USPs and ordering

Community Discussions
1

As I refuse to use the official Telegram chat as we have this “Community”, below is my reply to Tim Enneking’s request for community reaction…

"Getting paid to search was originally (six years ago) a major (if not the major USP) of the project.
I have been thinking about what they are today and came up with the following 5 USPs. I’d like the community’s reaction, please.

  1. Excellent, customizable meta search engine
  2. Privacy
  3. Decentralized
  4. AI
  5. Paid to search (within limits)

in descending order of importance".

(as placed in the Presearch Community Telegram chat group on August 17, 2023)

Now, with respect to the “order of importance”…

Ad 1)

In the ideal scenario… Presearch will be the…

Best customizable (decentralized and community-driven) Meta search Portal (including an “unbiased” search engine) in the market respecting users’ Privacy.

(and by using smart AI technologies for better search results, and by rewarding active users with PRE tokens)… but…

that’s the ideal situation… and we all know that we are not there yet…

So, we can’t (yet) mention/use the first USP “Excellent, customizable meta search engine” as clearly we are not excellent or better in comparison to DDG (privacy search engine) or Google because the current Presearch platform is still “missing” many features and benefits that other search engines already have…

For example, we lack these (Google) features:

  • People Also Ask
  • People Also Search (just a very small number of terms in the summary Tab on the right side while Google adds many more in the search results)
  • Filters (Maps, Books, Flights, Finance, Charts) and extra keyword phrases
  • Top Stories (More News)
  • Autocomplete
  • Settings (number of search results per page, “one” language result (not based on user’s location), and many others)
  • Personalization (Google knows everything about your search behavior and can give personal optimized organic results and ads).
  • Keyword ads. You may find more keyword ads annoying, but due to heavy competition, the “quality” and “relevance” of Google ads are better in comparison to Presearch.
  • Google has its own “indexing”… Presearch is just “mimicking” the Google search algorithms (and it will take “years” to come up with our own “better and unbiased” algorithm).

And I can continue…

Especially, the first 5 items will lead by definition to more additional searches by the same user…

So, if possible, these features should be included in the roadmap.

So, at the moment, we can’t compete with Google with respect to user search features/benefits… and only “beat” them with respect to Privacy and the Meta, i.e. “Portal” feature with access to 100+ different search platforms.

Hence, yes it should be the “internal” focus point #1 to try to become the “best” search engine, but by far, it’s not a USP at the moment.

So, as “we” are not the best search engine yet, this USP should be changed into the aspects where we are “leading”…

  • the CUSTOMIZABLE META portal feature (100+ search platforms)… the one-stop place for all your searches.

And with customizable, I do expect more than just having the feature to set “search platform icons”, but to make it a fully-customizable portal with preferred layouts, placements, and “own” images/banners instead of icons, etc. Just think about how you would like to set up your own “portal”.

Not just for “free” available public search platforms but also for “paid” sources. Think about (financial) news, medical, encyclopedia, and all sources to which a user has to pay for access… but via the Presearch platform will see a summary description, and get access to the (“full”) results by paying a small transaction fee in PRE.

Under “customizable” I also mean features to “block” ads (by staking or paying a fee in PRE) or to tailor-made the results (lay-out) settings.

Of course, “Community search engines” and the “Search API” are unique USPs for selling to “communities” and groups of users, and should be as “customizable” as possible as well.

Ad 2 Privacy

I think we all agree that this is a very important USP.
However, by using this statement (inside the last email):

“Our stand on data privacy; we value you hence we do not collect your private data and never will.”

The team is restricting itself to “never” collect any private data.

But for the “best” search “experience”, as a user, you want search results based on your own “personal and private” preferences.

You know, it can be rather annoying to see “irrelevant” search results (and ads) over and over again when you search for the same “search query”.

If you compare this with Google… they know more about you than yourself… hence, you will see search results based on your prior search behavior and known “personal” data… giving you more personalized and tailor-made search and ad results.

I’m not saying that we should skip this Privacy USP… but there are many (potential) Presearch platform users who want a more “personalized” search experience by sharing some “data” with the platform.

If I was the CEO, I would not restrict myself for now and in the future… I would keep the possibility open that users can select “Privacy Levels” and decide what personal data to share or not with the platform (and/or advertisers).

