Why I think you should invest in Alis

It was adviced to me to post the article I posted on LinkedIn here as well.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-i-think-you-should-invest-alis-jimmy-van-duuren/

Alis is a new social media platform as well as a cryptocurrency, setup by a group of young Japanese entrepreneurs, aimed for initially Japanese users. Their aim is to develop a platform where quality information can be shared through the posting of articles. The quality will be evaluated by the readers, who together with the writers get rewarded with Alis tokens.

The ICO sale has ended and is at the moment listed on Coinexchange.io, Cryptopia and Yobit. In only a few days Alis has gained about 100% in value on average, with peeks that reached to 200% and has gained quite the audience with over 5000 follower on Twitter.

I have spent the larger portion of my adult years studying Japan and the Japanese language, of which two and a half in Japan. Since a few months ago I am entitled to officially call myself a Japanologist. The above being said, I believe I have a good enough understanding of how the Japanese society is shaped and that what I am about to say has enough reliability for it to be worth the read. In this article I want to explain why I think it is worth investing in Alis.

Online communities in Japan

Never was it so easy to share and obtain information as it is today and never was the global community more connected as it is today. Even as a non-native English speaker, I spend the gross of my time in online communities of which English is the vernacular. I dare say that this is the case for most people of European and of course English speaking countries. With the amount of members of this English speaking online community the are enough sources to compare. Therefore we are single-handedly able to distill a “truth” from what we read and hear on Wikipedia, Youtube, Reddit, 4-Chan and other parts of the internet. However, in countries like Japan, where the English proficiency is very low, one has to rely on information in Japanese. The sources that we as members of the English speaking internet take for granted are not at all or only on a very small scale available in Japanese.

Here I would like to present a practical example of how that is a problem. Say a guy called Mike wants to start working out. The first place someone would go to these days is Google. After a quick Google search Mike finds a forum post on bodybuilding.com, where a beginner much like Mike gets advice on how to start out. Somewhere in the replies a Youtube video of the Hodgetwins discussing set and rep ranges is linked. This way, in about an hour, Mike has found two platforms where all the information he needs regarding his new found passion is collected. These platforms are connected, meaning that members of one are also members of the other. Because of its size, unreliable information is almost immediately disputed.

However, in Japan, Yamada also wants to start working out. The result of a quick Google search for Japanese sources does not deliver the same results as when Mike searched. Instead, Yamada finds heavily commercialized blog posts, trying to sell supplements and/or equipment and blog posts that still preach what the bodybuilding community likes to call bro-science. On these websites there is no discourse possible due to the lack of a comment system and posts being made only by selected people.

The network described in the example of Mike has been established by millions of people from different countries, who all share a same interest and are able to communicate through English. However, the Japanese internet community is drastically smaller than the one we are part of. This has as a result that there are almost no communities like the above on the Japanese part of the internet. Additionally, because of the language barrier, there is almost no exchange in information between the two parts. As a result, false information cannot be properly filtered out in most cases.

Alis will become a social network where people with all kinds of interests get together, and with help of Alis’ evaluation system help create trustworthy content, free of product endorsement. Discourse is possible and everybody will be allowed to contribute.

Ease of use

I am assuming most of the readers of this article came to know Alis through its hype in the crypto community, but for those who didn’t: Alis is also a crypto currency that entered the market through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), and the coin has hit exchanges this month. The currency is eventually what people will be rewarded when using the platform when creating content and evaluating content of others.With that being said, the first question I asked myself after reading the whitepaper was: “What about people not into crypto currency?” The crypto community is a niche market, even in Japan, which has been said to have the most investors in crypto currency compared to any other country in the world. It is also very daunting to get into, with the concept of “internet money” being hard to grasp and almost no reliable information in Japanese about on where to start. Reading the whitepaper, which to me made it seem as if the users need to understand the basics of crypto currency upon

use of the platform, I found it highly unlikely that Alis would become widely used and become the new mainstream social networking system the Alis team is aiming to become.

However, after contacting the CEO, Masahiro Yasu, I was told that the platform will function as a wallet for Alis coins as well and that upon use no third party coin exchange websites or wallets need to be utilized. Alis coins will be rewarded to users of the platform only through the platform and are able to cash out their earnings through the platform as well. This will make the Alis platform very easy to use and in that way distinguishes itself from a platform like Steem, which is much more complicated in use.

