Usually I manually check these transcripts to make sure that they're mostly okay. I literally did not have the time this week. I really hope that it's readable. If not, I'm sorry and I'll make sure to do better from now on!
Nathan Wrigley: 00:00 Welcome to the WP Builds podcast, bringing you the latest news from the WordPress community. Welcome your host, David Waumsley, Nathan Wrigley.
Nathan Wrigley: 00:21 Hello there, and welcome to the WP Builds podcast. This is episode number 144 and titled get paid with likes. The Like Coin with Kin Ko. It was published on Thursday the 5th of August, 2019 my name is Nathan Wrigley from picture and word.co. Dot. UK. A small web development agency based in the north of England and there's no David Walmsley this week because it's not a discussion. It's an interview. A few things before we begin the usual stuff, but I'd like to remind you about the stuff that WP Builds are doing to help the WordPress community. If you go over to WP Builds.com and browse all around, use the links at the top, the first of which is the subscribe link, and if you go there, you can subscribe to all of the different things that we put on. There's news letters, there's obviously subscribing to your, to the podcast on your favorite podcast player, the Facebook group, and so on and so forth.
Nathan Wrigley: 01:16 I would encourage you to do that because this WP Builds Facebook community is something rather special. I'm really always delighted by how warm and friendly it is. The other page to go to would be WP Builds dot com forward slash deals if you want to get yourself a WordPress deal head over there, there's a whole bunch of plugins and themes with significant amounts off. So if you're in the marketplace, go and check it out. It's a bit like black Friday, but every day of the week go and check it out. If you're thinking of buying a plugin, you never know, you might get lucky than the one that you want might just be there. Please feel free to contact me. If you're a plugin owner and you would like to put your plugin on that page, I'll happily do it for you. And the other one is WP Builds.com forward slash advertise if you'd like to help keep the WP Builds podcasts going.
Nathan Wrigley: 02:04 And of course, if you'd like to get your product or service in front of a wider audience, go and fill out that form. And I'm, I'm sure that we can help you out in some way you like. We have done with these two companies. The WP Builds podcast was brought to you today by Cloudways. This episode is sponsored by Cloudways which is a managed cloud based hosting platform for WordPress. Unlike others, they let you choose the server from top cloud providers like Google cloud, Amazon and digital ocean and there are no restrictions on the number of websites per server. Try. Cloudways is using promo code WP Builds all in capitals and get $20 free hosting credit and the page builder framework. Do you use a page builder to create your websites, the page builder framework as a mobile responsive and Likening faster WordPress theme that works with beaverbuilder element or breezy and other page builders with its endless customization options in the WordPress customizer.
Nathan Wrigley: 03:04 It's the perfect fit for you or your agency. Go to WP dash page builder framework.com today and we sincerely, truly, really sincerely thank our sponsors for keeping the WP Builds podcast going. Okay, let's get onto the podcast. Today's episode is all about something called a Like Coin. Now, this is such a sublimely amazing idea. I really hope that you get behind this. It's just so different to anything we've covered before. It's a blockchain technology. And the idea is that it will enable people who create content a bit like me to get paid for their endeavors. We've had, since the internet came about, most things kind of have the feeling that they should be completely free, Free News, free magazines and so on and so forth. And authors of content have tried various ways to to help you pay them for their efforts. So we've had paywalls and we've had subscriptions and we've had donations and of course adverts.
Nathan Wrigley: 04:04 But in the end some of those models are difficult to monetize. And so Kin Ko come up with this idea of blockchain technology called the Like Coin, whereby you simply click a like coin button when you discover a piece of content that you'd like and the author gets paid and it works out how much you're going to spend each month and it distributes all of your money for that month to any clicks that you perform. So let's say you put $10 into it. It's not dollars, it's like coins, but you get the idea and you click one time. Well that person will get $10 and if you click three times, they'll get $3 33 cents each. And so it goes, it's just so, so interesting. Have a listen, leave some feedback, lead some comments in the common section of the page itself. Or if you head over to the Facebook group, WP Builds.com forward slash Facebook and join the conversation over there.
