027. Headed to the promised land.
Today’s edition intro design was provided courtesy of @meva
A covered wagon rumbled over a rugged plain. Fears of bad actors (scammers), dysentery (DAUs dropping), and inclement weather (Elon thwacking the Bitcoin price) were front of mind. Do not despair. We are headed to the promised land. This is the frontier — and yes, it’s not for everyone. But we’re glad you’re with us. At @BitsTODAY, we’re here to keep the wheels rolling as best we can.
Before we jump into the issue, we wanted to highlight great work being done to support COVID relief in places like India and Nepal that are particularly hard-hit at current. Has BitClout donated $1B yet like Vitalik Buterin did today? Not quite, but folks like @covidrelief, @krassenstein and @NyaupaneSougat are doing important work to organize, fundraise and raise awareness right now; make sure to check out what they’re doing and support if you can. @nvo will be happy to match donations from @BitsTODAY readers too; let’s get this flywheel going.
Guest cover designed by @meva
Today’s Clout Covered:
BuzzClout: Exclusive look at today’s movers and shakers presented by @bitcloutsignal
Ubiquitous UX Drops: something something API something
@Clout_Cast: A special founder deep dive
Up & Coming Creators: Getting you over the 🐪
The Cloutifieds: MOAR @BitsTODAY contests & spicy bounty's
Diamondhands’ drops 💎
#1 BuzzClout
First things first. In partnership with @bitcloutsignal, here’s an exclusive look at today’s movers and shakers:
#2 Ubiquitous UX Drops: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCE-@MAENT
BIG NEWS DEVS. Mama @Maebeam dropped something that sounds important yesterday evening while we were 💤💤💤.
Seems pretty important for all of you building projects leveraging the increasingly open-source Bitclout API. We totally know exactly what this means and we agree with Maebeam when she says you should update your apps.
Otherwise, it’s been pretty quiet on the western front in terms of drops from the core team. We’re sure they’ll drop something late tonight and that we’ll be scrambling to pivot our write-up here… tbd. (Narrator: they did not.)
#3 @Clout_Cast: The Origin Story
@nvo here. In a minute I’ll be turning the keys over to @JasonDevlin. On Monday, we had the pleasure of highlighting that @Clout_Cast won the first ever BitClout product-a-thon. Today, we’re thrilled to get an inside scoop on the origin story of the project and the vision. We love learning more about the nitty gritty of how building on BitClout actually happens (and have some fun @BitsTODAY founding stories, too); we’re thrilled to bring you this piece for you to enjoy to:
Most people heard of @Clout_Cast for the first time from posts like this.
But 24 hours earlier we were just another project team trying to hustle our way into existence. To be exact, we were here, in our coding dungeon in Miami working like crazed chimpanzees trying to build something that we thought mattered.
So what is @Clout_Cast? What’s this idea that kept 3 adult men glued to their keyboards for 20 days straight in an uninterrupted cafecito-soaked coding binge? Well, we wanted to build roadmap bullet point #3 of the Bitclout whitepaper. A “Sponsored Post Engine” for Bitclout.
Day 0: “There’s money lying on the f&%#ing floor guys”
We honestly couldn’t believe it. A Sponsored Post Engine. You know, the feature that generates the vast majority of revenue for existing social media companies. It hadn’t been built yet. IF we could get it right, and IF Bitclout really was the future of social media; then this was an untapped goldmine ⛏️⛏️⛏️.
We set out to build what we hoped could become the core monetization engine for any Bitclout based application. Bitclout.com, Cloutted.com, MemberCash, or any future product could integrate or co-exist with @Clout_Cast promotions.
What motivated us was the fact that this was fundamentally different from how social media marketing is done on most platforms today. On Bitclout. the creators themselves are the ones that get paid for running promotions.
In turn, @Clout_Cast could solve a major Bitclout challenge: Creator’s ability to monetize.
Today, individuals can generate actual liquid $Bitclout via their Founder Reward, but this is sporadic and largely out of a creator’s control.
@Clout_Cast puts creators in the driver seat to generate predictable revenue from their accounts. As you grow your following you’ll be eligible to run higher and higher paying promotions. And the best part is that you don’t have to run promotions that you don’t like. If you don’t want your followers seeing Ads because of you, then you can simply promote posts that have content you like. Reclout people from your community and help put them in front of your followers! It’s an entirely different feel and texture than we’re used to, and it’s refreshing to envision.
