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Ben Marshall for Vivid IoV Labs

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Freemitization — Grant Report #2 (Final)

#grantreports #gftw

This post is a final update on our progress on the Grant for the Web project: Freemitization

Progress on objectives

The details of each aspect of the project are included below in the Key Activities section, however in the interest of brevity here is a TL;DR for our progress:

  • Open source modules for Web Monetization Revenue Sharing and freemium-style Video Ad Serving are available
  • JAM Podcast: Web Monetization Series completed with 12 episodes, including an episode with the GftW team
  • UX Report for Web Monetization published
  • Vivid IoV Labs are now planning to become a Web Monetization Service Provider

Key activities

As previously stated we received the grant to work on four areas; advancement / integration of Web Monetization technology via the creation of two Web Monetization focused modules and development of the Peerkat platform, a user research project and promoting the technology through educational materials via the various marketing channels.

You can see all of our objectives in this post

1. Web Monetization

Milestone update:

[✅ Done] i. Integrate XRP tipbot, gather technical information about ILP and advertising implementation
[✅ Done] ii. Work with Web Monetisation testing various ways to serve ads to non web monetized users
[✅ Done] iii. Create, user test and iterate prototyped solution for serving ads with a number of users from each target group. Build out once acceptance criteria are passed through defining wireframes for user journeys (happy/unhappy paths) and accessibility requirements.
[✅ Done] iv. Finalise the freemium module and release to developers, begin design and development on redistribution of payments
[✅ Done] v. Gather feedback from developers and improve on freemium module, Implement first iterations of redistribution model
[✅ Done] vi. Finalise redistribution module, release to user and developers for testing
[✅ Done] vii. Make any improvements, fix bugs based on testing

  • We have received positive feedback so far and have held encouraging discussions with Metagov and Matt Mankins at Mozilla about our Web Monetization Revenue Sharing module. These are ongoing conversations, but we are hopeful that we will be assisting with integrations and developing the modules further in the future.
  • Relevant links: Freemitization website, Open source modules: Revenue Sharing and Freemium Video Ad serving
  • Check this post for demo walkthroughs
  • Please reach out to us on here or at info@vividiov.com if you would like to discuss our Web Monetization modules/developing.

2. Peerkat Platform

Milestone update:

[✅ Done] i. Define and develop MVP for all tiers of service, incl. Digital analytic requirements and onboard initial testers (whilst grouping them into target user groups and profiles in accordance to GDPR)
[✅ Done] ii. Collect feedback from alpha testers and fix bugs, develop additional features, work on integration with Uphold Wallet
[✅ Done] iii. Enhance user profile page (based on qual/quant data) and integrate social features
[✅ Done 🔄 Changed] iv. Optimise onboarding process to streamline user acquisition including referral mechanism
[❌ Not Complete] v. Integrate freemium module into platform for further usability testing, add UI elements to improve UX
[✅ Done] vi. Test and implement gamification of platform with user voting
[✅ Done] vii. Develop task and reward system in app to entice continued use

  • The Peerkat mobile platform went live in Q1 2021 and we have had 36k new users, 47k sessions and 219k page views
  • So far we featured the first half of our Web Monetization podcasts as content in the platform (to market WM to a new user base) and had 1,718 total views

3. Community and marketing

Milestone update:

[✅ Done] i. Establish partnerships with key supporters
[✅ Done 🔄 Changed] ii. Create content plan for following 6 months, release one podcast and two educational blogs
[✅ Done 🔄 Changed] iii. Run workshops for user experience, release one podcast and two educational blog
[✅ Done 🔄 Changed] iv. Collate and synthesise findings from user experience workshop and share with ecosystem by publishing findings, release one podcast and two educational blogs, plan Christmas content competition
[❌ Not Complete 🔄 Changed] v. Run Christmas content competition, plan new year grant giveaways. Optimise content distribution channels, release one podcast and two educational blogs
[✅ Done 🔄 Changed] vi. Release one podcast and two educational blogs, distribute grant giveaways, Web Monetization webinar
[✅ Done 🔄 Changed] vii. Release one podcast and two educational blogs, content creation & distribution webinar

Stats for our various channels:

  • Twitter posts - 237k impressions on Peerkat account, 72k on Vivid
  • LinkedIn posts - 6.5k impressions
  • YouTube stats - 1.6k impressions
  • Peerkat WM-related video views - 46k impressions
  • Vividiov.com company website visits (including Web Monetization blogs, podcast homepage and ux report) - 3.1k new users, 6.5k page views
  • Freemitization website visits - 187 sessions
  • Open source module downloads - total downloads (not unique) according to npm data: 271 for video ads module, 1744 for revenue sharing module

Other notes:

4. User Experience Research Report

Milestone update:

[✅ Done] i. Secondary research and synthesise into themes to identify gaps in knowledge for primary research of target user groups.
[✅ Done] ii. Design primary research based on what we want to learn from secondary research using quantitative user feedback from MVP (survey) and qualitative (user interviews), to understand user acceptance and additional needs/features. Synthesise insight to deliver opportunities for the project team by personas.
[✅ Done] iii. Plan, design and conduct user tests for Web Monetization
[✅ Done] iv. Plan, design and conduct tests

  • UX Report
  • The five most important themes we took from the research were:
  • Most common theme – more Web Monetization Service Providers needed for ecosystem to thrive!
  • Web Monetization is a nascent technology and requires an increased engineering effort
  • Likewise, increasing the awareness and the marketing investment for Web Monetization should be a high priority
  • More flexibility for payment streaming controls and options such as tipping and donation tools are required by users Users really like the technology, however the entire ecosystem needs developing
  • The survey findings generally backed up our assumptions that we had held going into the GftW project. This has encouraged us further to keep testing and developing our ideas as we strive to create brilliant user experiences, and we are excited at the prospect of becoming a service provider.

What community support would benefit your project?

What’s next?

  • We will press ahead with our plans to integrate an “Earn” feature into our mobile platform Peerkat to aid user retention and to commercialise this product.

  • Begin early testing of our Web Browser Extension where users will be able to earn crypto while surfing the web, please sign up to our mailing list on our website if you are interested in getting your hands on this first!

  • Continue research and refine UX design to enhance our Web Browser Extension and become a Web Monetization service provider.

  • Develop our concept of establishing a crypto learning website to join up the user journey between our mobile experience and web extension experience.

  • Please join us on our journey by following @vividiov on Twitter

Relevant links/resources

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