ProTip is a lightweight bitcoin wallet that helps people be rewarded for doing what they love anywhere on the web. Running in the chrome browser ProTip automatically detects bitcoin addresses and tips websites owners according to how much time the user spends on the page and their weekly budget.
# Why?
ProTip exists to help professionals and content producers be rewarded for their work.
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# How?
ProTip is currently a working prototype that runs as a Google Chrome extension. It helps artists connect with their audience using the decentralised payment network Bitcoin. A user browsing the web can set a weekly budget in the app and as their surf ProTip automatically detects bitcoin addresses and monitors how much time is spent on each page. At the end of the week a top 10 list is collated and the amount of money is proportioned to each site according to the amount of time on each visit. This puts the user in control of their weekly spending habits and gives artists a way to invite people to help. No plugin is required, no technical knowhow. A Bitcoin wallet takes seconds to instal so artists can very quickly copy and paste the addresses in to the Youtube/Soundcloud or personal websites to start raising money. We encourage artists to use a call to action similar to the ones they have used before i.e.:
“Like this page”
“Subscribe to my channel”
In this case the call to action is:
“Subscribe using ProTip to help me fund my work” Finally we have a website where we showcase artists work: http://ProTip.is. It also includes a one click instal of the app for Chrome Users and gives us the opportunity to showcase the work of rising artists.
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# Digital Prototype
Following a successful crowd fund on Indiegogo we have already delivered a stable prototype with minimal features to get the community off the ground. In fact we released ahead of schedule and delivered more features than we committed to. The app currently supports but is not limited to the main features: - Auto Bitcoin Address Detection in HTML Header or Body Text including inside hyperlinks and alt/title tags - Auto or manual weekly payment with confirmation - Subscribe to favourite artists - Ignore/blacklisting feature to prevent payment to unintended websites - Import and exporting of bitcoin private key - In app links to recommended artists For our next trick we want to create a bitcoin faucet exclusively to ProTip users to help incentivise the direct p2p payment to content producers on the web but this will require more funding.
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# Evidence of Demand
What evidence of demand do you have for your specific product or service? (200 words max.): * e.g. user co-design, focus groups, trial, usage.
We have seen many products such as Flattr and Patreon try to address the issue of online payments for artists and educators online as the existing payment mechanisms and business models like advertising have not been working.
We had a lot of user feedback in the creation of ProTip with an open document with request for comments and Youtube livestreams with direct feedback from users.
At the time of writing the W3C have announced the launch of a working group to address the online payment issue http://www.w3.org/2015/09/webpaymentswg.html
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# Who Are The Beneficiaries
Who are the key users of your product or service and how will they benefit? (100 words max.):
Anyone who creates content on the web, educators, musicians, photographers etc.
# Number of Beneficiaries?
How many people (best estimate) will directly benefit from your product or service during the period you are requesting funding for?: Only numeric values e.g. 10000. No commas, currency symbols or words please.
1000-10000
# Previous Experience
What previous experience do you or your organisation have that is relevant to this project? (200 words max.): e.g. other projects, partners worked/working with, links to community.
Chris Ellis and Leo Campbell have over 10 years of experience working in software development. Chris was one of the founder of Feathercoin one of the first cryptocurrencies to launch back in 2013. Full CVs can be found on our Indiegogo Page https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/protip-peer-to-peer-tipping-for-the-web#/
# Tech Expertise
What is the source of your tech expertise for this project?: e.g. tech co-founder, in house development team, external partner organisation.
We have in house development from Leo Campbell as lead developer and partnerships with David Bovill, Melvin Carvalho and Riccardo Casatta.
The marketing and social drive is headed up by Chris Ellis who has more than 5 years experience working in social media marketing.