Skip to main content

Decentralized Social Network - Sphere

The world has been witnessing paradigm shifts in certain ways of executing day to day activities over the past few decades. Taxis are now being hailed with a smartphone, without even communicating over voice with the driver. Food is being ordered online and delivered by delivery boys who rely on a digital map to navigate to the place of delivery. CDs and cassettes have been replaced by computers and phones. Film cameras have been replaced by DSLRs. Gone are the days when cheques were sent via post and deposited into the bank a few days (or even weeks) later. IMPS, NEFT and other methods of transferring money have become popular. The Digital Revolution has truly changed the way we do many things. While the first decade and a half of the 21st Century dealt with merely digitizing the world, in recent years "Decentralization" has become an idea that many people are embracing and promoting. The Block Chain Technology that has gone hand in glove with many aspects of Decentralization has also become popular.

Image result for sphere cryptocurrencyBitcoin, the first ever decentralized cryptocurrency shot to fame a few years ago when articles with headings such as, "If you had invested $1000 in 2009, it would be worth XXXX" today sprung up.
Over the past few years, many alternate coins (altcoins) to Bitcoin have emerged; Litecoin, Ripple, Ethereum and likewise. While all these coins were to be used to enhance the speed and safety in transferring money quickly, across (and within) borders, the entire Block Chain revolution has witnessed its own revolution in which the block chain technology is not only being used for monetary services but also other services.

I recently came across a company called Sphere. Sphere is a decentralized social network. Their USP is that your privacy is maintained and your personal information is not used for monetisation purposes by them. This is in contrast to today's social media giants such as FaceBook who use your search history, your usage history, likes of posts and links that you click on to advertise to you products and services that you may like (targeted advertisements). Sphere is not void of competitors. Companies like Steemit and Diaspora already offer such services. They boast of a user base of greater than 500,000 people.

While Sphere is still securing funding via their ICO (Initial Coin Offering), the idea of a decentralized social network in the making sounds innovative. The only difficulty for them would be to secure a large user base that remains loyal to them just like millions, if not more people have remained loyal to the social media giants of today. Although it is difficult, it is not impossible. The whole idea of a decentralized payment system (BTC) divided people in the financial world in to two parts; pro BTC and against. More and more people are leaning towards being pro BTC because they understand the actual value that these coins possess. This may happen in the social media industry as well. Cryptocurrencies, irrespective of the backlash received from Governments and renowned investors are surely here to stay in my opinion. If not to be used for transferring money in a cheap, fraud-less and fast way, the underlying technology of the cryptocurrency (Block Chain) can certainly be used in this world in exciting areas such as remote voting and reducing corruption, to name a few. The Block Chain technology is already being used in the regulated sector to transfer money. Ripple, a coin that was momentarily second in terms of market capitalization (it is now in the Top 10) has been adopted by multiple financial institutions to increase the speed of transactions. American Express has also adopted their technology.

A Decentralized Social network also sounds like an excellent idea provided that their user interface is easy to use and their user base grows. The rise of multiple such companies will not be beneficial to their investors as social media users prefer to use one, or a maximum of two companies (Face Book and Instagram/ Instagram and Snap Chat etc.) that a majority of people in their social circles use. Sphere could be either the next Instagram, a social media to which a huge number of people are flocking to (upon leaving Face Book) or Google+, a failed social media platform with good intentions.
Witnessing the former would mark the exciting advent of a change in people's ideology in leaning towards decentralized services and platforms.

While I do agree the regulation is important in some areas, a decentralized system, especially a payments system obviously removes a multitude of regulatory hurdles that people face while while working that results in lesser efficiency and waste of time and money.

If you want to sign up on Sphere to see their user interface or to invest, please sign up by clicking here as I will be rewarded with a small token of their appreciation if I got you to sign up.  It would be the least you could do for me (only provided that you want to sign up) as a remuneration for writing this article that resulted in you possibly learning a thing or two :)
 
DISCLAIMERS:
  • The author has not directly/indirectly invested any amount of money into Sphere as of when this article was published.
  • No loss of money via fraud, market crashes or other methods can be attributed to author of this article or this article. Invest with precaution and at your own risk.
  • The author has invested in other cryptocurrencies that were probably mentioned in the article.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Visiting the Kasturinagar (KA-03) RTO - a tumultuous but manageable experience to get a Learner's/ Driver's License without an agent/ driving school

Ask anyone, and I can guarantee that they will have a story (and in most cases, many stories) about their trip, or rather, numerous trips to the RTO for something as simple as getting a Learner's License (LL) or a Driver's License (DL). In this blog, I hope to make your life a tad bit easier by guiding you through the entire process, which may seem easy at first but is full of (overcome able) challenges if you know what you are doing. I turned 18 in January this year, and besides cutting a cake, I worked on my LL application online. I challenged myself to complete the entire LL to DL process by myself and without the help of an agent or a driving school, unlike what the majority do. The lengthy application process and multiple visits to the RTO, impressed upon me why most people decided to pay a little extra to get an agent to do it for them. Still, I was determined not to pay a single rupee more than the official cost. I succeeded.  Do note that this answer is concerning the K
15 comments
Read more

