WOM’s Latest Authenticator Payments Update Explained
WOM Protocol has just made a major improvement to the way that Authenticator payments are distributed on its self-developed apps. It’s great news for Authenticators, and another stride towards bringing the marketing world accessible and authentic word-of-mouth content without compromising consumer trust — WOM’s core mission.
I’m An Authenticator, How Will This Change Affect Me?
Before taking a closer look at the latest changes, let’s recap how WOM Protocol has distributed payments to Authenticators thus far.
The WOM Protocol beta version went live with an early iteration of a reward mechanism, which would become more sophisticated and stronger as we listened and learned from the community. Authenticators have always received 33 per cent of the daily WOM Protocol rewards distributed to contributors in the WOM Ecosystem such as creators, Authenticators, and platforms. This percentage for Authenticators has not changed. The way in which these payments are distributed to Authenticators, however, has been given an upgrade.
WOM Authenticators are crowdsourced members of the WOM community, who validate the honesty and authenticity of product recommendation content that has been submitted for review. They have always been the gate-keepers of quality recommendation videos. They have also earned greater rewards for prioritizing potentially high-performing content. Until now the more engagement the content an Authenticator successfully rated went on to generate, the greater the earning potential for said Authenticator. This was certainly beneficial in the early days for boosting quality, likable content into the ecosystem.
As the WOM Protocol matures we now recognize that by re-coding the reward mechanism, we can free Authenticators from predicting the popularity of content they rate. Instead Authenticators can now rate as honestly as possible and, providing they reach consensus with other Authenticators, will be guaranteed a share of WOM Tokens regardless of whether the content passes the Authentication process and goes on to perform well or not.
This is how Authenticator payments will be distributed moving forwards:
- Stake: Authenticators must put skin in the game by staking to rate content — this mechanism has not changed. What’s new is that the greater the stake, which can be anywhere from 1–10, the greater the weighting of WOM Token payments for the Authenticator.
- Rate: Authenticators evaluate recommendation videos using the following three attributes, using a sliding scale between 1–10:
- Authenticity — is the recommendation genuine, believable, trustworthy?
- Creativity — not so much is it pretty, but does it show the product well and is it enjoyable to watch?
- Positivity — is this a 4* or higher recommendation? Do they really recommend the product?
Authenticators need to reach a consensus on at least two of these three attributes in order to qualify to receive rewards and retain their stake. Reaching consensus means rating the attribute within 2 of the average rating. In other words if a video scores an average of 7 for authenticity, an Authenticator needs to rate the authenticity of the video anywhere from between 5.1 to 6.9. Providing they reach consensus on two out of three attributes on the video, they will receive a share of the payouts for the video. This payment is independent of whether the video itself passes the authentication process and that’s a major new development.
3. Assert: Authenticators are incentivized to assert their opinions about content rather than sitting on the fence, which means that payments are not distributed to Authenticators that rate attributes with 5 out of 10, regardless or whether 5 is in fact the consensus. This means that Authenticators have an incentive to commit to either strongly liking or disliking the video, as the distance the rating is away from 5 influences the weighting of payments. That means that if an Authenticator votes 5.5 and reaches consensus, they will earn half of the potential payout, but if they vote 4, or 6, or anything beyond this, they will earn 100 per cent of the potential payout.
These changes take WOM another step closer to its ideal vision and we have plenty more nuances to come. We’re excited to release this latest update, to help WOM Authenticators continue the good fight against fake content, and receive their due WOM Token rewards. Ready to get started?
