The Interledger Community 🌱: graeme

Democratising Design Education with a Web Monetized Publishing Platform — Grant Report #2

graeme — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 01:13:40 +0000

Final Project Update

Overall, Web Monetization has so far helped us explore and understand alternative business models we can use to fund an open and accessible platform which we continue to pursue after the project. The Web Monetization technology was straight-forward to implement, but it feels ahead of its time with limitations coming from the volatility of digital currencies, trust and maturity of the crypto space, and the usability/onboarding to digital wallets.

Web Monetization and maturity of digital currencies

The areas where Web Monetization crosses with crypto (such as setting up digital wallets via Uphold) created a friction for adoption for our audience as multiple pieces need to work together - writers setting up wallets, getting payment pointers, and readers creating Coil subscriptions. We tried alternative solutions to reduce the steps needed to make the system work, such as tracking the amount of money individual articles received (so writers didn’t need to set up payment pointers), but these were only experimental given the project timescale.

Despite our efforts to educate on Web Monetization through regularly promoting its role in facilitating an open web in our newsletter and articles, we did not gain adoption of the Coil plugin before Coil itself was sunset. However, the growth of our independent platform puts us in an excellent position for adopting any future improvements to the Web Monetization ecosystem.

Progress on objectives

In all, we not only projected the message of Web Monetization through articles, but the growth of our platform too. We made excellent progress in contributing towards an inclusive web that keeps education open, and are in a position where future improvements to the Web Monetization ecosystem can be adapted. Through consistent work to the platform, we added:

Internationalisation at the core of the platform
Open sourcing our platform code on GitHub
Payment pointers
Micropayments counter
Web Monetization education pages
Articles and guides
Web Monetization landing page
New editor
Verification system for profiles

These improvements along with new articles published has lead to the platform becoming a top performer in search engines. For example, a recent article I published reaches around 300-400 visitors per day, with consistent traffic from Google:

https://prototypr.io/post/generative-ai-design

A Web Monetization resource menu is featured prominently on in the main navigation, giving site-wide exposure that will keep increasing as we publish more quality articles and resources:

The next steps are to write more and drive this growth, while keeping our platform open and inclusive for readers. In the current climate, there aren’t many open alternatives available, who promote an open web.

Key activities

The grant project involved increasing publishing activity on our platform, and encouraging more writers to contribute and set up payment pointers with us. We had a few areas to consider:

Commissioning and Publishing Process
Onboarding writers
Building the platform to enable writers

1. Commissioning and Publishing Process

To keep quality of published articles high, we found they have to be produced in-house. In short, the process is like this:

Contact writers and discuss topics
Use grant funds to commission independent writers and contractors.
Edit articles to maintain quality and increase reach

This process was more work than how we were previously curating articles to the publication. We could have done with 2 or 3 more editors in the team.

2. Onboarding: Curation vs Editorial Process

Having run our publication primarily on Medium in the past, publishing articles had been mostly a curation process rather than an editorial one. Sometimes authors would submit drafts, and we would do minor editing and corrections.

In contrast, publishing on our independent platform involved more onboarding and editorial direction which was very time consuming. Rather than inviting a high number of writers, we had to commission only a handful of writers who wrote a larger quantity of articles. Overall the process took much longer than anticipated, and were were at times stretched between publishing and improving the platform.

We did plan to run a paid competition and distribute funds to a range of writers. Due to the quality of applicants being difficult to determine, we commissioned select writers instead:

https://prototypr.io/people/iam-seungmee-lee
https://prototypr.io/people/ditte-mortensen/page/1
https://prototypr.io/people/insvhq
https://prototypr.io/post/the-dark-psychology-behind-social-media-addiction
https://prototypr.io/people/rob-diaz
https://prototypr.io/post/chatpgt-7-startup-ai-opportunities
https://prototypr.io/post/behavioural-design-101-psychology-mechanisms-persuasive-design

3. Building the platform to enable writers

To start with, because our platform is still growing and competing with established corporate platforms, there is extra work in encouraging contributors to publish on with us. There was often feature requests for the editor itself such as embeds for videos, tweets, and image gallery support, which caused more delays.

Furthermore, after producing content in-house, we still faced the competition from paywalled platforms, who would attempt to curate our commissioned work back into Medium publications. This is a compliment, and presents an opportunity to collaborate. The next steps would be to invite related publications to collaborate towards a fairer and more open web rather than seeing us as competition, because there is space for everyone.

Communications and marketing

We produced articles on Web-Monetization and related topics like content ownership and licensing:

https://prototypr.io/post/how-to-monetize-your-creative-work-without-advertising
https://prototypr.io/post/open-design-ownership-cc-mit-licenses
https://prototypr.io/post/open-web

What’s next?

First of all, we are due to do an official launch of the Web-monetized site.

Then to grow Web Monetization further on Prototypr, network mechanisms on the platform can be a key driver. The next steps for Prototypr are to create a more effective distribution network for writers to be more connected to readers and gain more reach. This includes:

A milestone notification system
A follower/following system
Email notifications for transactional events

Milestone notifications + Web Monetization API improvements

Seeing a message from Uphold was nice when a writer gets a payout, but Uphold notifications are distanced from the context of the content and platform. If there was a way to hook into the Web Monetization API so we could get stats per article, we could create more meaningful payment notifications that keep users excited to publish.
Currently, a milestone for an article might look like this:

Congratulations, your article has had 1,000 views.

But with more access to Web-monetization API:

Your article got 1000 views, with paid members spent 4hrs on your content, earning you $1.44.

Follower/Following

Further to milestone notifications, follower/following system would be beneficial to increase the distribution of each writers articles to their followers who cared for their content.

The platform is now also completely open source, and it is documented how to set it up on our Web Monetization project page. That microsite needs updating with the design process, and can also be repurposed and split into a tutorial series to take it further.

🤝 Collaborate with other projects
Being able to distribute funds to creators based on the quality of content is always going to be a key mission for Prototypr, and with further development, Web-monetization can be a great reward/distribution system.

💶 Stream sponsor payments
It would also be cool to use Web-Monetization in a sponsorship program where sponsor payments to our platform are streamed back to contributors based on engagement with their content.

🪙 Continue exploration with Web Monetization

As mentioned before, with embracing the new whilst supporting the old, Interledger’s progression to supporting fiat currencies, simpler wallets, and new providers can make Web Monetization a core part of payments on the web.

