BAT which is Basic Attention Token and SMT which is Smart Media Tokens are crypto tokens which are part of two blockchain based technologies designed to change the way digital advertisements affects our lives in all the online contents we come across daily. While BAT aims at fixing the flawed digital advertising business model directly SMT proposes a much better system for content creators to monetize their work without depending fully on ad-revenue.
What is BAT?
Before going into the details of all these I personally feel that the digital advertising business model currently in place is flawed. As a paid user of internet web, I have been annoyed on a daily basis and had to rely on ad-blocker tools a lot. One instance I can tell happened when I started noticing that I need new underwears. So one day during my work break I was browsing through some of the websites for new underwears and I was done with that shortly. I had a presentation to be made with some important people later that day. So while doing the presentation with my laptop I opened some of the web pages related to the presentation and there you go! underwears everywhere! The webpage was filled with ads of underwears. Basically, this happens all the time. If I search for some product online and shortly after they come as advertisements for the next few days. The idea that someone is frequently watching what I am browsing constantly freaks me out. I feel like Google knows more about me than my wife!
So, What is BAT again?
BAT is called Basic Attention Token. This is what the BAT FAQ tells. " It is a utility token based on the Ethereum technology that can also be used as a unit of account between advertisers, publishers, and users in a new, blockchain-based digital advertising and services platform. The token is not a digital currency, security or a commodity. " BAT aims at fixing the current digital advertising business model where end users are frequently tracked, publishers struggle to monetize their content and advertisers are constant victims of fraud by middlemen.
How does BAT achieve their end goal?
BAT is Brave! No! BAT has Brave! No! BAT and Brave went up the hill....
Brave is a web browser! BAT and Brave work together to achieve their common goal.
What is Brave?
This is from wiki "Brave is a free and open-source web browser based on the Chromium web browser and its Blink engine, announced by the co-founder of the Mozilla Project and creator of JavaScript, Brendan Eich"
If you notice it is the same team who developed BAT developed this new web browser. Brave blocks ads and trackers by default so you browser faster, saving data bills and safer which also saves you from malware and other ransomware and spyware attack! Thank God! Finally, I can browse web without Facebook and Google staring at me!
What are Brave payments?
Brave Payments is a system that allows you to anonymously donate money to content producers that you like. All you need to do is create a cryptocurrency digital wallet in your Brave browser and purchase BAT tokens. Then, when you visit websites, Brave Payments automatically distributes microdonations based on the time you devote. Currently, many of the websites and publishers are not verified by BAT so that they would not be able to receive their funds but I guess they will get all their funds in the past once they get verified. So if you like you can pick and choose your favorite sites and youtube publishers instead of allowing Brave to do it in auto mode.
Also as per the Brave website all processes related to Brave payments uses anonymous protocol so that there is nobody tracking your Brave payments and even Publishers have no way to identify whom they received payment from.
Let's get back to our original question!
How does BAT & Brave achieve their end goal?
One of the ways they plan to accomplish this is with ad replacements! Ads definitely pay for most of the web content and there is nothing wrong with that! That underwear ad has nothing wrong with it other than coming up and annoying me at the wrong time. So Ads are not going away in Brave platform. So with publishers who agree, Brave replace blocked ads with Brave Ads, which they use to pay publishers and users. Brave Ads use anonymous protocols — not tracking pixels — to confirm impressions. And unlike the ads they remove, Brave ad replacements have a negligible effect on loading performance.
Replacing ads means Brave users get a share of the gross ad revenue. Brave will pay users 15% of gross ad revenue. This is the same amount of money that they make from those ads (the rest goes to publishers and ad content partners.)
So basically a more regulated digital advertising world without a central authority and more anonymity and incentives for all partners - content publishers, advertisers and end users of the web.
What are the limitations of BAT and Brave proposed system?
There are few limitations I could identify. But they all converge to one aspect of the proposed system. That is called infancy. Every system or human being goes through infancy and I believe these limitations will go away.
