SteemQ - A Decentralized Video Platform for STEEM

in #steemq8 years ago

Why SteemQ?

We believe that there is a market need for a decentralized video platform for user- generated content.

SteemQ aims to fill that need by creating a next-generation platform on top of the new Blockchain and P2P technologies.

We are bootstrapping a better version of YouTube, with a new social model that creates a richer experience for content creators, curators, and consumers.

Blockchain based
Blockchain technology has disrupted the world by providing a mechanism for trust between arbitrary parties. It is the core building block for decentralized public platforms.

STEEM Powered
The blockchain of choice is STEEM. This allows us to build on top of the same technology that powers Steemit, as well as inherit the benefits of an existing community, currency and platform. All STEEM accounts are automatically SteemQ accounts and vice-versa.

Democratic
The monetary reward on each video is derived from the stakeholding properties of its voters, while the ranking takes into account reputation-related properties, as well. This mechanism improves curation by granting increased voting rights to users with smaller stakeholding, and high reputation scores. The system aims to empower its users to the maximum extent possible while remaining resilient against Sybil attacks.

Censorship resistant
Unlike the centralized, privately owned platforms, SteemQ is censorship-resistant. Users will not be subject to content take-downs or other means of censorship as a result of an arbitrary decision within the platform-owning corporation, a faulty algorithm or a false copyright claim.

Community moderated
SteemQ allows its users to take action against spammers, content thieves and other misbehaving agents through downvoting.
No single person has the authority to nuke content by themselves. For every questionable piece of content, a consensus has to be reached by a collaboration of multiple high-reputation downvotes. In such an event, the rankings of the video drops, and the participants in the P2P CDN have the ability to remove the content and thus slow down or eliminate its propagation.
To aid in moderation-related decision making, a clear code of conduct shall be established.

Fast and Efficient
SteemQ's network becomes faster, and more capable with every P2P node it obtains. It is anti-fragile by design - the bigger it gets, the better it runs.

Example: You and your neighbor are both into snowboarding. A new snowboarding compilation has been released on SteemQ, and your neighbor is first to watch it. When you want to watch the same video, it is streamed directly from your neighbor's cache - rather than some data center in a foreign country. This not only allows for lower latency, but also reduces the load on your ISP.

Experimentation

We have to learn the core design patterns that will define SteemQ.

Site Structure
As a starting point, we can look at the two existing and currently quite prominent models: YouTube and Reddit.
YouTube treats each user as a separate entity, and offers an experience that is highly optimized towards passive yet recurring content consumption, which consequently affects the ad impressions. YouTube allows its users to subscribe to individual brands, however, judging by the design of the website, most of the discovery happens through "recommended videos" and autoplay functionalities.
In the center of Reddit's design is the sub-reddit. Each sub-reddit is like a little island, with its own community which is brought together by a common interest.

SteemQ aims to find a balance between both models. We are not afraid to try new things such as, but not limited to:

  • a personalized feed that is based on subscriptions to individuals as well as sub-communities.
  • a new content propagation system that replaces the multi-layer new/trending/hot model within the sub-communities

Money
We believe that money should not be the primary driver of people's behavior. We would like to remove money and its influence on people's decision-making in regards to voting. Voting on contributions of other people should reflect the voter's experience with said contributions in the purest form possible.
For example, if a video made you laugh, or if you have just discovered something totally awesome, you should be able to express your reaction with an upvote.
If the information on monetary reward is presented, it might influence your perception, and change your behavior. Perhaps you might feel like the video already earned too much, and refrain from voting despite the fact it made you laugh in the first place. Perhaps it could even trigger emotions of envy and frustration, or amplify negative feelings in the realm of the scarcity mindset.