To finish, we are focusing on creating revenue streams through a mix of pro features and sponsorships:

verified profiles
company pages
website sponsors
jobs board
newsletter sponsorships.

Whatever route taken, education will be kept available to all. Furthermore, we look forward to exploring Web Monetization as a way to stream platform earnings back to contributors and creators.

What community support would benefit your project?

There is opportunity to work together better as a Web Monetized ecosystem. I always wanted to collaborate with other grantee projects, but it is difficult to fit in collaboration with time and resource constraints.

Coil have a page of Web-Monetization providers showcasing a lot of Coil enabled developer sites, but there is little network effect between all of us. A distribution channel for newly published Web-Monetized content that readers can subscribe to can help smaller sites in the network grow better together, and the ecosystem of publishers can thrive together. An example is an RSS reader and newsletter that aggregates Web Monetized sites and distributes the content to subscribers.

This could go some way to creating a form of collaboration just by being a web-monetized site.

Making Web Monetization More Accessible

A main barrier throughout the project has been the crossover with digital wallets. Web Monetization is an inclusive payment system that works across the world, but despite being open, it relies on the adoption of crypto wallets rather than payment systems and currencies that people widely use.

As with our platform, a lot of the building process during the grant project felt siloed within the Interledger community at times. Rather than putting all our focus in a new space, we could have create bridges between the closed and open web by using our gated Medium publication more.

It wasn’t until the end that we tried a small sponsorship with another newsletter called This Too Shall Grow which brought a handful of curious web custodians into contact. It showed that creating time for collaboration and partnerships rather than depending on our own network should have been a core activity. However, we did not consider a marketing budget at the start of the project.

Working with existing markets

Similarly for Web Monetization, I would have liked to see more support for fiat currencies and less dependence on crypto wallets. Even a way to have a holding wallet from which we could pay contributors in fiat would be good. This is what we tried with the Micropayments counter, but it was only a proof of concept that is not yet reliable. I did see one grantee building something around fiat, but it was only supporting the US initially (can’t remember the name of the project).

More flexible payments

If payment providers deal directly in fiat currency, and it’s possible to change the $0.36 per hour that Coil had used, there becomes a lot of possibilities in how we can reward creators and users of Web-Monetized platforms.

In my last post which could have been part of this final report, it was concluded that writers in our audience need more tangible incentives to drive an open and fair web powered by Web Monetization. Online creators tend to want want quick rewards, and only a smaller segment are really interested in the ‘open web’ cause .

I get the feeling that most people just want to see immediate benefits they would receive - e.g. access to something exclusive, discounts codes they can immediately use, or increased status on our platform - all elements that give quick gratification.

Just like the lack of privacy on the web has been normalised over time, so too is paying for content. In addition, Reddit Gold, Twitter Blue, and Meta Verified show it’s possible to support content with members paying for perks.

Given new payment providers become available and offer more flexible options than $0.36 per hour, Web Monetization can be used to give perks such as:

Free posts on the jobs board
Remove ads for web monetized users
Sponsor revenue can be streamed to creators based on the time spent on their work.
Promote their product or services on our platform
Get access to discount codes and design deals

Additional comments

I found the main challenges to adoption were the normalization of lack of privacy and paying for content:

Coil Payouts vs Paywalls

Grant for the Web takes an approach that is different to corporate business models like paywalls, encouraging an open and inclusive web.

Through open sourcing the Prototypr platform, and making it paywall-free and content accessible to all, we have created a growing open space that is not controlled by a 3rd party platform. However, despite being in our own space, we still have to compete with larger platforms that offer higher payouts than Web Monetization:

Web Monetization vs Paywalls for payouts

The draw towards corporate and gated publishing platforms comes from the possibility to earn money from a paywall. On paywalled platforms like Medium, typical articles can earn $50-100, and even double that based on its popularity.

In contrast, the $0.36 per hour paid out from Web Monetization cannot compete – our payout counter showed that each article would only earn a max of $0.10, due to few users on our site being Coil subscribers with the browser plugin installed.

Lack of Privacy + Paid Content is Normalised

Competitive advantage for an open platform would be that we don’t sell data, use intrusive cookies to sell ads, or gate content. We therefore used the message of ‘building a better open web’, and emphasising being ‘privacy-friendly’ to encourage people to set up payment pointers for Web Monetization.

However, it was only until towards the end of the project we understood privacy and open content is not a large enough incentive to convince people to create an Uphold wallet and payment pointer – lack of privacy and paid content is increasingly normalized every day:

Mark Zuckerberg was clear that he felt privacy was no longer a social norm, saying,
“People have gotten really comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people.”

https://www.cmbinfo.com/insights/why-we-still-use-facebook-despite-privacy-concerns/

Additionally, the friction to get started with payment pointers due to the learning curve and distrust of crypto wallets lead us to search out alternative and open business models that went beyond micropayments (also since $0.36 per hour is too small for written content).

Our goal to reward creators based on the time readers spend on their work couldn't be fulfilled in the timescale with the low adoption of Coil and the fixed rate of streaming. Therefore, the main incentive we had for writers publishing with us is:

Reach a new audience
Get more exposure
Inclusion in our newsletter
Commissioned articles

We need more perks and rewards on our platform for the user base to grow faster. Some of these alternative business model ideas are outlined in the first section, and further discussed in this post.

Web-Monetization Learnings: Vision vs Incentives 🤑

graeme — Wed, 08 Feb 2023 13:30:13 +0000

Here I've listed the latest Prototypr platform updates that were made to onboard people to Web-Monetization, followed by my learnings about what would drive people to adopt and support an open web. So skip to the second half if you're interested in those realisations!

Part 1: Platform Updates

The latest Web-Monetization updates, articles and features on the Prototypr platform:

New Articles 📝

🤑 How to Monetize Your Creative Work Without Advertising – A look into options for monetizating work without invasive ads. Covering subscriptions, tips, micropayments and what the future may hold.

📜 Open Design Ownership: Why You Need a License – and What Kind to Use
– A guide for licensing your work, especially as a designer. These days, it's easy to find and reuse other people's work, but this guide shows how to appropriately credit the original creators, and also lists some licensing options for your own work.

