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DASH Strategy Update

eduffield

Core Developer
Hello Everyone,

We’ve seen an increasing amount of interest from many people about where the Dash project is going and what our goals currently are, so we’ve decided to make a comprehensive post detailing the strategy for the next couple of years. This all is subject to change, but should give a good idea of our vision for the crypto space and how we fit into it.

Development

Over the course of 18 months we have built several added value features for users, a system that incentivizes all necessary elements for the long term viability of a crypto-currency network, and more importantly a philosophy of being innovative and disruptive in our pursuit of creating a next generation digital currency platform that learns from the experience of older projects and proposes new ways of doing things.

The current goals of development can be summed up pretty simple by saying that, in the short term, we are focusing on making Dash much more accessible to the general public. This includes an Android wallet, iPhone wallet and a very stable version of the reference client.

We also feel that the development of the client has gotten quite a bit ahead of public awareness of the Dash project and what we’re about. So a large portion of the next 2 years will be a robust campaign to capture the average persons interest and present them with the advantages of our solution. This is going to be accomplished by the brand new concept of Blockchain based-funding.

Development Tools and Process Standardization

As a decentralized, open source project one of the greatest challenges is coordinating a distributed team and making sure we work according to industry standards. Thanks to the efforts of our project management team we have implemented a full suite of professional tools to ensure delivery excellence.

  • JIRA - an industry leading tool - will be used for assisting the development and quality assurance by organizing to-dos and prioritizing issues. It will also be open up to the public so the community can easily help in bug testing/reporting.
  • JIRA Service Desk addon will handle community submissions to the teams working on Dash, whether they be bugs, ideas, or suggestions.
  • Confluence will be used for both internal and external documentation, with the intention of improving overall project documentation, and having a central place where community members can find information.
  • Confluence Questions will be used as a place where community members can ask and answer questions about Dash. It's like a community maintained FAQ, where both team and community members can contribute by answering the questions raised. Combined with the superb search functionality of Confluence this tool can be used as the central place for distributed knowledge related to Dash.
  • Bamboo will be used by the development team for automated tests and builds
The entire platform is professionally hosted by Atlassian with multiple administrators on the team to provide redundancy. There is still a lot of work to do but we are taking firm steps in this direction.

This is part of our commitment to the users, investors and the crypto community to go the extra mile in our effort to make a positive difference in the industry.

Budget and Blockchain based Governance

Blockchain based governance is a new concept of funding within cryptographic currency, it’s the idea that the currency can fund it’s own development and expansion and at the same time retain its freedom to innovate. Something like a decentralized kickstarter built within Dash, that pays out from the blockchain for projects and investments that the masternode operators, through their votes, see as worthy. (more information, click here)

We plan on having the first proposal funded via this method by early September, after that we’ll allow more and more proposals to be funded through the system along with modest developer salaries for implementing the core technology. Being that the budget system is 100% decentralized, the core team has no direct control of what gets funded, but we feel confident the community will stand behind the core team to implement the following strategy.

Our original thoughts about how this should progress

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The developer compensation portion isn’t intended to be something to live off of (although, it could be enough eventually), more as a token of appreciation for anyone that is “core” to the project and donates their time to expanding the quality or reach of the project in general.

We could have the best project in the world, but if no one knows about it then we’ll have no users. We’ll start by a general education campaign targeted at average, somewhat technically savvy users and showing them what our ecosystem has to offer them. There will be a lot of “secret sauce” used to implement our media campaign, as many of our core team members have significant experience building companies and growing them.

Bitcoin and the Blocksize debate

In the last few weeks, a debate has been raging across all Bitcoin discussion forums on whether or not to increase Bitcoin’s block size limit. Actually the debate has been going on for longer than that but the rate and temperature of discussion have been greatly increased more recently.

For the Bitcoin project, both sides are correct in their assumption that the blocksize issue is a real problem. However, they’re stuck in between a rock and a hard place. If they increase the blocksize, they will risk losing more full nodes due to the cost of operating a node, which in turn makes the network less robust and prone to DDOS attacks and other issues. If they don’t increase the blocksize, the network will become increasingly more expensive to send money on and naturally competitors will begin to look more attractive to the general public.

