Minds.com: The social network that pays you to be social using cryptocurrency, oh, and information technology'due south open source.

Jason Mayes

Jason Mayes

Senior Developer Advocate @Google for TensorFlow.js / Research & Machine Intelligence, Spider web Engineer + Creative Innovator

Published October thirteen, 2018

Having used the site for a week, this blog post summarizes my thoughts so far for Minds.com, an open sourced, and crypto backed social network that pays y'all to be social. Wonderful. Lets go!

I don't often post about social networks, actually if yous wait back through my posts, I have never gone out of my fashion to recommend one in a dedicated mail - until now. Needless to say - I'm excited about this one.

In the light of Google+ shutting down, I accept taken to search the seas to see what exists that may exist a skilful alternative investment of my time to fill that void in my life once information technology goes (I spent a lot of fourth dimension and effort growing my network on that site). This is a piddling long but I wanted to leave a thorough review to give people options to consider.

My minimum criteria when looking for a new social home:

  • Like shooting fish in a barrel to apply (once fix)
  • Friendly customs
  • Trivial spam and/or expert moderation controls
  • Support for groups
  • Support for rich content in posts (images, videos)
  • Secure

And so how does it stack upwards? I can honestly say not but does it meet all of my criteria above, and then some, information technology feels similar the G+ I knew a few years ago but with a tonne of cool features K+ (and other social networks like Facebook etc) never had that they probably should take (more on that in a moment).

Screen shot of my new contour on Minds to become a gustation for it:

I take already in my first 5 days met many wonderful people, like the practiced days on G+, sharing common interests, and it actually does pay you for having meaningful conversations and interactions with people. And yeah, I said pay.

What does it accept that other big players don't?

  1. It actually pays you to use it. First of all lets talk about the crypto. Every time you have a unique interaction with someone on the site (eg share, like, comment, etc), it keeps track of this. To avert spammers gaming the arrangement its unique interactions both from and to people. Then if I like 20 of person ten'south posts, information technology counts as one interaction. That existence said with my *tiny* following of near fifty people in my start calendar week, I am getting nigh v tokens a day. Do the maths on that and assuming no growth in following (unlikely), and no growth in my activity on site (I haven't posted half as much every bit Yard+), that works out to be 365 * 5 tokens a year give or accept if you are daily active = 1825 tokens. At present tokens are linked to the crypto currency Etherium. Currently on the site you tin can buy (and convert) tokens at the substitution rate of nigh 1300 tokens ~= i ETH money. So with this very limited usage I have potential to generate 1.four ETH coins a yr. Currently 1 ETH coin is worth around $200 USD (and in the past has been as loftier as ~$thousand). Now I dont know virtually you but even at that exchange rate, that is better than anything Facebook has ever paid me for using their site.
  2. You tin offer rewards on your profile! Yes, you tin offer custom rewards for tokens. Maybe you are willing to leap on a video telephone call to discuss a topic you know about for 30 minutes for 100 tokens... Choice is yours. Love this. Gives your followers a way to go something more from yous if they demand it and a manner to get something back for your fourth dimension - just similar Twitch and such that support real time donations etc.
  3. Spending tokens. Using those tokens you earn you tin currently boost your posts (much like paid advertisement does on Facebook) to get one thousand views for one token. Sugariness. This is of grade how I assume they brand coin for people who want to actually pay to do this instead of waiting to accumulate tokens through activity. I have actually tried this and got very reasonable results vs FB etc.
  4. Blogs. Yep, in improver to regular rich posts, they also support more lengthy in depth blog posts. Sure why non! Nice characteristic and adds to the ways people can interact and find y'all if yous wanna go deep on a field of study.
  5. Open up source. The matter that was even more than epic is that this is all open sourced on GitHub then the people tin actually contribute to make the site EVEN BETTER! This is astonishing. Massive kudos for doing this and having an active set of founders and engineers who are keen to interact with the community.

Ok Jason, thank you for the cool assistance only what's bad about it?

Fearfulness non my trusty friends. I found some room for improvement too merely given its open source nature these things tin be fixed or created pretty easily... Here we become:

  1. Setting up your crypto wallet. This tin be a bit daunting if you are unfamiliar with crypto. Withal if you take 5 mins to read information technology's actually quite easy (and much friendlier than other crypto based sites I take seen in my years) - you tin merely install a Chrome / Firefox extension to manage all the tokens you volition get i twenty-four hours. Engineering these days! Still you have to remember to write downwards a few passphrases etc to ensure y'all never get locked out of that, and store it somewhere secure. Simply that is the but difference vs regular sites sign up. Ask me if dislocated!
  2. Some features are non quite equally mature. Yous know those things we take for granted now like drag and drop to upload an image to the post yous are about to make. Doesn't work correct now, you have to click a button to attach a file much similar you would in an email program from the 90's. Notwithstanding once again, given the open up source nature, I am sure this feature volition come fairly fast. But only be kind that this is a new network and is constantly getting better.
  3. You lot accept to learn a slightly different UX. This is not a massive bad point, just that information technology requires a bit of willingness to change. The UX has actually grown on me a lot afterward giving it a fair take chances the last calendar week.

In summary

Overall, I am one very happy bunny, and curious to come across where this adventure leads. Maybe it will fizzle out, but perchance it may only become the M+ / Facebook / insert your electric current social network here, that you lot ever wanted. It has serious potential. Zuckerberg, should not be sleeping well at night, this has potential to be improve than FB because information technology gives back to the people who use it and can be made amend by the community through open source. Very very cool.

Let'south connect and effort information technology out!

At the very to the lowest degree grab yourself a username. Feel gratis to connect with me over there and try information technology out below, and of grade I can assistance you lot get started if confused.

https://www.minds.com/jasonmayes