Platform updates 🚧

I added a Web Monetization menu to the main navigation. It's quite nice, because when Web-Monetization is active (from the browser API events), the logo starts animating 🤗

The WM dropdown menu also acts as a little guide through Web-Monetization, as well a place to show the live micropayments being streamed:

Supporting Guides ✅

In that menu, we have links to a WM topic page, with a range of WM-related articles:

Plus the payment pointer guide, which will need updating/temporary removal:

There's a few more updates, such as the landing page explaining the overall concept, but overall, it's been a good exploration.

I think our platform is really well positioned to support micropayments, and shows the model well, but the crypto wallet part has been a large a barrier, especially during the 'crypto winter' periods.

2. Learnings for Web-Monetization adoption

Some observations on how I should have appealed to the wider audience, instead of the smaller niche of web custodians.

Incentives can drive a fairer web

Until more payment providers emerge, I think Web Monetization has helped a lot in exploring what's needed for a fairer and open web to happen. Implementing the payment pointers and Web-monetization made me realise that people really want something in return for being an active Web-monetization user. Enabling writers to earn micropayments, and 'contributing to an open web' didn't seem to be a big enough incentive.

Therefore, I started adding 'premium' features, such as:

web-monetized users can post jobs/opportunities on the jobs board as 'pro members'
web-monetized members can post 'deals' for their products, that will appear on a 'designer deals' page

It's very similar to what a premium membership would offer. I think the Coil news has stopped us in our tracks a little, as it was really beginning to take shape.

Language/Narrative

I also realised that the language used and narrative created is also very important - at times I think I could have been perceived as 'taking a moral high ground' through opposing gated platforms, and calling out privacy issues.
Overall, I don't think many users think about what is happening with data tracking and privacy issues. Even when we covered these topics, it sometimes felt like noone actually cared. I feel like the better approach may be to build all this stuff in the privacy-friendly and open way we envisage, but focus on the incentives that people get when communicating with the wider audience - with little mention of privacy etc.

Maybe those interested users who want to dive deeper could discover those benefits, but as a primary focus and narrative, it just didn't seem to resonate with the 'every-day/causal user'.

Vision vs Incentives

In all, I get the feeling that most people just want to see immediate benefits they would receive - e.g. access to something exclusive, discounts codes they can immediately use, or increased status on our platform - all elements that give quick gratification.
Quick gratification though was not something I considered on what I saw as a longer road towards a greater vision that challenges what has become the norm of the corporate web.
Therefore, a lot of our content and narrative behind the work would only resonate with a very small niche who actually care about this mission.
In reality, I think we needed to appeal to the masses through tangible incentives, rather than pitching an altruistic vision to web custodians.

Towards the future for Interledger

I hope there will be a way to continue this work, as it definitely has lead me to new ways of thinking, and better ways to create an ad-free platform.

I'm looking forward to see what is next with Interledger and the options we have going forward. For the short term, with the sunsetting of Coil, I think what we have is a really good case study, solid learnings, and an actual open platform that supports different cultures having been built with a system for internationalisation.

I'll be continuing the same mission, and am implementing more ways to get creators paid, and keep the web open! Thank you for the work at Interledger!

Web-Monetization Payouts for Individual Articles ✨ (Experimental)

graeme — Sat, 15 Oct 2022 11:24:21 +0000

Hey all, I've just built an interesting little experiment!

Using the Web Monetization JavaScript API, I tried listening for micropayments coming through on individual articles, and creating a running total of micropayments received. This gives a fairly accurate picture of how much money each individual article has received.

Writers can claim earnings

Even if an author has not created a payment pointer, we can track how much they earn, and send it them! I didn't have much time, but recorded a quick video to show how this is working:

At the moment, it's experimental and needs some tidying up, but I already have it running live on Prototypr.
It solves a problem @blackforestboi previously highlighted in the Memex project update:

Who comes first: The creator implementing WM or the consumer paying with WM?

There is the classic chicken-egg problem to be solved. Who comes first: The creator implementing WM or the consumer paying with WM?
If there was a (centralised in the beginning?) database that logs and arbitrates the payments to creators, urls, domains or social accounts that haven't set up the payment pointers yet, it may create an economic incentive for those creators to claim their savings at a later point in time and start using WM from then on. The assumption is that this may also lead to those creators pulling in their communities, adding a lot more people to pay with WM.

Other bits

It also tracks the different currencies, in case payment pointer for an article is changed
It can be optimised by using localstorage and less database requests - at the moment I'm sending every WM event to the database. [✅ DONE - see throttling in Improvements section below]
I'm using Supabase, it's fine on the free tier, because they allow unlimited read and writes

Let me know what you think! I'll document how to set it up, and the different pieces that are working later when I get chance.

Fixes:

Just found some fixes to make (might not make sense, but I'm writing here to remind myself):

the first time it copies over to the payouts table, it should clear the current total of the session or it's gonna add the same on top incorrectly [update: DONE!✅]
doesn't seem to be an API for tips, so I can't add the tips onto the total received for each post

Improvements Made:

(updated later the same day)

✅ Instead of sending every WM micropayment event (there's around ~2-3 per second), now it bunches them together and throttles it to send 1 update every 2 seconds..seems to work well!

Democratising Design Education with a Web Monetized Publishing Platform — Grant Report #1

graeme — Thu, 06 Oct 2022 18:02:07 +0000

Project Update

Overall, we found our project to be very ambitious, but thanks to the extension on our project timeline, it's looking in an excellent position. Some big wins were:

🇪🇸🇺🇸 Localisation/Internationalisation: the platform supports Spanish and English (and is extendable to more).
📝 New Editor: we built an amazing new editor for our writers to make publishing easy.
Educational content: we've published some great articles on Localisation, Internationalisation and creating an Ad-free web.

We ran into a lot of underestimated technical work that are key in making our platform open and accessible. For example, building in multiple language support took a lot of working out:

However, these delays gave us time to reflect and understand how Web Monetization can be best used on our platform:

Pivoting our Web Monetization messaging:

Initially, our messaging promoted Web Monetization as a replacement for paywalls - in the sense that it would enable creators to earn money from their writing (just as much as a paywalled platform).

However, writers that publish on paywalled platforms typically earn around $50-$200 per article (sometimes more). In comparison, the payouts received from Web Monetization are too small for us to promote it as such a paywall alternative. It almost feels like we'd be misleading writers, since we're aware that Web Monetization (WM) needs more time and adoption in to truly rival a paywall for payouts.