Prototype: https://jabberwock.alismedia.jp/en/index.html

The Team

http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/alis-to-establish-a-trustworthy-social-media-platform-in-japan/

I mentioned that I contacted the CEO of Alis in the last paragraph. This is not at all because I am someone special, know someone from the team or know someone who does. The team is very much known for its transparency and daily reports on Twitter to keep their investors up to date. You’ll get a reply back on twitter within a few hours and can even contact members of the team personally on Telegram. This has also been very positively received by the Japanese crypto community on twitter and is I think the number one reason as to why Alis has so many followers in this early stage. The team exists also of very young and talented individuals at that. Most of them are from very prestigious universities, which are very difficult to get into to say the least. Take for example the CEO:

Yasu is a graduate from Kyoto University, the university with the highest number of Nobel Prize winner recipients in Japan. He majored in nuclear fusion and analyzed alfven eigenmode raised in helical plasma. After graduation, he joined Recruit Co., Ltd. (The 2nd largest HR company in the world, also the parent company of Indeed). Yasu is experienced in business development, including business strategy and system development of several products, such as business SNS and referral tools. He also actively worked on machine learning and natural language analysis, and received the GROWTH FORUM Award which is the highest prize in Recruit Co., Ltd.. Currently he also serves as a project leader of a joint project with Microsoft Japan.

Sounds to me like a very capable CEO.

Marketing

Alis has already had a lot of media coverage in Japan. Among others, the The Nihon Keizai Shinbun 経済新聞, Japan’s most widely read newspaper on economy and business, Forbes Japan and the NHK, Japan’s biggest television and radio broadcaster. This is remarkable, as they have only just started. Therefore it is likely to be covered even more as the project takes shape. However, it will have to do more than rely on articles in business related media.

Having raised 11,666 ETH (~3.5 million dollars) in the ICO sale and with outside investors on board, it is save to assume they are very well funded. And according to their Roadmap they are working on a marketing strategy at the moment. We have to wait to see what they come up with, but there is a good chance they will share the details and will be open for feedback.

Influencer marketing is very big at the moment in Japan. Around 90% of the very big, big and medium big Youtubers etc. are signed to marketing agencies like UUUM and VAZ. Getting a few influencers on board as representatives for their respective target audience and an accompanying internet campaign would get the ball rolling. Their articles being shared on Twitter (Japan’s most widely used social network) will create a snowball effect and before we know it hundreds of articles will be uploaded on a daily basis.

Cookpad

A similar platform to Alis is a website called Cookpad, in the sense that users provide content and filter the content by rating it. It is the most popular recipe sharing website of Japan, with around 1.95 million paying users. On Cookpad, users can upload their recipes and vote for their favorite ones. In other words, there are 1.95 million Japanese that pay to use a platform that is a 100% profiting of the content created by its users. In addition there is only room for recipes. Alis could provide exactly the same service, but instead of the users paying to provide and filter the content they created, they will be payed, while still not limiting itself to only recipe sharing. I know which platform I would use.

Conclusion

With a very appealing product and awesome team, I am a 99% convinced Alis is worth investing in. Looking at the Cookpad example, there is no logical explanation as to why Alis will not be used by people in Japan. It has to reach those people and provide them with a well designed UI, easy in use and a good marketing strategy, but looking at the team, there is no doubt they'll get it done.

How to invest

Alis is at the moment only listen on CoinExchange.io, Cryptopia and Yobit. It has balanced out at around 6k sat (0.33$), very cheap considering its potential. It's expected to go higher very soon with the token burn next month and its planned listing on bigger exchanges.

For those who are considering getting into crypto and investing in Alis after this article. Join the official Telegram group. The people over there will be able to help you.

Links

Website: https://alismedia.jp/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ALIS_media

Whitepaper: https://alisproject.github.io/whitepaper/whitepaper_v1.01.pdf

Roadmap: https://trello.com/b/XH5jh4DT/alis-public-roadmap

Medium: https://medium.com/@alismedia