Review of Snax, as a decentralized social media overlay for monetizing content with existing popular social media

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https://github.com/SnaxFoundation/snax

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In an attempt to solve this, decentralized social media platforms evolved after 2016, starting with Steem blockchain. The decentralization is something that can empower the individuals and can offer a fair and transparent model where social media users can monetize their content and earn. As of now, there are many other decentralized social media evolving. But giving a solution to this problem by a decentralized platform also requires social infrastructure and further, it is not guaranteed that all those users who have been using the existing social media will switch to this new decentralized infrastructure. They have their established audience and follower base there, which they have developed by working years after years. So the popularity and follower base may not be developed in the same way by switching to other platforms. Even if they do, that takes time.

Further, in future, there may be many more decentralized social media platform, which may even claim to offer a better solution in some form or the other. So is it possible for an influencer or a publisher to join and maintain the social profile in each and every platform with that level of popularity & follower base? I think that will be a tough task, so the answer is probably NO.

So what if the influencers/publishers/content creators do not have to leave the platform? What if they can remain where they are, yet they can earn some additional income? What if they can also add their other social accounts to a network which can measure the value of the public content transparently and reward the content creators? What if the existing model of social media need not have to be changed, yet can be possible to earn? What if the basis of the solution is powered with blockchain technology, with an overlay mechanism to ensure a fair and transparent way of dealing with content consumers?

Snax network offers an overlay solution, in which the popular social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Steem etc can be embedded and the content produced by the user in the respective platform can be monetized through Snax network, without leaving the existing platform. Based on the content engagement they can earn SNAX token. The influencers can have their celebrity-hood intact and can earn additional income by leveraging on their audience base in the existing platform, simply by binding their social accounts with Snax network. It can also offer a solution where the content consumer can make a deal with a publisher in a transparent way through a smart contract.

The current state of social media by large is either centralized or decentralized. In centralized social media platforms, a large portion of the revenue is kept by the platform itself whereas only a very small portion is given to the original content producer in that platform. So it is apparent that significant value is created by the content producers every day in all popular social media platform, yet a very small portion the content producers get in return. So there is a significant mismatch when it comes to rewarding the original content producer.

In order to mitigate this issue, and to reward the content producers in a fair way, decentralized social media platform evolved. The year 2016 witnessed Steemit as the first ever social media platform on the top of Steem blockchain. The primary aim was to monetize the content with the concept of proof-of-brain. The users earn rewards by posting, commenting, curating etc. It has its own social infrastructure.

After that many other decentralized social media platform evolved on different blockchain and all of them have offered some sort of solution to the existing problem interface.

But the fact is that creating a new decentralized platform and new infrastructure to cater to a specific problem interface may not be an ideal solution. That may not be able to influence people of other platforms. Further, switching and transiting to a new platform for established influencers and publishers of an existing popular media is not a smooth job and it creates a lot of friction & further establishing in a new platform is a time taking phenomena. Even if the new platform looks good and even if the potential of the new platform is better, the already established social base in an existing platform may not go along with the influencer or publisher.

In that context, the ideal solution can be an Overlay Solution. That is what Snax Offers to solve the existing state of social media and the problem interface. So in the Overlay Solution, it is not required to create a new infrastructure, it is not required to move the network effects from one platform to other. The solution aims at embedding the existing popular social media with the Snax network and once the binding happens, the content creator/influencers/publisher can monetize their content and can earn SNAX token.

(1) Network effects and accumulated user experience are difficult to transfer

The serious social media users particularly those who invest a lot of time and effort in building their social circle in an existing platform always prefer to remain in that platform and look for opportunity within that domain. So even if there will be a better platform tomorrow, which can offer a better solution to the existing problem interface, it is not an easy task for an already established social influencer or a publisher of an exiting platform to switch to a new one as it requires either moving the follower base to the new or building a new audience base in the new platform or both. So even if they switch, they can not build their social base overnight. Making a social circle does take time regardless of how good the platform is.

Recognizing this issue, Snax aims to offer a solution where the user does not have to leave an existing platform. The accumulated user experience and the existing network effect shall remain intact in Snax and that is one of the underlying principles of Snax. The users can simply bind their existing social media accounts(such as Steem, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram etc) with Snax and can earn based on social attention. So a user does not have to leave his/her existing or favourite social media platform.

