Without an ad blocker this might be how it feels for you as you browse the internet...everywhere you look, everywhere you click you're met with an ad. Buy this! Buy that! You NEED this...you WANT that...but do you actually? Did you consent to view that Clorox ad? How about that ad for the 112th season of Lost? You KNOW you needed to see that little Charmin bear do his TP dance one more time before you watched your daily crypto updates...
No? So you download an ad blocker, finally, you're free and can breathe a sigh of relief.
But wait! You've now missed a 2 for $4 sale on Monster Energy drinks which you DID so desperately need to stay up yet another night to catch the dip...
No reward without risk right? But it doesn't have to look this way. Enter AdEx...a new way to view and post ads giving consumers transparent control over the ads they see guaranteeing ads make it to their target audience.
"Wait, wait, wait. Google and Facebook give me control over the ads I see...and their targeted ads seem to know what I want."
Is that what you're thinking? You'd be partly right...how then, is AdEx any different than the platforms we know and are oh so addicted to?
AdEx doesn't sell out their customers-giving the user control and protecting their privacy. Transactions looks like this:
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Instead of this:
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Read on to better understand how the AdEx platform will change how consumers and ad curators interact with one another in a much more harmonious and beneficial ecosystem.
Funded by a crowdsource campaign launched in June of last year AdEx was created with the “aim to disrupt the existing online advertising landscape and address the significant problems it faces such as advertising fraud, privacy and consent to receiving sponsored messages, and the rise of ad blockers.” Not to mention the problem of legitimate advertisers who’ve spent time and money on these advertisements in vain.
On the outside, AdEx doesn't look revolutionary. As already mentioned Google and Facebook, the largest advertisers in existence DO give users a semblance of control over whether or not targeted ads are relevant, but is it a facade? Information about likes and dislikes, comings and goings, internet search habits and more are jumbled together to fit users into key categories which meet keywords created by retailers renting ad space. They also make an income from advertisers without guaranteeing their ads will be seen.
In the AdEx whitepaper they point out how just this practice creates a situation likely to expose the user and/or advertisers to human error were an ad labeled with an irrelevant keyword. If being exposed to unwarranted ads, or wasting money on ads that’ll never reach their destination doesn’t sound horrifying enough, Google and Facebook both sell users information to various agencies to use for whatever purpose they like despite what they may have told the original platform it was for.
*Gasp* AND THEN with their monopoly like power they unfairly ban ads that may be threatening to their own ecosystems-like those promoting crypto.
There’s no denying, data from customer metrics is extremely important to the success of advertisements and the products they support. Ads need to exist, and advertisers need direction in order to create them...but wouldn’t it be better if the data provided to companies was anonymous, ads were guaranteed to reach the user and users only received ads they elected to view? Would it be better if ads went straight from the advertiser to the publisher being consumed with no middle man to charge fees for facilitation? What if publishers were able to choose which ads appeared on their site pulling consumers back in who’d otherwise circumvent a site that might be known for malicious ads?
AdEx vows to accomplish this...negating the need for ad blocking technology on the consumer end, erasing middlemen and fake misleading ads from the matrix of advertisers with “impression and click verification” and anonymizing data provided to advertisement creators. This ecosystem is made up of a front end for consumers, a front end for advertisers and a control hub for publishers.
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In the center is AdEx, originally an Ethereum based blockchain the system now resides on the NEO blockchain and collects information from consumer profiles, anonymizes it and places it on the ledger for advertisers to freely address and adhere to. When advertisers want to reach an audience, publishers negotiate with the ad company using smart contracts for a fee they’ll charge to display their ads. Publishers then adhere to the terms advertisers have laid out as to who their ads will reach. With a direct connection between publishers and advertisers like this ROI is maximized for both parties and a stronger relationship is forged with consumers.
Further to regulate ads and minimize unfair banning of what could be considered irrelevant, misleading or malicious ads, AdEx has implemented a voting system giving end-users complete control over what is considered wanted and unwanted within the ecosystem. This system encompasses not only a way to vote on the legitimacy and relevance of ads, but also of users.
With a current market-cap of $72,761,380 USD AdEx currently holds the rank of 189 and is available at Binance, Bittrex and Hit BTC among a number of other exchanges. With a total supply of 100,000,000 ADX, there are currently only 73,430,701 in circulation.
According to AdEx token distribution looks like this:
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Partnering with Flixxo on April 20th this month, AdEx saw some serious volume increases for the 2 following days pushing the price up close to 200%. Busting through the .618 on my Fib and wicking all the way thru a stacked Fibonacci to the.382, price action bounced perfectly as it began to correct. Down to the .618, price action rallied a little bit and ultimately returned to where it was prior to their newest partnership.
Struggling to break the .618 again my hope is that price-action will climb over the new few weeks to a significant area of resistance above that .618 (indicated by the red arrow on my chart.) This of course is not advice or a certain path, it is as always only one idea of many which are likely.
Follow this chart here.
With their protocol just getting ready to be released AdEx has a lot of big plans as indicated by their roadmap. Currently the team is working through scalability options, looking into Plasma as one option. Coming next are updates and improvements to how targeting and reporting are facilitated as well as changes to the publishers SDK.
What do you say, will you be taking the plunge and taking control over your experience? Do you believe this transparent system will better facilitate relationships between advertisers and publishers with overall growth and greater profitability? Is this a valid long-term solution for scalability and privacy?
Let us know in the comments!
°Br¡tT^N¥° (@TheJadeCrow on Twitter)