To solve the current content monetization problem, which is: How do you surface hyper relevant content, in a way that incentivizes content consumption by the consumer — all while rewarding the participants in the network discovering/creating the content? Ad publishers and the publishing industry surrounding web content have tried for years to balance this model for profit, while rewarding creators and maintaining their margins.

At Yours, we sought to solve this problem with a fun platform whose core focus is one everyone can relate to: great content. We wanted to blend this concept with bitcoin, as it allows us ultimate flexibility when rewarding consumers for spreading intangible content; while rewarding that with value transference (in this case, bitcoin in lieu of dollars). This transference of value occurs in the background; without the user ever having to care what bitcoin is or does. All they need to know is that they can spend the “points” they accrue on Yours to buy things in real life.

The type of content posted on Yours can be that of original works; or perhaps you’re just excellent at curating news and other media on the web that you know other people will enjoy. If you’ve got an eye for talent and enriching media then you’ll love what Yours aims to do.

We’re enabling content creators, curators, and their consumers - the ability to discover great content on a P2P platform, all-while being constantly rewarded for the content they endorse, consume and contribute.

Now, before we jump into how we plan to reward everyone in the “content consumption loop”, let’s take a moment to understand some other use cases that have sought to blend bitcoin and content. It’s important to understand what ultimately lead up to Yours being a market need, and why a reward model like ours seeks to solve the “content monetization” problem.

Previous Attempts…

One of the more promising use cases we saw with monetizing content was with ChangeTip’s, “TipWorthy” platform experiment. With it, you can share a link to web content that catches your eye on the Internet, and be rewarded with some bitcoin.

Source: ChangeTip

This is/was a novel use case (ChangeTip was ‘acqui-hired’ by AirBnB), you can see the potential. See something cool, post it, get rewarded by those who’re also using the ChangeTip service. Nice idea. Though, there are some core dependencies that make this particular product difficult to market to a mass audience.

First is: there are way better social networks you can go to and use ChangeTip to tip content contributors…for instance Reddit. Additionally, you have to rely on people who want to generously tip bitcoin to make any money, who no actual incentive to; they had to have heard of ChangeTip; and you have to depend on ChangeTip growing it’s niche community. All of this, while ChangeTip is busy competing in a (currently) small market, small growth industry. Phew.

This was essentially a “walled-garden” of content. There exists a lot of barriers that are preventing the user on-boarding and encouraging them to contribute content. Tipping is great, it has existed for centuries, if not longer. There is no problem with tipping. However, you can’t expect people to tip good content with no return forever in a closed loop on TipWorthy. This is a particular niche/need that went unserviced by ChangeTip. Their model wasn’t sustainable long-term; nor did it create enough incentive to keep curators and consumers of the curated content coming back.

ChangeTip was an awesome product for its time; one that filled a different niche than we do..

This is where Yours comes in. We’re focused on tearing down barriers, and rewarding everyone who loves content.

A Changing Industry…

One of the more interesting challenges we saw when building a P2P platform for content monetization that utilizes bitcoin — was how to best align emotional/intrinsic incentives, with time incentives.

There’s a few variables to this “content monetization” problem. Let’s look at it like an equation:

((Content Quality (C)* Incentives to share(I))/Time spent discovering content(T)) =Propensity to Return for Content (PRC)).

Isn’t math great?

Taking those variables of what makes content fun and enjoyable, and blending that with a technical application that is on the bleeding edge is key in our plan.

We believe the most apt comparisons of Yours in the future will probably come from showing how we take aspects of content monetization, blended it with affiliate marketing; and then combined that with a social network.

How We Plan To Reward Yours Users

For the MVP launch, we went with a very straightforward model. These figures presented may change and evolve overtime as we adjust accordingly to the users as the platform is adopted. We will be adjusting these payout related algorithms dynamically overtime to find the perfect blend.

So, currently as it stands, 100% of all funds coming from endorsements go to the content creator for the first endorsement; after that, the creator gets 50% of all future endorsements; then the other 50% is divided amongst all the previous endorsers of the content, with a percentage going back to Yours.

So, as time goes on, the amount of payouts to you grow smaller and smaller; so you are incentivize to discover good content sooner, so that you can gain more overtime from any endorsements that proceed yours.

Reward Pay Example...

For instance, if someone Endorses a link to your latest SoundCloud mixtape for 10 cents (in bitcoin, this is key) that you post to Yours, you’ll receive 100% of the first endorsement your link receives from another user. Congratulations, your fire mixtape just netted you 10 cents.

Now, this step is where the magic of payment channels happens. Obviously your mixtape is good, theres bound to be another user that see’s someone thought your mixtape was worth their dime, so they’ll click your link and have a listen.

After you’ve melted their minds with your sick bars, they proceed to endorse your content for 10 cents, too. Only this time, you see that you only received 5 cents, where’s the other 5 cents?

Great question, let’s break it down with a simple example:

1st Endorser: User 1 tips Content Creator 10 cents — >No prior endorsers before User 1— >100% of endorsement goes to Content Creators wallet — >Content Creator receives 10 cents. 2nd Endorser: User 2 tips Content Creator 10cents — >1 prior endorser (User 1) — >50% of endorsement goes to Content Creator — >Content Creator receives 5 cents — >5 cents that remains is divided amongst the previous endorsers (Users 1) and Yours— >This process loop continues until the post times out due to inactivity in endorsements, or the user manually closes the post.

So, what just happened here? On the backend, the Content Creator has created a post, thus opening a “payment channel”. Once opened, the channel is programmed to reward 100% of the first endorsement to the user. Following the first endorser, 50% of every endorsement following goes back to the Content Creator. The other 50% is then divided amongst previous endorsers, and to Yours.

This model ensures that the original creator gets rewarded for posting their content; the users who think it’s great and want to surface the content to others get rewarded; and any curators sharing creative works by others get rewarded (and the original creator gets the added incentive of free visibility and marketing).

It’s a open loop with many entrances and opportunities for you to earn up and down the content value chain. Content creators, curators, and consumers all benefit.

So, you want to earn Bitcoin? Don’t have a Bitcoin wallet, or have any idea what it is or how to obtain it? Using Yours, users can take advantage of Bitcoin and start earning it themselves by enjoying great content — without ever knowing what it is. But, what they do know is that they love ingesting, sharing, and rewarding great content all over the web.

DON’T forget to sign up to the Yours beta mailing list to get an invite to a preview of the platform, here: https://www.yours.network