Alpha 2 is not going to be much different to these last couple of testnets. I’d say alpha 3 with home vaults (IIRC) will be the one to make some noise about. Alpha 2 will still be “centralised” vaults, but the APPs certainly can make some noise when alpha 2 is running.
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Any ideas yet on how you are going to do this? Via the maidsafe.net site? or blogs? or press releases? or series of topics here? or …? Obviously I realise you may not yet know how, but just in case you do, I ask.
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Alpha 3 will be the secured autonomous network. so routing nodes from home for anyone to attack. We may even offer rewards to attack that, but it will not have data (i.e. not a vault), that’s alpha 4 (not a huge step). Alpha 2 is a huge deal, the work is massive and the team have done amazing things, but it is mimicking the current Internet to an extent. So we are playing into the feed a tesla car hay type thing there to. We also need to get that right. It’s more like, “of course you can do what the Internet does” and if you ignore the power of this then it might even feel like just the Internet. It’s really much more than that, but alpha 3/4 need to back that up. So we need Alpha 2 for mutable data, dynamic apps/sites and more, but there is a much bigger thing in the background that will run this. Some apps will show the capability of what the Internet cannot currently do, and that will be where we all start to think, oh! A bit like the message in an earlier testnet that sent a private key of a bitcoin wallet, simple, but said a lot.
@viv had a great description of this when he said, "it’s like we are building a quantum computer that will tackle previously impossible tasks but it seems for people to understand it then it has to be able to run minesweeper first 
" I think that says a lot actually.
So its a mammoth task and just cannot all be done at once, I wish it could, but yes I do get your point, if folk can accuse or find a reason to doubt they will (probably correctly), regardless. This is the dichotomy I think the industry has, rather than demonstrating progress (so not finished) there is sometimes more belief in papers and chatter. So we are in a strange place where we demonstrate progress, but the remaining part is the Achilles heel, however if we demonstrated no progress (so did not start) but chatted about it and published loads of papers shouting about them and wrote a ton of almost related clever blog posts it would be seen as world changing Kinda weird, but true. Interesting adjunct
IMHO, it’s such a big, difficult thing to explain that it takes a ton of papers (which we do have) and nobody will read them all, even some of our devs have not, but then folk tell us they don’t exist. We do need to improve communications a lot though, for sure.
TL;DR, Our communications needs to drastically improve, not move into hype, but clearly define SAFE and where we are right now, which is actually a terrific place for us in house anyway (we are in a great place design wise, just implementation design and speed that annoys us)
Not sure really Rob, I think it will be a mix of many of these, but planned more than usual and some of us taking the time to speak with journalists etc. We, or me for sure, spend so much time rejecting approaches from so many people for so many project ideas and things it makes you a bit insular, but we need to reach out to industry commentators and beyond to relay the correct pitch. However we will have our usual, not too soon approach So we need to get better, but not mental or knee jerk. We have a PR company and the guy there is really amazing. So we have the capability to do this when we want, we just need to pitch it perfectly and with the correct levels of excitement linked with launches/tests etc. So rather than us just releasing a testnet/alpha/beta we should make sure it’s seen by as many as possible. Then I think we all benefit from increased participation and better tests as well.
[EDIT sorry folks, I think I might be derailing this thread, happy if it’s moved in any case]
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Very pleased to hear you say this. Hire a professional to help with this. All respect intended, and I truly mean that, so far this is a big fail for you and accounts for a lot of the reason MaidSafe gets overlooked, and will continue to get overlooked.
You have tremendous talent David, but it’s not in this department.
18 hours a day,. 7 days a week, 365 days a year for 12 years can cause a little tunnel vision.
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Hooray. By George I think you’ve got it
Yep. Don’t waste your precious time on marketing. Others can do that
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Yes, even though “Build it and they will come” is true for the Safe Network if you wait long enough, the movement will need some marketing pizzazz in the beginning to really take off. Not too early to think about hiring a marketing wiz who can simplify the concept, package it for mass adoption and propel the project forward.
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And of course they won’t just come if its not yet built and live.
Once its live then its a different story. APPs will be the draw card as well as testSafecoin.
Just watch MAID once testSAFEcoin is incorporated into the tests.
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Yep. Spend time doing what you do best. Spend money hiring people that can do the things that are equally important, but fall outside your skillsets.
The smartest guys in the world are not always successful. Mostly because they think they know everything. Smart and successful people know their limitations.
