Future of Social Networking

A social networking platform provides a virtual gathering place for people to showcase their lives, share their experience, express their views, and connect directly or indirectly through content they generate and consume. The value of a social network derives largely from its users and users-generated content; but traditionally the value is largely retained by the platform owner (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). Blockchain-based applications, like Steemit and Sola start to challenge this status quo by using cryptographic tokens to capture the value generated within a social network, and to distribute it back to the participants in a supposedly fair way (e.g., based on their contribution).

One of the assumptions behind these applications is that the participants will produce better content if they are financially motivated. “Money talks” as Steemit’s slogan says. However, financial incentive is a double bladed sword. On traditional social networking platforms, participants may be completely self-motivated for a variety of reasons. When financial incentive is introduced, there is a danger where this diversity in motive to participate is replaced with a single “money standard”. As we see on the current version of sola.ai (as of Jan 2018), the published content are highly concentrated in the types of content that are more likely to be rewarded (such as nature photos).

A large percentage of human activities and interactions are financial motivated. The same financial driver is now penetrating from our physical world into the digital world, thanks to cryptographic tokens. Only this time the incentive layer is better than ever, as it is programmable to be smart, fair and transparent. However, architects of future successful social network platforms that utilize it should avoid fostering a single standard according to which all participation can be ranked. As the ancient wisdom says, when everyone purposely pursues beauty and goodness according a universal standard, the thing being pursued is no longer what it is claimed to be but the very opposite.

You can use my referral link if you’d like to give Sola a try.