Thank you for providing useful insights and your technical angle on btsx. However, please try not to steer away the conversation from the Marketing Roadmap. If we want to keep discussing btsx with that angle, we should open a new thread, and try not to make it look like the Nubits thread on their forum.
Here we are talking marketing, and the competitor analysis should answer the question : why are still people not buying it (being it a 1usd coin)?
I’ve referenced this a bit in private discussions, but NuShares adoption will drive NuBits adoption. Right now the vast majority of cryptocurrency users are involved because they would like to get wealthy, as opposed to more altruistic goals such as world peace. The two outcomes do not need to be mutually exclusive of course, but we will only attract Nu users at this stage if we can make a compelling case that it is profitable for users to do so.
The issue steers into questions of legality however. The Nu team has been very explicit that no IPO has been conducted, and that no promises of future financial performance will ever be made. “Expected dividends” becomes a problem in that regard. What I do favor is stronger reporting by our custodians showing more detailed dividend information of what they have distributed. @KTm and crew have been buried under the stresses of launching reliable custodial trading operations, but I’m sure they will slowly and surely improve the way dividend information is presented to the community. In general I favor “historical snapshots” of dividend distributions as opposed to speculation on the value of future distributions.
I think a few weeks ago @desrever presented some excellent ideas around having a custodian step up to run bounties that might cover guerilla-marketing style initiatives. I think it’s an excellent idea and I hope someone eventually submits a proposal for it. Maybe @desrever when NuBot and Phase 3 of the website are complete? Perhaps others?
I agree. As we move into Stage 2, it may make sense to find someone willing to be a communications professional for us. The volume of work right now does not merit it, but as we transition to more external-facing activities it would be very useful. I’m quite content working on branding planning and research, along with writing, but won’t ever be attending trade shows or conducting interviews with the Wall Street Journal. This is something we should keep in mind as we approach our Stage 2 completion milestones.
Thank you for your comments!
Prior to his departure David completed a significant portion of the marketing video work with a lot of help from the Nu development team. Much of this was actually done before this public forum even existed.
I’m currently working with a vendor to animate the concepts and complete audio/sound engineering tasks. I’m confident that the final product as delivered by the core development team will be well-received by the community. However, I expect that in the future big projects will require shareholder approval, and so the broader community will have a better opportunity to contribute and refine ideas.
I am sorry to hear David has departed, I hope he is well
A couple of comments on tomjoad’s initial post:
With regards to the creation of a comparison info graphic, “Nu vs Bitshares”, sounds slightly confrontational - better to describe it as “Nu and Bitshares”
I am not sure about the strategy of picking one urban centre at a time. This geographical emphasis runs counter to the internet/electronic nature of modern commerce. Perhaps a better approach is to concentrate on ATMs, or types of outlet
Regarding a niche market, which desrever asks about, how about betting or casino game websites? Such websites could be approached to see if they would incorporate payments via NuBits
BitUSD is not a stand-alone digital currency. BitUSD is a complicated set of trading options that are unfortunately just repackaged exposures to Bitshares X. Writers such as Preston Byrne have done a more detailed analysis and description of why BitAssets and Bitshares X are one and the same.
NuBits are indeed the world’s first stable digital currency.
EDIT: @sportscliche referenced the same article as I did. Didn’t see until I scrolled down the page further.
I think you’re correct about this paragraph. How would you suggest I word the new milestone and activities for Phase 1? I could see a core activity being related to creation of Merchant resources on www.nubits.com that include badges like the ones Sentinel made and detailed technical documentation. We currently have a placeholder on the website for Merchant resources for this purpose.
You’re right that we should better define what characteristics each segment of users has at each stage of the product-life adoption cycle I described above. I’m in the initial stages of planning some market research activities using conjoint analysis to better define them.