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I could attest to this! I am new to the crypto world and have a basic understanding of computers, networks, internet, etc… But, I am considered the goto “computer guy” for my family and close friends. I still have a hard time grasping the full features that make SAFE an amazing venture, even after reading about this for months. I have tried to explain this to some of my coworkers and they don’t understand what i am talking about. I can’t discuss this to most of my family because they don’t have a clue. IMHO - I think educating people is going to be the main challenge. As dirvine said “difficult thing to explain that it takes a ton of papers (which we do have) and nobody will read them all”, but even if people did read them, I don’t think the general public would really understand. So, how do we transfer knowledge/educate folks to understand this. Obviously, a fully functional SAFE platform would be great. Marketing would be great. Marketing strategy with release of test nets, great. But, I think the educational aspect could start immediately and have significant benefits. This will take some effort to create, maybe stuff already exists (if so I have not seen it). This would also help to differentiate SAFE from others. If folks think it is worth it and it does not already exist, I could take a stab at making a clean “1 pager” to highlight the differences…
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I completely agree. I think we need a 10 word, 100 word and 1000 word explanation (or something like that anyway) which we can point people towards.
I was thinking before that a friendly competition to come up with these explanations could be a good idea, with a winner for each category.
(edited for understandibilityness)
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I am a little bit sceptical about that. Reading is not the strenght of people these days. The best thing in my opinion would be, if you spread videos (Youtube). Videos which explain the safenetwork in a really simple and clear way so people can follow easily. The real challenge is to explain the complex things about Safenetwork to normal people. With normal people I mean people with a understanding of how to turn a computer on and how to browse through the internet, if you know what I mean. 
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Why not cover all mediums. Promo vids, easy reads, info graphics are a favorite as well. I think a lot can be learned from the Dash and Pivx communities and how well they manage to market themselves. It’s not really our flavor I know but always looks sleek and consistent and is always on social media and in plain site.
I really liked one pivx did recently where people from all over the world would receive piv for posting a pic of them with the app open with a QR code visible. Was just neat seeing all the faces and how far and wide it seemingly has spread.
Sorry for continuing this OT thread
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I think this is the picture we need to emphasize in a way that is simple, quick and easily digested - when the time comes.
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Yes, Lets do it …Collaboration.
Technical Guys :- Look into the project offer help if any, Test testnets.
Non Technical guys :- Talk about more on social media. Test testnets.
Traders :- Check out the fast pace development , Every Thursday there are exciting news.
People who want to become rich quickly :-Guys please stop whining . People are burnt in hard work appreciate it. Believe on David Irvine and Team.
Me :- I am learning daily about awesomeness of Data Chains.
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Agree with using all communication types. But, I think we need to highlight the differences, but just as important, the benefit(s) the difference makes. So we explain how and why these new innovations are important…
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I think the maidsafe website should have a couple guides and explain things in terms of the browser and decentralized web apps.
Explain that you can download a browser, use it to browse SAFE websites and show some examples.
Next is to have a guide for developers. The information is out there just spread a lot and it also takes time to figure out what is outdated and not.
It would be good to have a guide that has a section for explaining the network, its architecture, how consensus is achieved, datachains etc. It would be nice if this could be available in one big guide that you could read from a to b with different levels of detail depending on if you just want an overview or you want to know the details of how things work. At the moment this is spread over blog posts, RFCs, white papers and forum posts, but it’s not really obvious where to get started or which order to read things, like what do you need to know before starting to read about data chains for example.
Apart from how the network works is how to write apps. Here it would be good with getting started guides for writing web apps and native apps for Mac, Windows and Linux.
There’s already some getting started guides in forum posts etc, but again it takes time to find if you’re visiting the maidsafe website and it’s not obvious what is outdated or not.
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Another thing which is difficult to grasp at first and would be nice if was explained a bit on the website, is how much is actually possible without compute.
If you’re a web developer you might initially think many things that are possible would need compute.
Similarly if you are used to ethereum etc and have dabbled a bit with smart contracts, you might not realize that many things you might do with smart contracts could be done in SAFE before compute/smart contracts is implemented, just in very different ways.
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I think the best way to illustrate capabilities is with demos, both live stuff people can try out and videos showing what can be done.
The really interesting stuff to me, which David keeps alluding to, are the new capabilities that go beyond what is possible with the existing Internet. I’d love to see some of these enumerated in a series of blog posts and one or two showcased as demos. I am intrigued personally, but I think it is this area that will be important in differentiating SAFEnetwork and getting people to pay attention.
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Hi, can i please request an invite. Thanks
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