Brave Partners with Never Stop Marketing

tl;dr: Brave shows us the future of the publisher-consumer relationship and signs on as the first sponsor of the Blockchain MarTech & AdTech Landscape.

The publishing industry is hurting…big time.

Before you get deep into this post, download the Brave browser. Then, get a copy of the newest Blockchain MarTech & AdTech Landscape. I'll wait.

The Long, Slow Death of Online Journalism 1.0

By some estimates, over 2,000 journalists have lost their jobs in the past few weeks. It may not be over.

With the exception of a very few publications like the NY Times and Wall St. Journal, paywalls don’t work and, even if they do, many people resent them.

Of course, this isn’t the fault of journalists. It’s the effect of 20 years of digital erosion on the analog print business, with the final death blows being administered by Facebook over the past few years, as the centralized super-aggregator and kingmaker of news.

It looks bleak.

But might there be another way?

It’s Time to Be Brave

The team at Brave certainly thinks so. And it wants everyone to know it.

After one of the most successful and unusual ICOs in history-they sold out in 30 seconds– they have built a very fast, very secure, very reliable, and very interoperable browser that is growing in popularity.

Back in August, they hit 10 million downloads in the Play Store, and they grew from 3 million to 4 million monthly active users in just 2 months in early Fall.

The magic of Brave is in how effectively and efficiently it blocks ad tracking software, which I profiled here in VentureBeat.

FWIW, it’s been my default browser for nearly 5 months now and it is noticeable when I have to go back to Chrome in terms of speed, ads, and privacy.

Brave Rewards

Where the browser really offers a glimpse of the future, however, is in the “Brave Rewards” function.

Brave shows that a different future is possible.

From the Rewards interface, you can build a direct relationship with your favorite sites and tip them with micro-payments (something that is really only possible with crypto).

If you have the Brave browser, feel free to tip the Never Stop Marketing. We’ve already earned a few dollars in very limited testing 

We know people are willing to pay for premium content. Patreon has over 1 million paying customer and has paid out over $150mm to its content creators. They take a 5% cut though.

An Alternative Future for Content Sites and Consumers

Brave sees a different future and it is one of the reasons that they have partnered with Dow Jones.

In that future, consumers can engage with their favorite content sites in two different ways.

1. The first is an ad-free and tracker-free environment.

That promise could become a part of a site’s unique value proposition. Instead of a warning about cookies,

You could get a notice that says

“We don’t track anything about you. We don’t use your data at all. Hope you are ok with that.”

2. The second is where consumers are paid directly to see ads. This is why the Brave token is called the ‘Basic Attention Token. [BAT]’

So, if you go to a site and you have to look at ads, at least you are being compensated directly for it. Those BATs go into your wallet and you can either tip site or cash out. Up to you.

The Unfolding Future

Admittedly, we’ve got a ways to go to realize any part of this future. Legitimate questions remain about whether people will, in fact, tip-even with micro-payments.

What we see with Brave, however, is a bold experiment to find a way to build direct, meaningful, value-based relationships between content producers and consumers that gives individuals power, privacy, and choice in their experiences.

It may work. It may not work, but the current model is definitely broken. Of that, there is no doubt.

Brave Partners with Never Stop Marketing

This is why Brave has signed on as the first sponsor of the Blockchain Marketing and Advertising Technology Landscape.

In its third version, we have seen the number of companies and projects using blockchain, like Brave does, increase from 22 to over 250 in just 18 months.

So much within the marketing and advertising landscape is broken now. Privacy is an afterthought. Relationships are controlled by Google and Facebook, creating chokepoints.

There are thousands of people innovating to change that and Brave is leading the way. To their credit, Brave wants everyone to know that there may just be another way.

It is an honor to be partners with them as we all work to help everyone recognize that the status quo need not be the status quo.