Some of the things you will find in near future are. Other browsers adopting Brave payments. Brave payments get more content publishers verified in their system. BAT tokens can be purchased with regular currency. Brave payments become multi-directional i.e. end users will also get monetized for using the system. I am just guessing... I do not know. Nobody really knows how they grow out from their infancy to adulthood.
What is SMT?
A Smart Media Token (SMT) is a native digital asset on the Steem blockchain that can be quickly launched by anyone to help monetize online content and create incentives to encourage desired user behavior.
What is steemit?
Steemit is a blogging and social networking website on top of the Steem blockchain platform. The website is also linked to video streaming and sharing platform called dtube. So steemit functions more like Reddit and some other blogging sites and also like youtube with a core difference which is, being built on blockchain technology with a decentralized network and incentives using crypto tokens like bitcoin.
Why do I need to know about steemit to understand SMT?
This is important because Steemit is the working product which SMT envisions. Understanding how steemit works and probably joining steemit will get you a feel of the digital world which can be built upon SMT tokens.
What steemit really does and why?
This is all from the smt steem website. I copy shamelessly!
The problem steemit tries to address is below.
Digital publishers and content generators struggle to make great profit from their content because of various reasons listed below
- paid subscribers are hard to get for all kinds of digital contents because people have a notion that everything on the internet should be free because they are paying for internet.
- Ad revenue is taking its toll because of fraud and wide use of ad-blockers and other middlemen.
- Donations can be expensive because of expensive micropayment systems. wikipedia begs a hell lot every year for donations to get going.
- Big giants like Facebook take all the profits because of publishers and only one person becomes rich - Mark Zuckerberg.
This is how steemit tries to address the problem.
- Steemit rewards crypto tokens of value to both the content creators when their work gets upvoted, as well as the people who curate the best content on the site by upvoting others work. There are primarily three kinds of tokens in the steemit system which can be traded in a crypto exchange just like bitcoin. Real money!
Monetizing both content creators and curators in the community drives platform growth and token value. - Smart tokens have instant settlement and zero transaction fees.
- Publishers can acquire capital during the initial phase of website development using ICO process - Initial Coin Offering
So if you think about steemit and SMT as I mentioned before steemit is the working product of how SMT can be used. SMT is the template provided by steem team so that anyone who wishes to develop a website with user interactions can make use of their custom tokens developed from SMT to reward publishers and curators. There are multiple ways you can integrate or make use of SMT tokens in your existing website or launch new websites through ICO. The tokens generated from SMT can be any custom name but the underlying technology will be steem blockchain. Customers should not be tech savvy and need not worry about the underlying steem blockchain technology maintenance but can focus on their digital content, business development, and their user community. This is something in my mind which has come to reality where I wished I could reward the content creator with some incentive rather than just saying Thank You whenever I read some exceptional content on the web.
What are the limitations of SMT?
To be frank with you there is nothing I can think of other than the technology as a whole is in its early stages. Some people have raised concerns about the steem blockchain overly dependent on voting but as I mentioned all blockchain technologies are in its early stages and rapidly evolving. On the other hand, compared to BAT, SMT has a community-based approach and can flourish independently of any browser or other vendor products.
Final Thoughts
Both BAT and SMT are exceptional ideas for the next level of the internet - the internet of value. While BAT currently focuses more on the digital advertising world I am sure they have plans to expand their tokens to content curation and of course to other browsers. They currently have a semi-working model on their Brave browser.
SMT, on the other hand, is a tool provided to content publishers for fundraising and integrating a reward system to monetize their content and curation. They do not rely on the advertisement for revenue instead focus on incentivized community and appraisal of their token value based on user-base growth. They have a working model in steemit.com
I personally feel that both these technologies create a decentralized and democratized world of digital content in the internet protecting content rights of publishers and even provide rewards for better content readers and promoters.