Pairing this issue with the learning curve involved in setting up a crypto wallet creates a barrier to making a payment pointer. Therefore, we need different incentives to encourage writers to create their payment pointer (it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation).

Alternative Model

During these early days for WM adoption, it seems a better idea to focus on perks that Web Monetization can give a user of our platform - rather than payouts. For example:

Editing tools: a Web Monetized user could get access to different colours, fonts, layouts, and other customisations in our lovely new editor.
Article feedback service: Our editors could offer web monetized writers more reviews and feedback on their articles
Access a discord server: Web monetised users could be given access to a chat section on our site

The overall benefit of WM remains - all the articles on our site remain open for anyone to read. Of the above ideas, we'd have to go with the option with least design and engineering work involved.

The timing is right for Open Source design

The delay we had also worked in our favour in that the attention to Open Source projects in the design industry has recently seen a huge spike, which I wrote about here. Since our platform is totally open-source now (thank to this grant project!), we're well positioned to help in this push for Open Design - people are much more interested now.

Progress on objectives

Our project objectives for the first half of the project were quite ambitious, but with the extension, it looks like we are on track.

With so many different aspects of the project going on, we set up a microsite to track progress and categorize things. See it here:

👉 Grant for the Web Microsite: Prototypr Open.

Key activities

The following 2 sections show key activities that we achieved, and then the key activities we are still working towards:

1. Done:

The following are key activities that we have achieved:
✅ Implement payment pointers
Writers can paste in their payment pointers in their account settings, and it will be attached to anything they publish.

✅ Newsletters on Web Monetization
Each newsletter, we now add a Web Monetization banner, and a link to survey to apply to become a Web Monetization contributor. There's also been some campaigns featuring on Web Monetization:

Prototypr 👁️✨

@prototypr

"The Ad-Free Web for Designers" 💌 by @sophypophy, featuring:

👉 The Grand Web Monetization Experiment @mozillafestival @Coil @GrantForTheWeb
👉 Our new open source microsite open.prototypr.io
👉 Tips from @uchiuchibeke for web monetization devs

prototypr.io/post/imagining…

17:54 PM - 16 Mar 2022

✅ Web Monetisation onboarding
There's a short 3 step Web Monetization introduction when a user signs up. It's a good first effort, but it needs much refining:

✅ 😕 Publish articles from Writer Outreach programme
Part of the grant involved reaching out to writers and publish articles on our new platform. We did it, but missed an opportunity:

Because the publishing part of the website was not ready, we had to manually import articles on behalf of contributors, and set up profiles for them from an admin dashboard.
That meant the users did not get control of their profile, and couldn't attach a payment pointer. They also didn't get an onboarding for Web Monetization - only information in an email about what we were doing. This meant the Web Monetization aspect didn't get enough attention and interest, and so no payment pointers were added. We were very stretched with building necessary aspects of the platform.

✅ ⭐️ Improve editor and publishing experience
As shown above, the editor is the key to our project goals, and we only managed to achieve this in the last week of this period! Now we have really good editing experience, that makes it possible for users to manage articles and drafts.

graeme

@graeme_fulton

New open-source @prototypr editor coming along, borrowing a lot from cousin @LetterHQ. Just done:

❝ blockquotes ✔️
🔗 link insert ✔️

13:54 PM - 30 Sep 2022

✅ Add documentation and Web Monetization CTAs

We have Web Monetization callouts in the menus of the site:

A help centre has been set up at help.prototypr.io
There's a 'Write for Us' page with information

2. Done to some extent/could be better:

The following are key activities that we didn't quite reach, mainly due to the limitations of our platform:

⬜️ Reach 20 published contributor articles
We published around 40 posts, but most of these were written by our own team rather than external contributors due to the limitations of the platform.
Now we have user accounts, and a great editor, this is going to be a lot easier going forward.

⬜️ Publish Web Monetization guides
We have published a number of articles around Web Monetization, but it's not a complete guide that we wanted.
Publications can be seen here. They touch on Web Monetization, but also focus more on Open Web topics such as Localisation and Internationalisation.

To solve this, I have found a great editor who is passionate and knowledgable about creating an open and fair web, and has in interest in Web Monetization. Hopefully, she will start within this month, and we can co-produce the 'Web Monetization for Designers' guide that we wanted.

⬜️ Remove ads for web monitized visitors
We haven't been running ads on our platform during this period. However this is very easy to add now, having already experimented with the Web Monetization API. Here we display a Web Monetization counter for Coil users:

⬜️ First writer bonus payments sent
Again, due to the state of the Publisher and User Accounts, we didn't manage to run any writer competitions that would pay bonuses. We're ready to start this in the next week!

Communications and marketing

Communications was part of our key activities. We've sent numerous newsletters with messaging on Web Monetization, and use Twitter as our main social channel to share the progress.

Newsletter banners:

See example newsletter here

*Social Media: *
Tweets about our progress.

Prototypr 👁️✨

@prototypr

"The Ad-Free Web for Designers" 💌 by @sophypophy, featuring:

👉 The Grand Web Monetization Experiment @mozillafestival @Coil @GrantForTheWeb
👉 Our new open source microsite open.prototypr.io
👉 Tips from @uchiuchibeke for web monetization devs

prototypr.io/post/imagining…

17:54 PM - 16 Mar 2022

graeme

@graeme_fulton

Playing with micropayments API on @Prototypr 👀, it's really cool!

🟢 added a lil green dot showing a live stream of $ 👇

It's called Web Monetization, a proposed W3C standard that makes building a fair and open web (no paywalls) possible! @Interledger @Coil @GrantForTheWeb

03:33 AM - 04 Oct 2022

graeme

@graeme_fulton

I wrote a bit more on the progress in the @GrantForTheWeb community 👇
community.webmonetization.org/prototypr/barr…

10:35 AM - 18 May 2022

graeme

@graeme_fulton

💌

✨Ace the UI Engineer Interview @ayush013 @flipkart

🌐 Design Better Hyperlinks by @shestopalov_v

🌐Ad-Free Internet by @sophypophy ft. @Interledger @GrantForTheWeb

Toolbox: @clipdropapp, @penpotapp , and more!

👀See it on @LetterHQ 👉 app.letter.so/letter/6329d76…

11:57 AM - 27 Sep 2022

Announcement Articles

What’s next?

Launch the editor

Firstly, the new editor is not officially announced. You have to visit the link: https://prototypr.io/early-access to sign up. Signup is intentionally hidden a bit on an Early Access link as we are looking to invite trusted writers to try it out for the first week.