As for our position in this debate, we’re not in any immediate danger and have a plan for how to deal with this issue when it comes up. In fact we’re already planning the tools for how we will support a massive amount of transactions. What if we kept the blocksize limit at 1MB and had a great wallet for general users that used off-chain transactions the majority of the time? As a result we would have a small blockchain, low fees and nearly limitless transaction support. The goal is to stay lean and allow for growth at the same time.

V12 and what to expect

The next version of the reference client includes important changes. It is currently on the public testing stage and we are actively working on it. If you have the time and would like a sneak preview, you can go to our testing thread download the latest binaries and help test it using test Dash.

We expect V12 to be launched onto mainnet in early August, this will be followed by a campaign to get all pools updated then a hard-fork. Soon after that, we’ll start our outreach campaign and implementation of all future technology using the budget system.
 
Thank you. This is a big help to explain what is up and coming. In our DASH world here, we have so many ideas bantered about that we lose sight of what is actually in the developer's sights. This pretty much covers the most important bases and helps, me at least, keep things straight in my head :D
 
While I would - in a heart-bit, without asking any questions - give much more of my MN profit to the Core Team than what it would be its arithmetical share, I do have a beef with the "media campaign".

After this ongoing fiasco with a simple promotional video that takes aeons to be made, I'd much like to see, outlined very clearly, what the media campaign would entail, where the money goes, time-frame for each step etc..

Having said that, the immense value the Core Team provides by it tireless efforts dwarfs my media campaign skepticism.
 
That's a good update Evan, Thank you.

Like GreyGhost has mentioned above, I too am somewhat dubious of what a 'media campaign' might entail (i.e. how orderly, effective and appropriate it will be). I think this is the one area we've not done terribly well with. Dash should be far more widely known by now, but we've had so little outbound genuine marketing and proper promotion. This is understandable in some ways because the focus is on the project and getting the technology and architecture right. So I temper my comments about the lack of promotion with the realisation that so much more focus has gone into preparing Dash for major prime-time ahead of promoting it. However, I still think there's been much opportunity to create a ground-swell of expectation and awareness (perhaps like Ethereum's done) that we haven't capitalised on.

The other area that I think still needs major focus is how the wallets work. I know you're looking at this and I know you mentioned above Android and iOS wallets are being produced. The areas of concern I have (not just for Dash but all crypto) is that it's still such a technical boffin realm. There's just no way Mr or Mrs average could confidently take part in it when you can so easily lose all your coins. Even experienced people posting on the forums sometimes have sudden scares or disasters with their wallet.dat files. I just think this whole area needs to be addressed. Some of the on-line wallet systems such as Electrum certainly improve the situation somewhat but it's still far from foolproof and presents a level of risk that's unacceptable (I have relatives that are somewhat interested in crypto but I just know their PC skills aren't anywhere near strong enough to be handling wallet.dat backups (or Android or iOS backups) so, apart from setting up a wallet for them and sending them a Dash or two to show them how it works, I wouldn't dream of encouraging them to buy lots of bitcoin or Dash as they're likely to have a disaster). One of the few things that can go wrong when you're using regular on-line banking for fiat is that you'll put an incorrect account number in when sending money to someone. I've never done such a thing but I know people who have and in every case I'm aware of they've had their money returned to them. The same cannot be said in crypto. There are dozens of ways users can experience a "Pfft...and it's gone!" scenario with little to no recourse. I think this is an area that needs a lot of focus and attention if it's to move towards the mainstream.
 
Thanks for the update! I can't wait to see this project through to mass adoption. Over time, these usability issues can be worked on, making it easy for everyone to use. If anyone can do it, it's the Dash team!
 
Marketing, advertising and promotional activities should very carefully define who is our "target audience." Before creating that ideal user to target, our
unique value propositions should be very carefully outlined.

