Boosts for Blogs

What exactly is Boosts for Blogs?  Well, to be frankly honest, I'm not so sure yet. The core concept is a tipping system for blogs similar to what podcasting 2.0 has done for podcasting.  Outside of that, it's wide open.

There currently is not a easy place to research the different lightning payment platforms, or at least not one that I could find after practicing a couple hours of Google-Fu as my friend TheGoldenDragon would put it.

I would like to start a database through user input rating these difference lightning payment providers and their respective user tools to answer some key questions:

• What is the cost?
• How open is it?
• Is it secure?
• How easy is it to use?
• Does it contain ad trackers?
• Is it a bait and switch?

I haven't decided how to go about that yet, so leave a comment below or join me on Matrix in the Boosts for Blogs room on my server, leave a comment below, or even boost in!

What I envision is not only a system of tools for bloggers and other content creators to integrate different payment options, but also a set of tools to fairly rate different services in key categories:

• Tooling and Widgets
• Compatibility
• Open Infrastructure
• Security
• Overall Score

Tooling and Widgets

What exactly is a widget?  In this case we're talking about snippets of code that can easily be placed into your existing site to add functionality.  A few examples:

• The donate button located at the bottom of my site
• The <meta name="lightning" content="lnurlp:beardedtek@getalby.com"> tag which enables the Alby browser plugin to easily send a lightning payment.
• Mash's monetization platform
• Alby's Simple Boost which gives an easy way to boost into your blog.
• BTCPay's Self-Hosted Server
• Many, many more than can be listed here

We can rate this category with the following criteria:

• Ease of use
• Quality of documentation
• Functionality
• Usefulness

Compatibility

Making this accessible to all is important.  It should be supported on multiple platforms, browsers, apps, operating systems, and even print media.  Additionally, different payment platforms should be included.

Lightning payments will be at the forefront, but we cannot forget about other ubiquitous platforms such as PayPal, Stripe, Square and others.

Looking at the payment market as a whole is important, otherwise you could completely alienate an entire group of users.

Ratings can be derived from:

• OS support
• Browser Compatibility
• Configuration
• Lightning Compatibility
• Alternate Payment Availability

Open Infrastructure

It is quite important to be open, but to what costs.  Sometimes giving up a bit of openness can allow those who are less technical to get involved.  Not everyone can be a coding genius, or even have the time if they are.  Scores could be assigned based on how open the platform is.

• Open Code
• Barriers to entry
• Wallet Lock-in
• Self-Hosted

Security

Usability and Openness are important, but not if the system is insecure. No one wants to find out their payment processor was hacked and now your wallet is empty. We can score this in the following categories:

• Independant Code Audits
• Security Breaches
• Flaw History
• Vulnerability to Fix Time

Overall Score

This will combine all the scores with each one given a weight.  We can possibly let each user assign a weight to each category so they can make their own informed decision given the facts.  The goal is not to support any one payment processor, or any one platform, but to give each person the information to decide which path is best for them.

Conclusion

So the idea is out there.  I'll be working in the background on this for the next week or so as my family enjoys some well deserved time together including heading to the Alaska State Fair, but please drop me a line, shoot me your ideas, tell me if I'm wrong or crazy for wanting to take this on, or even better, come join the revolution and start making it a great experience for bloggers, creators, writers, musicians, podcasters, readers, listeners and viewers!

Next Time

I'm digging into this blog post on Alby's site about RSS.  It seems very promising. Imagine a world where we go back to RSS, ditch a layer of junk that is social media, and consume Podcasts, videos, blogs, news, and music via a single decentralized app!