Posts

My Impression of Media Officials, RocketX

avatar of @inertia
25
inertia Ⓐ³
@inertia
·
0 views
·
4 min read

TL;DR: So far, not impressed.

Let me back up a little bit. The idea is great. It's like a tribe of tribes. But I have some concerns. Normally, I wouldn't be too worried about a work-in-progress. There's more at stake than that because it has a tradable asset and is being promoted.

When @instructor2121 was on Curation Corner (July 9th), @shadowspub asked some great questions:

Let me break down the answers that were given.

What is RocketX?

As it pertains to Media Officials, the purpose of RocketX is to extend Nitrous, which is itself an extension of Condenser. Presumably, any feature that is specific to the needs of Media Officials, that is not provided by Nitrous or Condenser, would be added to RocketX.

Near as I can tell, RocketX is not being actively worked on:

https://github.com/freedomexio/rocketx-condenser

This is not a conclusive measure of code progress. Maybe all the code is being committed to a private repo.

There's also some talk of a separate sidechain, somehow RocketX is supposed to work with its own sidechain, also not actively being worked on:

https://github.com/freedomexio/rocketx-ssc

So what is RocketX? For all intents and purposes, right now, it's an abandoned fork of Nitrous.

What might RocketX be, some day? It might be an exciting alternative to Steem Engine. It would be great to compete with Steem Engine. Competition makes everything better. If it's going to be that, it all depends on the team. Do they have the developers? Do they have the direction and vision to pull it off? Or is it all just a mishmash of ideas with no actual plan?

Media Officials: What is it?

Apparently Mike Stark registered 1,300 to 1,500 domains with his friend over beers. Are you into Fashion? FashionOfficials.com! Are you into Sports? SportsOfficials.com! It sounds like a business model from 1996.

But I do get it. They want to direct organic traffic. Basically, SEO on steroids. They want to be the one-stop-shop for buzz. But instead of a single domain with lots of sub-categories, they do it with domains.

One of the innovations that has yet to be defined is how to do one-domain-one-tag. Right now, if you tag mediaofficials + fashion so that your post shows up on FashionOfficials.com, that post still shows up on SportsOfficials.com.

The reason they currently all show the same content, according to @instructor2121, is to demonstrate the proof of concept to investors. Excuse me, but rolling out 10 sites that show the same content is not the innovation you need to prove. You need to prove that you can do one-domain-one-tag or something along those lines.

Also, take a look at this:

Backed by WordPress: mediaofficials.com Backed by Steem: mediaofficials.io

One is backed by WordPress, which has users yet to be migrated, the other is backed by Steem. They are not integrated. The WordPress site links to other WordPress categories. So, they're probably in the middle of transitioning.

So, what is MediaOfficials? It's a bunch of domains in slowly "transitioning" from a WordPress site over (circa 2012) to Steem backed content with a few unique headers and exactly the same content across all of the transitioned domains. It's a hot mess. Don't even get me started on canonical URLs.

What might MediaOfficials be, some day? It might be an exciting solution that allows you to post content from any Steem client by tagging your post so that it appears on a dedicated domain. Again, like the RocketX idea it all depends on the team. In fact, does this hypothetical rollout depend on RocketX development?

Media Officials: Is there support for non-blockchain login?

Ideally, regular users without a blockchain account should be able to just log in and start posting.

The thing I take issue with is how @instructor2121 said it works like that, when it doesn't.

Shadows: Am I understanding that correctly? They can log in with their social media ... and they get a blockchain account attached to their account ... without them even noticing it? Instructor: Yep. Correct, yes.

I understand that's what @instructor2121 envisions, but that's not how it currently works. That's misleading. It's one thing to describe a lofty design goal. It's another thing to claim it does something, right now, when it doesn't.

So, is there support for non-blockchain login?* No, they are not integrated. The WordPress-backed sites have social-media login. The Steem-backed sites have blockchain login.

Might there be support for non-blockchain login, some day? Who knows? That's a tough nut to crack. Again, it all depends on the team.

Media Officials: How are you onboarding them so smoothly?

They aren't. All @instructor2121 did was serious hand-waving in this answer. He accused Steemit, Inc. of not being up to the task but Media Officials offers nothing in terms of blockchain onboarding.