How might blockchain tech disrupt the media? Let’s take a look at journalism blockchain startups

I’m a journalist in my day job, and I’m very passionate about the important role that the free press plays in our society, informing people about the things they need to know to live their lives and engage civically. The topic of how blockchain technology might disrupt the news business is close my heart. I view it with excitement, but also skepticism. There are some big promises out there from journalism blockchain startups. I would love for them to come true. I’ll be watching to see.

Is journalism frozen? Can cryptoeconomics thaw it out? Photo by Matt Popovich on Unsplash

I’ve been geeking out for a few weeks discovering and reading about blockchain journalism projects. Here’s a list of them and a short description of each one, based on my quick reading of their sites. I hope to write more about each one, individually, once they’ve launched.

• Steemit – This is the only one I’ve found that’s up and running. The rest are still pre-launch. It’s a blogging platform (heavy on gaming & crypto content) with a lot of social media functions. It runs on the Steem blockchain. Writers and readers can get paid in Steem tokens, which they can use on the site or cash out on a cryptocurrency exchange.
• DNN – This stands for Decentralized News Network. It’ll be a news website. It runs on the Ethereum blockchain. It’s still in pre-launch mode. They’re doing private token sales now (the DNN token), and open their public token sale next month. Writers submit content and fact checkers review it before publication; reviewers can send edit notes to writers for changes. All participants (even readers) get compensated with DNN tokens. The white paper has more.
• PUBLIQ – This is an app on the DECENT content distribution network for news and articles. It’s a non-profit foundation and compensates participants with the PBQ utility token. This network will allow advertisers to place ads on the site, relying on them for the main revenue, but the ad money is redistributed (through smart contracts) to all participants in the network. If a reader doesn’t want ads, she can pay for a subscription instead. There will be “channels” that publish the content.
• Po.et – As far as I can tell, po.et differs from the other startups on this list because rather than creating a new website, it’s trying to offer a service to existing publishers who wish to create a timestamp on the blockchain for their creative works and register them with the Po.et network. This gives them a way to license their work to others. An existing news website could integrate Po.et into its content management system, or a WordPress blogger could integrate Po.et through a WordPress plugin. However, there is a platform for readers to discovery content through “marketplaces” too. Po.et runs on the Bitcoin blockchain and uses a token called POE, which will compensate authors, reward readers who curate content, and allow people who wish to license an author’s work to pay the author.
• Civil – This startup seems the most focused on high quality journalism rather than any old “content.” They’re looking for real journalists to launch new publications called “newsrooms” on their platform. Newsrooms sign a journalism code of ethics. Civil runs on the Ethereum blockchain and uses a token called CVL, however, newsrooms are allowed to accept compensation from their community in any currency, not just CVL (this makes Civil different than the other j-blockchain startups). This is mainly to make it easier for a reader, even people with no knowledge of cryptocurrency who might not own CVL to compensate the journalists. Right now there are four newsrooms preparing to launch on Civil.

There are a couple of other cool startups that I’m watching, but they don’t quite fit into the same category. I’m not going to write them up here but I do want to link to them. Simple Token has partnered up with Unsplash, a photo sharing site (Great source of free photos for Steemians), and Wooshii, a video production site, to tokenize their content. Also, there’s KODAKcoin to do similar things for photographers.

I originally published this article on my Wordpress blog, WampumWeek.com. I'm reposting here, hoping to get some feedback from ya'll!

What are your thoughts on these journalism blockchain startups? Do you know of any others that I missed? Drop me a comment.

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