I firmly believe that "mass adoption" dream is still ahead of the reality. I also trust our natural targets should be among the people who need some of our unique values, like anonymity Darksend provides (i.e. freedom fighters, journalists and bloggers, former Occupy and what would emerge from its remnants, Wikileaks and funds for Manning, Assange, Snowden defense teams or media awareness, Tor users...) and in order to achieve that we might also target individuals and their respective groups, hoping to engage them in conversation, like William Binney, John Perry Barlow, Jacob Appelbaum, Nicholas Tufnell, Colm Lyon, Nick Szabo, Gleen Greenwald, Thomas Drake, Rick Falkvinge, Ray McGovern, Reggie Middleton, Jen Robinson, Anonymous, Daniel Ellsberg, EFF, Rainey Reitman, John Pilger, Michael Hudson, Matt Taibbi, Cryptome, David Graeber, Max Keiser etc., etc., etc., each of which might act as a single, extremely important "influencer."

If we offer a technology better than Bitcoin, and it does seem we do, than we should also welcome scrutiny any of these people can bring to the table. (think Nick Szabo, most likely the Satoshi himself, and his potential contribution, even if he finds weaknesses in our ecosystem) We should NOT be shy and daydream of "some bit retailers" and / or "big exchanges" but think big. Six degrees of separation (or Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon) might be a good approach of getting closer to these people. (influencers)

Just think about media exposure if these 5,800 DASH ($23,664.00 at the moment of typing) would go to Edward Snowden for example: "DASH community supports Snowden's defense team with $23,664.00) <== such a marketing move would be both useful and will have draw huge attention to the project. Sure, all those (most of us) who cowered in front of some imaginable fear the Darkcoin name was supposedly invoking would be trepeditious to create a ripple effect by invoking the U.S. Government's most vocal "enemy" but bear in mind, we all are the enemy "they" spy upon etc.. After all, let us never forget, that dodgy Hacking Team hack revealed that they were selling their spying software to the "governments and law enforcement agencies in these countries, in descending order of sales: Mexico, Italy, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Chile, Hungary, Malaysia, UAE, the United States, Singapore, Kazakhstan, Sudan, Uzbekistan, Panama, Ethiopia, Egypt, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, South Korea, Mongolia, Vietnam, Spain, Ecuador, Oman, Switzerland, Thailand, Russia, Nigeria, Turkey, Cyprus, Honduras, Azerbaijan, Colombia, Poland, and Bahrain."

And they clearly state, "Digital Anonymous Currencies" as "Dangerous Developments" so please, do not trick yourself into belief we'll "stay under the radar" if we DO NOT engage "dangerous people" from my ad hoc list. We are on the radar, scrutinized by "them" in a much more severe way any of us can even imagine.

Also, think how much money this budget represents. 6 x 10.5 (half page) advertisement in The New York Times (Techonology section), on weekdays, including The Times's international editions would cost $44,018.00. Think of a ripple effect, and add in The Times explaining the tech AND giving the money to the Snowden defense team. And this quite nice chunk of of money ($67,682.00) is ONLY $24.39 per a Masternode. Damn I would give my 3 months MN profit, cca 1,000% of the needed sum for my hypothetical scenario, without a second of hesitation. We MUST be creative and bold in our marketing activities in order to reflect ingenious project these would represent.

If you ponder these numbers in my "Snowden Scenario" you will understand HOW MUCH POWER we can unlock out of the system.

Dreamers, anarchists, artists, revolutionaries, visionaries, lunatic fringes - these should be our targets outside the tech realm...

# # #
 
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Mass adoption delusion as I brusquely call it, is best seen in the "Bitcoin: Technical Background and Data Analysis," research by Anton Badev and Matthew Chen (2014). Their "analysis suggests that less than 50 percent of all bitcoins in circulation are used in transactions" and "About half of these transactions involve less than U.S.$100 equivalent, and for the period for which we have data for Satoshi Dice, most of these small-value transactions were related to the online playing games (GG: the system banned the real word. Not difficult to guess I guess) service."

As of October 7, 2014 more than 64,000 businesses were reported to accept payments in bitcoins around the world, they claim, which is a miniscule drop in the Ocean of the world's economy. Bitcoin's own "mass adoption" is even more dare when we consider this: "More than half of the bitcoins in circulation have not been used in transactions the past three months and about a third have not been used in the past year. These overall statistics constitute an estimate of the proportion of bitcoins in circulation which are held for "investment" purposes."