(2) Complex registration process & transaction cost

In a tokenized economy and blockchain based social media platform, the registration and transaction are very often a complex process. The registration involves waiting time for approval, if it is instant it incurs fees(no matter how cheap that is). Similarly owing to scalability issues, some blockchain may not be able to process a transaction instantly. The transaction fee is also another issue. So this adds complexity to "barrier to entry". With this existing state, people may not adopt blockchain based social media.

Snax offers free account registration and it is quite easy to sign up with Snax for an average internet user. There is no waiting time and it is absolutely instant and as the airdrop is going on at the moment, one can also get some free SNAX tokens as airdrop for binding their social accounts with Snax. Further, Snax is EOS based with DPoS consensus algorithm, so scalability is definitely not an issue and hence the transaction is instant and free of transaction cost.

(3) Preferences to early adopters

Very often it has been observed that the people who adopt early to a particular project seems to have more preferences as they are an early adopter. If the preferences are derived from the free open market then it is not an issue. For example, they adopt the project, stake the token and in the free market, the token value appreciates. But if the same preference is a model of the project itself, then it is definitely a problem. For example, the reward of tokens for early adopters will be more than the users who join late. The users who will join later will have a perception that as they have joined late, they may not get that sort of privileges and that brings a psychological factor of inequality.

SNAX offers to solve this problem by focusing on social relevance. It gives rewards to social accounts with high social relevance. If you are an active publisher in a social media platform that is embedded with Snax and if you have active followers, who like your content, who retweet that, etc, then you have a potential to gain more SNAX reward. SNAX firmly believe that, early user registration should not be a premise for future preferences and hence the reward mechanism should not be framed in such a way that it creates a sense psychological factor of inequality.

(4) Token functioning should not be complex

When it comes to token functioning in a tokenized economy, it is essential to keep the functioning and usability of the token simple and straight forward so that it can be understandable by the average internet users. The fact is that, the tokenized economy, the blockchain etc are relatively new to the traditional users. So if the functioning and usability of the token bring complexity, then its a turn down for many average users and it is a setback for mass adoption also.

In Snax, the token functioning is quite simple. It rewards users based on a function called attention rate which is different for different social media accounts. Further, if a user likes a publisher and wants to tip off with some SNAX token, then he can easily send it to that user. As far as the handling of the SNAX token in the wallet is concerned, then it is the simplest and easiest job for an average internet user.

(5) Integration & access to blockchain should not be complex

In a tokenized economy, there is a greater role of exchanges and commercial enterprises. So in order to facilitate the users to use and trade their tokens, it is essential to create an environment where the commercial dapps implementation can be smooth and frictionless, as that will be an encouragement for the enterprises and developers to integrate with the ecosystem. On the other hand, it could be an opportunity for the publishers and influencers too. When integration & access to blockchain should not be complex, as they bring further value and also can play a role to make an economically stable tokenized ecosystem.

Snax makes the account registration and transaction absolutely free of cost and that is definitely a big advantage and many commercial enterprises and developers will be happy to deploy their dapps in Snax network and they can further have direct access to social transaction mechanism. Commercial enterprises can make use of the smart contract to make a deal with the influencers/publishers such as a commercial article or a mention in the blog page, etc. The smart contract will ensure security and guarantee. Similarly, social campaigns, promo events can also be organized through dapps and by making use of non-fungible tokens. The trust will be guaranteed by the blockchain.

Snax is a blockchain platform. It was created for people to receive rewards for their social activity (tweets, Instagram posts, and so on) and to make instant free micropayments without leaving their favorite social platform. Developers can use Snax blockchain to create decentralized social applications (social dApps).

The content creators of popular social media platform can integrate with Snax network and can monetize their public content. The social weight of the user will decide further how much a content creator can earn. One does not need to cross-posting to another platform. One can stay in the existing platform, do the same activity and can earn SNAX tokens.

Note- While Snax is a blockchain platform, Snax.One provides wallet interface for Snax Blockchain.

Principles

The value creation and monetization of content through Snax happens through a blockchain-based social token which is based on the following five key principles:-

• Accumulated User Experience & the existing Network Effect should remain intact.
• Account Registration and transaction through blockchain should be instant and free.
• Early registration by a user should not be a premise for future preferences.
• The token functioning should be easily understandable for an average internet user.
• A commercial company should be granted smooth integration with the blockchain platform to enable the economically stable tokenized ecosystem.

