ASQ Protocol | Decentralized Content Economy

ASQ Protocol | Decentralized Content Economy

As a content creator, I struggle to get eyeballs looking at my content. In many cases, articles can take several months to create. When you look at the time spent to write, edit, and create the diagrams. Once it’s all complete and I hit publish, the real struggle begins, to bring in the viewers that will consume the content.There is an excessive amount of low-quality content that is made easily accessible in the form of a high Google ranking. Meanwhile, high-quality content is pushed to the bottom of search results where it is difficult for users to find.ASQ Protocol aims to resolve this issue. They want creators to be able to Monetize their Passion. In a decentralized content economy that rewards authors for quality content in an open and transparent way. 

What is the ASQ Protocol?

ASQ Protocol is a decentralized solution for creating, sharing, and monetizing a wide variety of digital content. All participants within the ecosystem will receive a fair reward for their contribution in various forms. ASQ Protocol uses the transparency of blockchain technology to streamline the flow of value between the users who are supplying and consuming information. The network will favor rewarding the creators of the content rather than a centralized entity that controls the content.

Now you may think that ASQ is an acronym. However, it’s not, ASQ protocol is actually pronounced as ASK Protocol.

What Problem Does ASQ Protocol Solve? 

Most of the content that we consume and create is controlled by large entities. This allows them to manipulate the discovery of content and how it is monetized. This issue affects both consumers and content creators in a negative way. For consumers, it can be a difficult struggle to find the high-quality content they are looking for. For content creators, they seek to get adequate exposure for a chance to monetize what they have created.

ASQ Protocol is attempting to build a decentralized content economy with a completely transparent monetization system. The system rewards creators fairly and enables users to discover and engage with quality content.

ASQ Protocol on a Mission

The Mission Statement of the ASQ Protocol:

They plan to execute this mission by building around these 4 principles:

-Motivation: The protocol will motivate the submission of high-quality content by incentivizing its users to find and submit it to the network.

-Community Growth: Propelling the growth of communities dedicated to the production of high-value content with a fair and transparent compensation mechanism.

-Decentralizing Payment: Distributed structure for content creators to enable easy

cross-platform content distribution.

-Continuous Development: Advancing greater product development among media platforms by increasing their revenue generation potential.

The ASQ Ecosystem

The ASQ ecosystem is divided into 4 players: Advertisers, Consumers, Content Creators, and Partner Platforms.

Consumers are the users of the platforms that are contained within the ASQ Ecosystem. They can search and gain access to any content within the system on demand. They can pay for the content which in turn rewards the creator of the content.

Content Creators are also users of the platforms contained within the ASQ Ecosystem. Their role is to continue to create high-quality content that can be consumed by Consumers, which earns them a reward.

Advertisers are allowed to communicate with the system users, both consumers and content creators. They advertise to the user base and offer a reward for consuming their advertisement.

Partner Platforms are the mobile and web applications that will utilize the decentralized solution provided by ASQ Protocol. They can use ASQ Protocol to both monetize and manage their content.

Why is ASQ Protocol Built on Blockchain Technology? 

Blockchain technology ensures that the content is associated with the user and not with the platform. Users will be able to interact with content from multiple platforms, this will offer users different experiences through platform-unique features. Blockchain technology also ensures fairness and transparency of monetization by tracking the value transfers between users and allowing public audits. The blockchain ensures integrity and immutability of the data and its association with its original creator and protects the access to the content through internal data encryption.

ASQ Me About My Tokens

The ASQ Token (ASQ) is the protocols native cryptocurrency. ASQ Tokens act as the medium of value exchange for paying smart contracts within the platform.

ASQ tokens are an earnable currency, they are available to all users with the ecosystem in return for performing operations within the network. Tokens are redistributed via organic market mechanisms as a result of participation in the content economy. This means, when consumers tip creators or upvote content, it creates points that are converted into currency in the form of ASQ tokens. These tokens are then redistributed to the content creator.