Our own situation might be much worse, even when we go out with the Snowden Marketing Blitzkrieg :) I outlined earlier, regarding the DASH NOT circulating. As of today, 49.84% of all DASH "units" are "locked in" Masternodes, often for investment purposes...

So, I think there's an additional avenue of development to consider, but I will leave it to the tech crowd - how to use MN computational power for something useful aside securing the network and providing MN owner with income? This might be of some use:
http://ledracapital.com/blog/2014/3/11/bitcoin-series-24-the-mega-master-blockchain-list
but there must be gazillion other ways to utilize the MNs and have them engaged in solving complex problems the humanity faces, thusly increasing its unique value far beyond our crypto enthusiasts lunatic fringe reach.
 
My two cents (one cent per idea):


1. Media Campaign Competition

A media campaign is good but I wonder if it should be preceded by a media campaign competition i.e. a nice fat prize for the best video (and any other category)

2. Mobile Wallet with Integrated Personal Finance Manager

I would love to see a mobile wallet that - dare I say it - surpasses Mycelium for bitcoin. And I'll tell you what it needs to do that... money management. Mycelium is a really good wallet but the transactions history is just a list with a simple note per transaction, there is zero ways to search and report those transactions. income and expenses are not separated, no categories or hashtags, no weekly / monthly reports.. nothing at all like this and it's a pain having to switch to another app, only to enter the transaction again. If that sounds too ambition then how about integrating with Financisto, which is a great (probably the best) open source money manager for android.
 
My two cents (one cent per idea):


1. Media Campaign Competition

A media campaign is good but I wonder if it should be preceded by a media campaign competition i.e. a nice fat prize for the best video (and any other category)

2. Mobile Wallet with Integrated Personal Finance Manager

I would love to see a mobile wallet that - dare I say it - surpasses Mycelium for bitcoin. And I'll tell you what it needs to do that... money management. Mycelium is a really good wallet but the transactions history is just a list with a simple note per transaction, there is zero ways to search and report those transactions. income and expenses are not separated, no categories or hashtags, no weekly / monthly reports.. nothing at all like this and it's a pain having to switch to another app, only to enter the transaction again. If that sounds too ambition then how about integrating with Financisto, which is a great (probably the best) open source money manager for android.

Great idea! I really love it.
 
Mass adoption delusion as I brusquely call it, is best seen in the "Bitcoin: Technical Background and Data Analysis," research by Anton Badev and Matthew Chen (2014). Their "analysis suggests that less than 50 percent of all bitcoins in circulation are used in transactions" and "About half of these transactions involve less than U.S.$100 equivalent, and for the period for which we have data for Satoshi Dice, most of these small-value transactions were related to the online playing games (GG: the system banned the real word. Not difficult to guess I guess) service."

As of October 7, 2014 more than 64,000 businesses were reported to accept payments in bitcoins around the world, they claim, which is a miniscule drop in the Ocean of the world's economy. Bitcoin's own "mass adoption" is even more dare when we consider this: "More than half of the bitcoins in circulation have not been used in transactions the past three months and about a third have not been used in the past year. These overall statistics constitute an estimate of the proportion of bitcoins in circulation which are held for "investment" purposes."

Our own situation might be much worse, even when we go out with the Snowden Marketing Blitzkrieg :) I outlined earlier, regarding the DASH NOT circulating. As of today, 49.84% of all DASH "units" are "locked in" Masternodes, often for investment purposes...

So, I think there's an additional avenue of development to consider, but I will leave it to the tech crowd - how to use MN computational power for something useful aside securing the network and providing MN owner with income? This might be of some use:
http://ledracapital.com/blog/2014/3/11/bitcoin-series-24-the-mega-master-blockchain-list
but there must be gazillion other ways to utilize the MNs and have them engaged in solving complex problems the humanity faces, thusly increasing its unique value far beyond our crypto enthusiasts lunatic fringe reach.

GreyGhost both of your posts are truly excellent and I can see you've taken considerable time and thought with the ideas.