After that, we'll add a prominent button in the top right of the main nav for new users to register, along with an official announcement.

Invite more writers

We have not grown our Web Monetized user base so far, as mentioned in the first section. Therefore, that's the next primary focus. In preparation, we have been running a survey to find writers who are interested in helping. Here's a look at the results:

86% would like to contribute with writing and publishing blog posts (108 people)
75% of respondents are interested in learning more about Web Monetization

We will work through this list of respondents and help the higher quality ones (e.g. those who left an email address and have left article examples) set up a payment pointer, sharing more about the benefits doing so will provide.

Grow WM User Base

We're going to pivot our messaging to focus on Web Monetization as an enabler for alternative business models on the web, rather than something that is going to replace paywall income (at least for the short term). Setting up a pointer will be more like a membership that gives access to certain platform perks, and also let writers enter our giveaway competitions (e.g. top 3 articles get $ prize from our budget).

A guide on Web Monetization will help push this, and we'll build a campaign around it. Overall, here's a few key next goals:

Stats: Add writer stats dashboard so they can see how many views their posts have got.
Notifications: Set up email notifications to inform writers of events. E.g. 'Your post was featured in the newsletter', 'Your post has been published', 'Your post has x views'
Bonus programme: Launch Writer Bonus programme for publishing Web Monetized content
📗 Guide Create the 'Web Monetization Guide for Designers' with the help of an expert on the topic (already found her, but waiting for confirmation!)
🚀 Launch – Now the platform is ready, we can officially launch on Product Hunt, and share it far and wide.
Translate more articles too!

What community support would benefit your project?

We've realised that it will be beneficial to approach users who are crypto-friendly and already knowledgable about wallets.
Even though WM is not to be confused with Web3, Web3 designers and developers are going to be easier to onboard to Web Monetization due to their understanding of wallets.

If anyone can point us to that type of audience, it'd be a great help!

The Future Of Design Is Open Source

graeme — Sat, 24 Sep 2022 21:07:29 +0000

Hi everyone, this is an article cross posted from our design publication that I think demonstrates the power of Open Source and inclusive projects - and sticking at it for the purpose we believe in.

It's about the rise of an Open Source design tool that has been running for years without getting much attention compared to its corporate alternatives. However, recently there was a sudden tipping point that has seen a huge spike in its adoption, with people running towards it because of the purpose behind the team building it.

I think Web Monetization is gonna hit that tipping point as people get tired of invasive ads and data tracking. So even if you're not in the design industry and the tools and concepts are not familiar, have a read!

Towards a future of Open Source design tools

For years, 'Open Source' for designers never really got the attention it does within software development. Even with design tools themselves built upon open source tech (see the huge list of what Figma use here), it was only until the last couple of years that 'Open Design' has really started to take off.

And a catalyst behind it has been Figma's Community - the platform purposely built for remixing and building upon each other's work, in true GitHub style.

The next GitHub like platform will reward software designers with prestige and a new form of distribution through the work that they open source. Soleio at Figma Config 2020

Despite their closed .fig file format, they've always been the trusted stewards of 'Open Source for design', thanks to their awesome tool and community work. However, their acquisition by Adobe put this in jeopardy – it appears to have been a tipping point towards the adoption of truly open-source design tools, as shown with this sudden rise in Penpot users:

Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz

@diacritica

OK, so I know that Figma's acquisition by Adobe is making people feel KO in so many ways, but at @penpotapp we're experiencing quite a reverse effect. And we're not seeing any signs of plateauing at all! Check spike in SaaS signups and platform activity (create_file event) 🤯🤯🤯

10:34 AM - 16 Sep 2022

A New Era of Open Source

The fear of Figma becoming a gated platform has pushed people to look for open alternatives. At the same time tough, Open Source design tools don't quite enable the practice of Open Design that Figma does so well. As Soleio explained at Figma Config conference back in 2020, it's the ability to resample other designer's work that creates an Open Source environment for software designers - and that takes a combination of tools, people, and distribution:

Ingredients for Open Source Design - Solleio, Figma Config 2020

In this article we'll look into the difference between 'Open Design' and 'Open Source design tools', the new opportunity for an era of open source design amidst Adobe x Figma, and then how designers can be a driving force behind open source itself!

As Murat, founder of User Research tool, Ballpark said, the acquisition is going to have a huge ripple effect, and can be seen as a big success story for the design tool space:

Murat Mutlu

@mutlu82

A big success story for design tool space in general and will have a huge ripple effect, congrats to the folks @figma + @Adobe !

figma.com/blog/a-new-col…

12:23 PM - 15 Sep 2022

'Open Design' vs Open Source Design Tools

Let's first define what Open Source Design actually is - Forrester have some good examples of it to get us started. The practice of Open Source Design involves:

Making design systems public
Making design processes public
Creating tools and plugins for others to use

It's similar to Open Source Software, but remixed for design:

[Open Source Design is] a “remix” (to borrow a term from Figma) of the open source software movement’s commitment to sharing and collaborative validation and improvement of software source code. Forrester: Open Source Design: What It Is And Why It Matters

At the moment, there isn't really an open equivalent to Figma that's designed for this so well. It's more than a tool, having all the social aspects of a platform such as GitHub, enabling people to connect and discover different open source projects, and then build upon one another's work.

As early as 2015, Figma had been building towards their version of a 'GitHub for Designers':

As Figma develops, it could be valuable not just for team members internally, but for the design community in a broader sense.

Imagine how much designers could learn from each other if they shared not just the their final interface design, but also all of the iterations they went through to get there.

- Figma 2015 in Fast Company

In contrast, Penpot is Open Source Software, in that its code is available for anyone to change or contribute to. Creating a space for 'Open Source Design' also requires the right distribution and people.

They have made a start with shareable templates and libraries, but Figma are the example to follow for open source design tools:

The GitHub for Designers

Figma Community made it easier for design files to be made public, enabling other designers to build upon and remix each-other's work. Just like GitHub, users had profiles and could receive community recognition through their open contributions.

Figma Community - open design projects and profiles

.fig != Open Source

Unlike GitHub though, which is based on an open format (.git), Figma's .fig file format is closed, so you can't easily switch away from Figma. Designer and Founder, Michal Malewicz, has often been openly critical about this, emphasising that for a platform to be truly open, it can't have a tool with such a solid vendor lock-in:

Michal Malewicz

@michalmalewicz

I love how closed the Figma format is.

