When we first conceptualized PUBLISHprotocol, we felt the need for a realistic go-to-market strategy to ensure its success. In version 2.0 of our whitepaper, we introduced two components of this strategy: PUBLISHalliance and PUBLISHsoft. As the first of a three part series that will go in to introducing a number of new and exciting developments and road map ahead, this post will provide updates as to the most recent progress of the initiatives.

PUBLISHalliance welcomes new members and sets out to revitalize the news industry

PUBLISHalliance is a consortium of media enterprises, technology providers, and academic institutions tasked with the development and proliferation of PUBLISHprotocol. Since the launch, over 40 organizations have officially joined the alliance.

We are also planning on launching two new PUBLISHalliance initiatives as part of many more initiatives to come: a news authentication and archival service, and a fact-checking service.

News Authentication and Archival Service

The News Authentication and Archival Service will facilitate the publishing, indexing, and dissemination of news content on the blockchain in the interest of creating a public archive of high-value journalistic content, including any alterations to that content. The service, as identified by the ‘onchain’ badge (see Figures 1 and 2), will signal to readers that, mathematically, news content originates from a given publisher. It will also provide demonstrable evidence that a publisher of onchain news practices journalistic transparency.

Figure 1. The onchain badge to be used on articles published on the blockchain.

Figure 2. Mockup of ‘onchain’ badge on TokenPost International Edition

Fact-Checking Service

The PUBLISHalliance Fact-Checking Service is designed to offer a financially viable solution to fact-checking, whereby fact-checkers will be economically incentivized in NEWS (the token) from the reward pool to verify the veracity of news content following a certain evaluation criteria. Publishers will earn reputation for submitting news content to the system for fact-checking, the perceived factual accuracy of the news content they submit, and their fact-checking performance. To further incentivize active participation, publishers with a higher reputation benefit from a higher payout ratio.

The article will be fact-checked by four fact-checkers, and once an article has been fact-checked by all four fact-checkers, a badge with the average fact-checking score expressed as a percentage will be displayed on the article. The badge will display green when the score is 75% or above, orange when the score is 50–74%, and red when the score is 49% or less (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Mockup of fact-checking badge on TokenPost International Edition

PUBLISHsoft gets a facelift, adds new clients and integrates blockchain functionality

PUBLISHsoft is our blockchain-based CMS (content management system) and website hosting provider for digital media businesses, especially in the newspaper and magazine industry. On top of every feature you’d come to expect of a modern CMS, PUBLISHsoft will facilitate the implementation of the news authentication and fact-checking initiatives of PUBLISHalliance. It will also allow publishers to launch their own PUBLISHprotocol-based token and manage their own token economy and reward system.

More publishers are onboarding PUBLISHsoft

Since its conception, we’ve added 14 new PUBLISHsoft clients, which are at various stages of development. Already developed websites include TokenPost, Coding World News, HKB News, Blockchain Today, BonDavinci (see Figure 4), Real Times, and TVCC News.

Websites that are yet to be developed include Oriental Press, Inc., BCCPost, The Big Issue Korea, Weekly Blockchain Magazine by Sisa Magazine, Coin Cat Media, DooriDoori, and TIOETs (correct as of 7 June 2019).

Figure 4. Screen capture of BonDavinci site running on PUBLISHsoft (accessed 3 June 2019)

PUBLISHsoft gets a new look

This first fleet of publishers has helped us to fine tune our product and get it to a commercially acceptable level. For instance, some of our clients requested more control over the look and feel of their websites. In response, we added a new light mode theme to our CMS to complement the pre-existing dark mode theme (see Figure 5), a new website template, new ad units, and a new image cropping facility for article thumbnails. Moreover, publishers are now able to fully customize the header of their websites — everything from the header’s dimensions, background colors, background images, and text colors.

Figure 5. Screen capture of PUBLISHsoft demo dashboard with new light mode theme (accessed 3 June 2019)

Blockchain integration coming soon

Soon publishers will be able to issue a PUBLISHprotocol-based token, create a crypto wallet, manage a token reward system, and notarize content on the blockchain. In the mean time, you can check out the prototype for each these standalone functions on the PUBLISHtoolkit website (see Figure 6).