I mentioned in the mobile wallet proposal that:
With that in mind, successful entrepreneurial ventures don’t need to be explicitly targeted to “desperate need”. There has never been a desperate need for animated animals being fired from slingshots, and yet Angry Birds has been a runaway success. It is about finding and discovering hidden latent wants of consumers and creating services that they enjoy. A working mobile wallet will cater to many of these hidden desires, and the market research I’m going to undertake will allow us to better discover how each of these hidden segments responds to different motivators. I think we’re in agreement from your next paragraph:
Mobile wallet spending for small transactions between friends will be an important first niche in the early stages of the network. There are of course others. As confidence in the peg grows over time, more professional applications will begin to be considered more seriously by our users.
No argument from me!
@sportscliche I enjoy reading your posts, they are always concise and factual. Thank you for the contribution.
I think @desrever is right, your post may actually be a good starting point for a new thread exploring design differences between NuBits and our competitors. For those users who don’t want to read our entire white paper, a forum thread is far more accessible.
@CoinGame has done some research into this. From what I remember, there are challenges involved with bot operators being considered as money-transmitters that have prevented NBT from being included. I’m sure a NuBits tipping bot will spring up in the future though.
Two quotes of mine in this thread that summarize my views:
I’ve said this privately as well, but it would be a mistake to assume that the majority of cryptocurrency users are involved for any reason beyond increasing their own wealth quickly. For this reason as I mentioned in my last post, NuShares will drive NuBits interest, not the other way around. I believe the value of a stable digital currency will grow immensely as more retailers begin to accept Bitcoin and encounter challenges related to volatility.
I think it’s important to make a clear case that we are competing designs. “Nu and Bitshares” could be viewed as complementary. Perhaps a better term than “vs.” could be used if there is consensus that it sets the wrong tone.
I was envisioning a scenario where a high percentage of a very localized populace is encouraged to download the application. Even though electronic commerce spans international borders, personal influence plays a major role in deciding what services to use. If none of your friends use the NBT mobile app you are less likely to do so. If you are familiar with the “hub and spoke” supply distribution model of Wal-Mart, I was thinking of our targeted urban campaigns being the “hub”, with “spokes” naturally forming out of the resulting network effects.
Focusing on ATMs and other crypto business providers is a great idea. How should I word it, and in which Stage above?
Very good idea. I’m open to adding this to the roadmap above if you specify how it should be worded, and what Stage.
I’d prefer not to do this, as a dedicated NuBits vs bitUSD thread is likely to be a lightning rod for the Bitshares community. This is a sensitive subject that stirs a lot of passion. A search of bitcointalk, reddit, and bitsharestalk will provide enough examples. I’d suggest letting them mature in the marketplace for a while before declaring Bitshares and NuBits competitors. Indeed, the Bitshares lead developer has unambiguously stated that bitUSD and Nubits are not competitors. Comments are at 16:30 of the linked audio file. Nubits discussion starts at 9:25.
Although I have some altruistic beliefs, I still think that NuBits should be able to sell itself. A high share price would attract attention as with any business but wouldn’t be a driver for adoption of NuBits on its own. The adoption will more likely drive the shareprice as with any other business although there is a bit of a chicken and egg principle here due to anticipation and expectations. My point is that there should be many other means to market NuBits than just an emphasis on NuShares which at best can be seen as one of the marketing tools to sell NuBits. Just my 0.02 NBT.
Or maybe I can work with @desrever to get this going. My only considerations would be whether to run development and marketing from the same fund. It would be easier to run, but higher risk of centralisation. It will require more assurance that this wouldn’t happen and shareholders keep in control at appropriate levels.
I think my point is, not sure about a full-time communication professional as they might get compromised. I would rather go with a bunch of vetted freelancers who are able to deliver all over the world. E.g. a local in UK, two or three in US, Some elsewhere in Europe and Australasia etc. and activate them when and where required for e.g. conferences/trade shows/local presentations/ prepared interviews etc. Easier said then done, for sure and it needs some good communication channels between Nu community and these people. So you might end up paying them a base salary for a couple of hours a week to keep up and post in the forums (can be made a KPI) and ad hoc payments for work on top of that as described above. We might even set hourly or fixed price rates in advance instead of negotiating every event in detail. Just some ideas.