Nathan Wrigley: 04:56 I really hope you enjoy this episode. Hello there. Thank you for joining us on the WP Builds podcast. Once again, thanks for getting this far today on the line. All the way from Hong Kong, we have Kin Ko. Hello Kin. Hi. Hello everyone. Hello. Hello. Now can co is on the line today to speak about something utterly and completely unique. We've never covered this topic at all. In fact, I'd be surprised if you've, um, you've come across this topic at all. I came across it because of a Lightening talk that Ken did at WordCamp in Manchester. Several feels like several months ago now because kin has launched or is involved with a site, which you should probably visit right away to get some idea of it. It is called a like.co. So that's l I k e. Dot. C o m. And I'm going to struggle
Nathan Wrigley: 05:58 to explain this because it's so amazingly different from what we're used to. So okay kin, I'm going to say what is like coin.
Kin Ko: 06:08 Okay. Uh, so Like Coin is a movement to reward creativity cause uh, in the online world many good contents lot whether the we wanted, that's what we want to deal with.
Nathan Wrigley: 06:27 So the idea here is it's to do with kind of cryptocurrency, um, which is going to make a lot of you run to the hills because you've heard about things like, uh, you know, the volatility of things called bitcoin and how difficult it is to get money in and out of bitcoin and what have you, but is like coin a crypto currency con. Let's establish that to begin with. Is that what it is?
Kin Ko: 06:51 It is definitely a cryptocurrency. But, uh, what we're trying to do is you don't, with you, you have to understand much about cryptocurrency in order to use it. Just like, uh, you are using smartphone without actually knowing how the smartphone works. At least I don't,
Nathan Wrigley: 07:08 right? No, no, no. I don't know. I think if somebody took the screen off the smartphone, I wouldn't understand anything that was going on beneath. But just to give it a little bit of history, the, the things that you've heard of in the cryptocurrency space, no doubt are things like bitcoin and etherium and possibly things called ripple and so on and so forth. Now, traditionally things like bitcoin have kind of been, they've been difficult for people to take in because they don't represent what they're, what they're used to with real money. Because we're in a phase where bitcoins can be earned by switching on a computer and doing something called proof of work. And the idea with a bitcoin is that you, you ask it to solve a terribly, terribly and increasingly almost impossible to solve mathematical problem. And if your computer is lucky enough to solve that problem, you get rewarded with bitcoins rather like, and the real reason it's called bitcoin mining is it's rather like in the American gold rush where if you went out with a spade and a bucket and dug the ground up, you might be lucky enough to find a coin, but your chances were very, very small.
Nathan Wrigley: 08:20 A bit like mining bitcoin. So do we, do we mine, um, like coin, uh, with our computer? Is that what we do?
Kin Ko: 08:30 No, definitely a lot. Um, actually, uh, so for Like Coin, uh, in total we have 2 billion like coin defined it, uh, in blockchain, out of which 1 billion, which is 50% is used, it is assigned, it budgeted for with what? In creativity. So you just post, your content on the web Si of course on WordPress, most people do. And then you add a Like button made by us to your content. And when people click the Like button, it means, uh, they are telling us the foundation to, with what to content. So debts or uh, the creators have to do and you can see that as a form of mining, we call that a proof of creativity.
Nathan Wrigley: 09:25 Ah, so instead of using your computer and wasting goodness knows how much of the Earth's resources on generating CPU cycles to try and find a bit coin with this, the idea is different. You will mine coins by putting your content on the Internet, attaching a like coin button to that content and if people discover your content and like it, you will in return receive a um, small modest amount of, of like coins. Have I got that right? Yes. Right. Okay. So that leads me I suppose to my next question how it, let's say I was out on the internet and I discover a website, a WordPress website with a Like Coin button on it. I'm reading somebody's content and at the bottom of that content is a Like Coin button. And I think to myself, yes, this, this article is well done. I've enjoyed reading it. I am going to click on that button and donate some of my Like Coin. I suppose that begs the question, well, where did my Like Coin come from? Where's, how did I fill up my wallet? It's so that I could give it to other people. Cool.
Kin Ko: 10:38 I see. So, uh, as I said, we are trying to, um, make a user experience, uh, as easy as possible so people don't have to understand a cryptocurrency and don't even have to create a wallet. So what we do, actually, the, the money comes from two sources. The first source is a creator's pool. Uh, we served it by the foundation. As I just mentioned, we, we serve 50% of the total, uh, Like Coin in the world for rewarding creativity. And they will be minted, uh, every day, uh, uh, bit by bit over the next 10 years. So 1 billion over 10 years, every day, some Like Coin is minted, and B, we wanted to the, uh, contents being Like on that day. So that's, uh, source one. And then if you as a reader, uh, uh, don't feel this is enough, we, uh, we will have you upgraded to what we call a civic like civic liker, which means you will, you pay $5 per month on your credit card. I mean, you, you don't have to have crypto wallet on anything. Just the, um, typical use experience. You have used your credit card to pay $5. And then when you're like content, you are essentially assigning part of the $5 to the uh, creator. So that's second source of the money.