Monetary rewards cannot be perceived as "fair" by everyone, because:

  • interpretation of value is subjective
  • rewards correlate to the size and stakeholding power of content's target audience
  • haphazard events

For example, a video explaining a 'binominal options pricing model' may be very valuable to a small group of individuals, and completely devoid of value to the rest of the world.
A funny cat prank video might be valuable to a large audience, but completely worthless to our mathematics enthusiasts.
We can conclude with reasonable certainty that more often than not, the cat video will outperform the geeky math video, making our hard-working mathematician dissatisfied with his reward. Perhaps a whale who likes math will discover our options pricing video, making it earn more than the cat video. In this event, the producer of the latter will be dissatisfied.
Most often, however, we will see two or more funny cat videos being submitted at the same time, yet one of them might make it, while the rest of them don't. This is the best example of subjectivity and luck at play.

This is why SteemQ will remove the monetary information from the view, and replace it with a ranking score. This score aims to a more democratic reflection of community feedback, as well as act sa a more emotionally-neutral way to keep score.

The monetary component will still be there, both on the blockchain as well as on the SteemQ website itself, available for anyone who wants to take a look. However, it will be decoupled from the main view, for the reasons outlined above.

Rewards System
The rewards system could be tweaked to improve curation as well as further democratize influencing factors. This could be achieved through proxies, or a modification of the weight function itself. We would love to experiment with this, whether the idea is simple, such as a linear system with minimums, decreased exponent, range limited sigmoid function, or a more complex mathematical model.

Content Distribution
The SteemQ prototype uses IPFS as a core building block of the content distribution system. IPFS is a great tool that does a few things really well. It provides a robust layer for managing, transporting, referencing, deduplicating, versioning and ensuring the integrity of the content. We can secure the multihashes by storing them on the immutable blockchain (ie. STEEM's posts become immutable after first reward payout. STEEM's transfers are much faster, being immutable and permanent within seconds, when the block is confirmed).
This way, we can simultaneously guarantee the ownership and integrity of the content.

We still have several hard problems to solve, in regard to the content distribution itself.
1.) Intelligent distribution and sharding. The amount of storage required to host video files is mind-boggling. We need to develop a system that can distribute the content between thousands of global nodes/gateways in such a way, it is always available at the best possible latency in any geographic location.
2.) Redundancy guarantees. We need to develop a system that can track the state of content replication so that a sufficient number of replicas exist at all times to prevent data loss.
3.) Incentives. We can get pretty far with a P2P model, where every user of the site automatically re-seeds the recently watched videos in the background. This however is not sufficient to guarantee 1. and 2. We need to adopt a mining model that provides content availability and its distribution (bandwidth). New content could pay for hosting with a percentage of its rewards pool, while the old content hosting could be paid for via a smart contract.

Current State

Team:

What has been done so far:

  • SteemQ concept design
  • POC app for video uploading and playback
  • minimal integration with STEEM's blockchain
  • minimal integration with IPFS

Goals and Milestones:

  • 1 month: Have a working prototype w/ p2p content distribution
  • 3 months: SteemQ website, Limited Alpha Release
  • 6 months: Platform enters Beta, Public Release

Funding

100% of the funds raised with this announcement will go towards SteemQ development.
Likewise, all consequent SteemQ-related posts will have their rewards sent to @steemq-funds, which acts as a funding source for the SteemQ project.

Donations
If you would like support the project with a donation, feel free to send STEEM/SBD to @steemq-funds.

Witness
@furion is now a witness.
Stable revenue from minting blocks could be used for development and SteemQ CDN if @furion becomes a main witness.

Join Us

We are looking for a Senior React developer to join the team. If you're interested, ping @furion on https://steemit.chat

If you are interested in the project, and would like to get involved, join #steemq on https://steemit.chat

Links:
> Check out the concept design
> Vote for witness @furion
> Join #steemq on steemit.chat
> Ask a question, submit an idea or give feedback



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For those wanting to solve the falling currency problem... things like this are the answer!

Well, a bloop single might be enough to start a new uptrend, might...but this is looking more like a grand-slam home-run!