I agree totally with you that the notions of "mass adoption" really are pie in the sky at this early stage. We've seen so many conversations here and on BCT about the mechanisms around how a customer at the check-out would pay for their cornflakes with Dash and how the retailer would handle refunds, charge-backs and other variations at the point-of-sale. While they're interesting, those conversations really have little to do with the reality of how crypto will be adopted and what the likely pathway to mass adoption is. It's not likely retailers will be providing point-of-sale facilities for crypto where the transaction is live on the block-chain. There'll be an entire industry of payment processors (which we're already seeing) that will handle all these interfacing issues and high quality crypto platforms like Dash will be more focussed on maintaining the monetary properties and integrity of the network.

Focussing on key niche opportunities like Snowden and other specialist groups who could really benefit from an anonymous/private financial tool is surely a far better bet. If we can get a few key individuals to start using it and mentioning it in conversation that will be far more powerful than any advertising or traditional marketing.
 
Focussing on key niche opportunities like Snowden and other specialist groups who could really benefit from an anonymous/private financial tool is surely a far better bet. If we can get a few key individuals to start using it and mentioning it in conversation that will be far more powerful than any advertising or traditional marketing.

Not to blow my own horn I'd like to reiterate one point: as long as we do not have a target audience defined, "any advertising or traditional marketing" striving for the "mass adoption" will be aimed at the black hole of ignorance.
 
Marketing, advertising and promotional activities should very carefully define who is our "target audience." Before creating that ideal user to target, our
unique value propositions should be very carefully outlined.

I firmly believe that "mass adoption" dream is still ahead of the reality. I also trust our natural targets should be among the people who need some of our unique values, like anonymity Darksend provides (i.e. freedom fighters, journalists and bloggers, former Occupy and what would emerge from its remnants, Wikileaks and funds for Manning, Assange, Snowden defense teams or media awareness, Tor users...) and in order to achieve that we might also target individuals and their respective groups, hoping to engage them in conversation, like William Binney, John Perry Barlow, Jacob Appelbaum, Nicholas Tufnell, Colm Lyon, Nick Szabo, Gleen Greenwald, Thomas Drake, Rick Falkvinge, Ray McGovern, Reggie Middleton, Jen Robinson, Anonymous, Daniel Ellsberg, EFF, Rainey Reitman, John Pilger, Michael Hudson, Matt Taibbi, Cryptome, David Graeber, Max Keiser etc., etc., etc., each of which might act as a single, extremely important "influencer."

If we offer a technology better than Bitcoin, and it does seem we do, than we should also welcome scrutiny any of these people can bring to the table. (think Nick Szabo, most likely the Satoshi himself, and his potential contribution, even if he finds weaknesses in our ecosystem) We should NOT be shy and daydream of "some bit retailers" and / or "big exchanges" but think big. Six degrees of separation (or Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon) might be a good approach of getting closer to these people. (influencers)

Just think about media exposure if these 5,800 DASH ($23,664.00 at the moment of typing) would go to Edward Snowden for example: "DASH community supports Snowden's defense team with $23,664.00) <== such a marketing move would be both useful and will have draw huge attention to the project. Sure, all those (most of us) who cowered in front of some imaginable fear the Darkcoin name was supposedly invoking would be trepeditious to create a ripple effect by invoking the U.S. Government's most vocal "enemy" but bear in mind, we all are the enemy "they" spy upon etc.. After all, let us never forget, that dodgy Hacking Team hack revealed that they were selling their spying software to the "governments and law enforcement agencies in these countries, in descending order of sales: Mexico, Italy, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Chile, Hungary, Malaysia, UAE, the United States, Singapore, Kazakhstan, Sudan, Uzbekistan, Panama, Ethiopia, Egypt, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, South Korea, Mongolia, Vietnam, Spain, Ecuador, Oman, Switzerland, Thailand, Russia, Nigeria, Turkey, Cyprus, Honduras, Azerbaijan, Colombia, Poland, and Bahrain."

And they clearly state, "Digital Anonymous Currencies" as "Dangerous Developments" so please, do not trick yourself into belief we'll "stay under the radar" if we DO NOT engage "dangerous people" from my ad hoc list. We are on the radar, scrutinized by "them" in a much more severe way any of us can even imagine.

