District Proposal Spotlight - Localview: A Decentralized Yelp Service

An interview with community member ‘freight777’

Localview is aiming to solve the inefficiencies of centralized business review services like Yelp. This has the potential to give power and control to the users and reviewers in a whole new way. This is done through a ‘skin in the game’ approach and competition. This provides an incentive for high quality reviews while it dissuading false or low quality submissions by adding a cost for participation. The following interview sheds light on the vision and ideas behind this proposal.

Please tell us about yourself

I am a relative newcomer to the blockchain space, with district0x being one of the first communities I have gotten involved with. My background is in finance at a tech company and I have always been interested in emerging technologies and new business models. After one of my developer friends started teaching me about blockchains, various tokens and currencies, especially the concept of DAOs, I started diving in and researching everything I could to try get up to speed in the space. As someone with a non-technical background, I am more drawn to thinking of innovative ways that decentralized companies and products could disrupt existing industries and the resulting economies that would be created.

How did you get involved with district0x?

I am very interested in emerging business models and the concepts of fully operating DAOs. As I researched projects in this space, I came across district0x and joined the slack to learn more about what was going on. I quickly found a great community, and one that seemed very open to those with non-technical backgrounds contributing great ideas for discussion. I wanted to get involved and contribute as best I could.

What excited you most about the project?

Up until district0x, I had solely acted as an investor in various projects, but had been actively searching for ways to get more involved with interesting projects where I could. disctrict0x attracted me as it seemed a great place for me to contribute my ideas on ways to set up new districts across a wide spectrum of use cases and industries. I was excited to bring some of my experience to the table and get involved beyond investing to actually contribute to the success of a project I had invested in.

What made you want to submit a district proposal?

Unlike many other projects that offer bug bounties or translation services, the district proposal process and submission was something I was better suited for with my background. I thought it would be a great way to start getting more actively engaged with blockchain projects. I really liked what Joe and team were pushing to do and wanted to personally contribute where I could to help make it a success.

What is Localview?

Localview is a decentralized community to disrupt existing mature businesses in the review space. By removing middlemen (E.g. review aggregators like Yelp or Trip Advisor) from the review process, the value they capture can now be spread among both those looking to write useful reviews for their community and those looking to use those reviews. Those looking to read reviews will now have to pay a small premium, but should hopefully begin to see a dramatic increase in quality of reviews available. Those looking to write reviews will see the biggest change, with an easy avenue now for them to get better compensated for providing quality reviews to their community.

Why is Localview an improvement over services like Yelp?

There are two main ways that Localview will improve over services like Yelp. Over time as we tweak and add additional features I expect this list to grow but these two are the problems that create the need for Localview from my perspective.

The first is fairly compensating and rewarding review writers for their work. There are professional reviewers that work for magazines and newspapers but those jobs are few and don’t always [review] the full spectrum of restaurants. Then there are folks that leave short Yelp reviews (e.g “great food, ok service”). But for anyone in between those two extremes, there are limited options to get an audience for your reviews and compensation for your work. Localview will bring the best of these amateur reviewers from each city together, have them compete against each other, and actually earn a payout each month based on how useful their reviews are. This returns some of that value captured by a Yelp back to those that Yelp relies upon, the reviewers.

The second big change is for those looking to consume reviews. Due to the issues stated above, using a service like Yelp today can cause them to search through long lists of reviews until they find a quality write up they feel comfortable trusting. With Localview, review readers can expect fewer reviews at a much higher quality, from those local in your community that you grow to trust. As the user base grows and payouts increase, review quality will only continue to go up.

How can Localview incentivize people to leave reviews, while ensuring review legitimacy and preventing fraudulent reviews?

I will break this question into two parts, tackling review fraud and incentivizing people to leave reviews.

On the review fraud issue, it is something I have discussed a lot with others as I shaped the proposal for this project. The first thing to note is that the beauty of a decentralized district like Localview is that any large scale gaming of a district most likely would never last one month. For example, if I gathered enough friends to vote up all of my reviews and win the full buy in for a set month in any large scale way (don’t forget each would have to pay to vote within the district), it would be obvious to the users and they would not buy the following month ending any chances at sustained or successful fraud. We have even discussed votes or other escalation methods to a 3rd party arbitrator before final payout each month to prevent even that first month’s damage. Similarly, for restaurants who may try to influence their score, they would have to create a large amount of accounts to vote on fake reviews. This would get expensive over time and most likely not prove worth the cost for a slightly higher rating.

Secondly, how will Localview incentivize people to write reviews for the district?

This should be a much easier problem to solve. I expect our target review writers, who may have small blogs, be power Yelp users or something similar, will be very excited at the possibility of competing for both monetary compensation, and some bragging rights to be the highest rated reviewer in their cities. They also will be attracted by the district aspect, where they and their readers can jointly vote on key details for the district.

Can you elaborate on the mechanics of the “Buy in” system and “pay out” formula?

The goal is to keep it as simple as possible because Localview will most likely need to rely on a lot of people new to the crypto space for it to reach scale.

For the buy in, in the simplest terms, each month the full community in each city will vote on what they think the buy in should be. This includes both review readers and writers and creates an interesting dynamic where they decide the value together of the reviews the district houses. If review writers vote the buy in too high, no one will buy in to pay them that value. If readers vote it too low, they wont find the quality reviews they need. Ideally the community finds what value the reviews are worth, and scales up over time as the database of reviews becomes more valuable and community grows. There is the chance for things like advertisements from local restaurants that could be voted on by the district and allow those funds to join the pot each month, reducing the required buy in. Localview is not against advertisement, but just wants it done on the terms that each community desires and that the value is passed to review writers and readers instead of a centralized entity.

For the payout, it will be a balance of simplicity and reducing the chance of gaming payouts. Review writers will get paid out on the quantity of “good” reviews as well as the overall quality of their reviews.

Please explain how DNT stakers would be able to vote on mechanics of the system. Can you give some examples?

I mentioned above a few already but the biggest one is the payout each month, how much each person will have to buy in in order to participate in the district. Other ideas include the below and the goal is to grow this over time to allow each community to tailor its Localview to their exact city and the desires of the community.

Advertising and associated terms

Changes to payout formula

Fraud prevention before payouts

How would reviewers receive a return for leaving reviews?

Reviewers will pay the buy in each month and start contributing high quality reviews. At the end of the month, the payout formula will run and the buy in pot will be split among all reviewers based on their score. Given some may buy in just to read, I expect most reviewers to make money on top of getting their buy in back and expect the top reviewers to make a decent return each month for their work.

What is the biggest challenge for Localview?

I think the biggest challenge will be scaling the first few communities and helping them find that right buy in amount. Users today are used to getting reviews for free and it will be a shift for them to start paying for better quality. We will quickly need to scale both writers and early adopters and help them find that balance to get each community off the ground. Most likely that will require some initial investment that can be paid back over time as the community matures.