Once you design something in Figma there's NO WAY to switch to other tools. You're stuck with Figma forever.

Even the PDF's import as a scramble of weird shapes and characters.

Way to go! 🤣

14:11 PM - 21 Jan 2022

Despite this closed file format, people had always trusted Figma thanks to their commitment in keeping the platform free for educational use, and pretty much free for individual use.

With this no longer 100% guaranteed for the longer term, the lock-in has alarm bells ringing. Cue Sketch and their open .sketch file format:

What's an Open File Format?

As well as the leap to Penpot and other open source alternatives such as Quant UX, there was a renaissance of appreciation to Sketch for their open file format.-

Sketch has always kept their file format open for anyone to read from, including competitors. Even when they were faced with "Import From Sketch to Framer", or "Import from Sketch to Figma", they kept true to their beliefs and their open source spirit.

At Sketch, we strongly believe that you own everything you create, and we’ve always prioritized putting you in charge of what happens with your documents.

_That’s why our file format is completely open; it’s a published spec, so you and third-party tools can read and modify it.

Sketch

@sketch

Here at Sketch, we've made all of our .sketch documents open-format.

Not sure what that means? Let's break it down 🧵

19:09 PM - 14 Jan 2022

That has built a lot of trust over the years, which is another key to Open Source in design, and yet another thing Penpot shares too! Here's Penpot's CEO, Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz's answers to Opensource.com:

It's the first in open source design, and the market is very exciting. Figma was valued at nine billion dollars a month ago. I understand people would see this from that particular angle, but then the community would reply with: But this is the guy that developed Taiga five years ago, and do you see any suspicious moves?

No. This is trust. They can be trusted. They've done it before. There are no hidden traps.

We were glad to see that we got credit for our past actions. There's no trap. It's just people trying to make sure that design and open source are finally together for the next decade.

- Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz

.git = .sketch?

Going back to the open file format, we can see that if Sketch were ever to disappear, .sketch files can be opened by alternative tools tools such as Figma, so your work is never lost. Much like if GitHub disappeared, developers still use their .git thing with an alternative such as GitLab.

Once you design something in Figma there's NO WAY to switch to other tools. Michal Malewicz

Unfortunately, at the moment, this is not so true for Figma - if they were to disappear, I'm not sure you can easily read what's inside their files. There are some apps such as Convertify that let you convert from Figma to Sketch, but it looks like they depend on the Figma platform to do so.

The Tipping Point for Open Source Design Tools

I think Sketch's story demonstrates that open source design isn't just about enabling people to remix each other's work, but it also depends on trust that can come in different ways:

Open file formats
Open source code
Dedication to the purpose of being open

These are all things that can work against companies economically, as we saw when Sketch's competition pummelled them with their own open file format. But it goes to show that money isn't always the main motivation for us as humans.

This is something Veethika highlighted in "Do Designers Belong in Open Source" when quoting Daniel H. Pink:

“We[as humans] are intrinsically motivated purpose maximizers, not only extrinsically motivated profit maximizers...” Daniel H. Pink as quoted in "Do Designers Belong In Open Source?"

Thanks to Figma's GitHub-like Community platform, I think this open-source culture was able to grow and spread faster throughout software design, but now people are looking for software that's really open source at the core, since they're skeptical of a Adobe's intentions as a large corporation. The attention has turned out to be a new opportunity for open source tools:

Victorien

@victorien_net

The acquisition of @figma by @Adobe, it's also an opportunity to start an era of Open Source Design Software.

@penpotapp is a really good product. It's open source and free.

— penpot.app

09:22 AM - 16 Sep 2022

"The most corrupt corporation in the world"

A reason people may be worried about Adobe acquiring Figma's Community is what happened with Microsoft and GitHub. Soon after acquiring GitHub, Microsoft created Copilot - a paid tool that was trained on open source code. I think they got away with it after the initial heat, and we may as well laugh at it now (video from twitter/ @cassidoo):

Big companies and open source

There are good parts of big companies in open source too. For example, as Soleio shared in his talk, Facebook and other large companies often build upon open source software, improve them whilst scaling, then give it all back to the community.

Facebook built on open tech

Through their open source contributions, employees can impact projects beyond their corporation's commercial interests.

'Design is the Future of Open Source'

Overall, I didn't intend to write yet another Adobe x Figma article, but Figma is so close to Open Source for designers, that it became a lot of the topic!

In doing so, I think it helped identify the differences between what Open Source Design Tools are, and what the practice Open Source Design actually looks like - sharing and remixing work.

Going back to Soleio's talk though, he takes the idea of Open Source Design further, showing that design itself can push Open Source to non-coders in different industries.

"We must broaden access to technology and design.

If we don't do this, we can only see over time, the further concentration of power to few, rather than the expansion of power to all." – Soleio, Combine

For example, he explained how collaborative platforms like Figma and Dropbox Paper transformed knowledge work from apps designed for individuals, to multiplayer environments, where workflows and processes are opened up for anyone to learn from. That can all be driven by design - open source can go beyond software, and made available for anyone by designers.

Thanks for reading - contribute to Open Source with Prototypr

Prototypr itself is Open Source - it's been something we've been working towards with our Grant for the Web project to "Democratise Design Education with a Web Monetized Publishing Platform".

Hello Open Web Custodians 🖖

In the midst of all the paywalls, we are trying to keep design articles open and available, with technologies such as Web Monetization making it possible. There's been a lot to figure out!

If you want to contribute, free to submit articles to hello@prototypr.io, or fill out our writer form to get involved with our Web Monetization project.

If you're interested in contributing to the code or design, drop an email or find me on twitter @graeme_fulton.

You can also subscribe to the newsletter for future stories. Here's some related articles from our site on creating an open and fairer web:

Web monetization for email newsletters?

graeme — Thu, 19 May 2022 09:37:57 +0000

I wondered if anyone has suggestions for bringing web monetization perks into newsletters?

I send a newsletter with Prototypr, and it could be cool to remove ads for those users who use a WM provider like coil. After testing, I found the web monetization meta tag does not work in emails (tried outlook and gmail).

Does anyone know if this could become possible one day, or any ideas for bringing WM benefits into a newsletter?