Also, think how much money this budget represents. 6 x 10.5 (half page) advertisement in The New York Times (Techonology section), on weekdays, including The Times's international editions would cost $44,018.00. Think of a ripple effect, and add in The Times explaining the tech AND giving the money to the Snowden defense team. And this quite nice chunk of of money ($67,682.00) is ONLY $24.39 per a Masternode. Damn I would give my 3 months MN profit, cca 1,000% of the needed sum for my hypothetical scenario, without a second of hesitation. We MUST be creative and bold in our marketing activities in order to reflect ingenious project these would represent.

If you ponder these numbers in my "Snowden Scenario" you will understand HOW MUCH POWER we can unlock out of the system.

Dreamers, anarchists, artists, revolutionaries, visionaries, lunatic fringes - these should be our targets outside the tech realm...

# # #

Great posts, thank you.

About "mass adoption", it's only a matter of time (remember that the "computers", and the "Internet", are very recent, very near, very similar ones of the many examples in history of technologies with disruptive innovation which, as usual, in their beginnings were thought to be "non-mass-adoption-viable")
 
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Great posts, thank you.

About "mass adoption", it's only a matter of time (remember that the "computers", and the "Internet", are very recent, very near, very similar ones of the many examples in history of technologies with disruptive innovation which, as usual, in their beginnings were thought to be "non-mass-adoption-viable")

I fully agree with that but almost no one of these technologies started with a goal of being "mass adopted" - it rather aimed at a new set of users and it developed organically, to use this unfortunate word. Now we have an experience of PCs, mobile gadgets, Net and even that ubiquitous brain-eating virus a.k.a. Facebook, not to mention Bitcoin that started all of this, and can learn from it.

If I had the money or possessed a programing genius or any sort of influence I'd "break" the project in several subsidiaries:

a) one focuses on oppressed and opposition, revolutionary forces all over the world that could benefit from Darksend. Herein my Snowden Blitzkrieg as described earlier would make much sense;

b) another one focuses on a huge need for remittance without thievery all these Moneygrams, Western Unions or wire-transfers represent. A peer-to-peer, low-cost remittance of money, the immigrants send home and would try to, around that, build a parallel banking system, again for the lack of a better word, for billions of people that do not have access to the banking system (but have mobile phones); herein I'd also build a Kiva-like funding / donating model but on a more honest base, blockhain depended (think Ethereum) and blockchain based trust based funding;

c) the third one will deal with "mass adoption" but I would try to introduce it, start with, as a tipping platform for all these bloggers, artists all over the world, producing some value and in a need for funding. (herein, even the "a" can be utilized in a same way) I would not forget a crowdfunding platform(s), MN based, to rival these akin to KS or IGG and than slowly move toward real world adoption like in our Canadian friend with a real winery that is accepting DASH as a payment.

Each of these initiatives would be "tailor made" for a targeted audience**. But if I had to chose only one approach to start with, needless to say, it would be the "a".

Anything but some blind "marketing initiative" aiming to present us as everything for everyone. It would be shortcut to disaster.

GG

:wink:

PS if MN can enable escrow, here we are - a platform to compete against Elance et.al, and offer 1% or 0.5% fee instead of theirs insane 8.75% that includes PayPal and CC insane 2 - 3 - 4%. Many a entrepreneur would come up with a bunch of ideas if MNs could be utilized, for a small fee to its owners, for something else than what they do today...
 
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GreyGhost, I have to say, I have been watching the guys working on that promotional video, on their own time, and setting up meetings with the company, going through the script, rewriting it at least 5 times, going through the story board with a fine tooth comb, screening 3 voice actors and polling which one to use, discussing the virtues of each voice style. I'm telling you, they are working very hard to do the best job they possibly can, and I'm sure at least half the people will still be unhappy with it simply because of the main choice: Make it technical or make it for Newbs.

These guys have done their due diligence and really want to do the best job possible for the money that was donated. I'm getting upset because I keep hearing people talk as if the money was blown, while these guys are trying to make the best possible video ever.