Decentralizing Rewards

The major difference between a centralized social media and decentralized media is the revenue distribution. The centralized social media use the publishers and influencers as resources in the name of facilitating them with a platform and generates millions of dollars and the publisher does not get anything. Value creation and rewards should be made fair and transparent. The social media as decentralized and tokenized platform was conceptualized back in 2016 to ensure fair value creation & rewards. The year 2016 witnessed Steemit as the first ever decentralized social media platform on the top of Steem blockchain. So with the power of blockchain technology, the interaction can be trustless and the value creation & rewards can be fair and transparent.

Snax also believes in decentralization and censor free model and that is why it aims to reward the content creators directly, which is independent of advertisements & censorship. The user does not have to leave an already existing platform where he/she has an established follower base and by simply binding the social account with Snax, the user can start earning SNAX tokens based on social attention rate of the user. The Social Attention Rate is a metric to reward the content creators and this varies for different social media platforms.

Snax allows people to choose a platform of their choice to integrate with Snax. The choice of a particular social media platform may vary from person to person and further the already established social influencers in a particular platform may not be willing to transit to a new one and that is time-consuming too. So enabling users to make their choice when it comes to social media and enabling them to bind their accounts with Snax is a strong iteration of the censor-free model of Snax.

Attention Rate

The reward mechanism in Snax is based on a metric called Attention Rate. The Attention Rate is further related to the social relevance of a user. The Attention Rate also varies from one social media to the other. So it is a kind of index to gauge upon the social relevance of an influencers/publishers. So an influencer may be having thousands of followers but over a period of time if the interaction is not happening, then the Attention Rate may not be considered good for that user.

So the essential point is that Attention Rate is calculated from Engagement rate and the Engagement rate is further a function of interaction counts such as comments, upvotes, likes, retweets etc.

Note- It must be noted that the overlay solution of Snax does not have access to internal statistics of different social media platforms.

The Attention Rate for a particular content is calculated over a period of time and then total Attentional Rate is calculated by taking into account the different platforms & the interactions of the content in those platforms. From the Attention Rate, Attention Share is calculated.

dApps

Snax network offers a conducive environment where developers and social dApps will be looking forward to implement with Snax network. The free account registration and zero transaction fee is a big plus point for dApps implementation. Various social dApps such as social games, social marketing platforms, virtual gift markets using non-fungible tokens, etc can find the Snax network most beneficial for them.

Token

SNAX is the native token of Snax network & its a utility token.

The various utility of SNAX token are:-

• SNAX token is used to reward social influencers and publishers based on the attention rate.
• Users can tip off their favourite authors by sending SNAX token.
• SNAX stakeholders can vote for block producers
• One can also buy computing resources for dapps.

Users can earn SNAX tokens in the following ways:-

• Receive publishers rewards for publishing content across various social media and binding them with Snax.
• Receive donation from other users as support to the author for interesting content.
• Get elected as a Block Producer and start getting producer rewards.

Total Supply of tokens- 100 000 000 000
Inflation Rate- Max 2% per annum

Go to - https://snax.one/

Click on "Sign Up".

Then it will ask you to install Snax Extension which is available from Chrome Web Store. So just click on "Get from Chrome Web Store". Then it will redirect you to chrome web store page where you can see Snax.One. Now click on "Add to Chrome".

Then a pop up will show where it will ask you to confirm to add Snax.One. Click on "Add Extension".

Now you can see a confirmation message that Snax.One has been added to Chrome.

Now click on the plugin of Snax.One which is now showing in your browser. After clicking on that you can see "Go to my Wallet". Just click on that.

Now you can see two options: "Create New Wallet" and "I already have Wallet". As I am creating a new wallet now with this extension, I will go with "Create New Wallet". If you already have a wallet you can click on the second option and import it with your private key.

Now it will ask you to create a password for your new wallet. Set a password and then click on "Create new Wallet".

Now it will show you the secret phrase, which you have to handle with the utmost care and store it in a safe place, preferably write it down in a paper. Then click on "I've saved it".

Now it will ask you to paste the secret phrase. So after pasting that secret phrase, click on "Open Wallet".

Now you can see your Snax.One wallet address.

Next comes the Sign Up process in which you need to choose a Snax Account name which should be 6-12 characters long. After choosing a suitable username of your choice, click on "continue".

The integration of social media account has to be authenticated by posting an authentication post to create a free blockchain account with Snax.One. At this moment, Snax.One allows two social media accounts namely Twitter & Steem. So you can integrate both one by one to receive free 50 SNAX tokens for each integration. I am going to integrate both Twitter as well and Steem account.