Barriers to adoption for Web Monetization, and onboarding new creators

graeme — Wed, 18 May 2022 01:36:08 +0000

Hi all, having learned more about Web Monetization, and touched on it with our publication, this is a quick post to share some progress, including our approach to onboarding writers to creating payment pointers.
To start with though, here's a video of how Web Monetization is highlighted on the Prototypr website:

Your browser does not support the video tag.

Barriers to adoption

The barriers to adoption for Web Monetization have been highlighted in the past by previous projects. A great example is this Web Monetization Report from DecentPatterns

decentpatterns.xyz

Some challenges to adoption they mention include:

Explaining why should a user invest their time in WM
Creating a wallet
Retention and sustainability (giving users an idea of where this is going)

To tackle some of these (especially setting up the Uphold wallet), we've set up an onboarding process to educate new members on Web Monetization, and help set up their payment pointer. This could also help curate a pool of web custodians from within our existing audience that'd be more willing to stick with it.

Note: a main reason onboarding necessary is because typical wallets like Uphold aren't built primarily for payment pointers. So I'm excited to see if better suited wallets will come out of the new ILP call for proposals!(thanks @chrislarry for explaining this on a previous call).

Spotlight Web Monetization

To give Web Monetization a presence on our site, we've added a CTA (call to action) in a few places.

A CTA in the main navigation:
Another WM item in the user profile menu:

Web Monetization Onboarding

When users sign up, we're using a step wizard to explain the main concepts of the site:

User onboarding screen, explaining how Web Monetization is good for the web:
A short series of onboarding steps, explaining the benefits of the initiative:
A brief explainer on payment pointers:

Setting the Payment Pointer

By this point, we hope the user has an idea of what a payment pointer is, and the mission behind our website. We then include an extra CTA on the user profile page:

Clicking that link takes the user to a short guide on setting up their payment pointer with Uphold.

Accessibility, Internationalisation, and What's next...

To make the platform more open and inclusive, and thereby better support the purpose of Web Monetization, our project goals also focused on making the platform more accessible and support wider cultures and languages. Some of this was covered in my previous post on localisation, but some more is highlighted in this video:

Getting to this point has taken longer than expected, but you can now try the development version over here. And our GitHub repository is now public.

There were a few unforeseen challenges such as creating the sitemap for the search engines, and handling image uploads. Next, it's time to tidy up the tutorial material, and switch it all over to the live version.🚀

I'm also sharing the progress on twitter @graeme_fulton, follow me there for more:

graeme

@graeme_fulton

✅ added Web Monetization callouts on @Prototypr

- Web Monetization is an alternative to paywalls and intrusive ads ✨

It's a proposed @w3c standard that streams micropayments to creators (through providers like @Coil), relieving us of annoying popups that ruin ux on the web

10:30 AM - 18 May 2022

Building an Inclusive Platform: Our Journey to Localisation

graeme — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 21:07:37 +0000

Part of the Prototypr GftW project is to make our platform cater for different languages and wider cultural norms in order to create a more open and inclusive web. It's starting to take shape:

graeme

@graeme_fulton

🇬🇧->🇪🇸 yay, got translation working for article content!

if you're interested in making a more inclusive web, these 2 are perfect for localisation:

1. Next.js for locale routes 👉 nextjs.org/docs/advanced-…
2. @strapijs to store translated articles 👉 strapi.io/features/inter… twitter.com/graeme_fulton/…

11:48 AM - 20 Apr 2022

graeme @graeme_fulton
🚧 @Prototypr en español is coming back! cc 👋@helloelba @diegonmtz Here’s the start of the locale switcher on the new platform - we’ll finally have a clear space made for Spanish readers 🎉, where it can’t get lost amongst all the English https://t.co/g0B0LY87Uk

Despite the web being global, a huge part is tailored for English-speaking audiences – 52% of all websites are in English, and of the 4.72 billion internet users, only 25.9% are English-speaking. For educational content, this puts a lot of people at a disadvantage. Through Internationalising and localising our platform, we can improve it.

Here are some notes on how we have approached localising the Prototypr platform:

Localisation ≠ Translation

To start with, we have been researching, publishing, and producing articles on the topics of localisation to gain a wider understanding for implementing it. Here's some of what we published with @sophie authoring:

1 language at a time

When it comes to localising Prototypr, the website can be broken down into 2 different types of content:

App content (content type 1): The content within the website UI, such as buttons, navigation menus, and cards.
Article content (content type 2): Actual articles - long form content that requires a native speaker to understand and translate to a given locale.

These sketch notes explain these more visually:

Internationalisation sets the groundwork for localisation

Translating the app UI (content type 1) is a lot faster and easier than translating full articles (content type 2), and because our website is a blog, a lot of work will go into supporting each extra language added.

Therefore, we decided to start with 1 extra language first - Spanish. As shown in the sketchnote, that was because already have a collection of Spanish articles (content type 2) as a starting point for internationalisation.

Once those internationalisation concepts are in place, it will make localisation more straight forward for additional locales we start to support.

The following sketchnotes show the above plan more visually:

Using the right technology

To implement the approach described, the features of Next.js and Strapi.io CMS made it fairly straight forward:

Next.js is excellent for providing the routing for different locales 👉 Read their docs
Strapi.io is ideal for storing translated articles for each locale 👉 Read about Strapi Internationalisation

This video shows our locale switcher in action:

graeme

@graeme_fulton

🚧 @Prototypr en español is coming back! cc 👋@helloelba @diegonmtz

Here’s the start of the locale switcher on the new platform - we’ll finally have a clear space made for Spanish readers 🎉, where it can’t get lost amongst all the English

11:08 AM - 11 Apr 2022

What's next?

There was quite a lot of extra work that was unforeseen, so we're a few weeks behind right now. The next step is to put the site live, and make the GitHub repository public. The upgraded site also has a new login system, where users can add their payment pointers 💫. Once that's live we'll be able to move a lot faster with publishing more guides and tutorials!

graeme

@graeme_fulton

When you're in the middle of a huge project, it's easy to feel lost, like ur getting nowhere fast with unexpected roadblocks

@Prototypr @GrantForTheWeb project felt this way at times, but the notes along the way help me zoom out to see we're doing fine!👉open.prototypr.io/i18n

15:25 PM - 20 Apr 2022

To find out more about our project, I've been documenting much of the process on our Grant for the Web microsite – an open source, living documention on the development of the Prototypr Grant for The Web Project. You'll find the steps we're taking to build out the Web Monetized publishing platform - from creating the front-end website to setting up the back-end content management system that supports localisation.