iOS 7 Update for Apple Devices

There is an OS update for iPads, iPhones and iPods (only for some generations). In this update there are many changes. The button on the right side of your iPads and iPhones now can be used to either, lock screen rotation, mute, pause or play your music. Lock Screen: In the older version to unlock the phones/tablet we had to swipe at the bottom part at the screen. Now we can swipe anywhere on the screen. As you can see in the picture, I have circled something at the bottom. If we swipe upwards we get many shortcuts. We can pause, play, change music tracks, increase/decrease volume, put the tablet/phone into airplane mode, Turn On/Off Wifi/Bluetooth/Do Not Disturb Option and mute our device.We can also view the current time in different time zones. The keypad that we see when we unlock the phone is also different.Changing the brightness is also an option.Here is a picture of this shortcut panel and the unlock iPad keypad. Control center Different Keypad in lock screen
55 comments
Read more

Opinion on the Tax Rebate - Budget 2019

Source The Union Budget of India that was presented on Feb 1, 2019 was a populist-vote bank driven one filled with proposals to woo all possible stakeholders who are eligible to vote. Be it farmers, the middle class or the economically stronger ones, all sections of society after a brief glance at the highlights of the budget will be content with what Piyush Goyal has to offer in the sixth and final Budget of this term of the NDA. Although I found many parts of the budget a questionable waste of money to fuel populist schemes, I did enjoy certain parts of it, especially the newly introduced tax rebate. The proposed tax rebate  in which income upto INR 5 lakhs is essentially tax-free is one that I wholly welcome for many reasons. The tax-rebate proposal and terms is something that I welcome unconditionally but the way how the Finance Minister has portrayed income up to INR 6.5 lakhs tax free (with the disclaimer that this is only possible if all the 'right' investments ar
49 comments
Read more

Beating the winter blues - Morocco

  After having spent just over two months in England, with short trips to America’s east coast on work and Paris for Diwali, I was itching to travel somewhere new – somewhere I hadn’t been before.     I found myself in one of the study rooms at university, unable to focus on my readings. Winter was setting in. The days were getting shorter, London was getting greyer, and the sun had gone into hibernation. An important question was running in my mind – one that would determine how I would overcome the impending winter blues – what will I do during the Christmas break? A typical international student’s response would be simple – book a return ticket to your home country. However, as a seasoned international student, my response had to be different, right? With a not-so-powerful passport in hand, I grappled with my options. Limited by choices of visa-regime friendly choices, I first laid out a bunch of criteria for an anti-winter blues holiday of choice. I wanted three things - the sun, w
1 comment
Read more

A few questions we must ask ourselves about the situation surrounding the Babri Masjid/ Ram Mandir controversy

August 5, 2020, was a historic day in India for two reasons. First, it was a year since the special status of J&K was revoked, and the state was converted into Union Territories; it resulted in it being directly controlled by the Central Government in Delhi and no longer controlled by an elected government under the federal setup. It was simultaneously followed with a year-long (and still ongoing) internet and communications blockade. Second, it was a day celebrated by right-wing Hindu nationalists because of the  ground-bre aking ceremony (Bhoomi Pooja/ Puja) that was held to begin construction of a temple for Lord Ram; a temple being built on a land where a mosque that was demolished by close allies of the BJP in 1992 lay. Reaching this point was not easy. It was a struggle that lasted for decades, multiple cases in court, contributions from the Archaeological Survey of India, claims of Muslims invaders building a mosque over a temple etc. The court finally ruled in favour a temp
1 comment
Read more

Life during the COVID-19 lockdown

The past three weeks have impacted people around India in different ways. The migrant labourers and daily wage workers have unarguably been affected the worst. It has been an interesting three weeks in which the concept of privilege was spoken about vastly in the media. Even though the salaried middle class is also affected, their lives have been phenomenally better than, for example, those they employ to clean their houses or wash their dishes. It is at times such as these that I realise how lucky a majority of my friends and I are. While most of the country is suffering (suffering in the real sense of not being able to afford and procure three square meals a day and NOT because a shop ran out of imported cheese) in lockdown, my parents could work from home, without intruding into each other’s personal space and could carry out some, if not most of their work from the comfort of their house, unlike the majority of the country. I have been reading articles about the shortfalls of in
10 comments
Read more

The Young Adults Series at the Bangalore International Centre

 November 2020 With France reimposing lockdown restrictions, closing universities, and restricting people's movement to just 1 hour per day, I decided to fly back to India. My rationale was simple; rather than attending online classes in a foreign city, with no roommates, no extra-curricular activities during which I would have usually interacted with people, and it being illegal to meet anyone you are not living with, it made more sense to return to a safer environment in which I could enjoy more freedom, as Bangalore was in a pretty good state, at least compared to France.  While waiting to board my flight at Charles de Gaulle Airport, I was mindlessly scrolling through Instagram and came across a post published by the Bangalore International Centre . Clickbait-ly titled  'MUN Ki Baat'  (for those who don't get the reference: PM Modi has a monthly radio show called 'Man Ki Baat'), it piqued my curiosity, and I found myself watching a recording of it. When I in
2 comments
Read more