Nathan Wrigley: 12:25 Okay. So there's two sources now let, we'll unpick the second one in a moment. But the first one is really diff interesting to me because it's so radically different from the way that we're used to conducting interactions and commerce because every single person gets the, the idea that you did some work at some point in the past and you got paid for it and because you got paid for it, it sits in your bank account. And whilst it's sitting in your bank account, you can then make decisions upon how you want to spend it. So I could walk up to somebody busking in the street and give them some of the money I'd already earned or I could go online and buy something on Amazon with the money I'd already earned. But in your scenario, the money has been generated. 1 billion of these Like Coins have been generated and kept in a, in a reserve, a reservoir, a pool by the Like Coin foundation and it has been determined that a billion of them over time will go to people who, who get to receive clicks on their websites.
Nathan Wrigley: 13:33 So you don't have to have money in a, in a Like Coin wallet in order to go around clicking and, and giving people like coins. Yes. That's just apprentices. Yeah, it's really an interesting idea because it, I'm so entrenched in the notion of money is earned then spent and then I earn some more and then I spend it. Whereas the crypto world is totally different. You know, you've got this pool of 2 billion, 1 billion is for creativity. And I can dip into that on somebody else's behalf and donate some of it to somebody, even though I never got my hands on it ever. Um, I just think it's amazing,
Kin Ko: 14:18 but maybe I can try to use some better thoughts. So in Hong Kong we have, uh, some funding from government called create education, which has used it for, um, uh, encouraged creativity. So it's a fund by the government. So the government's set, uh, set a budget of say, uh, necessarily 1 billion to we, uh, to, to encourage creativity. So it's, uh, it's done in a traditional way, meaning, say your company, you will run a w WP Builds, which is very creative. You can write them a proposal of a a hundred pages s telling, uh, how this benefits the, uh, community, et Cetera, et cetera. And maybe they'll, they'll assign you 1 million for the project and it takes six months for the application. While for us, we, uh, we serve the 1 billion Like Coin, which is, uh, kind of Likeer cray Xuk Fund. But in order, uh, rather than having a board to have to help meeting us once every six months to check out all the proposals, we have the, it's like crowd judging, half the people have the, all the audience. Tell us what contents are good, what contents?
Nathan Wrigley: 15:47 Well, uh, supporting. Yeah, so that we assigned the budget to that particular content every day. So kind of like the Leno then no funding as well. Yeah, I mean it's such a different idea. It's, it's breathtakingly different. That's why it's so beguiling and so interesting to me. So, okay, so let's say that you've got this, you've got this billion like coins which you invented and they have a dollar value at the moment, which, because the whole project is very small, a little bit like Bitcoin, before you ever heard heard of it was worth very, very little. And then over time people started to use it and bitcoin's value went up and we know it's a roller coaster. It goes up and it goes down. But you know, if you look at the graph over over five years, it's ended up much more up than it did down.
Nathan Wrigley: 16:35 Um, so the idea is that this Like Coin over time will get value. Uh, and then you could swap it back into Fiat currency, real money, you know, dollars or pounds or what have you. But how do you, uh, are you dro, are you dripping out of that billion, a certain number of Like Coins per day, or is it just based upon how many clicks? Like for example, do you, do you give out a thousand a day and that thousand will be aggregated over all of the clicks? Or is it, um, every click is worth one like coin or how does it work?
Kin Ko: 17:11 Uh, is, is that we have a formula, let's say x equal function of T. Okay. T is the, uh, today. So, uh, we predefined it. Uh, it is the way production works. We've pretty defined it in white paper doing which day, how much, uh, how many tokens will be generated regardless of how many, uh, contents, how many Likes, uh, January that day, over 10 years. Okay. Um, so, uh, no matter how many contents there are say on 365 day, no matter how many likes, there will be a PT find it among of Like Coin generated. Okay.
