How To Start Your Your Bitcoin Cash Based Media Empire

I'm a big fan of Read.cash. I like what it's doing in terms of demonstrating a BCH based service that people actually want, and it's benefited me materially. I recently passed the milestone of having made over one full BCH through my writing here on this site. That's incredibly satisfying for someone like me who would like to earn my living off the content I create.

However, there is a slight problem with the Read.cash model. A problem that could extend to Noise.cash, and any other Bitcoin Cash based social and content platforms. Fortunately, I think it might be a solvable problem with the right marketing approach.

The vast majority of my income on Read.cash has come from "The Random Reward Bot." Despite the name, it's not actually random, but a reasonably sensible system for rewarding content, and similar to how Medium allocates earnings. What the bot does, as I understand it, is look at metrics such as the number of times an article is read, and how long a user stays on a page, and perhaps if they scroll top to bottom, and other things. The details are kept hidden to try and prevent people gaming the system, but the principle is to reward the articles that actually get read.

The money for the Random Reward Bot comes from the Read.cash fund, which is a pool of BCH donated by people who support the site. Currently, the vast majority of the funding is coming from a handful of people with large reserves of Bitcoin Cash who are motivated to push adoption. Not exclusively, and individual tipping also happens, but I suspect most of the people doing individual tipping are also people who have been using BCH for a while, and so they already have some on hand before coming to this site. I recognize some user names from their similar handles on Reddit.

As much as I'd like to support other creators on this site, as someone creating content myself, it would be a little circular for me to take the earnings off my writing and reward other writers. If we all did that, then this site would just be a self contained system of everyone trading BCH back and forth for no particular end. What I really want to do, what I intend to do, is take earnings from here and use them to buy things in my life, just as I would do with any other income from any writing job.

This means that BCH is flowing from people who already have holdings of BCH to writers who are producing content, and then out to somewhere else again. This is fine for a creator like me who now has BCH that I didn't have before. But, if part of the goal is to drive adoption, then there's one critical group not part of that BCH flow, which is the audience who does most of the reading.

The strategy, as I understand it, is that if content creators are attracted by this earnings potential, they will start contributing great content, which will attract an audience. That audience is, hopefully, people who do not currently use BCH, but will want to support the creators they like, and get involved in buying BCH to do so.

But, since the creators are already being compensated by a third entity, the existing BCH holders, the non-BCH audience gets the content without having to figure out how to materially contribute. I'm sure some cross over to being donators or tippers, but, what I'm pointing out is that there is nothing inherent in the system as it is that compels a new reader to want to participate materially. If the current BCH holders turn off the tap and the fund dries up, then everything might slow to a stop.

I think this problem is solvable, though it takes a bit of legwork, and it would possibly be easier or at least more manageable with a token system in effect.

Right now, as I write this, there's about half a million dollars in the Read.cash fund. That's a lot of money. Some of that money could be used for a more proactive approach than just a "build it and they will come" strategy.

There are content creators out there using sites like Medium, Patreon, Twitch, and more to try and earn incomes from their content. Not to mention people on Instagram who are just trying to build followings and would love to see direct income instead of vague hopes that a large enough audience will translate in some vague way to opportunities or sponsorship.

Take some of the money from the Read.cash fund, and proactively approach content creators who have small followings. People who are too big don't have too much motivation to do anything new, and people with little or no followings don't add value. But there are countless creators of all sorts who have a few hundred followers or few thousand, or more, who want to grow and profit.

I've been using Read.cash as an example to start from, but this strategy could work for Noise.cash, or any other Bitcoin Cash based platform that wants to trade in content.

So, the pitch to these content creators would be, within a limited amount of time or other considerations, for each post you put on our BCH based platform, we'll give you something like ten or twenty dollars, or whatever, so you're guaranteed income from your posts. You can use the same content you're already posting elsewhere, so it's not additional effort. It's money you're just leaving on the table if you say no.

But, more importantly, in addition to that, here's an additional sum of money that you divide up and give to your existing followers to come join our site. The followers can use that money to tip or reward anyone, not just the creator who invited them. But the creator is motivated to invite their fans because a lot of that money is most likely to come back to the creator.

I think this approach would work best with some kind of token, because, if I understand tokens correctly, you could designate certain tokens as being gifts or only for use within the site, so that there would be some control over how the flow of money goes from creator to fan and back into the site ecosystem. But, someone more clever than me would probably have a better idea of how tokens could be implemented. But even without tokens, I think the approach still works fine, because in the worst case scenario, the fans use the BCH elsewhere, but they're still using BCH in some way.

The net result of this approach is that you have content creators who do not already know BCH pulling in their fans who do not already use BCH. The quality of content goes up, making the site more attractive to new audience in general, because this would be targeting content creators with proven track records. And the potential that the audience might convert to buying new BCH in order to participate is higher because they now have the experience of using it.

There's also the benefit of helping to cultivate the culture you want for your site. By going out and targeting content creators, you can favor the ones you think represent the site you want to build. If you leave it to chance, there's no guarantee that the people who come won't be less than ideal for growing beyond a certain point.

The only downside other than it takes money, is that it takes someone to reach out to content creators. But, that's a position that could be paid, given, for example, the amount of money available on the Read.cash fund. It could even be done possibly on a commission basis, and made a community effort. For every creator brought in, you get a small slice of the advertising fund.

Of course, this strategy isn't the be all and end all for adoption strategies. Different sites have different cultures and considerations. For example, Medium requires that you buy a membership to see certain articles, and I think in some cases forced buy in for participation is more effective than voluntary tipping.

One platform type that I think would respond especially well to this approach is a BCH based Instagram replacement. I use and like Instagram, but I hate the advertising and the distortions it brings to both how content is presented to me and to how my content goes out. I'm definitely not alone in that. Creators that I follow are routinely complaining about how Instagram's vague algorithms seem to be holding them back.

Content creators on Instagram could easily be motivated to come over to a new site where there was potential direct payment, because on top of their complaints about how the site works, they're not getting payment anyway. The key, I believe, to killing Instagram and most advertiser based models is that people will tip and donate if the values are so small that it doesn't feel burdensome and frees them from ads. BCH could make that happen in a way that sites like Patreon can't.

Hit me up if you want to build and Instagram killer, because it's something I'd love to do. But if you're thinking of building any kind of content site, this approach could help a lot. Especially if you're wanting to effectively replace an existing site, because then you have the advantage of knowing which content creators to approach. Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr, Medium, and more.

The main point is, if you're thinking of building any site where content is compensated with BCH, just thinking that if you build a good platform that people will eventually find it and use it is probably not enough. A proactive approach like I've outlined above is what it takes to ensure you get the ball rolling.