The future looks bright for Steem :)

EXACTLY.. these coins need new use cases. They need to be used.. these micro blogging platforms are going to be fantastic for bitcoin.

Absolutely! This is exactly what we need! I am so sick of YouTube's bullshit, they completely do not recognize "Fair Use" anymore and they demonetize anything they deem to be "non advertiser friendly" which is utter bs. If you actually launch this service I will upload all the videos I make for YouTube, my channel has almost 100 thousand views so far, to this service as well. I will also tell me my friends who all have bigger channels than me to switch over. Thanks and you definitely earned a follow for this one!

SURE, we need almost everything to be decentralized ... A New Concept Of Online Freedom.

Competition does wonders. Offer a better mousetrap than the one you have now, and people will voluntarily buy it.

Sounds great guys!
I'm really excited to use such format since I'm a videoblogger.
I don't like some of youtube restrictions, so SteemQ seems like perfect fit. And I know I'm not alone - hella lot of people are waiting for something like this.

In my assessment, video blockchains will take years to manifest:
https://steemit.com/blockchain/@alexgr/why-blockchains-are-here-to-stay

You are certainly way ahead of our time... I mean, when thinking about it, there are so many potential issues that it's not even funny. Like spamming the blockchain with huge videos. This equals an economic amplification attack where I spend a few cents on my internet connection just to upload something big, which then needs to be replicated multiple times (even when sharded) - a cost which will burden the nodes. So I've paid cents to cause multi-$$$ costs in terms of storage and bandwidth to the network.

I have my doubts, but I wish you good luck in this endeavor.

He's not planning to put the videos themselves on the blockchain, but still they do need to go somewhere, and the problem is challenging. I agree with your assessment for the most part but still encourage the effort. @furion seems quite capable, ambitious, and industrious to me. I think it has a chance.

Yes, I realized it after I re-read the specs. My attention was dominated by the "blockchain-based" at the start of the post and I was like "huh?". On second reading, IPFS is far from optimal for this type of job but I guess we'll have to wait and see. I don't want to discourage anything and indeed @furion has been very active as a developer and he knows his stuff. Perhaps he can think of solutions to tackle the issues at hand. I guess we'll see how it goes in ~6 months.

Finally! I have been waiting for something like this for literally YEARS.

I'm a dancer and always have the problem that youtube takes down my videos due to copyright infringement. every single time !
If this platform would be released, I could finally create concept videos and short films with great music and not just royalty free.

This would be a game changer, and I'm looking forward to the release in 6 months! Exciting project, good job!

We might as well post whatever pictures we like too, after all, who cares about copyright infringement.

I am excited for SteemQ but your idea to create short films with great music and not just royalty free is a dangerous precedent and one likely to keep SteemQ alongside other notorious piracy sites like VKontakte. As well as this, it threatens to alienate music creators (surely among the biggest revenue generators on YouTube).

Agreed, and sorry to be late to the dance here to comment. I want this to happen but just bcz the site goes up (same as here) does not give us all the right to steal someone else's copyrighted work and make money off of it, without their permission, consent, or financial agreement. Like here, a community would have to develop to downvote, flag, or ban repeat copyright offenders. Great concept tho (!) and I'm sure the community will evolve to handle such issues as they arise - integrity will always matter tho.

Having Decentralized Applied to Photo/Video/Any Content sharing ... Then that is what a freedom is all about.

I'm not sure you want copyright laws to be ignored. Property rights are at the center of a free market. I'd almost have to say why wouldn't we all want to be paid for the product our brains come up with?

Great ideea ! Youtube needs a better competition...with all the rules coming on youtube ...a lot of big creators will try to find better platforms to upload their videos.

Very cool project. I am excited to see it unfold. One question that you kind of touched on already - can you elaborate more on what will actually be stored on the Steem blockchain vs somewhere else? For everything that is not part of the Steem blockchain, how will it have the same protection against content being taken down?