Nathan Wrigley: 17:59 Does that, um, quantity of Like Coin decrease over time in the same way that um, bitcoin did? In other words, at the beginning it was trivially easy to generate bitcoin. So there was lots and lots being created, but it was worthless. Um, in terms of US dollars, shall we say, and then as it's become more popular that, that has, that forced it, the tap has dried up and it's harder to produce those coins. Is that true of you? Are you, are you linear? Are you the same amount every day or is it going to decrease as more people
Kin Ko: 18:29 hop on board is kind of like the curve of, uh, you know, the two prints to the, the picture, the snake eating elephant picture. Oh yeah, it goes up and then it goes up and then it goes down. Okay. So, uh, it's exactly because we, we, when, when I designed that it, it's with, we take weapons on bitcoin. We, we don't want people in the beginning to get far too much than, uh, then they tend to follow followers so that like the, the ledge commerce can, can never, uh, catch up. Yes. So we, we have a slow start until about three years in the project. Then it goes about three or four years. It goes to the peak and then it gradually goes down.
Nathan Wrigley: 19:22 Okay. So, okay. I'm just trying to imagine a scenario where this is a ridiculous scenario I'm about to explain, but I'm going to say it anyway. Um, if, if I was lucky enough to be the only person in the, on the planet on a given day, and I know this is ridiculous, but if I was lucky enough to be the only person on the planet on a given day to get a click on a Like Coin button, I would get all of that Day's Like Coin.
Kin Ko: 19:50 Yes.
Nathan Wrigley: 19:52 Yeah. I mean ridiculous. But, okay. And if I was one of a 1 million people who received a click, I would get 1000000th of the amount produced on that day. What if somebody stands over the computer and clicks their own link? Like,
Kin Ko: 20:12 uh, they can do that. They can do that. I mean it's like Facebook. You can like yourself. We by design we, we do allow people to do that, but just a reasonable amount. So I, I think your, your question is how to prevent, uh, like spam. Yes. Is it? Yeah, they sent Char. So there, there are few ways to prevent that. Ours. So the basic, very basic is a we capture. So if it's not, if it looks abnormal, we would ask the, uh, the person or the board to pull he or she is not. The Bot does the basic and, um, before clicking deLike button, a one needs to what you stand on account, which is of course normal because I have to know is an individual. And when you register account, you have the options to bind, uh, several, several, um, social media accounts. Say, if you, what used to an account and then you're buying Facebook, you buying trader, you're buying, for example, our, uh, linkedin, we would increase the confidence level of this particular account. Confidence, therefore meaning, uh, I'm pretty sure this is a real person. Yeah. And, uh, that affects the weight of your like,
Nathan Wrigley: 21:41 okay. So just to be clear on this, you can't go around the Internet without a like coin account clicking on things and it does anything. If you don't have a logged in account in like Facebook, you can't interact with Facebook if you're not logging. Um, yes, it's the same. You need a, you need a Like Coin account, you need to be logged in, in the browser. There's a cookie or something like that and it knows who you are. Um, and if you are logged in, okay. It knows a bit about you. You've linked up Facebook and you've got a real profile and, and obviously that's, that's going to be a battle. You're going to have to face it at some point as people. Um, figure out w s you know, interesting ways to, to, to massage the system in their own favor, but at least you've got something on that. So I need to be,
Kin Ko: 22:28 yeah. And yeah, that's the main thing I suppose. Um, and, and Ah, just, just one more thing. And of course there is a limitation on a reasonable limitation on the amount of contents you can like per day, right? I mean, you can, you can still like it, but say for example, the lumber is 100. We assume a person can reasonably read a hundred articles and like them. So the, the effects will goes, we go down after a hundred or graduate, it goes down.
Nathan Wrigley: 23:02 Okay. Okay. And this is a daily number which is reset. Okay. Um, all right. So that was the first model where there's a billion coins, um, of which a certain amount of produced on a daily basis and that that will fluctuate over time. Um, but the second method that you mentioned was that if, if it's not working for you as a content creator, you can, um, you can pay in a modest amount. I think you said $5 in order to, so tell us about that. What does that, what's the difference between having no money in a Like Coin account and five real US dollars in an account per month? What does, what's the, what does that get you?
Kin Ko: 23:41 Okay, so the first type we call that like l, I k e l Leica. So is essentially a free user free to use yourself while the second, the second tape, we call that a Sufi Laker. A see Laker is genuinely people who who pay $5 per month to support creativity. And a civic like a gets everything. Our general like a heads press, a budget of $5 to uh, assign to contents he or she likes.
