Introduction

Since the introduction of bitcoin in 2009, blockchain technology has continued to break into industries and find application in several sectors. Though originally meant to be a platform for keeping financial records in a transparent manner, blockchain is now used in many sectors such as health, education, governance, insurance, agriculture and so. Currently, there are more than one thousand cryptocurrencies and more projects continue to spring up everyday. Blockchain technology has transformed lots of traditional centralized services into a more efficient decentralized one, leaving us with better solutions built on distributed networks.

One of the sectors that has experienced much private control is the digital advertising sector. The giants like Google control the advertising industry and blockchain technology have made very little progress to break into this sector. There are urgent and important reasons why the digital advertising industry is in need of urgent reform. Here are some of the problems that traditional digital advertising have faced in out time.

The Problem with Digital Advertising.

Facebook and Google are the leaders in the digital advertising sector. Up to 90% of these companies revenues are generated through advertising, but here are the current challenges of digital advertising:

1. Annoying ads: Every web user is now wary of ads placed on most websites. These ads pop up and block the main contents on most websites. Many websites are filled with these ads that visitors struggle to get the original content which brought them to the websites.Many online users have resorted to various techniques to block off these intrusive ads such as installing anti-virus software to prevent the ads from showing. Others have installed pop-up blockers which are browser tools designed to block pop-us ads from showing. Annoying ads have made some web visitors to avoid some websites, making the webmasters to lose the revenue they get from advertising. The image below shows devices using various softwares to block pop up ads.

2. Small revenue: This is a challenge for content creators like bloggers and web owners. Advertising giants such as Google have their own ad model which leverage websites owned by third parties. While such giants collect huge money from advertisers, they pay website owners very little of that money. Thus, they take large chunks of the ad revenue, leaving the content creator or little or nothing. This discourages many people from going into content creation because it is not profitable business.

3. Difficult entry requirements: It is very difficult for new content creators or website owners to effectively monetize their work using the existing ad networks. Entry requirements are so high that it is difficult and nearly impossible for people with little resources to fulfill them. Take for example Google Adsense program. I have a friend whose blog website has stayed a year plus and still he is yet to fulfill all requirements. Some requirements include maintaining a certain amount of traffic on the site, posting some determined number of articles on the site, reaching some level of content quality and so on. The bar has been set so high that new content creators struggle to attain it and are discouraged from monetizing content in the process.

The above 3 problems do not represent an exhaustive list of challenges faced by the advertising industry. These challenges require innovative and robust solution to counter them. Fortunately, such a based-based solution is now available. It is called Gathr. What is it and how does it work?

The Solution - Gathr

Gathr is a blockchain web mining solution to the challenges faced by website owners and content developers on how to generate revenue from their work. This innovative solution works by allowing website owners to utilize browser resources of the web visitor to mine the GTH coin (Gath3r native coin), generating revenue for the website owner while at the same time letting the visitor enjoy the information on the site without intrusive ads. Unlike few blockchain attempts at web mining, Gathr is not resource intensive and has a largest collection of addressable websites up to 2,500,000 to implement its innovative solution. Gathr has a great potential and its approach solve problems for all parties involved - a unique non-invasive revenue model for content creators, removes centralization of the ad industry, and a streamlined browsing experience for web visitors. This chat below illustrates the market potential of Gathr.

Features of Gathr that makes it a truly innovation solution

1. In-browser web mining: Gathr designed its solution around the concept of taking advantage of a web visitors CPU power through browser based mining. Instead of trying to get revenue by bombarding the website visitors with lots of ads, Gathr utilizes their idle computing resource to mine the Gth coin. Gathr is very compatible with lots of browsers used by web visitors. Smart devices users are also sure that the apps on their device runs smoothly with the GTH coin, allowing them to provide the same revenue deskktop users generate when they visit websites.

