Why Do We Need an Augmented Web? (part 2)

Beginning: https://teletype.in/@dapplets/why-do-we-need-an-augmented-web-part1

How do you stop the Unstoppable?

How can we stop the unstoppable?

The answer is very simple and straightforward – we can't stop it.

But we can stop the user from using that app.

To achieve this, we need to break the app owner’s monopoly over the user's attention.

That's why we're developing an Augmented web Platform. We enable the user to assemble his own UX from a variety of sources. The user will get information in the right form and at the right time, at the point of taking a decision.

And that’s directly on the site where it is located.

What is Augmented Web?

It is an "augmented reality" platform for conventional websites built on crypto technologies.

Our platform allows the user to gather information from various sources and embed it seamlessly into the pages of websites without being censored. He receives aggregated information from the entire community, all the knowledge and experience. And he gets it exactly where he needs it – at the point and time of taking a decision. This helps the user make the right decisions.

Businesses can also benefit from our platform. This is because they gain access to established communities and offer their services to those who are directly interested in them, without paying the platform the "right of access" to the community and without fear of being blocked.

However, integration of businesses and transfer of expert evaluations are only a small part of the platform's possible functionality. We'll look at possible applications of the technology later.

Social Impact of Augmented Web

What could be the global impact of Augmented Web? Let’s try to see the whole as the integral sum of its parts.

Social media users will be able to merge their accounts on different platforms and add crypto wallets to them. It allows a worldwide decentralized reputation system and economically incentivized communities which are not limited by a single social platform. Even more, it will work for already existing communities and websites!

Users will be able to create their own news feeds from a variety of sources. They will be able to resist blocking by the platform and seamlessly broadcast their content to different social networking sites without the platform's approval.

Users get an additional level of information security and health. Just because we provide access to the collective experience of the entire community at the point of opinion formation and critical decision making, it will be almost impossible for mass media platforms to encage their users into any mental frame.

So, in such a case, social network platforms and the mass media will no longer have a critical influence on people’s minds. Instead, they would become what they should be: just a technical hoster of news and of the user generated content.

Our platform has a huge audience, and this is only a small part of the application ideas.

Business Cases

Today we're at the very beginning of the journey. The technology has been developed, but the application options are still emerging.

We see a lot of development ideas. Some of them are presented on this picture. The main areas are worth mentioning separately.

We want to change the standard workflow for many businesses.

We all know that businesses usually buy paid traffic to their landing pages, and then handle incoming leads. We're ready to help firms access targeted communities directly. Entrepreneurs will be able to offer their services where they are exactly needed.

We want to simplify the NFT experience and make it seamless. NFT creation, demonstration and trading will be integrated into the existing web.

We see great potential in organizing betting games. To achieve this, we are integrating crypto projects that work with Prediction Markets.

But this is only what we see ourselves.

Our platform is built as an open source and public good project. We delegate app development to independent developers and business owners.

Our goal is to build a complete framework for these independent developers and define the rules of community building.

Augmented Web: How it works

How does Augmented Web work?

Let's imagine a common situation: a user opens a browser and visits a site. The browser displays the data received from the server.

The server is under the control of the website owner, and today the browser shows what the owner wants (and doesn't show anything he doesn't want).

But the browser itself is under user control and that's the key to solving the problem.

We add to the browser an augmentation engine that embeds small apps, called dapplets, directly into the website page.

These dapplets are stored in decentralized repositories and are also unstoppable – no one can remove or disable them.

The user receives information from different sources at a time - the site content from the site owner, and its interpretation from any third-party sources he chooses for himself. This augmentation would be seamless and contextualized.

Let's see how this all works from the inside.

Let's take a look at a site and some dapplets that we want to embed in its context.

Our platform consists of several adapters responsible for working with content, the overlay panel, the core, and the dapplets themselves.

The adapters are responsible for embedding certain elements like buttons, badges, and other controls, into site pages.

Content Adapter is responsible for embedding widgets in the right place on the website. It is responsible for all low-level work with the website.

ViewPort Adapter handles widgets attached to an application window, not to a specific site. For example, they might be floating buttons.

Virtual Adapter allows you to work with specific sites or categories of sites. We can have an adapter for Twitter, or a single adapter for a social networking site. Virtual Adapter gives you a single interface to work with different Content Adapters.

Overlay panel is a sidebar that allows you to display additional advanced information as needed.

The core is responsible for additional functionality such as connecting wallets, authorization and other services needed for the convenience and management of the platform.

Let's see what this looks like with a real-life example.

This is a Twitter page. We have added a bunch of dapplets to it.

In this example, there are two buttons built into the menu, label and badges on profile image, post selection, "Fake" sticker and others.

It's important to understand that we only embed small elements into the page; these elements don't break the integrity of the website or spoil its UX.

All additional functionality is placed on the overlay panel, which opens with a click on a particular dapplet.

We do not change the user's usual UX. All he sees before him is the parent site with some added elements in its design.

If we open the app itself, we can enable or disable the dapplets linked to this site or configure their operation.

Crypto Inside

Now let's talk about why we are a crypto project.

The work of our platform is based on several crypto technologies, so it cannot be stopped or prohibited by 3-rd party.

We are using blockchain for saving dapplets registries. At this point we work with Ethereum and Near networks.

We are using decentralized storage, like Swarm, IPFS and Arweave for hosting dapplets code and multimedia.

We have our own crypto-economy based on well-known patterns, like Token Curated Registries, Prediction Markets etc.

We are a true crypto project! Our augmentations are decentralized, unstoppable, permissionless and token-incentivized.

In the part 3, we will talk about how the Augmenting Platform works and how everybody can participate in the project: https://teletype.in/@dapplets/why-do-we-need-an-augmented-web-part3