Why You Aren’t Testing Blockchain Innovation

Before we dive in letamp8217s get the relevant definitions out of the wayquotBlockchainquotamp160amp160Blockchain is a protocol for value transfer in the same way that HTTP is a protocol for information transferamp160 Itamp8217s better to think about it as VTP value transfer protocol rather than blockchain because the latter has a short neural pathway to bitcoin which is misleading Bitcoin is a financial product built on the blockchain value transfer protocol The protocol includes three key features 1 a distributed digital ledger of transactions 2 a consensus mechanism for verifying transactions and 3 a tokenized asset that can be used for value transfer in transactionsquotInnovationquot amp160Simply stated innovation is about solving an old problem in a new wayamp160 I like to think about marketing as an engineamp160 There are some parts that are going to squeak break and underperformamp160 Innovation is solving those issues with new tools amp160not because they are shiny and new but because the old tools werenamp8217t doing it well enoughI am not currently using blockchain technology with any of my clients but we are actively considering several areas that blockchain might be able to address amp160The real advantage is if blockchain can help solve an issue or improve on a process to help us gain efficiency and effectivenessLetamp8217s review the potential advantages and challenges to the three most promising problems that blockchain is evolving to addressMedia Qualityamp160 Itamp8217s no secret that the digital media industry has a problem ensuring highquality media delivery amp160MetaX has established a registry website with the goal of determining a whitelist of highquality media partners amp160The initiative sets up a value exchange where member sites make a monetary deposit for tokens amp160Members can use these tokens to vote and challenge the validity of any other member based on the quality of their media amp160In theory the economic incentives of token holders are aligned with the goal to output a list of highquality media partners amp160In practice however there is no universal definition of highquality because it is a highly subjective term amp160In the initial MetaX test The New York Times and Facebook were voted off even though it could be argued that both of them are highquality media sitesamp160 amp8220Argueamp8221 is the operative word here as ideally there would be no argument and weamp8217d have a singular definition of what highquality is that everyone agrees on amp160Good luck with thatSmart Contractsamp160 The digital supply chain is incredibly inefficient amp160The industry has become accustomed to accepting the approximately 10 discrepancy rate chiefly because reconciliation is an exercise in complicated contract settling amp160There is hope that blockchain technology can tokenize and automate this highly manual work with the adoption of smart contracts which are contract terms that have been translated to code that automatically enforces the terms of the agreement amp160For example when we buy media we have contract terms that set up conditions for make goods if publishers donamp8217t deliver on the guaranteed inventory amp160A smart contract could check automatically if inventory is fulfilled in a digital media buy and if there are any issues automatically reduce the invoice amount to the client amp160Right now that takes multiple people steps and days to accomplish amp160Itamp8217s a great concept but the challenge is testingamp160 This is labor intensive to set up and the stakes are highamp160 If it isnamp8217t working quickly teams will abandon it amp160Thankfully this is an area where GroupM is evaluating vendors and testing so we can implement a solution that has already been validatedTransparencyamp160 Supply chain transparency has been a major issue since the dawn of programmatic where each company employs its own transactional tax amp160Blockchain transactions by definition are fully transparent as every transaction is public and immutable The issue is we can set up a ledger but without a standard digital asset we donamp8217t have anything that can act as value to transfer within the blockchain system amp160The challenge is views and impressions are not standard across media and mediums amp160A Facebook video view is threeamp160seconds a YouTube view is 30 secondsamp160 amp160One way to standardize it is around attention amp160One second of attention is an equalizer across platforms amp160Parsec has been tokenizing attention and running campaigns on the blockchain amp160It isnamp8217t solving transparency yet but at least itamp8217s moving the conversation forwardamp160 Iamp8217m expecting big things out of them in the future amp160The ultimate point here is that transparency requires a common language another reason why we need industry standard content labels amp160What we give up in terms of flexibility we gain back in having a common language to automate reporting and enable our teams to focus on what the data means rather than on manually organizing it into spreadsheetsWe all want to find new innovative ways to solve problems and blockchain as a new foundational value transfer protocol has real promise amp160At present most of the news is focused around cryptocurrencies which have no bearing on media blockchain innovation and there is also defensive news from large banking and technology companies that want to stay ahead of the new technology and prevent disruptionDonamp8217t feel bad if you arenamp8217t testing blockchain innovation yetamp160 This is the time to learn evaluate and find the first opportunities to test real innovation that solves old problems in new waysPhoto creditamp160 FancycraveUnsplashClick the social buttons above or below to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Why You Aren’t Testing Blockchain Innovation

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Charlie Fiordalis

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Why You Aren’t Testing Blockchain Innovation

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