The good news about blockchain hype is that the technology is becoming more known in society. The bad news is that there is plenty of misinformation and unflattering news.
If you’re reading this, it’s likely you already know blockchain is not synonymous with Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency. But many conflate these together. So that’s a fundamental point of misinformation.
However, blockchain’s association with cryptocurrency, regardless of its profound difference, casts it in a bad light.
The fact that cryptocurrency is also used for tax evasion, money laundering, contraband transactions and scams is bad company for the underlying blockchain technology.
Regardless, blockchain has promise in many aspects of daily life, including social media.
In brief, consumers will benefit from social media on blockchain. And those who own and/or control social media platforms will need to change.
Like other intermediaries in the world, blockchain is poised to disintermediate their lucrative positions. In brief, the current reality of central control over our personal information is on a path to redundancy, when factored against a worldwide technological foundation of blockchain.
I suspect social media giants will respond to the changing tides to maintain relevance. For they know there are no shortage of defunct social media platforms that have faded away in the past.
Nevertheless, social media platforms built specifically for and with blockchain are on the rise. Here are a few to review.
- Steemit.com Think Reddit. “While most social media sites extract this value for the benefit of their shareholders, Steemit believes that the users of the platform should receive the benefits and rewards for their attention and the contributions they make to the platform.”
- Sapien.network “Sapien is a Web 3.0 social news platform that gives users control of their data, rewards content creators, and fights fake news.”
- Dtube (Think YouTube). “D.Tube aims to become an alternative to YouTube that allows you to watch or upload videos on IPFS and share or comment about it on the immutable STEEM Blockchain, while earning cryptocurrency doing it.
- Indorse.io Think LinkedIn, except your your skills are objectively validated. “Indorse uses different methods to validate skills in a simple and objective way, for example: Decentralized consensus, where examples of skill are judged anonymously by random other users. Or A.I. based systems like chat bots for automated real-time validation.”
In brief, users will grow to expect control of their own information, including deciding who has access. The implications are far-reaching and social media is only one aspect of life that will be disrupted.