Blockchain

Creating an equal playing field for a content sharing industry dominated by third parties

Frictionless digital capabilities has created a new and exited era, whereby both content creators and end-users can be catered for at the touch of a button. Whether it’s a musician posting their videos to YouTube or an industry expert publishing their informative article with an online peer-review journal – everything is now accessible through the World Wide Web. However, the fundamental issue faced by both the content creator and the end-user is that the vast majority of online sources are dominated by a small number of centralized monopolies.

This presents issues on two fronts. Not only do content creators have a significant chunk of their monetized earnings stripped away by the platform that hosts it, but end-users are at times encouraged to view media that they don’t necessary want to see. Recognizing this appetite for change, the team at ASQ Protocol are looking to build a decentralized eco-system that will remove the middleman, subsequently allowing creators and end-users to exchange value on a peer-to-peer basis.

The ASQ Protocol vision

According to the team at ASQ Protocol, the entire social media landscape was worth a collective $88 billion in 2017, however more than 75-80% of this amount is controlled by just 10 organizations. As one would expect, this list contains the likes of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. Regarding YouTube, the platform offers content creators the opportunity to monetize their material. Essentially, the more people that watch a particular video – which of course will contain advertisements, the more money the creator earns. However, much of the capital that is provided by the advertiser goes straight in to the pockets of YouTube.

The ASQ Protocol concept aims to alleviate the role of the third party actor, by instead allowing content creators to earn rewards directly from the end-user. The platform will operate on top of the blockchain, meaning that each and every data transaction can be verified in a transparent eco-system. For example, if somebody creates an informative article on re-claiming bank charges – the author can post it straight to the ASQ platform.

In return, end-users can obtain the article by using the platform’s native token, which will ultimately go straight to the creator. As a result, not only does the creator restrict a third party entity from monetizing off of their work, but the end-user gets tailor-made, relevant information.

The team behind ASQ Protocol

The organization behind the ASQ Protocol project is ASKfm – a question and answer social platform with more than 215 million registered users. CEO Max Tsaryk – who has held various executive positions within the social media space, will be leading the way. Alongside Tsaryk is CTO Dmitry Smotritsky, who also possesses an excellent pedigree in the social network arena.

On top of a strong management team, ASQ Protocol also benefits from a group of notable advisors. This includes Jay Eum – CEO and founder of venture capital firm Translink Capital. Moreover, fellow advisor Itai Damti co-founded hugely successful brokerage technology firm Leverate, as well as having invested in over 500 Fintech startups.  

Not only will the support of ASKfm provide the ASQ Protocol with a team of highly experienced individuals, but it will also give the content sharing platform an immediate use-base. This is highly fundamental, as real-world adoption is something that most – if not all, cryptocurrency projects are unable to achieve, especially from day one.

Joining the 215 million users from the ASKfm database is NING, one of the largest Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms in the social media space. At the time of writing, NING have more than 10 million active monthly users that they can bring over to the ASQ Protocol platform.

The ASQ Protocol eco-system will also look to host other media platforms who themselves are involved in content sharing. Although these smaller platforms are currently unable to compete with the big boys, by joining the ASQ Protocol eco-system, they will have the opportunity to market their own creations to millions of global users. Collectively, the overall aim is to facilitate a peer-to-peer open marketplace that will allow authors, platforms and of course the end-users to reap the rewards of decentralization, rather than pandering to the demands of the current media-monopoly.

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