It's going to come out in September, I think, from what I heard them saying. They work on slack, and I follow it. They chose September because they want it to be released to the main media in a very concerted media packaged effort to mainstream media outlets. This too will cost money. They want to do this 100% professionally and correctly with the best bang they can possibly get out of the video.

Please stop complaining about it taking so long, because frankly, we're still not ready for the amount of attention we will get when this goes out. If v12 takes a little longer than expected, but this video goes out, the world will be watching and wondering "what is this v12, and why isn't it working" Get the idea? We don't need crazy scrutiny while making such a huge update. But BECAUSE you all donated to this video, we WILL have our guns loaded and ready to shoot just in time. It's going to be big. And it's going to be the smallest one compared to what we'll be able to do with the budget from the blockchain, so hold on to your hats people, this is going to take off by the end of the year, and I don't mean in price, I mean in recognition!
 
I gave a plethora of what I deem good, constructive contributions to this thread and feel no need to stop - not complaining - but to pointing out to utter nonsense in the Ben Hur production (a.k.a. video) process in order to avoid similar set of mistakes and avoid any future need to justify a delay after delay.

No matter how much I respect you Tante, your propaganda on this topic means nothing to me. I've been involved in more than one video / film productions in my time and I am not buying any of these sugary words defending their "hard work." Too many cooks often spoil the broth is one of my main fears and I will voice them as long as I feel I have a reason to do so. A stellar production of the video, "released to the main media" will have shut my mouth for good and I will gladly eat any criticism of mine, praise them, promote the video etc.

Until, I would like us to focus on the future actions and ideas.
 
I gave a plethora of what I deem good, constructive contributions to this thread and feel no need to stop - not complaining - but to pointing out to utter nonsense in the Ben Hur production (a.k.a. video) process in order to avoid similar set of mistakes and avoid any future need to justify a delay after delay.

No matter how much I respect you Tante, your propaganda on this topic means nothing to me. I've been involved in more than one video / film productions in my time and I am not buying any of these sugary words defending their "hard work." Too many cooks often spoil the broth is one of my main fears and I will voice them as long as I feel I have a reason to do so. A stellar production of the video, "released to the main media" will have shut my mouth for good and I will gladly eat any criticism of mine, praise them, promote the video etc.

Until, I would like us to focus on the future actions and ideas.

With all due respect, you are being extremely unfair, tangentially offensive to Tante.

And your "a" choice is exactly what we want to both include and exclude at the same time. Sound confusing? Such is life, and our mission to improve it.

I've worked in the audio/entertainment/radio/TV industry with numerous commercial releases under my name as producer. Tante is being shy, she is not just observing but actively participating in the fundraised video. There are certainly not too many cooks in the kitchen. There is a huge big planet that rotates every 24h and all in the team are from radically different timezones. Yet, we are perfectly coordinated through Slack, with a healthy dose of good sense. We all respect each other's opinions, despite whatever experience in any given field. We are not all in one office directly relating, let's not forget that.

Anyone that has experience in video/radio/audio/tv etc etc production knows how essential the script is. That is what took the longest. That is what defines every single subsequent frame in the animation. Every single word was scrutinised. We discussed it for weeks ad-nauseum until we reached a consensus on who the target audience is and what core ethos to transmit. And cram that all into just 250 words to explain our project to the world.

There are no delays. We do not want to rush things. I have been keeping the community well informed on the the progress through this thread.

https://dashtalk.org/threads/darkcoin-animated-video.2777/page-6

This is extremely serious! The community fundraises a project and obviously expects results. Our mission is to maximise those results, not to spend the money and produce just "something".

Not only is this a huge step for Dash (having it's first professional animated video), but it will linger in time, at least, the next couple of years. I've seen many real life multimedia projects take much much longer exactly because of real life ego-clashes (cooks in the kitchen). Here, there are none. We are a fine oiled coordinated work group with numerous opinions, but a clear and shared vision, scattered all over the world. Work has been steady and consistent.

The video launch is deliberately being delayed until after August. Not because it's September, or because of V.12 (but makes even more sense now)... but because August is a "dead" month and a shot in the foot as a release date for an extremely serious innovative financial instrument. This was discussed before v.12 testnet was even announced.

