Media and digital content creators are in the midst of a transformation. On the one hand, traditional media, which used to live from paper printing, have had to transition to the digital model. Due to the pandemic situation, their off-line revenues have decreased drastically; so, they are looking for new revenue models and have not found a fair and sustainable business model.
Newspapers were selling their pages to print advertising on them. Since the Internet was born, media, publishers and other content creators have not found a fair and sustainable business model. Today they are still doing the same thing but, in digital format, counting page views. On the other side, users annoy ads, cannot privately pay on the Internet, and there are no validations to buy restricted content (i.e. age-restricted content ).
Currently, users who consume content have to navigate through annoying websites full of advertisements, or if they want to access paid content, they have to sign up for subscriptions when they really only want to read one or two articles. This is an increasing problem and content creators need alternative revenue streams. That is why we are introducing moncon, a pay-for-content method that allows users to pay a few cents for what they want to consume, without subscriptions. This will also allow content creators to continue working on creating quality content.
With micropayments, users can pay a few cents to read an article, which helps the content creator to focus on creating quality content. The payment is private and validates user data like age, gender, city or any other verifiable credential using Zero-Knowledge Proof. To solve that problem, there is no other technology available but Blockchain: visa micropayments are expensive and always you do an online payment you have to share your personal data. Our solution, moncon, helps us to make micropayments using Interledger protocol (based on Ripple) while keeping the user privacy using Zero-Knowledge Proof with verifiable credentials, following the W3C standard of Web Monetization and SSI model being GDPR compliance by default, using Zenroom, in that case.
- express: used for the creation of the API REST and socket.
- Interledger: open platform that makes it easy for developers to integrate Open Payments into their applications (first version of PoC we are using Stripe payments because Interledger technology is not ready to go live to the market).
- MongoDB: where the persistent information necessary for the operation of the platform is stored.
- MySQL: database used by wordpress.
- ReactJs: library used to create the UI to improve the user experience.
- Wordpress: for the demo we will use that content management system that can easily use our private micropayments platform.
- Blockchain integration: used libraries depending on the need web3.
- Zenroom and Sawroom: API used to handle and encrypt sensitive user information, allow the use of the Zero Knowledge Protocol, allows information to be shared and verified without revealing unnecessary data, thus maintaining a very high level of security.
Diego Torres is the CEO and founder of the company, telecommunications engineer, with a master in business MBA by ENEB and mastering in Cybersecurity by INISEG. He has more than 15 years of experience in digital project development, management of multidisciplinary and multicultural teams. He has worked for companies in the multimedia content sector such as Atresmedia, Grupo Prisa, Grupo Godó, Unidad editorial, consulting firms such as IBM, Península, Grant Thornton, in the banking sector he has worked for Banco Sabadell, leading Blockchain projects, participating in the working group of the EBA (European Bank Associtation) to define the challenges and actions derived from Blockchain and IoT; he has also participated in the definition of innovative products such as the Decentralized Digital Identity of Caelum Labs. He is currently leading Next Unicorns, an innovation and development consultancy for Blockchain, Cybersecurity, Data Privacy projects, following the European model Self-Sovereign Identity. Linkedin Twitter Gitlab
Jose Juan Sanz is a computer engineer with more than 15 years of experience developing complex software projects. He has helped La Caixa in several solutions, highlighting the high performance ticketing platform for the sale of tickets in concerts with more traffic in Spain. He has worked with Diego Torres for the last 8 years, developing AI technology and Big Data, an engine capable of generating questions and answers in real time from digital content. For the last 5 years, Jose has been developing Blockchain pilots for Banco Sabadell and Peninsula. Linkedin Gitlab
Irene Martínez is a passionate marketer. Irene is trained in physiotherapy, but her passion for social media since 2010 made her start her career as an entrepreneur. She has helped as an acquisition expert in several projects and startups such as Quizlyse, Incubio, Propdecasa, etc., always related to marketing and sales. She has also led entrepreneurship programs in accelerators and in the College of Physiotherapists. Currently, at Infinite Labs, she is responsible for marketing and communication and will be in charge of moncon's business area. Linkedin
Jhonattan Ramirez is a Venezuelan Blockchain programmer with more than 3 years of experience. He studied physics, where he discovered that his main motivation is intellectual challenges. For that reason he continued at the university teaching classes and doing research in the lab. At that stage he began to program research projects of the university in Venezuela. A few months ago he moved to Spain, and continued his professional career in Blockchain development, that's how he met Diego and started his stage in Infinite Labs. Here, she is the person responsible for development in decentralized technologies and cryptography, studying the SSI models of Alastria ID, Sovrin and Jolocom, and technologies such as Zenroom and IDX. Linkedin Gitlab
Nuno Figueiredo is a product designer and frontend developer with 10 years of experience. He is portuguese, and at a very young age he came to Barcelona to study industrial engineering. Since then, he has collaborated with startups, advertising agencies and small businesses. He has a unique profile, able to understand the user and their needs, translating it into mockups, to validate it before executing it, and also has the ability to implement the mockup in a functional development. He has been working with Diego and Jose for 6 years. Linkedin
As a team, we perfectly combine business and technology worlds, having created several Internet solution together.
- Dashboard
- moncon Dashboard is coded in React is designed to provide a content log to block and monetize, as well as metrics for your blocked content.
- PWA
- moncon wallet is a Progressive Web App fully encoded in React. moncon Wallet is designed to provide verifiable credential issuing and sharing and QR code scanner and micropayments.
- API
- moncon API is coded in NodeJS and Zenroom, designed to run microservices required by the Dashboard and the progressive web app.
- Publisher JS
- Publisher JS is a JavaScript libreary with the goal to execute the paywall framework, using a QR code to be able to block the content for specific credentials and sell it at a fix priced.
You can try our solution following these steps: 1- Visit Dashboard 2- Access with our demo user: username "[email protected]" and password "moncon" 3- Imagine you are a publisher and you want to sell content by a condition, and you are the owner of this site Publisher Media. 4- Choose a URL from your Publisher Media and go to "Monetize Your Content" on Dashboard. 5- Add price and select the condition and the type of the credential (ZKP or W3C) (you are asking a user for this credential). 6- Now, as user that wants to access the content you've already blocked, visit this URL. 7- The user, have to access to his moncon wallet. 8- Add your datebirth and Ask for Credential. 9- Now go to issuer platform to validate that credential Dashboard 10- Access with our demo issuer: username "[email protected]" and password "4a8X8Vphu9vpQH" 11- Check the credential and Validate it. 12- The user will receive the credential in youre wallet signed by moncon, the ZKP and the W3C credential. 13- Now, you can scan the QR code from the URL. 14- You have to accept sharing your credential. 15- If you met the credential conditions, add the payment method and purchase that content. 16- The content will be unlocked inmediately. 17- As user, you will have the content purchased in your Articles tab, accessible forever you want without asking again for your credential. 18- Now, you can play more with our demo blocking more content and adding more conditions.
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