Nathan Wrigley: 24:19 Okay. Right? So this for me, are like benefits. Yes. Maybe we'll come onto those benefits in a minute. But this, I think this for me is where it starts to become really interesting. And this is where the blockchain allows a real shift because I produce content every week. And the traditional ways of making money from that are number one, you don't care about making money, you just do it. That's fine. There's the ad model where you, you, you put adverts on and somebody pays for those ads. So in fact that's like sponsorship. The other method might be affiliate links. So you, and you know it's another sLikely more disguised way of, of earning money, but, but this model that you're now talking about is you, you put $5 five real American dollars into the account and those dollars get shared out wherever I click buy your system. Yes. Oh that fascinating. Right? So how does that $5 get distributed? So let, let me, let me guess how it's going to work. And you can say no, that's absolutely rubbish. At the end, I'm going to guess that in a given month you take that $5 and you work out where I've clicked and you split it. I've clicked here twice here, once here, once here. Once that's five clicks in total, those three were clicked. One, so they get a dollar each, but that one was clicked twice. So he gets $2
Kin Ko: 25:54 are almost, is is really crows? Are there some details I haven't shared on? One is we would, I mean by we, I mean the foundation, uh, once the foundation we see five donor from you, say for example you're a civic liker, we would use that 5,000 to buy a five ton of Like Coin from the exchange at the market price. So say $5 is converted into 1000 like coins and then, uh, we will use that to distribute because if you use free ad currency, that will be to spoil a pitch and section is too small and then uh, is took the transaction fee would be too high to like send to people. Yes, yes, yes, of course. Yes. I missed that. Utterly crucial. Uh, that's another, uh, detailed design, which was a little bit different from your expectation is we do that daily instead of monthly. Right? I mean monthly is easier to calculate, but I feel like a daily is, I mean happier, it makes people happy.
Nathan Wrigley: 27:06 Right. Okay. I get it. So if I've got some passive income. Yeah. Um, so in effect the system works that you're logged in, your browsing the Internet, you hopefully over time we'll see more and more of these like coin buttons attached to content and so you are therefore rewarding content creators for their efforts by clicking the button. And if you really like this bit of content, if that really set you on fire, you're gonna Click it a few times. The system, the Like Coin system keeps track of what I've done. I don't need to interact in any other way. It's just clicking buttons and then at the end of the month, the person behind that content gets what they're owed in like coins and they can keep it as like at the end of that, sorry. Yes, of course. At the end of the day you receive it in Like Coins and then you can do with it as you wish you can. You can keep it as like coins, which I suppose brings me onto the next question. Um, how, how do we get Fiat currency, real money if you like in inverted commerce. How do we get that back out of the Like Coins that we've got? Let's say that I've, lucky enough I've received a thousand like coins there in my Like Coin Wallet System, whatever you call it. And um, and I want, I want to buy some things from Amazon. How do I get the money back out?
Kin Ko: 28:34 You just do that on exchange, say are the primary exchange we're using is our liquid liquid.com which is a, what you stood a Japanese exchange crypto exchange by what you still, I mean is it has a license issued by the customer and uh, by created by the government. You just sell or buy like coin from there. Okay. So it's a trading platform. Perhaps one of the many is one of the many exchanges. Yes, but that's the one we recommend because it's not the biggest, but there's the most, uh, regulated because people may worry about like, oh, uh, whether the exchange is protected by the government or like organization.
Nathan Wrigley: 29:24 Mm. I've, um, I've had in, you know, interactions with things like Coinbase before and bit stamp and Cracken and all of these kind of similar setups, which are [inaudible], you know, you sign up, you get an account, you deposit your money, and then you transfer it into, into real currency. And because it's a market, people buy them and it's all fairly straightforward. If a little bit, a little bit strange to begin with. Um, oh, this is utterly fascinating. I'm just loving
Kin Ko: 29:53 to be a very honest, it's not super a super good news experience right now. It's a little bit, it's not difficult. Just Olympic. Come see. Yeah. Uh, but, uh, I would believe it's, it, it would improve over time. And this is not just me. I mean, it's not that, uh, we as a foundation can change all these issues because there are many, many parties involved, government and everything. I can only believe as time goes by, it will become easier and easier.