Prototypr Web Monetization Action Plan

graeme — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 10:54:11 +0000

Prototypr is a UX and UI design publication that's been running for over 5 years. The blog is dedicated to design, prototyping, coding, and future technologies such as AR/VR, AI and 3D. We run:

‘The Source’ newsletter: 60k subscribers bi-weekly (see here)
‘Prototypr Weekly’ a separate newsletter for an audience of 20k
Prototypr Publication (hosted on Medium)
Prototypr.io (new self-hosted platform)

We plan to use Web Monetization to solve these 2 issues:

Paywalls: there has been a rise in centralized publishing platforms optimizing for paywalled business models that create a barrier to free learning.
Targeted Ads: platforms (e.g. Facebook/Instagram) are optimised to harvest and exploit user data to sell targeted ads, and content surfaced is geared specifically to sell a corporate product.

Action Plan

By integrating Web Monetization into the Prototypr platform, we want to create a privacy-friendly and unbiased place for creators to earn from their content, whilst keeping it accessible to anyone with internet access. Here are some ways we plan to use Web-Monetization to increase access to information:

Open Source

Our platform is being open-sourced, so you can set up your own version of Prototypr. The process of building the site is being documented at open.prototypr.io, so you can learn how to set up your own Web-Monetized publishing platform like ours.

Ad-Free Rewards

The Prototypr website currently uses Web-Monetization through embedding a metatag with our payment pointer in the head of our website, meaning our payment pointer appears on every page of the website. Building upon this, we plan for authors to web monetize whatever they publish on Prototypr, and plan to reward contributors and readers for supporting this ad-free initiative:

Payment Pointers for Authors

Each registered Prototypr user will be able to add their own payment pointer, which will be attached to anything they publish with a Web Monetization meta tag. The user accounts section will have extra settings for Web Monetization, such as:

A Web Monetization tab in user accounts linking out to instructions and related learning material.
Guide users on setting up an wallet (Uphold)
Explain what payment pointers are and how to retrieve one
Show how to add the payment pointer in Prototypr account settings

Coil and Web-Monetized Visitor Perks

Prototypr is currently supported by ads. As a perk for web-monetized users, those visiting Prototypr with a web monetization provider will have the option to turn ads. Note: the ads we show don't track users or invade privacy – they're static pictures of products that the ourselves and the community love (e.g. ProtoPie, Maze).

Digital Rewards

Special perks can also be rewareded to Web-Monetized users, such as art and digital sticker givaways to say thank you! Web-monetized writers who use a payment pointer will get a special profile badge too (more on that to come).

Educational Guides

As designers, despite being huge advocates of accessibility, privacy, open source, and an open web, many will be new to Interledger and Web Monetization. Therefore, educational content to onboard designers (or 'design-developers'/'devsigners') is necessary to build an understanding of Web-Monetization in our industry.

Topics to cover:

Why we need to democratise design content
Helping self-taught designers by publishing on the Open Web
What is the Open Web?
An introduction to Open Design
What is Web Monetization, and how it will affect the future
How to use Web Monetization and be part of a better future
UX Principles for Web Monetization

In addition to building an understanding of web monetization, designers are interested in why and how things work. With crypto wallets and browser plugins currently providing a fragmented user experience at times, we could think about how to improve things and make them more accessible. This can start with defining some tips and best practices when designing for web monetization.

Why Design Publishing Needs Web3

graeme — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 15:15:31 +0000

Traditionally, blogs and educational content in the design industry has been openly accessible for anyone on the web to learn from, no matter their background. With the cost of design education inaccessible to many, an Open Web has enabled a thriving self-taught generation of designers and developers. Throughout 2016 to today though, there's been a rise in centralised publishing platforms that optimise for paywalled business models and prioritise English language and Western culture, thereby restricting access to free learning and limiting its availability around the world.

Writers are attracted to publish on gated platforms as they benefit from effective SEO and excellent distribution networks, thereby gaining great exposure. Driven by profit, such platforms encourage writers to put their work behind a paywall by offering bonus payments, affiliate schemes, and sometimes employing dark design patterns. The SEO of paywalled content often outperforms smaller independent blogs, resulting in free articles becoming more scarce.

Image: An opt-out checkbox that makes it more convenient to publish within a paywall (dark design pattern)

Below, I'm outlining the rise in gated articles in design, and how I feel staying neutral as publication owner on paywalled platforms indadvertedly supports a paywalled web.

Gated platforms and ‘opt-out’ paywalls

For Web Design, a huge amount of popular articles over the last 4 or 5 years have been published on Medium. In an industry with knowledge sharing at its core, this was a perfect fit. Then, question marks arose with the introduction of the paywall – it was great for writers, as we could now earn money for our work, but it limited access to educational material.

To address these concerns, Medium made the paywall opt-out. It’s up to the writer. Medium serves a wide range of industries, spanning way beyond web design, so changing their platform to suit a subsection of its entire audience may not make sense to them – not everyone can be pleased.

I found readers and contributors of my publication on Medium were divided on this gated model, leaning towards a negative feeling:

There is a larger negative sentiment for paywalls than positive:

The main reason we share is to find opportunities and give back:

People value reach more than money (even when using a paywall!):

It’s up to the writer, not us

Leaving it up to the writer removes a large responsibility for affiliated publication owners – it's almost a get-out clause in my opinion. It's both easier and much more beneficial to the publication owner to stay neutral and 'leave it up to the writer'. Publications that partner with Medium benefit financially from the paywall, and just as much from Medium's support.

At the same time as the paywall being optional, the activity of the platform is increasingly geared towards pushing the paywall model. For example, the latest affiliate scheme targets writers, enabling them to earn commission on referring new paid Medium members.

Affiliate writers also convert new paid members, further gating the web

Open Web Custodians in Design

Medium is just an example I have experienced – the same model can be applied by any platform. So if it wasn't ever before, by staying neutral and sitting on the fence with gated platforms in our industry, it increasingly shows support for models that gate the web. It's great for people to earn from their writing, but I believe there must be more open and inclusive ways to do so.

Thanks for reading. I run a design publication on Medium and have been struggling with this. I think Web3 looks like a viable long-term solution, but we need to start now - I wondered if anyone had any thoughts or advice?