BLOCKCHAIN: NEW SIGNS NEXT TO THE OLD ROAD

According to the morning report, during twenty-three years of existence, he has contributed over a million verified moments into the collective network of the city. However, while the courteous voice of the virtual assistant made a formal introduction, he knew what it was about. He could foresee it for some time now, based on personal statistics. The Company has verified the system order for his removal.

“… Your profile has been discontinued. Leave the city.”

On one different morning in our agency (years before the event mentioned in the above paragraph) we talked about the fate of the person from the SF story which I simply couldn’t bring into reality. The future in which the status of a citizen is sustained through constant life evaluation through user content that we are obliged to produce represented a dystopian environment that cries for the ordinary human story to enliven it. Ultimately, it remained untold, losing its curiosity due to the fact that reality once again proved that it is ready to change faster than we are able to anticipate. While we are naturally trying to shape it and find a place for us, we are often like the protagonist of that never-written story. We live to see someone telling us that what we thought we know well, will never be the same again.

…over a million verified moments…

Blockchain. When it strolled into the mainstream, the majority of people saw it just as a staple term that follows the news about leading cryptocurrencies. Stories about individuals who gained fortune overnight have been replaced by those about investments which are essential to acquire that fortune, and then the focus gradually began to shift to the technology behind it all. Among other things, new concepts were born – such as decentralized platforms which offer users the opportunity to value content and gain benefits that (already) traditional networks cannot provide.

At this year’s Izazov (Challenge) forum we held a workshop on User Created Content and Cryptocurrencies – New Perspectives. We wanted to talk with colleagues from the industry and companies representatives about the new horizons that can be brought by different applications of blockchain technology. People are prone to sensations, so we often witness reactions that give trends almost revolutionary significance, and this often spills into our field of work as well. That’s why we thought it was important that we pause for a moment and come up with conclusions that will help us (if nothing else) to make an assumption about the extent to which the blockchain will influence our life (and our work). We agreed that one of the key challenges will be to keep pace with the moment while initiating and maintaining a dialogue with the stakeholders. We also realized that once again, all that we’ve built will not collapse overnight, but that we will enrich our practice with some new channels of communication and game rules.

And there will be games.

For example, Steemit is one of the most popular platforms based on _Steem blockchain_today. It allows users to earn revenue (in Steem Dollar) through the creation of content on their personal blogs. The number of followers and friends doesn’t play a significant role in this platform. The key is to create quality inputs that will become recognized as a value. However, earning is not the only component that makes it different. Unburdened by censorship, users themselves create rules, which at the moment has both positive and negative sides. What is worth mentioning is the expansion of projects and micro-communities that gather individuals around different ideas. They invest money in creating creative centers, help local communities, reward scientific works, open source concepts or fight against plagiarism and other forms of abuse. It is no longer something we are waiting to arrive in our region. Recently, users from Serbia have also launched the project @teamserbia with the aim of empowering and networking the local community. It already plays a significant role in promoting and rewarding quality content.

Of course, these are just parts of the puzzle. Blockchain brings a whole new dimension to crowdfunding. Apart from projects funded under existing platforms, without the intermediation of services such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo, we encounter those who finance themselves through ICOs of their own projects. Some of them fall down, and some grow into success stories - It is very interesting to analyze their steps from the market communications agency point of view. Steemit also announced the launch of the Smart Media Token - technology that will enable easy creation and implementation of cryptocurrencies based on STEEM blockchain. For example, APPICS is SMT based social network which finished its ICO successfully. APPICS is based on a mobile app that promises the ability to earn through content such as photos and videos, and which (as its developers state) will be most similar to Instagram. Also, at the beginning of the year, we had the opportunity to read about the cooperation between Unilever and IBM, with the aim of applying blockchain to improve transparency in the digital advertising supply chain. What of all this will see the light of day, and what will be a soap bubble, remains to be seen – probably sooner than we expect.

One thing is certain – blockchain has arrived and it plans to stay. The changes that it brings may be too early to analyze from the aspect of the form, but not in terms of their essence. We often talk to people from Serbia and Europe, but also from America, Australia, India and almost all agree on one thing – recognizing the opportunities that it creates will be one of the key tasks in the near future. A couple of months ago, we had a great conversation with representatives of one Belgian company. They have created a brilliant product – an online platform that connects users and providers of specific services through the exchange of virtual tokens. Discussing developmental directions, we pointed out to them the possibility of using blockchain technology for which they have almost prepared the terrain. We ended our meeting full of optimism and plans for some further steps that could lead us to the beginning of our cooperation.

And, in the end, great predictions of dramatic changes that will take us to utopian or dystopian extreme should, at least when our profession is concerned, remain in the domain of fiction. The same fiction to which the excerpt from the beginning of this article belongs. The future will be shaped by small strokes, and in this process, a significant role belongs to us as well. The world as we know it will not stop turning. On the contrary – it turns faster and faster, but we don’t have to race with it. Our paths have been trodden long ago, and they are marathon tracks. All the rest are just signs along the road. Signs we need to talk about.

And we are always here for that.

Note: earlier version of this text was originally published here.