Nathan Wrigley: 30:29 Yeah. Um, they're not difficult. They remind me, I mean, not that I've ever done really stock market trade or anything like that, but the platforms that I've used, bit stamp and coin basically, you know, you see a graph and you, it tells you how much a bitcoin is worth at this moment and you deposit your bitcoin in and it tells you how much you're going to get if they sell and you put in a price and hopefully somebody buys it at that price and then yeah, it's, you know, it's not like going to the bank. Uh, it's not as straight forward you that
Kin Ko: 30:57 we can also say you can always just so [inaudible]
Nathan Wrigley: 31:01 yes. Just save some cell right now, uh, at this exact moment and it'll just sell at the market price. You'd have to hold out for a particular price. Okay. So this is fascinating. So we've got ourselves a system of a new cryptocurrency, uh, 2 billion in 2 billion to be created. They're being created slowly over time and 1 billion of them are going to be given out for creative content. Uh, on the Internet. You put buttons on your content in the hopes that people find it and like it, if you're really into this system, you can deposit your own money, um, and share that out and it will automatically happen every day. So as a, as a person creating content like me, this, this has real interest because suddenly moving, moving, well, let's put it this way, it's hard to, to generate revenue from your content is really difficult and removing the friction of having to do much, basically just installing a button on the website makes it so much easier for me and hopefully easier for the end user. How do I, how do I get the button on the website then?
Kin Ko: 32:05 Well, if you are WordPress, a website owner, it's easiest because then you just have to install a WordPress plugin while if you are running a, your website on some of the systems, uh, you may have to use some API, which is not hot, but, uh, a little bit harder than using WordPress plugin.
Nathan Wrigley: 32:30 Mm. Um, and what does that WordPress plugin actually do? Does it simply, uh, put a button on the end of, um, well, does it provide me with a short code or does it just automatically do things? How, how is it at the moment? And, and do you have any plans to make it in any way configurable?
Kin Ko: 32:49 Yeah. Uh, right now it's a little bit, little bit primitives. It, it has the Like button at the end of our policies and pages. Uh, but then worsen it. We would improve that accurate. We where we've been waiting for good and good or waiting for worker's fry, which is supposed to be, is it tonight?
Nathan Wrigley: 33:10 Yeah. Well, most of the day we're recording and it is that day.
Kin Ko: 33:14 Yes. Ours. So you can expect, uh, a WordPress org. No, sorry. I mean, uh, like button Prague where you can add to wherever of your content. You can expect, uh, to, to confect, uh, where the button goes. One of the options would be a floating button on the, on the left. Yeah. Yeah. Which is kind of similar to medium because right now the current design, uh, you have to finish all the, say if it's an article you have to finish the whole article before you see the button. But it's probably a better UI to have the button floating on the left together with some of the less share or bookmark.
Nathan Wrigley: 34:05 Yes, yes. Yeah. I mean that's a quite a common thing you see now, isn't it? You've got the Facebook link and the Twitter link and the, and they sort of live in the, on the left hand side of the screen and then on a mobile like float at the bottom and stay there permanently. Yeah, that's a nice idea. Will there be any configurability about the, the way it looks and the design, you know, like the width and the text which will appear on that button. Can you, you know, can you put your own stamp on it and perhaps even your own logo or something like that?
Kin Ko: 34:33 Yeah, yeah, definitely. Uh, so actually we, we want to, uh, we, we in January, we want it to be as configured, uh, configurable as possible. Uh, except, uh, the button we will button the small one. We will look at this thing so that people recognize that. Yeah. And uh, we've been thinking, but, uh, because of the flexibility of Gutenberg, I, I, I actually think, uh, we will take out the, uh, the, the, the description because, uh, people will have their way to explain to the audience, uh, whether they want to encourage them to crap five times or why, what it is we have a standard, I mean, we have a standard, uh, copywriting, but, uh, users are creators are, uh, free to change that. Yes. And of course you have your, uh, sorry, you have your, your, uh, logo if you like.
Nathan Wrigley: 35:35 Yeah. I think that's quite a, that that from my perspective would be a good way to go. Because if the, I think, I don't know, I think the, the things that you see on the Internet over and over and over and over again, you become a bit desensitized to them, don't you? In the same way that I can now ignore Google ad words adverts, because I'm just completely used to seeing them and my brain blocks them out. I think if we were to always see the same like coin button, um, we might become desensitized so that I can also see a future in which if this takes off in the same way that right now we have people who, let's say they make a youtube video and one of the first things that they, that comes out of their mouth is usually don't forget to subscribe to my youtube channel because that's not something they're trying to do.
Nathan Wrigley: 36:21 I can see the youtube metaphor being, and don't forget to click the button down below and give me some like coins. So, okay, we know that there's a WordPress plugin. You've got a, you've got plans to make it configurable with Guttenberg. What about if we're not on medium and we're not on WordPress, let's say that we're, we've got a youtube channel, we're making content over there. Can we, because there's no way to embed things in youtube or you know, you could basically you can just put stuff on the screen and hope that people take actions with the default Youtube UI. Can I, is there a way of getting a click through an ordinary text link that we might be able to put in the description of a youtube video or the description of a Drupal website or you know, anywhere on the Internet including maybe even in an email?
