Some Background
Before Bitcoin, I ran a company called Mixed Media in the Jacksonville area of Florida. The business specialized in bringing a branding-minded focus to the various design, marketing, advertising, printing, and website needs of businesses. I oversaw, and sometimes created, a lot of identity redesigns, nonprofit capital campaigns, billboards, and much more. I’ve at least dabbled in every aspect of marketing, advertising, branding, design, and printing you could think of.
Before Mixed Media, I worked in the large-format printing industry (trade show graphics, displays, and structures), at a newspaper, and ran an indie record label.
In the Fall of 2012, I bought my first Bitcoins. I read the articles about Silk Road, joined the BitcoinTalk forum, joined some chat rooms in IRC, set up a GPU mining farm in my garage, “invested” in various Bitcoin IPOs, got scammed here and there; all the while, I was buying whatever bitcoins I could with profits from my “real” business.
Eventually, the real business had to go. I needed more time to Bitcoin, and “bitcoining” was paying more than enough to justify the change. I closed down my business’ physical office, converted to a virtual office, and slowly wound things down til there were no contracts or employees left.
The Bitcoin Bug
After some time without owning my own business I really began to crave having a project I could pour myself into, and add value to. A Bitcoin project. The problem is, finding a place in Bitcoin isn’t so easy for a non-programmer, particularly if you want to be a part of a real Bitcoin project and not some blockchain/altcoin/buttcoin scam.
Over the past couple of years, I went so far as to investigate and perform due diligence on a number of Bitcoin startups that caught my interest, but nothing ever clicked. Real Bitcoin projects, that aren’t mostly about programming, are few and far between.
I tried volunteering for Bitcoin Core, and considered “getting more serious” about my Bitcoin writing, among other wild ideas I won’t bore you with. Nothing stuck.
Discovering Xotika.tv
Fast forward to 2016, when I met Chris & Josh, from Bitcoin Uncensored. They started a habit of live-streaming their podcast recording sessions on a website called Xotika.tv.
Xotika is basically a mix between a strip club and a traditional “camgirl” website, but with Bitcoin… While there are some other aspects that make Xotika unique, the important one is that the website is 100% Bitcoin-only.
Overall, I thought the whole project was fun and pretty damn cool.
Once Xotika caught my interest, I began researching the camming industry a bit and getting to know Xotika’s team and models. What I learned is that both the models and viewers are indeed able to realize added value by using a Bitcoin-only website to do their thang.
Bitcoin & Xotika help models avoid very common issues that are rampant at other websites, including slow payments, nonpayments, and chargebacks.
Viewers don’t have to worry about “embarassing” line items on their family credit card, or getting pwned by malware from shady advertisements, because there are no ads at Xotika.tv.
In my estimation, Xotika is offering something useful, valuable, and fun.
Once I understood that Xotika is more than a Buttcoin business, I started talks with Naphex, the lead developer and original founder of Xotika. He filled me in on all of the history and plans going forward, including the new sister website, called Otika.tv.
The Big Announcement
Today I am happy to announce that I have joined the team at XO Media as CCO. XO Media is the tentative overarching name we are giving to the Xotika.tv and Otika.tv websites.
Am I a Chief Commercial Officer, or a Chief Communications Officer? Well, officially, it’s Chief Commercial Officer, but we’re a small entity currently, and there isn’t much difference right now.
All of the titles are a bit puffy anyway.
Simply put, my job is to increase and maintain the value of XO Media’s products to all appropriate users, streamers and viewers alike. That includes a wide spectrum of skills and responsibilities, but I am up to the task.
I’m still getting acclimated, setting up accounts, etc, but I am extremely excited about getting started. For now, you can contact me at press@xotika.tv, or through my normal social media accounts as well.
We’ll be setting up an official blog at both websites, where I will provide more updates and relevant articles.
There’s a ton of work to do, but a ton of opportunity to go with it. I appreciate your support, feedback, or any viewership you can provide! 😉
~BEL <3
(This text was originally posted by myself, at http://bitcoinerrorlog.com/bitcoin-error-log-gets-a-bitcoin-job. Deal with it!)