Technical Components of ASQ

The ASQ ecosystem is composed of two layers:

Base Layer

The base layer is made up of a decentralized content storing and sharing protocol, aka the ASQ

Protocol. This layer is responsible for the following operations:

-Content

-Metadata

-Identity

-Wallet

-Distributed storage (off-chain, P2P)

-Micropayment infrastructure

Application Layer

The application layer, which I have been referring to in this article as the Platform layer. The platform layer provides an access point for content creators and content consumers to access the ASQ Protocol via an interface. The features of this layer are listed below:

-Access to the protocol: Registration Process

-Content creation and management tool

-Discovery/Filtering & Moderating/Curating of Content

-Revenue share models with creators

Revenue Distribution Matrices (RDM)

ASQ Protocol uses a system known as Revenue Distribution Matrices (RDM). It can be thought of as, a system of smart contracts which allow creators and other ecosystem participants to create custom transaction rules and earn ASQ tokens. In other words, the content creator specifies before placing the content, how the revenue will be distributed amongst the ecosystem participants.

Value Rewards Mechanism (VRM)

All participants within the ecosystem can earn ASQ tokens via the Value Rewards Mechanism (VRM). This is done by generating valuable content and activity. The value of the content and/or activity is determined by the total points generated by adding the various interactions tied to the content generated by the user. You can think of this like an upvoting system. ASQ also allows for tipping and other reward mechanisms which are also included in the VRM.

Storage Reward Mechanism (SRM)

The last way to earn ASQ tokens is via the Storage Reward Mechanism (SRM). Ecosystem participants can earn ASQs via Storage Rewards Mechanism (SRM) by offering their disk space to other participants.

Platforms Using ASQ Protocol

There are 2 social media platforms that have already signed on to begin using the ASQ Protocol. The company behind the ASQ Protocol, Ask.fm, will also become the first platform to adopt the new protocol. Ask.fm is currently working on a new decentralized version of its Question & Answer social media platform to serve more than 215 million users located in over 165 countries.

Another early adopter of ASQ Protocol is Ning. Ning is one of the largest SaaS platforms for creating social community websites. Ning boasts over 2 million online and active user and a total user base of over 45 million registered users

The Competition

Competitors of ASQ Protocol break down into the 3 categories listed below.

Content Sharing/Reward Protocols: These are platforms that are set up to reward content creators for generating high-quality content for their subscribers. These platforms do not employ blockchain technology, and the central authority can manipulate and monetize. Patron is a popular platform for content sharing, there is also TTC Protocol, Merculet, and JCASH.

Traditional Social Media: These platforms reward creators, but the revenue split is severely in favor of the platform rather than the content creator. The most popular of these platforms is YouTube, you also have Patreon and Twitch to name a few.

Blochain Social Platforms: These platforms operate similarly to ASQ because they are decentralized and the content creators are supposedly rewarded fairly for their contributions. In addition to ASQ, the most popular platforms would include Steemit and Earn.com.

ASQ stands apart from competitors in a few key areas. The most notable is their initial partnerships with ASKfm and NING. The 2 platforms give ASQ Protocol and initial user base of more than 260 million content creators and consumers. It will be the largest audience introduced to cryptocurrency at once.

Additionally, the ASQ Protocol continues to boost their fair and transparent payment for content creation and sharing control and ownership of one’s content and potential exposure to other platforms’ audiences.

Conclusion

As mentioned in the opening paragraph, this is a very exciting concept that I look forward to following closely. ASK.fm 2.0 is slated for initial release in Q2 of 2019. I hope that this will lay the groundwork for additional platforms to look at and consider this new technology. Unfortunately, I feel that a lot of platforms will be late arriving at this party, as they are the ones that stand to lose the most as it relates to profits. However, hopefully, it will motivate them to improve their products so that they can subsidize lost revenue with value-added services for the user.

At the time this article was published, ASQ token is still in ICO, and the price is not available on CoinMarketCap.com.Bitcoin: $3,830XRP: $0.37Ethereum: $136.41Bitcoin Cash: $163EOS: $2.62Bitcoin Dominance: 51.8%

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