Kin Ko: 37:07 Yeah, it's definitely doable. Uh, I wouldn't say it's the optimal user experience, but it's totally doable. It can even goes all the way to printed media where you print a QR code to, which is essentially the same as the Like button, except a Like button can be quick five times while a QR code. You can only scan once, but scanning ones means you've correct the first time and then you will see on your screen a button that correct by a click once and you can continue to click for the second to fifth time. Right. So essentially, technically you can be on anything, but the user experience may not be optimal. It can be on the treat. Yes. Uh, yeah, it's kind of awkward, but, uh, it's doable.
Nathan Wrigley: 38:00 Does the, is there any way of, so let's say for example, a, again, I'm, I'm getting back to the subject you've touched on a moment ago. Click spam. Um, you know, if I, uh, put out a tweet and I am, um, the, oh goodness me, somebody of incredible importance. I can't think of anybody at the moment, but some social media star. And I put out a tweet, which, which sort of simply says, oh, do me a favor, click this link. And I hide it behind a short link, like a bitly link or something. Um, is that when you pick up up on that it, oh my goodness me, this link is getting clicked like a thousand times in the last 10 minutes. There's something peculiar here.
Kin Ko: 38:40 Yeah. Um, I would see it this way. If people encouraged, if creators encouraged the audience to click, I will see that this a spam. That's one thing. And uh, as I said, uh, there was way to preventlike spam, which I, I wouldn't be too, like if to say, uh, we have a perfect solution because spamming always exist, but we, we can, we can only like, uh, limit it to a reasonable extent because if we learn well, we make it too strict. It would actually affect a normal behavior. Yes, yes. Oh, so we, we don't have a perfect solution, but we, we think is reasonable. And one more thing I'd like to add is just now we talk about like a genuine, like, and civic liker. Yup. And at the end of the day, I mean, at the end of 10 years when the, uh, creators pool Renault, there will only be civic, like a debt exist, which from an angle we, uh, we are using 10 years to build up the Civic Leica behavior and full civic likeliest there's no spam because you are only assigned your own, uh, budget. Yes. So spamming means nothing.
Nathan Wrigley: 40:04 Okay. I get it. Right. So in this 10 year period where these coins are being minted, either by purchasing them through this, uh, being a civic, like liker spending dollars, or they're being minted by clicking on buttons, just the normal liker, after a period of time that comes to an end, everybody can no longer mint new coins, the 2 billion or whatever it was, I think you said 2 billion. Yeah, that's right. 2 billion. The cap has been reached. And from that point on, everybody's just recycling coins to each other. Um, so you know, you're going to be spending your coins every time you click. So yeah, you're less likely to do it. I get it. I get it. Yeah. Um, yeah,
Kin Ko: 40:43 it is. It's meaningless to, to spend on on that because you're, you're only spending your money.
Nathan Wrigley: 40:47 Yes, yes. I expect the spam will happen in the next 10 years. It's going to happen fun when there's something to be, something to be generated.
Kin Ko: 40:54 So to be honest, we, we did, we do expect some spam, but, uh, we, we, we, we have a solution to control it to a reasonable level, I would say.
Nathan Wrigley: 41:04 Yeah. Well, you know, history shows you're not going to get rid of them, so you know, do what you can and hope for the best, I suppose. Um, so we are, we're a little way into this project. We are, I think we're approaching, is it just over a year you've had this going?
Kin Ko: 41:21 yes. A little bit over the [inaudible].
Nathan Wrigley: 41:23 Okay. How many, how much traction have you had so far? Have you, have you found that there is general acceptance? Are there, are people actually doing this or is it still just much a, Oh, please, let's all start doing this? Or do you have people producing like coins all over the place right now?
