unaware each others identities in order to avoid bias and collective agreement.

Readers -

Readers are able to comment on submissions, give feedback, share articles, etc. Readers pay to read articles via DNN tokens. This seems to be similar to paying for a subscription to a newspaper, etc.

Publishers -

“Unlike readers, reviewers, and writers who are human actors of the network, publishers are server nodes which act as a proxy between human contributors and the DNN network residing on the Ethereum blockchain.
Specialized open source software consisting of the complete DNN contributor-interface and network interface, is bundled and installed on each publisher. Publisher nodes are responsible for replicating published articles and ensuring that the DNN network remains available in the face of coordinated attacks.”
(DNN Whitepaper p. 11). This system looks to provide an effective form of protection from hacks.

Image From: pixabay.com(mohamed_hassan)

DNN Token:

The DNN token will be a way to transfer value on the DNN platform.
DNN tokens can be used for -

Payment of reader subscriptions

Writer fees for writers to submit articles (If the article is accepted, the writer can then receive DNN tokens as payment if their article receives engagement by audiences).

“Reviewers use DNN tokens to to be considered by the network as a reviewer of a submitted article” (DNN Whitepaper p. 13).

Tipps, comments, etc, by readers

Publishers earn DNN tokens based on the amount they hold (similar to staking coins in a wallet and earning based on the amount held in the wallet).

*For more details/deeper understanding of the technology and details on how the DNN platform works, you may wish to consult the DNN white paper, in that there is a lot of information involved.

DNN whitepaper link: https://dnn.media/storage/DecentralizedNewsNetworkWhitePaperDraftv1.5.3.pdf

Image From: pixabay.com(3dman_eu)

Team:

Samit Singh (Co-Founder) -

Co-founded MiniChat Inc. (messaging app startup business)
Co-founded Tack Video (photo and video app)
Over 7 years of experience in the startup space
Various other startup experience
Has helped run a large scale Ethereum mining operation

Dondrey Taylor (Co-Founder) -

Co-founded above MiniChat and Tack Video businesses with Samit Singh
Web and mobile full stack developer experience and ability
B.S. in information technology with specialization in systems architecture
Aided in building a prominent Ethereum mining farm
Works on front and back end codebase for DNN

Justing Festa (Advisor) -

Digital Media Executive at LittleThings (the largest internet women’s lifestyle URL)
Experience with a platform that has extensive reach
Programming experience

Matt Chwierut (Advisor) -

Research director at Smith and Crown

Malisa Pusonja (Project Manager) -

Chief R&D engineer at Devana Labs

Andrej Cvoro (Solidity Developer) -

10 years of coding experience
Freelance software development experience

Pros Radovanovic (Solidity Developer) -

Software development at Devana Labs

Rebecca (Grace) Rachmany (Advisor) -

Founder and CEO of Gangly Sister LLC (media business aiming to change how girls are portrayed through media)
25 years of management experience for tech businesses
Experience as CEO of Tech Tav and Marketecht
Founder of IwriteICOwhitepapers.com
MBA from Kellogg Northwestern
Graduate of Anthony Robbin’s Business Mastery and Landmark’s Team Management and Leadership Program

Pietro Speroni di Fenizio (Advisory) -

PHD in bioinformatics
Masters degree in evolutionary and adaptive systems

Dario D’Aprile (Advisor) -

Founder of Human and Machine Ltd
Digital publishing programs experience for National Geographic and News International
20 creative awards
W3 award winner
Grammy award winner

Richard Mills (Advisor) -

Research associate at the U of Cambridge
Director of research for WikiRate
PHD in Applied Social Statistics
Bsc and Mac in Psychology

Aly Madhavji (Advisor) -

Founder and former CEO of Global DCX
Worked on advisory board for Polymath and Jet8
Advisory roles for the U of Toronto’s Governing Council
Published author of 3 books (internationally acclaimed author)
Experience working with PwC, PayPal, Microsoft, Bloomberg, and INSEAD
Schwarzmann Scholar
Master’s in Business Administration from INSEAD
Bachelor of Commerce from U of Toronto
Holds designations of Chartered Professional Accountant, Chartered Accountant, Certified Management Accountant, and Chartered Investment Manager.

(Above team information from DNN whitepaper, p. 47-51)

Image From: pixabay.com(TheDigitalArtist)

Roadmap:

Nov. 2016 - Conceptualization

Dec. 2016 - Tech and Market Research

Jan. 2017 - Initial Alpha Developement

Feb. 2017 - Team Building/Whitepaper Draft

May 2017 - Alpha Test Release

Q4 2017 - Bug Bounty Program and Product Refinement

Q4 2017 - Presale and Crowdsale

Q1 2018 - Hiring

Q4 2018 - Beta Mainnet Release

Q1 2019 - Product Mainnet Release

Q2 2019 - Community Building of Writers, Readers, Reviewers, and Publishers

Q3 2019 - Regional/Localized News on DNN

(Above roadmap information from https://crowdsale.dnn.media)

Image From: pixabay.com(Clker-Free-Vector-Images)

Positives:

• Fantastic core idea of changing media

• Looking to bring reputable news information to the public

• Audience engagement

• Security provided from a decentralized solution

• Looking to remove government and corporate media agenda/bias

• Democratic stye of approval for improved accuracy and fairness/distribution of power

• Detailed platform ecosystem

• Detailed Whitepaper

• Removing Censorship

Image From: pixabay.com(tFity)

Negatives:

• Complexity of ecosystem may or may not work. Only time will tell

• Writers may not want to have to pay money/DNN in order to contribute

• Readers may like the idea, but not enough to pay money/DNN in order to subscribe/receive news

• Removing Censorship (This is both a positive and a negative in that it depends on the degree to which censorship is removed, as explained earlier in the article).

Image From: pixabay.com(Clker-Free-Vector-Images)

Thoughts:

DNN seems like an awesome idea at its core. The current media situation is often times infuriating. To have a democratic system where truthful facts and information are reported would be a groundbreaking improvement to the current status quo. There should be outlets for opinions on said facts and news pieces… but they should be labeled as simply that… opinions. The current media often reports opinions and bias as though it were fact. And that is a problem that DNN may be able to solve. However, as revolutionary and excellent as the DNN ideas and proposals are, only time will tell if their proposed system will be successful and be able to become the new status quo. A vast amount cryptocurrency projects will fail in the next several years, many of which are in very early stages currently. It will be interesting to keep an eye on DNN over the next several months, and to see how they develop as they eventually release their platform, and how their platform is utilized and accepted by the public.

At the end of the day, readers need to decide what they personally think the future will be for DNN. This review was written about my opinions and my interpretation of data, which can be subjective. In no way am I claiming that I know everything, and therefore, independent research is required by readers. But hopefully I have given a good amount of content to assist in entertaining the public. DNN could go nowhere in price or even go down. But it could also do very well. Decide for yourself based on the data and your own personal research. I have not yet invested in DNN, but may do so in the future. I have also not been compensated by DNN for this review.

(**Everything written, said, tweeted, etc. is based on my personal opinion, my interpretation of the data/material, and is not financial or investment advice whatsoever. I do not claim to be an expert. Articles may be subject to edit/update at the discretion of the writer)

Sources:

https://icobench.com/ico/decentralized-news-network

DNN Whitepaper

Video:

Images:

Listed under images above