Social media has turned from a fad a decade ago to becoming arguably the most important component of today’s connected world.
Despite its importance, there are still issues with social networks, oftentimes due to its centralized nature which does not handle users’ data and privacy all that well.
While solutions have been presented before, it’s important to understand why this is still an issue although there are already solutions in place.
Social networks make the bulk of their revenue for advertising which works off user data and history.
At the same time, social networks seem to not acknowledge users as partners, despite them being the most integral part of the system.
Ideally, users should have the same benefits (if not more) that advertisers and social networks enjoy today – exactly how it should have been from the start.
Sola aims to solve all of the problems mentioned above and fundamentally change how we use social media; in other words, Sola is a decentralized social platform powered by distributed nodes, IPFS and the Ethereum blockchain.
Instead of being another social media platform, Sola wants to build an environment where all users are equal and have more voice than traditional social media where influencers and advertisers have an unfair monopoly.
Whenever you open the Sola app, you will see images or “cards” of content instead of the Facebook or Twitter feed model we’re used to. You then have two options: a) skip or b) endorse a piece of content.
Content that gets endorsed will be shown to more users; hence, there is no need for a share or likes system in Sola to promote content within the platform.
The Sola platform was built on the foundations of Plague (also known as Plag), a social media platform launched by the same company in 2014.
The idea of Sola is to spread content virally. Because of this, posts are designed to spread like viruses (hence the name, Plague).
To achieve this, whenever a user posts content Sola, it will be automatically shared to the four closest Plague users in terms of proximity.
Thanks to this viral ecosystem, each user’s content is not only exposed to their friends and family, but also to all users of the Sola community.
The formerly VC-backed Sola platform is a working product with more than 650,000 users and growing as of today.
In addition to having an extremely competent team, Sola has several leading investors on board coupled with the help of blockchain and AI algorithms experts, making the platform an exciting and potentially revolutionary project.
The user-intuitive interface of Sola is built for individuals who have an interest in posting or engaging in social media content as well as people who want to make money from social media.
As mentioned earlier, Sola uses a unique “stack of cards” interface to share and spread content. Users only see one card at a time and they switch cards by endorsing it or skipping it by swiping up or down (almost like Tinder’s system).
So, why did the Sola team decided to move on with this system instead of the conventional feed model?
First of all, endorsing cards has the advantage of spreading content across the network much more efficiently as the more a card gets endorsed, the more users it is shown to.
At the same time, only good content gets endorsed as realistically, no one would endorse content that is low-quality or is unfit for the network.
Of course, Sola does not rely only on user reaction to spread posts, it also uses an advanced neural learning network called Neutral AI which further improves the sharing process of Sola cards.
Again, users are not restricted only to friends and family in Sola in terms of viewing content; posted content is shared to the nearest users which present users the opportunity to have their posts spread virally.
The greatest advantage of the platform, however, is the ability to make real money from creating and sharing content.
Each day, users get a balance of Sola’s internal virtual currency that is known as Action Points. Action Points can be spent on their own content (creating cards, for example) or for endorsing other people’s content.
Action Points in itself don’t have any monetary value. They only do so when they are transferred to other users when their content or comments are endorsed.
These points are then converted into SOL, Sola’s official cryptocurrency and utility token.
Another massive difference between Sola and current social media platforms is that Sola shares a part of the company’s profit to users for their efforts in creating and spreading content Sola.
This is a world of a difference from platforms like Facebook where users gain nothing for their personal data.
In a nutshell, the more users that endorse your content, the more SOL tokens you’ll gain which can be sold on on exchanges for profit.
Like all social networks, unwanted content is a problem which is why Sola has put so much attention on moderation to take care of it. Moderation allows the team to build a safe environment for users.
Although some social media networks present the idea of zero moderation, Sola understands that unmoderated content can lead to terrible situations and they’re ready to prevent that even if it means making unpopular decisions.
The Sola app is the component that connects all of Sola’s modules; the app is already available on iOS and Android devices with a web version also available for users.
As a platform, Sola is based on user‐hosted nodes which makes it immune to blocking, censorship as well as keeping costs to a minimum.
The platform also welcomes 3rd‐party developers and collaborators to improve its core services and build external services using the services of Sola.
The platform’s ecosystem is powered by the SOL token, Sola’s official utility token.
Sola will split its revenue (earned from advertisement revenue, user payments, and transaction commissions) with token holders fairly. SOL is also the only currency used in the platform.
Token name: SOL
Token base: Ethereum (ERC-20)
Token supply: 150,000,000
Token sale duration: 27th November, 2017 – 22nd December, 2017
Token sale target: $5,000,000 (hard cap)
Token exchange rate: $0.10 = 1 SOL (tiered bonuses system)