In Steem account integration, it asks me to post the authentication post that is displayed in Snax.One which also contains the authentication hash and this is important to verify as it ensures real users are integrating their account with Snax.One. So I just need to copy the ready-made authentication post and create a new post by pasting the same & putting the tag as #free-snaxaccount. After creating the post in Steem blockchain, you can click on "Authenticate with Steem". Snax.One will automatically detect the post and will authenticate your Steem account. After that, you can see that authentication is approved and airdrop is received.

Now I will bind my twitter account with Snax.One. It will also follow the same authentication procedure. Click on "Bind Twitter", then click on "confirm".

Now click on "Authenticate with Twitter". At this point, it is important to note that, you should not modify the tweet text and also after tweeting it, you should not delete the tweet, else the account will be deactivated. So after clicking on "Authenticate with Twitter", it will redirect you to your twitter page where you can see the ready-made tweet, simply click on "Tweet". Then it will notify you automatically to confirm that authentication is completed and you can also see "Airdrop received" which is 50 SNAX tokens.

So in this way by integrating your Steem and Twitter account you can get 50 SNAX tokens each, so in total it will be 100 SNAX tokens.

There is also a Steem Bounty Program going on at the moment, for which you need to write an article with not less than 1000 symbols to get a bounty and if you have more subscribers, then you stand in a good position to get more SNAX token by participating in this Steem Bounty Program. To know more about this bounty, you can visit this link: https://snax.one/promo/steem-bounty

(1) The social influencers/publishers/content creators do not have to leave the already established platforms and they can make use of their social influence in the existing platforms to earn more in the form of SNAX token by simply binding their social accounts with Snax Network.

(2) Snax network with a blockchain technology offers a market place where the content consumers and the publishers can make a deal which can be guaranteed with a smart contract. So both the party can achieve their respective objective by leveraging on Snax network.

(3) It does not have a complex functioning& utility of its token, so an average user can find it comfortable, that can certainly lower the barrier to entry.

(4) Socio-commercial dapps and developers can find it easy to implement with Snax network, as it makes the registration free and there is no transaction fee.

(5) As it is allowing users to integrate social media account like Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Steem ( Reddit & Instagram will be added in future), the ready-made users of an already established social media platform can become a valuable resource overall and it can spark a great potential for mass adoption of blockchain technology.

(1) Some people may not like the idea of installing a browser extension, even though account sign up process is quite easy.
(2) It does not take into account the internal mechanism of a social media platform while rewarding publishers.
(3) The Attention Rate calculation to reward a publisher is a bit complex.

Whenever the censor-free approach with blockchain technology be debated upon, it does not necessarily mean to have a separate social infrastructure altogether and invite people from the other existing platform to join and grow the community in the new one. And if this is the approach, then after a period of time, this approach in itself will become a graveyard, as there will be "n" number of platforms in future and everyone will try to give a solution and will try to bring that to your attention.

So even though decentralization has its serious benefits, in the realm of social media platform, one has to consider seriously about the existing and established network effects and social base a publisher/influencer has, in an existing platform, which is not simple and easy to transfer to another new platform and even though it happens, it is time consuming. Further, the type of followers may not be the same in Facebook and Twitter, it varies from platform to platform. So in that context, the overlay solution offered by Snax is the best ever solution in my opinion which is also powered with a blockchain technology to cater many types of use-cases.

So I would like to give 4.5-star rating out of 5-star to Snax.

^source

Snax is definitely a comprehensive solution to the existing state of social media and problem interface. We can't ignore the popularity, follower base, network effects of publishers/influencers in an existing large social media platform. If tomorrow everything will be decentralized, then the existing centralized social media may change their business model and approach.

So it is better to recognize those key social parameters in existing social media(be it centralized or decentralized) and in that sense, Snax has offered one of the best solutions in recent times where one can easily bind the social accounts with Snax network and start earning SNAX tokens. The integration of social media account is so easy & straight forward that any average user can find it user-friendly. In other words, it lowers the barrier to entry. If blockchain is the solution, then Snax has really offered an inclusive solution to the realm of social media platform. Nonetheless, it has serious potential to bring mass adoption of blockchain technology.

More Information & Resources

• Snax Website
• Snax Whitepaper
• Snax Twitter
• Snax Github
• Snax Discord

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All the screenshots are taken by me during my social accounts integration with Snax. The other images and logos are taken from the official website of Snax. The illustration, analogy & graphical representations are my own original works.