IPFS hashes are permanent. As long as there is a node somewhere in the world hosting the content, it is there.
You could setup a node that hosts your own content, and this way even if everyone else deletes it, its still there :)

Having users host their own content is sub-optimal, and so an incentive structure will be created, whereas people hosting the content get paid.

The STEEM blockchain hosts the post itself, rewards and the IPFS multihash.

I'M a MAGICIAN

Why named it SteemQ?
Why not SteemV, SteemVid or SteemTube just to make it more video obvious.
Just saying and it's a great project.

I wanted it to be a single letter after 'Steem' so it would be easy to remember, and SteemQ had the best sound to it.

And YouSteem was out of the question? Just kidding... ;D

Quality? :)

The Steem Devs should create this kind of project not by third party, because in case this project fails, Steemit will be affected.

GREAT! I've also been waiting for this for quite a while and my latest posting is in video format as well... Thanks for sharing this very good news. Namaste :)

PLEASE DON'T STOP ON THIS IDEA!!!

really excited about this...

actually i started on youtube just 2 months before i found steemit and haven't had time to create content for my channel. And by the looks of it, I won't have to!

Because, I will now upload all my content to steemq :D go steem!!

Cool and ambitious project. I look forward to load my first video.I am just waiting for someone to come up with a steemitgram photo upvoting platform as well.

oh hell yes!!!!! this would be huge !!! :) This goes with out saying...
"new follower"
edit... I will donate to this project, when I get some more SBD. :)

In addition to following, you may also want to give him a witness upvote :)

oh yes.. definitely. Thanks

Holy crap! YES! I dont even want to wait. Where can I buy coin for this NOW?!

Yes please, you have my follow and I'm gonna slap a witness vote for you as well. I really like what your doing and being one who has brought up separate categories for videos, blogs, and short posts, I think this is a great idea.

Is there any plans to implement decentralized streaming to this service?
I understand it streaming on IPFS isnt going to go well but i was thinking you could tie in another decentralized service that would upload through IPFS have the stream being recorded and have it upload it after its done to keep records of the stream. If this is a viable solution it would be nice to see what ways devs could possibly make this happen.

@furion , I felt discouraged when I saw on youtube that their monetization is disabled for Pakistan, and to be honest, I just started to feel great after reading about your project man. Thank you very much for developing such things. Let me know if I could be of any help.

Sounds like a great idea. Good luck. One question, How is it on Steem chain if the payout and ranking functions will be different?

Ranking is a presentation function and doesn't depend on the blockchain itself. Front ends such as this or others can compete to present content in the most relevant manner. I don't know his plans on rewards.

Sounds like just ranking will be different.

How about making it so no one can see the like count on a video to keep curating pure. Let the uploader see the count and the payout and after the payout, you publish the results.
Steemit right now has a very big sheep mentality where people don't actually curate, but, instead follow other people's lead. Hiding the vote count and payout should be used here as well, that way, the content gets judged by it's merits not by jumping the popularity train.

Wow I really hope you get this incredible project off the ground please accept my minnow vote for what it's worth as a sign of my support.

Every vote counts. Thank you for supporting the project.

Thanks @furion

This is a great plan. I hope it will work well for everyone. Does it work now?

I don't understand all the technical jargon but this is a very exciting development. While I haven't posted much content on YouTube, an alternative is a breath of fresh air, especially if it actually does focus on community building. I'm looking forward to seeing its launch and will hopefully have some content to share on it. Good luck!

good job @furion and nice project 8]

I am so freakin pumped by what I see in this post!

brilliant project.. when will it be fully operational...

I see a problem here. What is to stop a collection of "high-reputation" users to gang up on another user that posts content that offends them?

"a consensus has to be reached by a collaboration of multiple high-reputation downvotes. In such an event, the rankings of the video drops, and the participants in the P2P CDN have the ability to remove the content and thus slow down or eliminate its propagation."

