Introducing Viewly
I would like to tell you two short stories that have left me with unique perspectives and motivations for starting the Viewly project.
My rather short YouTube journey
Back in 2008, I tried building my YouTube career for fun. I was heavily into gaming at the time, and I've produced content that is best described as completely amateur and unedited version of Markiplier. I've enjoyed some moderate success, by amassing an aggregate of a couple million views (which was A LOT at that time), and I was featured on British Television.
We were the early adopters of the online video, and at the time it was common practice within the gaming community to play music in the background, or in intro/outro sections of the video. Being completely oblivious to the copyright laws at the time, I had done so on several videos of mine as well.
Unfortunately, powers at be did not like this, and Google under the pressure of copyright related lawsuits, finally caved in, and built the content ID system to catch copyright violations.
And then one day they flipped the switch. My YouTube account had been terminated over night, and all the videos I've made were permanently lost. And so were the videos of thousands of other people.
This has been a highly painful, but also perspective shifting experience, carrying a realization that the internet is comprised of counterparties, that have the power to eliminate your online identity, your legacy, on a whim.
I am not trying to make a case for copyright violations. I have broken the rules, and got booted off the platform as a result, which is fair enough.
The elephant in the room of online advertising
Shortly after my YouTube project had flopped, I stumbled into the online advertising business.
By serendipity, I've got a chance to work at a retail ad brokerage. Our core services were based on inventory arbitrage and campaign management. This is where I learned the ropes of the business, as well as its dark side - the rampant ad fraud.
At that time, the majority of ads, have been viewed by bots, resulting in a very poor ROI for advertisers. The issue of ad fraud has been brought to light in the recent years, and the industry has created a seemingly strong response (they even have their own conference now), however the problem remains largely unsolved.
Impression and CPC based advertising have been the cornerstone of monetization for online content, and despite all the recent advancements in tracking technology (spying on people), retargeting, and machine learning based optimization, its effectiveness remains questionable for many.
Can we do better?
Introducing Viewly
Viewly is a highly ambitious project aiming to address the two major challenges:
1.) Can we build a decentralized video platform, that doesn't obsessively track its users just to serve them pesky ads?
2.) Can we leverage the innovation of the crypto tokens to create a sustainable, and scalable monetization models for content creators?
The proposals on how we plan to address these challenges are non-trivial, and deserve their own posts.
If you'd like to learn more about the project, and/or participate in the discussions, please sign up on Viewly and join our Telegram group.
Nice .. I like leaving it open to the imagination.. Sorry for your experience, goes to show how impractical is it to try and have a system of copyright after information is released into the wild.
The mindsets are slowly shifting, and if we can build a compelling solution that drives new behavior, supportive of creators, the legacy copyright system will dissolve.
Furthermore, the production quality of UGC is converging with that of the incumbents. The key objective is to empower these creators.
I strongly believe this new technology that the cryptocurrencies has brought to us will literally changes the world into in too many aspects, I think now we a just having a glimpse of the future, that's why I'll support any Idea ti build up a new stuff using this tech, it will always have a huge potencial.
This Video Platform for instance can rise fast and strong mainly now so many people are unhappy about bad decisions Youtube has been taking.
I'm totally in with this Idea, and I hope I can contribute for this to grow somehow too!!
Lets go to the moon together
![](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://media.giphy.com/media/ToMjGpjwk1MxyYRcQnK/giphy.gif)
Hi @furion
It will open more inovation in decentralized world. This platform will change the video network
Well said
Upvoted!
Well said @jamesc1
I am in advertising business and I've been very strictly not following Facebook recommendations for my ads. For example, Facebook boost post is a total waste of money. Facebook earns a lot of money by recommending people to run this type of ad. I totally agree with @furion. Resteemed!
You may as well play the casino instead of paying for FB advertising. There are better odds of a return.
Correct!
Upvoting it for sure, do check my profile if possible, thanks
That looks like a fascinating project. Keen to learn more about how it all works. I can't really imagine the architecture at the moment.
We will break it down into a series of blog posts, one topic at a time. Similar to how EOS is communicating the complexity on their part.
looking forward to read it!
That's great!
is it going to be a blockchain based video platform
Looks quite promising! It's great to know about your journey as well. I've signed up for the mailing list and looking forward to more updates from you on this! Good luck @furion! :)
Thank you :)
:-)
In your design, you might want to consider the Patron model where subscribers donate a scheduled monthly payment to the content producers of there choice. Implementation could involve privacy and get a little advanced, however if you just consider it now to see that your design will work for this later I think it will be good overall.
For various reasons, YouTube keeps demonetizing content and attracting a lot of negative PR. Demonetizing acts as a form of censorship when the producer really needs to paycheck. As a result, viewers are getting reminded constantly by producers to please support them via Patron. Scheduled donations helps reduce the censorship (ad money can bring in a conflict of interest) and keeps the content free from distracting Ads. Combine this with steem style payouts and I think you'll have a very attractive economic model for content producers.
Looks like a BOOMER. Will Viewly run on STEEM?
The current version is leveraging the Steem blockchain for immutable storage of root hashes.
How will SP holders have interaction with platform? Will the videos show up on Steemit and related sites? Will rewards on the Viewly platform be decided by Steem blockchain votes?
Viewly does not interfere with Steem's economy, nor are the posts visible on Steemit.
Thanks for the response. It is saving data on the Steem blockchain though?
Ideally, only the merkledag root should be on the chain. The actual content is on IPFS. This way, the blockchain stays very small in size.
Sounds sexy. I'm interested in learning more and signed up for updates. Thanks for your positive energy. keep BOOMIN over here!
It means? Steem will benefit also in this project. Also us steemians :)
Great work so far. Looking forward to this project!
very happy to see this!
great work mate
keep going
I hope you manage to pull it off. I'm seeking for a cooler way to both express my videography creative voice and earn for my efforts. I'm a YouTuber but the algorithm is somewhat unfair how it expects everyone to fit into an identical box sort to speak. Individuality seems to be going out the window as well as originality for the attempts to please such. I have no issues with copyright online or there on such a video platform. I hope Viewly once fully launched can deal wisely regarding any online violations via video format. I'm sure the admins will be very busy :) good luck! I subscribed for updates.
Please keep us all in the loop.
I love the idea behind this project. First time I heard about it, I thought it will be completly realised on the Steem Blockchain. But after looking at the Website, I see that this project is so much more as I thought. Can't wait to hear more about it and directly applied for the newsletter =)
Congrats for starting this up. It's not a trivial project. Also, I had no idea you had such a consistent trail in the digital world. In 2008 I did my first exit.