Daniel Ross

Hi Dan! Great post. Your explanation of blockchain, its purpose and its current limitations is awesome. I agree with you, blockchain has the potential to disrupt multiple industries and the way they conduct business. Some of these industries include banking, healthcare, real estate, education and as you mentioned, even politics. I was interested to see learn more about how blockchain is could potentially be used in politics and found blockchain will make it impossible for elections to be rigged. It will “take care of voter registration and verification of identity, it would then ensure only legitimate votes were counted”. Although blockchain as a long way to go and issues that need to be addressed before it can be adopted, blockchain will inevitably be a game changer for many industries.
https://www.inc.com/john-white/9-industries-that-will-soon-be-disrupted-by-blockchain.html

Great post Dan! Didn’t realize how many different ways blockchain technology can be used besides in cryptocurrency and how disruptive it potentially can be. I wanted to gather more information on what other industries can utilize blockchain technology. For example, I found that Spotify is currently utilizing blockchain technology with its attribution issues with licensing. Turns out that the majority of music on streaming services is unlicensed. Since more and more companies are making movements to increase streaming services to consumers, I’m curious how blockchain technology will be incorporated into things besides music. For example, Disney+ just dropped today, wonder how they handle their attribution. Just food for thought.

Spotify acquires blockchain startup Mediachain to solve music’s attribution problem

Excellent job Dan! You called out the deficiencies that are inherent in block chain. Finally, there is a realist!!

Thank you, Dan, for a simple and elegant explanation (after reading your post, I have a working understanding of what blockchain is). Without a doubt, this innovative technology has the potential for a massive and far-reaching disruption. You, however, addressed my primal concern. Hacking. If it is possible, hacking will lead to disastrous outcomes at the very minimum. When it comes to data, the currency of today’s business world, storage, and transfer solutions get increasingly sophisticated and “unbreakable.” Unfortunately, hackers also get proportionally skilled and creative. I believe security is and will remain the issue, or rather one “wicked” blockchain problem.

Great post, Dan! I like that you addressed the issues with blockchain and took a systems thinking approach that if you put incorrect data or information ‘in’, it cannot be changed and will get incorrect information ‘out’. I thought this was particularly interesting in regard to elections and that blockchains can still be hacked and rewritten if 51% of the computers on a network are controlled. Thanks for making think deeper about this technology.

Test

Agreed. 100%. Blockchain sounding “cool” and “hip” is not quite enough reason to forecast that it will take over the world. Maybe there are folks that have been playing around in the space since inception or maybe it makes sense to a finance professional, but the average joe doesn’t necessarily get this and moreover; it’s messing with my money!

Awesome post Dan! You explained blockchain perfectly and made it so much easier for me to understand. It’s interesting to learn that Blockchain has significant drawbacks that need to be addressed before the technology can be widely adopted by the mainstream.

Great Post Dan! I appreciate you explaining in laymen terms what Blockchain is and its potential to disrupt most industries, while also being careful to point out it’s current flaws — which why there are folks I know (including myself) that have a healthy fear of Blockchain technology. I do think the potential to influence the way goods/services are exchanged is a mind-blowing innovation, but I’m with you — I too need to see more work being done on the security front.

This is ingenious! I’m not a technology guru, but man does this serve a purpose! Do you think we should have a third party or regulated governing body to make sure that the inputs are correct? This could possibly help prevent false information being injected into the system.

Dan, I think this idea is awesome and something web users don’t normally think about. People are too trusting of information they see on the internet, especially if someone they trust is sharing/promoting/or using it to back their own opinions. The fact that this innovation even goes as far as showing the verification sources gives end users additional trusted resources to utilize when surfing the web.

Would the “tooltip” box dropping down from that icon automatically show upon initial page load or is this something that will only appear if the end user clicks the icon?

Dan, this is a great idea. One possible funding idea could potentially be legitimate news organizations. Have news organizations that are truthful help pay for such a feature would only help to highlight their content more over the fake news. I agree with you that social platforms should also help to pay for such a technology. The value proposition being that these legitimate news sources would generate more readers for the news organizations and better reputation with the public for social media sites.

I love this idea and it makes me wonder how this can be used on social media. It was just released that Facebook will be removing its grey verification badge to prove to viewers that the business pages were ‘verified.’ Their reasoning for removal is due to public confusion on what the badge mean. I think your idea has the potential to solve a lot of this and would love it to trickle down to a main-stream symbol for authenticity.

Good read!

Great Read Dan! I completely agree with you when you mentioned the issues they will have with moderating. Who’s to say someone can’t just use the technology to almost vandalize a building? I can imagine MARK coming up with a Community Guidelines like many other social media platforms use. For example, Instagram discusses guidelines for posting photos and videos that are appropriate for a diverse audience and in gernal just following the law and respecting one another. It also mentions in the article that companies will have the opportunity to remove the art at any time.

I would also be curious how this type of technology will be received in the art community. Whether it is a successful professional artist or just your everyday joe, I would love to see artists really embracing this technology and using it in their art.

This was so fun to read, Dan! I like that you considered the potential issues that could arise in regard to how this type of technology and user generated content will be regulated. I think Erin makes a good point about community guidelines that could be enforced and even ‘flagged’ as offensive content to be taken down. Do you think it differs from real graffiti in that the user potentially faces more consequences since the content created is tied to a username/account?

After reading the Hunger Games case study, I think it would be interesting to follow this trend as it could be used to ‘blur the lines’ between company and user generated content and create an immersive experience as a consumer.

Dan, awesome post! This concept is fascinating to me as well. One of the first things that popped into my mind about this type of technology is the same question Erin brought up, who is to say someone can’t use the technology to vandalize buildings or post dangerous content? With this new type of technology comes risks and you brought up a valid point that this type of application will face some major issues regarding hateful user generated content. How do you think this will be monitored? It seems Mark AR has already taken some steps to try to avoid this by making sensitive places such as memorials off limits on the app. They also have a “no anonymity policy” that prohibits anonymous posts, but will that actually keep users from posting hateful content? I think it’s a step in the right direction for Mark AR to avoid hateful user generated content, but I do not believe it will stop people from posting harmful content.