Advertisers do want to know more about a user… to give them better “personalized” ads to increase conversations.

Advertisers are willing to pay more (per click or view) if their ads are shown to better “targeted” audiences.

Why restrict yourself with respect to monetization?

A platform with just “cheap and general” (banner) ads can be very annoying as we have seen so far with the casino/betting ads…

If you don’t know anything about your audience (only the IP address and search phrase)… how can you attract advertisers who want to target specific audiences and are willing to pay higher CPC/CPV?

Also, by this stringent restriction to not collect any data, it would be harder to “sell” the “Community Search Engines” as maybe these communities do want to know more about their user base, and do want them to show “relevant” search results and ads.

Finally, I think it will be hard to give “staking” rewards in the future to “unknown” users (who didn’t pass KYC/AML procedures) as many countries/authorities will require “crypto token platforms” to acquire user data for taxation reasons (as for example, the IRS requires). And in that case, it would be an “easy question” to ask these users if their data may be used for better personalization (and optionally in compensation for higher rewards).

Ad 3 Decentralization

First, Tim doesn’t mention the prior USP “Community-driven” (and related slogan “Presearch for WE the people”).

Maybe he classifies this under “Decentralized” as decentralization can involve many aspects such as:

  • decentralized “network” architecture (nodes) for roles such as crawling, indexing, storage, and posting search (AI) results.
  • decentralized governance (DAO + Foundation) with community voting and dynamic roadmap based on “real” community input.
  • decentralized ownership based upon community activity by getting PRE tokens for “activities” as searches, running nodes, review (and indexing) search results and ads.
  • Blockchain, sidechains, and interoperability (Web3) and the “utility” and “staking” roles of the PRE token.
  • decentralized content (search results) created by community members (such as community packages, but also search “reviews”, i.e. rating of content)

I hope that Tim means all these forms of decentralization…

I understand that the USPs relate to “reasons” why a user should use the Presearch platform, and that “token-holders-related aspects” such as governance, community-driven, blockchain, and PRE token are not the first reason why someone should use the search platform… but it’s all about know, like, and trust before someone would use/buy a product/service…

or to say it in one other word…

I’m missing the “sympathy” or “David vs Goliath” aspect… the “community-driven project” (We the People) vs Big-Tech (who earn billions of dollars by “selling” user data and where “freemium” users won’t get any rewards in comparison to Presearch were people do earn “something” while protecting privacy).

I’m also missing the “customer” feedback feature (“we listen to our community”) where users can come up with new feature request features and community-created or “reviewed” content… this is a form of community-driven USP.

So, especially, for me, the DAO governance structure and community-driven aspects (with anti-Big-Tech positioning) are very important (and should be mentioned under the USPs), and it should be clear for all users (and token holders) what this “true” decentralization involves.

Ad 4 AI

I think we all agree that AI becomes more and more important and if used properly can be the “distinctive” USP… but for now, it’s just in the “test” case, and it will only be a real USP if the roadmap items will be properly executed, and we “beat” competition.

Ad 5 Paid to search

As we haven’t yet achieved the #1 goal, it probably wasn’t the right moment to “kill” the search rewards for regular users from 0.1 PRE to 0.01 PRE…

as many users used the Presearch platform as they were “compensated” with some PRE rewards for using “our” search engine with fewer features/benefits as the “market leader”.

Anyway, I don’t want to start that discussion again… but I do expect thousands of current regular users to leave the platform (with many complaints on social media)…

Just do the math…

A regular user who does 5 searches a day will get 0.05 PRE per day. To achieve the 1,000 PRE threshold, it will take 20,000 days. That’s almost 55 years!

Even if a user already has 800 PRE earned so far, it will take him 11 years to finally reach the 1,000 threshold. (Hence, this feels like “stealing”)

Well, that’s the same as stopping (or a better name killing) this search reward system completely.

So, no wonder that these users are frustrated to see that their “earned” PRE rewards (via searches and affiliate referrals) are “useless” as it will take them so many years to achieve the threshold of 1,000 PRE, and just don’t see sufficient reasons to use the Presearch platform anymore.

So far, today, the first day of the reward “cut-down”, the number of daily searches of 2.5M is at an absolute low… coincidence?

So, as a new team, you may think that search rewards should be #5 in the USP ordering… users may think differently as all the other USPs are not (yet) sufficient (being life as aimed) to use Presearch above other search engines.

