Imagine an online merchant who starts accepting cryptocoins in exchange for the goods or services he offers.
A few customers pay him with the new currency and now this merchant has a stack of cryptocoins.
What to do with them? Go through the trouble of cashing them out for $? Buy some products elsewhere and hope that they will arrive?
What if this merchant could use his coins to advertise his services to the community of people who use those coins?
That would probably be far more interesting for him, especially if he is already used to spend $ on ads.
And instead of the money going to google (adwords) ,facebook, or the siteowner where the ad was clicked, the coins would go directly to the user who agrees to see the given p2p ad…
What it comes down to is: the merchant pays YOU for the bit of time you give to watch his ad.
That would be a far more interesting cryptocurrency from the merchant’s pov, and for the users of the currency it can be a way to earn a little coin by agreeing to watch selected ads. That’s a win-win and would largely eliminate the need for exchanges between cc <-> $. Merchants can use the coin to advertise , and other users can buy products with their coin. The coins would circulate more and get connected to the real economy.
Here is how it would work. Advertising merchant decides to what audience he wants to offer his ad, and how much he will offer per read. The target audience could be a list of wallet addresses, or could be based on a minimum amount of coin in the account (it makes little sense to advertise to empty wallets). Let’s say he wants to show the ad to accounts with minimum 20 PPC on balance and will pay 0.2 PPC per view.
As a user I open my PPC wallet and if there is less than 20 PPC in my account then I won’t be offered to see the ad. If there is more than 20 PPC in my account then in a sidebar I will be offered to see the ad in exchange for 0.2 PPC. If I click “Yes” then I get to see it and will receive 0.2 PPC from the merchant. That transaction creates a record that this wallet address has already seen the given ad, and then it is not offered again, unless the merchant wants it to repeat.
Different variations can be made. But from the consumer’s pov this would beat clicking on ads and having the money go to some website owner. From the merchant’s pov, he would probably keep track of which wallet addresses have turned up as buyers in his shop, and then he would probably offer them more PPC to watch his next ad or special offer.
That’s how peer to peer advertising should work and it would work alongside cryptocoins very well, imo.
B