GreyGhost, having been involved in video production, surely you appreciate how impossible it is to roll-back from the script and storyboard. This is going to be our first real mainstream presentation to the world. We took a deep "development breath" in terms of strategy in hopes to best capture anyone and everyone all around planet Earth, in one single 1:30s shot presentation. It's not a simple task.

Tantestefana is not doing propaganda at all. Everyone interested in this project has been perfectly informed, and any questions/doubts have been addressed. We certainly do not want to burn fundraised money delivering a sub-standard product. Quite the opposite in fact.

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Anyone that has experience in video/radio/audio/tv etc etc production knows how essential the script is. That is what took the longest. That is what defines every single subsequent frame in the animation. Every single word was scrutinised. We discussed it for weeks ad-nauseum until we reached a consensus on who the target audience is and what core ethos to transmit. And cram that all into just 250 words to explain our project to the world.

After half a year of waiting everybody will expect to see a kind of masterpiece. :)

Well, yidakee If it really takes that long and scripting is the longest part... Maybe we need to start scripting additional targeted videos (3-7 videos) right now? To have a chance of gettnig some new videos when "New Year 2016" will come...
Is scripting requires external professionals and additional funds or we can start first stages inside (by) community?
 
After half a year of waiting everybody will expect to see a kind of masterpiece. :)

Well, yidakee If it really takes that long and scripting is the longest part... Maybe we need to start scripting additional targeted videos (3-7 videos) right now? To have a chance of gettnig some new videos when "New Year 2016" will come...
Is scripting requires external professionals and additional funds or we can start first stages inside (by) community?

" ...If it really takes that long ..."

yes it really takes that long !
they propose to us, we edit, they edit, we reedit,... and maybe edit again ....
this has nothing to do with "masterpiece" or not, we want to make this right so give it some time !
Where is the rush coming from ?
did anybody say in the beginning it will be 2 weeks ?
No , so relax !

Edit:
Erased my other post
(Was getting way to fire up)
 
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After half a year of waiting everybody will expect to see a kind of masterpiece. :)

Well, yidakee If it really takes that long and scripting is the longest part... Maybe we need to start scripting additional targeted videos (3-7 videos) right now? To have a chance of gettnig some new videos when "New Year 2016" will come...
Is scripting requires external professionals and additional funds or we can start first stages inside (by) community?

Half a year?

March/April we got funded. I can't find the donation address right now to time-stamp, but in this field, this is record time production.

It definitely is going to be a masterpiece

What defines a masterpiece? Effectiveness. The judge of that is in the future, not opinion. The only thing I can say is that extensive work has been made to create a script that is international, multi-cultural, ambiguous enough to not be 1% first world restrictive, easy, simple to follow, multilingual, non-tech etc etc.

If I had 1/10th of the funding for myself to produce a video explaining how to set up a Masternode, I could do it in a weekend with 100% hollywood shebang. It would be the easiest thing ever!

Reaching to everyone, something radically new, from age 5 to 105, from all cultures and walks of life... requires art.

Please stop pissing on this subject! The video is being actively produced. Judge the results, not the here-say.

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It definitely is going to be a masterpiece

What defines a masterpiece? Effectiveness. The judge of that is in the future, not opinion. The only thing I can say is that extensive work has been made to create a script that is international, multi-cultural, ambiguous enough to not be 1% first world restrictive, easy, simple to follow, multilingual, non-tech etc etc.

Sorry a bit off topic, but... I hope I do not hurt you.
I just wanted to say we shouldn't make 100% of bets to this single video. It may be effective, but may be not also. Dash needs several videos (targeted) to choose from.

I don't have experience with videos, but had some with web-sites. And have seen lots of examples when "50$ ugly-looking landing page" was in fact more effective (more sales/ROI) then "3000$ masterpiece-looking landing pages". It is impossible to predict effectiveness 100% in theory - only real tests with real visitors show the real effectiveness.

So my idea still is: "Maybe we need to start scripting additional targeted videos (3-7 videos) right now?"
 
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