Thanks for your replies!
Thanks for pointing me to that audio file. I like to keep this to the facts. Saying that bitUSD and NuBits are not competitors is based on a couple of observations from the BitShares team during that interview which we do not necessarily agree on. Besides the NuNet is still under development and changes are underway as we recognise that there are some flaws and risks in the model which need improvements. The how and when is still to be determined though.
I think a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of both could benefit the NuNet and possibly bitUSD. I agree that some level of moderation might be required to keep the emotions at home and discuss based on facts. Just ignoring any discussion is not healthy in my opinion.
Conclusion is that I still like to see a thread exploring design and economical differences as @tomjoad is proposing.
Thanks all for the answers!
I am still working on that bounty custodial. I figured that before funds we need an adequate infrastructure . Then I am actually looking at 4of5 multisig grant for managing the fund when the time comes, with multiple shareholders handling them.
Including a step where, more than a directory, we build merchant tools.
I must insist about current, existing users in need.
On this point we could probably going on for long. While I agree that some exceptional cases exists, (customers doesn’t even know they would need an iPhone prior to its release,) in the great majority of cases, successful ventures starts from exploiting what is a urgent need of a few visionaries. If the vision of visionaries was right, 5 years later everybody will become their user.
Its not about asking to people what they needs are (“faster horses” - Ford ), but having the right intuition about it before someone else does. In the innovators dilemma definition of disruptive innovation, angry birds doesn’t fit . Roxio had to release several failure-gamess before angry birds started making more money than Nokia.
However, in the case of NuBits, there is no need to find hidden or dormant needs, at least before we experimented all the non-hidden needs! I agree that we might not even know what we are looking at, and maybe somewhere in the pockets of the world a group of people that will particularly benefits from NBT exists. But before digging that deep, I would first try to exploit existing needs, aka, any application of a stable crypto currency to todays need.
Members of the nu network should prepare for potential questions, concerns, and arguments that will inevitably arise from marketing NuBits. I recommend compiling a list of the strongest forms of each argument, and then attempting to argue against them. There will be technical concerns (such as proof of stake vs proof of work, theoretical vulnerabilities) as well as philosophical concerns (such as fairness of distribution, pegging to USD). We could create threads to discuss each major issue.
If we can successfully convince others to join the nu network, we'll have more aggregate wealth to fund beneficial projects. Nu shareholders can fund the creation of NuBit based services in order to encourage adoption. It would be useful to rank potential services and projects in terms of cost effectiveness (creation cost relative to projected value). Ultimately we want NuBits to be easy to buy and convenient to use.
Strategic NuBit tipping could be an excellent, cost effective marketing technique. Having NuBits circulating around popular websites could yield tremendous returns. The nu network could fund trusted community members who are well suited to promote and defend NuBits. Ideal recipients, locations, and amounts for tips could be established. If successful, less trusted members could be hired by the nu network to spread tips according to certain guidelines. Autonomous programs could track performance, and attempt to verify that tips are legitimate. The nu network could also host AMAs where $X in NuBits are rewarded to the best comments.
If the nu network is ultimately successful, it could fund the creation of decentralized markets, banks, games, social networks, wage and remittance services. It could hire lobbyists in order to influence monetary policy and create a favorable regulatory environment.As btc/usd is falling, it is a very good time to promote nubits as a stable currency, as a safe haven, and as a speculation tool. With good liquidity.
Can we run a banner at bitcoinwisdom and reddit saying something like “Quit worrying about falling coin prices. Buy Nubits.” (ok. If you think that is not funny or impressive, put your one liner here. )
That’s a great idea and the perfect time for such a banner!
I like the slogan as it is.
May be something like this ?