Kin Ko: 41:40 Yeah. Uh, we add, as you said, I'm from Hong Kong and we start our marketing in a Chinese community. So, uh, like you said, I will be pretty surprised at that. Uh, uh, the audience, uh, are using it, although there are some, there are some but not much. So right now we have 300 websites with a Like button installed. So in the community there was seven, some hundred or like 750 around, uh, creators, creating contents and, uh, thousands, 600 about father, 600, like this triangle like this. And we will start the, uh, promoting civic like a chem praying on next month. So there's no civic like a yet, just just now,
Nathan Wrigley: 42:33 just, just so it's, it's building up slowly. You're happy with those numbers, but obviously it would be nice if they were to swell and that's presumably, um, why we're talking today to get the word out and get people understanding it. The, I'm also wondering if, you know, older people like me, you know, um, I'm past the age of 40 it. T I sit with a computer all day. I'm not, not typical. I mean a lot of people sit with a computer, but not many of them are actually, you know, building websites and using the Internet for anything other than, you know, browsing stuff and interacting with documents and so on. I'm not, so I'm a little bit different. Um, I'm interested in the tech. Have you found that older people are less responsive, less receptive to this and the younger generation who've been brought up with the phone and, and talk in the press of Bitcoin and crypto currencies? Do they seem to be more, uh, more able to accept this?
Kin Ko: 43:30 Um, let me think. Uh, the way we promote our project is a little bit different from the typical crypto projects. The typical crypto projects approach to people are who are using the, I mean approach to the critical community while we are more opposing to people or to the creators to recreative our community. So we don't really, stress is a case. Crypto is proctoring is a proverb bra, that kind of stuff or don't. It is, but we're trying to encapsulate the, the thing so that, so then they are using it with Dell Lotus in it. Yeah. So I don't really see that the, the, the difference that you mentioned.
Nathan Wrigley: 44:16 No. Okay. Well that's fine. Um, absolutely fascinating. I'm really, really intrigued by what's gonna happen here. As luck would have it, we've got you on what I feel is the very, very beginnings. I know you've been doing this for a year, but in my part of the world it seems like nobody's talking about this. So I'm, I'm very pleased to have you on at the beginning of something. I hope it grows. Um, thank you for coming on. I'm going to say I am sorry. I very much agree with your likes. Like I said, it's a 10 year movement and we are on years Siro Yeah, but 2019 would be year one. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just, it's just lovely. I mean, it really speaks to what I'm doing. You know, I'm creating content and it would be nice to, to generate some revenue from that content. And this May in the future offer a very straightforward, super simple way of doing it.
Nathan Wrigley: 45:12 I'm going to, I'm going to say that I've, I finished the my questions now, but as I always do with the guests, um, I'm going to say, is there any URL or Twitter handle or anything that you would like to mention before we, before we call it a day? Yeah, definitely. Actually you mentioned it already. Maybe I, we pitted, it's our, our website is like dot. Seal l I K e. Dot. Seal and are all most of the inflammation is there. Yup. Yup. As, as of right now because of the marketing efforts being primarily, um, related to the Chinese market. You'll notice if you go there that it is, um, it is largely Chinese content that's on there, the menu items and the structure and the marketing aspects of it are all in English. But, um, yeah, it's just a, a product of, of where you've decided to market it, um, can absolutely fascinating. I'm really, really fascinated by this. I'm going to keep a very close eye on it and you never know [inaudible] installed. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll definitely like your content. Yeah, you're right. There you go. That's it. That's all I needed to hear. Right. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast today. Can much appreciate it so much. Thank you.
Nathan Wrigley: 46:28 Well, there you go. Not like anything we've covered before. I hope you found that interesting. I mean, whether or not you can actually make use of this, whether or not you see yourself getting into this system or not, it's just a fascinating implementation of an existing technology. The blockchain kind of turned into some donation platform and the fact they've got a WordPress plugin is just phenomenal. Obviously shows that a, they're into the WordPress ecosystem and obviously a lot of people are creating content on that system. Just wonderful. I hope you enjoyed it. Like I said, please go and put some comments in the Facebook group, WP Builds's dot com forward slash Facebook find the find the particular thread about this post, or you could just leave some comments at the bottom of the post on the WP Builds dot com website, but I'd be really interested to know what you think about this.
Nathan Wrigley: 47:16 The WP Builds podcast was brought to you today by and UP one in four of us will be directly affected by mental health related illness. WP and UP supports and promotes positive mental within the WordPress community. This is achieved through mentorship, events, training, and counseling. Please help enable WP and UP by visiting WP and UP.org forward slash. Give. Okay. That's it for this week. I hope you enjoyed it. Come back next week. Next Thursday we'll have a new podcast episode, and on Monday we shall have the new news that we put out each week, audio version very early in the morning, UK time, and then come and join us [email protected] forward slash live. If you'd like to join us for the live where I'm joined by some WP special guests and we do the news however you find us. I hope that you enjoyed it and continue to enjoy it. Please recommend us if you feel that you can, bye. Bye for now.
