I think the Clan and Company in Torum are features to build communication between projects and their supporters based on the whitepaper:
By utilizing the concept of social media as its foundation, Torum is set to form a one-stop crypto ecosystem that connects worldwide crypto projects and communities together. The interface of a blogging platform greatly limits the expansion of platform features and functionalities such as real-time messaging, custom emote integration, etc. Since interaction among users is greatly neglected, these platforms fail to deliver an actual community building effort. Upon this discovery, Torum positions itself as the first social media platform that advocates the concept of crypto-focused. By centering the interest of the community, TORUM is able to form a community base made of mostly cryptocurrency users. As the community expands, the strong niche network effect will attract more cryptocurrency users and projects to the platform.
Clan
A clan generally works like a forum with the addition of a Chatroom for all Members to interact instantaneously. Users can create a casual community that interests other people. (https://www.torum.com/help/general/clans)
I think a clan is designed to be a gathering of project supporters where everyone can start a thread or discussion, not only by certain members of the project. A collected discussion is one of the factors that keeps a project alive. Most platforms are either one sided where only the project owners can post contents or the features are limited where certain contents cannot be posted like in social media only comments are available. Other supporters and people who wants to express large opinions generally goes to other blogging platforms and thus the contents are scattered. This limited interaction between project developers and supporters are one of the cause of a project to die. Torum's Clan are designed to gather those contents into one thus maximizing the communication or interraction.
A clan is not limited to a project. It can be any topic where as long it interests landers (users), they will join. For example, there are crypto gaming, gambling, news, photography, meme, and trading. For now, non-crypto related clans are still welcome such as cybersecurity, and my censorship and computers clan.
However, isn't there something missing in the clan? That is famous influencer. We need someone like Vitalik in Ethereum clan, Roger Ver in Bitcoin Cash Clan, Andreas Antonopoulos who is a famous crypto educator, Justin Sun, etc. I am sorry for being harsh on all of us including myself but this platform may not go far if only nobodies are in it. Well, there are only two solutions for this, and that is invite famous people or go out there and make a name for yourselves and become famous yourselves.
Company
Company Profiles are basically an instrument for blockchain and cryptocurrency based projects/entities/startups to present themselves professionally across Torum. They are allowed to showcase their Company Details to the public for Users to recognize and know more about their presence and operations. Company Profiles are also treated as “Users”, where they have their own @username, allowed to create Posts for their contents and updates, as well as react to other contents across Torum. In addition, they can also associate with a certain Clan (with or without the same name) to build their own Community, allowing their fans, followers and employees to interact with one another. Moreover, Company Profiles are also allowed to Create Events exclusively. (https://www.torum.com/help/general/company.
While the concept is good to prioritize crypto companies and have them in one platform, I do not think there is even one official company in Torum. For example, we need Alex Mashinsky to be the one running the Celsius Network company, Brad Garlinghouse in Ripple company, Brendan in Dharma company, and CZ in Binance company. I appreciate that landers are creating these companies themselves making the company wall look good and maybe promoting these companies but unfortunately, it is not ethical afterwards to make posts using their names without their permission. Promoting is okay, but never impersonate as someone or something else. It is not the problem solely for Torum, but impersonation is a problem for almost all social media. For now, the solution is to have a team to verify whether the company is legit or not but actually Torum have every right to take down these companies and penalize the lander since they breached the following terms of services:
Inauthentic Behavior or Impersonation
In line with our commitment to authenticity, we don't allow people to impersonate others or misrepresent themselves on TORUM, use fake accounts, artificially boost the popularity of content, or engage in behaviors designed to enable other violations under our Community Standards. This policy is intended to create a space where people can trust the people and communities they interact with. One related to company is concealing a company profile’s purpose by misleading users about the ownership or control of that company profile.
Anyone is allowed to create a company but no one is allow to impersonate other companies where in other words nobody is allowed to pretend to own a company that if it is not your company than do not create it unless you have permission. Why not start your real company instead? For example gather friends and form a team for example an investment and trading company, news company, crypto educators company, airdrop hunter company, etc.
For now I see Companies having referral links as their website profile and often makes posts about referral links. Personally is still tolerable as it is not malicious but doesn't this discourage new users? How will big investors and figures sees this? Will they immediately lose interest in Torum? What do you think? It is a different story if the one behind it is from the real company or shows having permission from the real company.
I am writing this article as Torum ambassador @0fajarpurnama0. Even if I'm not an ambassador, I will still be writing these articles but with a different time frame, maybe once a month or three months? I hope to see you soon in Torum: https://www.torum.com/signup?referral_code=0fajarpurnama0.