The Pitch
We got selected for Product-a-thon 1.0, including none other than legends like @artz himself. We knew that this was our shot to make it and we couldn’t show up with some half baked landing page or a powerpoint.
We decided that we needed a fully functioning promotions site LIVE to demo, and we’d have the judges actually run a promotion live and get paid for it.
Aggressive plan to say the least.
Our CTO @awesome_dev (undervalued) and CIO @smartalec (undervalued) coded until 4am the day of the pitch in order to push the code that enabled wallet linking and validated proof of promotion. Day of, @shubhang let us know that @olmstead would be our judge and we set the plan in motion. He got his secret passphrase via DM. Fortunately for us, he actually created an account and verified himself prior to the pitch. We could tell he was into the pitch but had no idea if he’d actually run the promo we made just for him. And the rest? Well the rest is history ;)
The aftermath
While the next team was pitching, Olmstead bought $2k of our coin. Then more judges followed. Then the news came: We won. And just like that, our little project is on the map. We couldn’t be happier.
The next step? Join in on the fun as we scale up Cloutcast.io! You can check out more about our project here: https://www.notion.so/CloutCast-Read-Me-5dd54d062e9543b5a55316dc83627aa6
#4 Up & Coming Creators
Another 🐪🐪🐪 day. Maybe we should have talked about a caravan of camels crossing the desert instead of a covered wagon pioneering the wild west in our intro today. While it’s a topsy turvy, challenging ride out here at times, our consistent we bring to you every Wednesday is our Up & Coming creators section. Here are awesome creators we’re blessed to highlight today:
@Renate_Art: A new artist on BitClout making waves, @Renate_Art blesses our feeds with realistic portraits, especially portraits of actors and roles they play in famous movies. Any horror movie fans out there? Looks like @Renate_Art will also offer some good scare and gore if you’re looking for a good thrill. Here’s one of the pencil drawings we were especially enamored with (and kudos to @motiongraphicscollective for the tip):
@cloutexhibition: This last up and comer is more of a platform for lots of up and comers. That’s right, we’re talking bonus coverage here 🎁🎁🎁. @cloutexhibition is making waves on BitClout and happen to also be planning a big event for this Friday, May 14th. Here’s a few words from the good folks at @cloutexhibition themselves:
“Virtual and augmented reality are changing the face of art. What was impossible for small artists before is now possible with technology. We can display any art form in a virtual space so that patrons can enjoy the artwork in an immersive interactive environment.”
This 3D, virtual NFT gallery event will celebrate innovation and creativity above all. Organized by @cloutexhibition and @gabrieldisante, the gallery will feature a bevy of artists such as @smoketheartist, @liomori, @phoobiedoo and @blxckcherry. Bonus bars courtesy of rapper and musician @dismas may also be waiting for attendees….
Using an intuitive interface, prospective buyers will be able to navigate the extensive library of art and buy unique objects. The first 100 visitors to sign up via the Eventbrite link can also get early access to the exhibits. You can learn more here.
#5 The Cloutifieds: MOAR @BitsTODAY Contests
One contest wasn’t enough for you? Ok, fine.
@BitsTODAY has upped the ante → we’re running not one, but two contests in parallel.
The first? Our challenge for the best @BitsTODAY blurb. Write about anything under the BitClout sun. We’re taking submissions in our discord (here) through EOD tomorrow. @nvo can shepherd you to the ‘write’ place. The 💰? 1 $BitClout. For full info, see our Edition 026.
The second contest? Are you more of an NFTer / visual designer? We’ve got one for you too.
If case you haven’t noticed, some of the hottest art 💧💧💧 on BitClout is in the cover designs that grace our issues. We’ve had submissions from a stellar range of artists including @motiongraphicscollective, @charlihilton, and @artstory, to name a few.
Now? Well, we’re kicking our rocket boosters from interstellar to intergalactic 🚀. In partnership with @vaporwave and @cloutexhibition, we’re going to invest $1,000 into the creator coin from behind the best submission we get for our cover art between now and the end of the month. Plus, everyone who submits will get massively amplified on our platform. Let’s get you seen.
Want to take a swing at it? Post your best art on your feed and tag us + @vaporwave / @cloutexhibition. Fair warning, the competition is looking 💪 so far.
And finally… @davidsun is allegedly running a.. umm… “marketing” and “design” contest of their own. So we’re just gonna leave this here…
Another @BitsTODAY edition bites the dust. How are you all holding up out there? Don’t watch the BitClout price too closely, you might hurt yourself.
We appreciate you,
@BitsTODAY