2. Merged mining: Gathr takes web mining further by implementing merged mining which allows new conins to be mined together with GTH coin. This approach is very innovative as it gives these newer coins a platform to launch, tapping into the established publicity of GTH coin - the parent coin. It gives new coins the strong footing needed to start up and survive the strong competition in the blockchain industry as there are currently over 1000 coins seeking popularity. Additionally, merged mining allows, these new coins enhance the security of their project by making forking off GTH coin which already has an established security protocol. They also avoid the challenge of concensus algorithms faced by coins entering the coin market for the first time.
Merged mining saves resources since the same quantity of energy or power is used to mine 2 coins instead of multiplying it by two. additionally, the web miner earns two coins - the newer coin and GTH coin. This could be a powerful incentive for miners to adopt the Gathr blockchain.

3. Smart Contracts: Smart contracts have been a regular feature of blockchains, allowing transacting parties to trade on agree terms that are executed by the blockchain. Gathr features a robust smart contract that executes terms of the web mining. Auxilary blockchains mined along side GTH coin inherit this smart contract and this enhances the interoperability of various a blockchains pig-backing the GTH coins. Interoperability is abig issue among blockchains, so this is another feature that makes Gathr truly unique.

4. Masternodes and lite nodes: Today's web mining is very expensive and resource intensive, making it almost impossible for newcomers and several web miners to implement. Gathr solves this problem by running 2 nodes - the masternode and the lite node. The master node, which is resource intensive, houses the full blockchain and handles heavy data processing and other mining functionality of the blockchain. The lite node which resides in the browser and is synchnized with the masternode, handles in-browser mining which is not resource intensive. The lite node processes transactions quickly and sent to the main blockchain, ehancing the scalability of the entire system and significantly lowering the entry requirements for new web miners.

5. Enterprise blockcahins: Gathr will be an complete marketplace blockchain development. For newcomers that want to launch their own coin, Gathr through its smart contract, will provide a backbone and infrastructure to support the deployment and smooth operation of such enterprise blockchains. For already existing blockchains that are ready to scale, Gathr will provide the capability to unify transaction operations between the blockchains, allowing all operations to be visible on Gathr and the private blockchain. Its unique smart contract will greatly improve scalability among interacting blockchains.

6. Gathr Foundation: The foundation is central to the entire project. It will provide funding for willing partners that will deploy new blockchains or scale existing blockchains on Gathr platform. This incentive will provide a much needed push to adopt the system and support new coins or projects. As such, part of the funds raise during the token sale will be reserved for the grants that will be given to adopters. The foundation will also serve as a backup financial system for the entire project. The cryptocurrency market is very volatile and the value of the GTH coin may be affected drastically. The foundation can provide funs to keep the project afloat in case of any challenges along the way.

Innovative uses and benefits of Gathr

Web minig has been a trend we saw in the blockchain industry since lately, but Gathr takes the game to a whole new level unknown previously. Below are some benefits that users and the blockchain industry as a whole can get from this project:

1. Streamlined browsing experience: If not for the sake of brand defamation, I would have listed some websites that i stopped visiting because of the large number of annoying ads. Its really annoying when you want to get useful information from a site only to see too many ads popping up and all over the page. It is very intrusive and wastes the visitors time. With Gathr, such things will belong to the past. Instead of loading ads on an entire webpage, content creators can mine GTH coin and auxilary coins using the visitors computing resources. The benefit is that the user enjoys his browsing experience, while the content creator earns much more web mining than from ads revenue.

2. Achieving more with less: Gathr merged mining is indeed the game changer here. web mining is very expensive and resource intensive. One of those resources is electricity. Now with merged mining, the same quantity of electricity is used to mine both the parent coin (GTH coin) and auxilary coins. In this way, resources are saved and more coins - at least two - is gotten from the activity by the miner.

3. Launchin platform fro new chains: Another huge benefit of merged mining is that auxilary blockchains can leverage Gathr hashrate. This helps them avoid security vulnerabilities that would have come along with a fresh concensus algorithm. More important, the blockchain space is very competitive. With more than 1000 cryptocurrencies already in the open market and more projects launching, new chains struggle to survive or get a foothold in the industry. Merged mining help new chains to thrive off the popularity of an already established GTH coin. This gives new comers the crucial platform to launch and succeed in a high competitve environment.

