About a month ago, I stumbled across an Alpha demo of Synereo and put a post up about it. This evening I saw a second demo video go up. Apparently there is a Synereo Conference in Vancouver and it was demo'd there. I thought I'd do a second write up on the bits I found interesting in the video. The video is 50 minutes long and I don't plan to spend too much time writing on this, so I'll just jot down some thoughts as I watch. The video is embedded at the end of this post.

Privacy

(18 min mark)

User can decide which other users they want to connect with. They can severe node connections as and when they want. 'It is a secure connection and the data is kept private.'

It sounds to me like a private social network. Where primarily I only connect with people on an invitation basis. I'm guessing they mean private within the network and extended network.

As I understand it Alice can share Bob's post with Eve, where Eve is connected to Alice but is not connected to Bob. However Chris who not connected to any of the three will not see Bob's post.

Steemit by contrast allows all users to view, comment and follow all posts from other users. It would be interesting to see if Steemit could offer a 'private posting' option. That could only be shared via a connected network. With Authors should be able to decide which posts are for public and which posts are for private consumption. How would works in terms of the blockchain/ encryption, I'm not sure. Also it's questionable whether such private posts should attract rewards, if they are encrypted.

Configurable Feeds

(21 min mark approx)

Synereo has a notion of configurable feeds.

From what I understand as a user I could choose to create a feed of @cryptogee with the tag 'spotlight'. And only see @cryptogee's spotlight tag whenever I view that feed.

Steemit by contrast only has one feed of people I follow. I think being able to create multiple customisable feeds would be a fantastic addition to the Steemit eco-system. I'd imagine this is something that can be done via an app and does not necessary need to be done by the core Steemit Team?

Ampification (promotion)

(24 min mark approx)

From what I understand, users can 'ampify' (promote) posts to people in their network. And a portion of the 'amps' paid flows back to the author/ curators upstream.

From previous research, my understanding was that people downstream (i.e. those who are recieving the posts) also recieve a portion of the amps. Effectively paying people for their attention ('attention economy').

However from this demo, it seems this aspect of how the ampification will work is still being worked out. I'll be watching with interest to see how this plays out. After all 'how the money works' will be a critical component to the Synereo platform.

What seems clear to me (although I'm open to be corrected) is that the blockchain isn't paying people to produce content through newly minted Amps. This 'attention economy' needs people with a vested interest in promoting a particular piece of content to work.

I fail to see who will want to ampify my content, unless I was shilling (directly or indirectly) for them. Unless the thinking is that I would want to pay to promote MY OWN content to my own network, in the hope that they in turn would promote it to their network? Personally I think there is a lot to figure out on the monetisation of content front.

Also, I'm not sure if I can ampify beyond my immediate network and into my friends network. Can I go further and ampify into their friends, friends network?

Tags & accessing content

(30 min)

There is an interesting conversation around tags and accessing content. Whilst I didn't fully understand it, it did simulate some interesting thoughts in my mind.

• there is a challenge for both Steemit and Synereo to enable users to dig for content/ related content and group content together.
• Synereo has a challegne that if I search for content I'm somewhat limited in my such by my connection and tags. Does this not limit the content I can access, thus my access to knowledge and information?
• I like the Synereo idea of being me being able to tag content (group content by tags) and send those tags around to my network. It would be great if such functionality was available on Steemit. After its first 24 hours content is pretty much toast on Steemit. Personalised tagging and sharing those tags amongst friends or followers could be a way to keep good content alive. For example, for someone like @donkeypong to tag a bunch of posts 'Steemit 101' and anyone following him to be able to visit that tag and see a stream of posts relevant to learning the basics about Steemit would be extremely valuable.

REO - Relative Reputation Score

(33 min mark approx)

Synereo allows users to see a relative reputation score amongst people that engage with my content.

This is different to Steemit that has a global reputation score throughout the community.

I like the global reputation score Steemit has better. Also apps like steemvp have been developed that can give Steemit users a picture of who is most engaged with their content. I'm sure other apps will be developed (e.g. ones that show comment engagement etc.) overtime.

Replies & Channels

(34 min mark approx)

Someone asked about creating logical connections between posts and replies. The response seemed interesting however it would have been more useful to have seen a demo of what it looked like to get a better handle.

Demo of Docker

(36 min mark approx)

The rest of the demo consisted largely of techie stuff.... I do hope none techie creative people can easily roadtest Synereo during the alpha phase. They may find that people less closely connected to the project have different viewpoints on the utility or otherwise of some of the functionality.

Second impressions

This is the second demo I've seen of Synereo.

• I like privacy aspect and a web of network connections.

• I like the configurable feeds part.

• I'm not close to understanding how the money works. I look at things simply. What's the pitch to people that want to monetise their content? So far it sounds like this; come to Synereo, build your network, post content that people in your network would want to pay to promote. Unfortunately as much as I have a network of people that think I'm a great guy, would has interesting things to say... I don't know anyone that would dip there hand in their pocket and "sugar-daddy' me to financial freedom. I think (again this is second impression, and I'm open to be swayed otherwise) that Steemit is streets ahead in terms of having an incentive structure that rewards and incentivises quality content creation.

• I like the idea of tags and people using tags to group and share content. It would be good to see this is action.

• It feels like the alpha will be pre-public consumption and more geared towards devs.

• It would be good to see how the reputation scores, replies/ comments and channels work in practice.

I would have liked to have seen the system in action more. I hope Synereo realise that, with their being a new wave of blockchain social media sites, there will be eyes from outside of their community on what they are doing. With all the long hangout/ conference videos they are putting out, it would be useful to have tldr bitesize communications to their potential user base. Synereo may suffer from a similar challenge to Steemit in translating these wonderful technical advancements into simple to absorb messages to 'Joe and 'Jane' public (like me!!).

What do you think?

Here is the video,

Would be great to hear your take on what Synereo brings to the party...