Smart Media Tokens on the Steem Blockchain

The Problem

Publishers and creators struggle to make a profit from their digital content

Why?

It's hard for publishers to acquire a critical mass of paying subscribers.
Ad-revenue is taking a hit with the rise of ad-blockers.
Tips and donations are not viable due to the expense of processing micro-payments
Huge social networks like Facebook take profits from publishers but don't share revenue

The Solution

To enable publishers to create tokens that help monetize content and grow communities

How?

Tokens enable publishers to create mutually beneficial community based economic incentives to drive platform growth.
Smart tokens with near instant settlement and zero transaction fees opens up new non-advertising business models.
Publishers can also use the tokens to fundraise via an ‘Initial Coin Offering’ (ICO).

What are Smart Media Tokens?

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.
They're like Ethereum's ERC-20 tokens, but with certain built-in ‘Proof-of-Brain’ properties and a token distribution reward system designed specifically for digital content businesses.

‘Proof-of-Brain’community incentives

Proof-of-Brain is a type of tokens rewards algorithm that encourages people to create and curate content.

It enables tokens to be distributed by "upvote" and "like"-based algorithms and can be integrated with websites to align incentives between application owners and community members to spur growth.

Posting rewards

Curation rewards

Focus on your community and content. There's no need to be a crypto expert.

SMT's run on the Steem blockchain, which has been battle-tested for over a year on the Steemit.com blogging social network.
Steem is a zero-fee, near instant settlement blockchain that already processes more transactions per second than the Bitcoin or Ethereum networks.
After initial setup, publishers can focus on creating value for their community, rather than worrying about managing the blockchain tech.

Now anyone can set up their own custom token

It's quick and easy to set up your own token.
Choose from several out-of-the-box options based on common use cases, or customize your token as you wish.
Create the right incentives that will drive platform growth and reward your community.
Use the new token to fundraise from the community.

Example 1

Content Publishers

Single Token Support

A mainstream media website's growth has been slowing and they are looking for ways to get ahead of the changing tech landscape. The website migrates to a Disqus-like application based on Steem, or taps directly into Steem APIs for a custom integration.

Now their subscribers can be rewarded with cryptocurrency while commenting. When the website is ready, they can issue their own token through the comments interface—the token will allow them to:

Raise capital by selling tokens
Catalyze autonomous growth

Example 2

Forums

Multiple Token Support

A forum business wants to integrate a token but wants to focus on growing their community rather than the technical and security issues of hosting a cryptocurrency wallet.

They issue an SMT and integrate it into their website using SteemConnect to handle the wallet and transfer capabilities.

The forum also enables multiple additional tokens to be launched for specific topics of discussion to spur autonomous growth of the website niche by niche. An example of this multi-token model could eventually be found in a platform like Busy, if it were to enable its own globally available token on its domain, as well as narrowly available tokens for specific community niches—such as ‘gardening’.

Example 3

Comments Widget

Publishers can quickly launch an SMT on their site by offering a Steem-based comments widget that integrates into existing blogs built on platforms such as WordPress and Blogger.

The publisher could take a percentage of the tokens (called “Shared Rewards”) and distribute the rest to the commenters on the site.

This model also creates a business opportunity for developers who want to build the next generation of crypto-enabled Disqus-like companies.

Example 4

Sub-Community Moderators and Managers

Imagine you are a moderator for a specific topic inside a forum, such as a Reddit ‘subreddit’. If a website integrates SMTs for these specific topics, then the topic moderator(s) can launch these tokens to empower the subscribers of their topic, raise funds, and increase the quality of content curation for the community.