Over a trillion images were captured from smartphones in 2017, most of this space is divided between Android run devices or Apple iPhones, iPhones come with iCloud facility to backup and sort the image data for their users and android running devices have a spectrum of choices to sort image, actively popular is the native google photos app to backup and sort image data, it does a great job at implementing easy user experience while powering the back-end with machine learning algorithms.
Why are we talking about smartphone cameras under social media tab? For now this is where most of the images taken end up, on social media platforms and how we interact with these two applications daily. Lets talk about the popular social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and WhatsApp. To our concern a giant amount of images end up on these platform unauthorized and unregulated.
Images are used by all the internet, on platforms like social media, messaging, email, websites, blogs, wallpaper, we have created multiple non-linear supply chain for P2P image transaction, a lot of middlemen; Over 80 million photos are being shared on Instagram daily. We are left to trust platforms like Facebook, Instagram to protect our data. Images often include sensitive data such as faces. In reality, today I can upload an image with someone else's face on it and Facebook doesn't have an algorithm to avoid me from doing so or gives the owner an option of authority to prevent me, no algorithms to check if I have the authority to upload sensitive image data, one has least control over their own data. Mostly all platforms today have major loopholes which ultimately promotes fake news, images with no trace can enter major platforms, no screening of authority, anyone can get through to upload and share on Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, etc. apps without necessarily having the authority.
"The ease of instantly capturing and sharing every moment with the world through a camera and social media has made images a fast, massive, widely consumable product without us realizing to regulate its supply and demand; and create an architecture to protect the interest of users and their data."
Our obsession with taking and sharing pictures gives the market a space to explore and expand, while the whole space is unregulated and phenomenon’s like fake news and data privacy lurk around from the dark side, people are getting more conscious and aware about sharing their private data online, though they are still addicted or used to the current models which allow them to be social, short term fixes like data privacy updates won’t last long for current models, a long term architectural solution is required.
Users need a platform to trust their data with, unlike centralized platforms a decentralized platform can bring a collective trust. Blockchain as technology creates an opportunity to maintain a distributed ledger to record image data on both private and public books at the same time. Ownership can be validated at any point due to the nature of distributed ledger system. Distributed ledger system enables a whole new subspace to evolve, if we can authorize who the owner is, we can also validate the transfer of ownership. Recorded as transactions(NFT) on the Blockchain, images become a tradable commodity. Where people, governments, organizations, brands can co-own and regulate data.
In order for our camera application to be open and provide a platform for creators with equal chance to portray their work, the value metric of images cannot just solely rely on image metadata as a stand-alone value proposition, human emotions provide untethered social data, current metrics are very effective at determining the quick turnover value of images; Likes, comments, shares are some to measure current social value metrics and they can broadcast worth of entire pools of common denominators, in our case we use hashtags to determine visual aesthetics cues.
The platform predicts a value of an image before allowing to be recorded on Blockchain, through relatively comparing its metadata value within a given hashtag pool of images, each hashtag has a pool of images consisting of multiple cameras, multiple camera settings. Our algorithms find and maintains the optimal camera setting, which is also the average of the exposure values combined for each hashtag and; Allots them a marginal score value. We generate demand for images with our camera app, for which we capitalize xx% of the value generated through the new images captured.
Photographers are owners of the image, for participation one can upload authentic images on to the distributed ledger to gain some vesting value against its quality, images are treated as digital assets and security tokens are issued per image
Anyone with fiat currency can buy the same vesting value against the security tokens. Anyone can buy a percentage of the social data value of either of the value metrics such as hashtags, GPS, camera, etc.
In Kenya, for example, the cost of sending remittances dropped by up to 90% after the introduction of M-Pesa, a digital payment system. New technologies allow women to participate more easily in the labor market as e-commerce entrepreneurs, in online work, or business process outsourcing. The world’s 1 billion persons with disabilities – 80% of whom live in developing countries can lead more productive lives with help of text, voice, and visual communication. And digital identity management systems can provide better access to public & private services for the 2.4 billion people who lack formal identification records, such as birth certificates. The internet can lead to more trade, better capital use, and greater competition, the basic roots of information technology affects three players of any economy: Land, labor, and capital. In the presence of regulators and facilitators, technology can bring inclusion of all, efficiency, and innovation.
Everyone, including Pixelate gets a weekly dividend against their vesting value. A smart contract of such kind will automate the whole process to run a live market with top hashtags to be traded as index funds. One can either vest against a private key or public key, private keys can limit someone from posting or vesting any kind of value against a given geological location of a café, museum, holy place, tourist attraction, or concert. Brands can take ownership of an entire hashtag, stadiums can control a time frame of images taken and add value to those images for promotion of an event. This generates an opportunity for the social media influencers to sign contracts to share the value generated through their images, governments and organizations can autonomously invest in order to promote tourism in specific areas.
Current companies and platforms form a star system where winner takes all, but if you look closely at platforms like Facebook groups/pages, Reddit, or Quora, they are very dense with community interactions. Most people are interested in large numbers of people and so you don’t have as much of a star system, that means if it were a monetized system, it would naturally give rise to middle class so there’s this amazing possibility that if information cost something the way they’ve been, if who recruited the society would not be like another star system of winner-takes-all but instead of the middle class without having specific levee, that might happen naturally for the very first time in the history of capitalism.
