How Blockchain Technology Can Improve Reporting: Although blockchain technology is still closely associated with Bitcoin, this past summer’s surge in initial coin offering (ICO) investment showed the true potential of the blockchain for other forms of cryptocurrency and uses beyond Bitcoin.

How Blockchain Technology Can Improve Reporting

Beyond Bitcoin

At this point, we are beginning to understand that everything on the internet can be thought of as a transaction; the blockchain is therefore useful in its own right . There are obvious reasons for its utility. Because blockchain technology is both “trustless” and decentralized, it leaves no room for hacking, and no single person or company has total control over it or its content.

When people started realizing the potential of the blockchain beyond Bitcoin, developers and engineers began building their own programs – and the potential to change the way we consume information arose.

Think of the hundreds of articles and the sheer amount of information we encounter online every day. How do we know what is credible? We tend to believe, even if only subconsciously, that because something was published on the internet, it must be true. It’s important to remember, however, that anyone can publish on the web. Eduardo Martins, for instance, faked being a war photographer on Instagram. He succeeded to the point that he secured over 100,000 followers on the platform, and the BBC and Vice interviewed him about his work. It turned out, however, that his identity had been forged and his photographs were stolen. “Fake news” as a whole is becoming more and more complicated to detect, even with “credible” news sources.

News as a Virtual Asset 

How Blockchain Technology Can Improve Reporting

Digital asset management gives protection to anyone who uses the internet as a platform for their voice. Because the blockchain is decentralized and public, anyone can look up content that is on the blockchain.   Po.et is an example of an organization working to reclaim value for content creators, publishers, and consumers through blockchain technology.

The concept behind Po.et is very simple. Someone writes an article for a digital magazine and the article is then registered in the Po.et network. The network adds this article into its blockchain ledger, which can be searched by anyone. If somebody wants to look up a writer or contributor in their database, any articles the individual has registered will appear.

With blockchain technology, Po.et uses an open ledger to record metadata and ownership information of digital assets. It uses “Proof-of-Existence” as its protocol, a new concept that maintains a less technical blockchain with no mining needed. Po.et’s goal is to become the global framework for readily-available digital creative works: a new standard for digital asset verification.

The platform lends itself to various possibilities. Let’s say there’s an up-and-coming publishing agency that wants only the most credible writers. Authors with a Po.et background can show all their original work (and prove its veracity) on the blockchain. Not only that, but it is also possible to see what kind of websites writers’ work has been published on and how audiences have responded. Further, Po.et allows an author’s work to be republished lawfully (by purchasing the license of the article), which will also make money for the given article’s author.

In the not-too-distant future, when we scroll through our feeds, we may only be interested in content that has been accredited by a blockchain. Authors will think twice about what they create because it will stick with them forever. Artificial intelligence (AI)-integrated data-pullers will be able to fact-check everything in plain text – and for once, our reputations will mean something on the internet.

Oftentimes, what a content creator needs for their website has already been published. There are many topics which are written about multiple times so as to avoid stealing. Tagging digital assets will make it easy for content creators to purchase assets that they need for their website, which will keep quality consistent on the internet: we can avoid the inherent dilution of the same story being told a hundred times.

Owners of the digital asset will still have total control over their property: they can decide who can and who should not be able to purchase their asset.

It seems likely that, in the near future, managing rights to digital content will be one of the very real ways we see blockchain innovation influencing the future of enterprise the world over.