Gangs of "high-reputation" bullies, beating up minority opinions, stifling debate, silencing unpopular ideas. This is nothing new, and it would be a sad thing to see on Steemit.

PERFECT! I can live streem my 6 month hike that Ill be leaving on this coming March...hiking feom Georgia to Maine. When will this take off?? It will alwo be a great way for people to view my paintings and drawings via video time lapse, which everyone keeps asking me to do but I cant stand YouTube. Thank you!

Live-steem not Live-stream I meant lol...

Yay! My old videos are on a non-profit Youtube channel, but have a new event (conference) planned for July 2017. I look forward to uploading our videos there and will hope that you've met your development goals by then. This is much appreciated.

Thank you! I have been hoping Steemit would make it possible to upload videos and music, but this is awesome too :D

I'm not sure I feel I missed it, but will their be a "go live" option?

To be honest, I'm speechless right now.. at the same time very excited on your project. I'm going to share this news to my crypto-friends. Keep it up! @furion

I think with the new rules of YouTube, this has many advantages to youtube! I really like the idea. Hopefully it will start soon :)

This is awesome. Me and few friends have been tossing the idea of this around for while, unfortunately none of us have the know how to create a compression algorithm. You have no idea how happy I am to see this getting made.
I love the idea of hiding the monetary rewards. I think that will go a long way in creating a fair, unbiased voting system, especially where this could easily end up as a replacement for YouTube in the future (now that YouTube is stopping people from making money on their site). Can't wait to see this in action. Thank you!

Great idea, I think it is necessary for a real option other than Youtube and would like to see this project being a huge success. As someone mentioned a careful consideration must be made regarding copyrighted material, as to not scare away content creators.
It also gives me a comforting feeling to have someplace else to upload video to a decentralized network not run by the google octopus.

Can't happen soon enough! All the best for the project.

I loved this! Starting in my niche as musician and supporting the development and spreading of Steem, very nice!

Nice Idea
It will give more Space for Creativity!

As a music producer, I am waiting for this one as well. I don't have to use YT to embed vids here on Steemit. A Steempay buy button embedded within the page, and an mp3/wav file is instantly returned from blockchain land.

Maybe a Steemit/Steemq music upload page like Bandcamp could be available for artists. I don't know but this is exciting for sure!

This is something that is is not explicitly in the roadmap for SteemQ, but it is a really good idea for another app.

"We believe that money should not be the primary driver of people's behavior. We would like to remove money and its influence on people's decision-making in regards to voting. Voting on contributions of other people should reflect the voter's experience with said contributions in the purest form possible." - Couldn't agree with that more

It is such a pleasure to see members of this community step-up and take initiative, to further grow this platform. It literally blows my mind, when I see developers like yourself, bring things like a decentralized video platform to steem -- props to you and your team @furion

Folks... as an emerging filmmaker I love the concept.... count me in... let me know if you need any test clips.

Z

This is awesome! Well done @furion and @etherdesign! Would love to know more about the backend - particularly the video encoding system and the P2P content delivery method.

Have you looked into Maidsafe, it may have benefits over IPFS for this project? There are multiple redundancies for files that are split out through the p2p network. Won't be long before they move out of alpha

Yes, I have. There are many projects out there trying to solve storage/distribution problems, MaidSafe being one of them. There is also Swarm, Filecoin, Storj, Sia, Decent, etc etc.

IPFS is a nice building block, and it gives us a lot of flexibility to build on top. It is also something that is already somewhat usable today, and a good starting point. I would like to be as pragmatic as possible, and if someone solves a hard problem for us, I am definitely interested.

I'm so glad that the voting was not limited to 5 per day because I keep coming across posts like this that not only educate the steemit audience, but also enlighten future steem users. This is amazing! Just wait until we reach the entire world:D Namaste! @christoph3 @mysonjosh

WOW is all I can say just WOW.

This is so damn exciting. If this can be....wait when this is achieved it will be on another level from anything currently in existence. Kudos for attacking this project with force:)

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