4. Easy source of revenue: It becomes easier to make money through in-browser mining than through the conventional ad revenue model. Cryptocurrencies are the next big thing happening in the tech world an the earlier people adopt it, the better. Gathr has a potential market size of more than 2,500,000 websites. Imagine the huge amount of revenue that content creators and web site owners will generate from the millions of web visitors online everytime. They will make far much money using minimal effort when compared with the technical difficulties of earning through ads

Gathr is an innovative revenue model content creators have been waiting for

Bloggers, website owners and other content creators suffer hell in the hands of the tech giants control the ad market. They simply exploit us and pay whatever they think is fair. I became so discouraged with Adsense that I allowed my blog hosting to expire when I discovered steemit. It takes a year to make $100. The terms and conditions can never be understood except them. Your account if frozen at will. You break the law when you make too much money from your traffic. Everything becomes suspicious.
Gathr could not have come at a better time. Without letting your blog appear messed up with ads, you earn revenue from in-browser mining with peace of mine.

Newer content creators suffer even much more because when I signed up my Adsense account in 2009, its a straightforward thing. Now, its much more difficult to get. I have a friend that signed up last year. He told me that the entry requirements is an impossible mountain to climb. From the amount of traffic you must have, to the quantity and quality of posts, and other things. Its so bad that after 1 year of blogging and doing everything required, his account is yet to be approved. Gathr will not place impossible demands on newcomers. Since web mining is expensive, new blockchains can just launch as auxiliary chains off the back of Gathr, allowing them the resources needed to startup as well as the exposure badly needed to survive the competitive blockchain industry. Looking at it from all angles, it is a win win situation for content creators that adopt Gathr.

Usecases

1. Blog: John has run a sports news blog and has given up on running sponsored ads on his blog site because lots of sports fans that visit the site hate it. They complained about too many pop-up ads and prefer to pay for subscription to get news updates instead of the free service full of ads. In addition, John does not make much revenue from the ads. John has had about web mining, but dismissed the idea because he cannot afford the resources. John attended a blockchain event where innovative blockchain projects where featured. He had about Gathr. He decided to investigate more after the program and saw that Gathr was not like other expensive web mining blockchains and he could earn more if he adopted in-browser mining. He decided that Gathr would be worth a try. He both GTH coins and started web mining on his sports blog. Today, his fans are happy to enjoy free sports news undates from his blog and John makes far more from web mining off his site visitors computing resources.

2. Charity: DonEarth is a charity organization that helps to house the homeless. They receive donations from people globally and they feature how the donations are used on their website, including the shelters built from donations to the charity. DonEarth receives tons of traffic because donors keep coming back to check on projects of the charity. Their web traffic is enormous. The board at DonEarth have been considering other ways to monetize their traffic. Selling ads is not part of the consideration because according to their mission statement, they house the world from people's help. A board member has background knowledge of web mining but offered to research more on a possibility of adopting it. He got online and found Gathr. After more investigation, he found that Gathr could help their charity earn more from their web visitors. He presented it in the next board meeting and it was adopted. Today, DonEarth makes huge revenue from in-browser mining.

3. App development: Robert is a an app developer that just started developing apps for gaming. He is worried that he makes far less money from his efforts. His apps are seen by few people and the ads are really annoying; they pay far less too. Robert complained to a fellow friend who has made lots of money from app development. His friend Ned decided to share his secret. Ned told Robert about Gathr and how he has utilized in-app mining to make money from his apps. Robert adopted Gathr and started mining using the computing resources of his app users. Today, he is app to launch cleaner apps with ads and still make far much than he did before.

Conclusion

Gathr has changed content monetization and digital marketing for the better. Content creators are now rest assured that they will make maximum revenue from in-browser mining and give their web visitors a streamlined web browsing experience. No need again for intrusive adds that mess up your UI. Organizations with their enterprise blockchains can take advantage of Gathr smart contract to scale and achieve more on the platform. New developers can launch the dApps and are sure of getting from from their effort than from ad revenue. In all, everyone wins and together, we break the heavily centralized model of today's digital advertising industry.

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Image Credits

Unless otherwise indicated, all images are courtesy of Gath3r Website and whitepaper