The Swipe project brings into the spotlight questions, surrounding harvesting and application of users' personal information. Ok, let's maybe underline the key issues, regarding the gathering and usage of users' data for marketing purposes. The first thing, users rarely give an explicit consent for collecting their personal data, although, after ratification and enacting of GDPR, all the sites began to show long-winded and obscure messages, which, as I guess, are supposed to inform me, what I actually sign up here for. Then I just click Ok, now aware that my personal information is going to be collected, indeed. What can I do about it anyway? Plus, I don't care that much.
In most cases, the problem is formulated like that: The sites, search engines, social networks gather users' information, extracting tangible commercial benefits in the form of successful marketing campaigns, tailored and targeted advertisements, well-placed context advertisements that successfully convert visitors into buyers. Meanwhile, the involuntary information donors - users - don't get any material benefits. Although they could. Now and then, I come across projects that try to organize platforms where users get paid for sharing their data. Also, in this scenario, a user has a granular control of what he or she is going to share and what will remain private. Personal information, in this case, turns into a sort of neat package for sale, which then can be offered to marketers, or whoever might be interested in buying it. On the other hand, in this case, the user is interested in providing the quality data, so the data buyer will potentially benefit as well by getting more accurate and complete information.
Another user personal data gathering problem - consistently stressed by all the startups aiming to reshape this area - is that valuable information is siloed, that is, it's accumulated in granaries and stockpiles of major IT giants, like Google or Facebook, and nobody else can access that data. Because, as Mark Zuckerberg once said, they don't trade users' data. Which is somewhat regrettable, considering how many marketing companies could benefit from using that vast treasure trove of insights about people's preferences, consumer behaviors, and other psychological quirks. Anyway, this information is currently available only to the big IT players, and it makes me think that there might be an actual market demand for user' data. Which makes the projects working in this area somewhat relevant.
Ok, once again, there are also matters of security and confidentiality. Here we arrive to our latest fad of applying blockchain tech to such tasks. Well, because the information on blockchain is encrypted, and it uses cryptographic key pairs to ensure that the sensitive data is going to be accessible only to those for whom it's intended, plus this architecture prevents the information from being maliciously tampered with, altered, distorted, and so on. So, yes, security and encryption. And yet another aspect - the decentralized nature of the blockchain network guarantees that the information is always accessible, like, it won't disappear if the server goes down because it's distributed and replicated across multiple computers, and so on.
The Swipe project offers a blockchain based platform, organizing mobile app developers, advertisers, and users in an attempt to extract maximum benefits from the users’ data, generated in the process of them using mobile apps. It works like that: Mobile app developers need in-app ads to get monetary returns on their invested efforts, plus those ads have to be relevant enough, so the users would click on them. Tapping into the patterns of user's behavior in the app and information provided by him or her directly can help assessing what kind of advertisements would work the best if shown to this user, but application developers don't have tools and knowledge allowing them to effectively analyze that information. Also, this is not what app developers should be preoccupied with; they have enough problems with making their apps interesting and useful.
At the same time, user-generated information is a treasure trove for advertisers, and they know how to actually use it to fine-tune their marketing campaigns. The problem is that they don't have access to that information. So what the Swipe project does is it adds a connection layer in the form of SDK that serves three functions:
- First, it provides access for advertisers to user-generated information, so they can use it to tailor in-app advertisements to suit users' preferences the best.
- Second, it gives app developers a set of tools and mechanisms for monetizing their apps through built-in advertisements. In other words, developers are freed from concerns about this aspect of their applications - they just have a toolkit that takes care of monetization related issues.
- The third positive aspect is that the SDK addresses the issues of unsanctioned harvesting of user data, as well as the low quality and inaccuracy of such information. In this case, users share their information willingly since they are getting paid for it.
This creates a situation beneficial for all parties. App developers benefit from being able to successfully monetize their apps through relevant ads generating clicks and leads, without the need to put their own efforts into building some sort of marketing module that would analyze users' preferences and display in-app advertisements. Advertisers benefit because they can conduct efficient and targeted marketing campaigns tailored to the psychological profiles and preferences of specific users. Users benefit both from the opportunity to monetize their personal data and the absence of irrelevant and therefore annoying ads. On the whole, all this sounds like a viable business concept.
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