But actually, it’s not a USP anymore as the rewards are so ridiculously low that it’s better to stop this program and don’t ever mention/treat it as USP for a regular user (the new search staking rewards feature is a “unique utility” for token holders).

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2

I would like to make a few comments. 1 The first 3 aims are the most important. Although aims 1 and 2 seem to contradict each other in some way.
2 The terms of rewards have changed for Presearch uses. Now they would need years to get to 1000 pre. It is the change of contract and it’s not fair. That’s why I think they should be given opportunity to withdraw their pre and/or to stake them.
3 One very important element that was not mentioned is marketing. Presearch is already very good. But very few people know about it and tried it. Presearch needs good marketing and a long-term marketing plan. Community can also help a lot to promote this project. It usually does not take too much time and effort.

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4

Lots of great points. So under new management they cut search rewards, killed the referral program, and now they are looking to cut node runners?

5

Just to make a correction, the referral program has not been removed and continues as it is up to now.

6

Agree it is still active but so far the 50 PRE earned requirement has not been reduced to 5 in alignment with the 10x reduction in reward rate. As @Ben pointed out its as if it will take 1000 plus days for the referral to be earned by the referrer. So hence the program killed at least for the people trying to bring on new users which are the ones doing the work for the platform. This is another hit to the community it already takes months to trigger the reward. Some of my family and friends referred that are active still haven’t met the initial 50 PRE requirement simply because their search habits are so low.

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7

I very much agree with #2. Offer to pay out all rewards as they stand NOW to people who want to “cash in”. Review as normal. This will end all of the “misery” about search rewards. It gives a chance to reset everyone to zero and at the same time change the affiliate program accordingly.

This would be seen in an extremely positive light for Presearch. Reduce the withdrawal threshold to zero for 30 days.

At the same time kill off unstaked searches completely. Presearch has imo has moved beyond the need for this. Searches/users have not grown in almost 2 years it seems. This “feature” is NOT attracting anyone new of value. It only attracts headaches at this point.

Many times mentioned…meaningful “activity rewards” would be best, search streaks and even posting in this forum to earn tokens. Reduce the minimum for staked searches down to something that is relatively easy to reach in a given time frame with activity rewards alone, say 6 months.

By changing the search rewards and not changing affiliate program at the same time indicates a very poorly PLANNED execution of change.

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9

We are aware of that, but the subject has not been touched on so far, you could modify it and lower the amount of pre

10

I generally don’t like pay for search model. It is like pay for play in game crypto projects. It doesn’t work in the long run.
The first aim of Presearch is to provide excellent search results. That’s a reward for uses. Then they can get premium services for some extra cash, pre or staking. This can be a healthy model in the long run. I like that the team seems to be going in this direction.
But Presearch can’t afford to treat poorly millions of current uses. They were promised a way to earn and get pre.
Good sentiment of these people and good reputation is very important. So
1 Let them even flood the market with pre for a while. The inc, investors and node runners will eventually buy pre at lower prices long before the bull market. It might be even good for them.
2 Let users search stake. It’s a small amount but some people might buy more pre to make it work. This will also get the uses access to for now premium service - AI.
At the same time if users including community members do something valuable for Presearch they can be rewarded in pre for that.

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11

I don’t see a future for Presearch when they don’t stop thinking that every user is stealing or betraying.

Yes, there might be token farmers and other bad actors.
If there is no solution, search rewards should just be disabled at all.

But anoying and restricting every normal user until he leaves is not a solution.
We already tried this in the last years.

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12

My 2¢ regarding your point 1, (Google) features (pasted below for reference):

* People Also Ask
* People Also Search (just a very small number of terms in the summary Tab on the right side while Google adds many more in the search results)
* Filters (Maps, Books, Flights, Finance, Charts) and extra keyword phrases
* Top Stories (More News)
* Autocomplete
* Settings (number of search results per page, “one” language result (not based on user’s location), and many others)
* Personalization (Google knows everything about your search behavior and can give personal optimized organic results and ads).
* Keyword ads. You may find more keyword ads annoying, but due to heavy competition, the “quality” and “relevance” of Google ads are better in comparison to Presearch.
* Google has its own “indexing”… Presearch is just “mimicking” the Google search algorithms (and it will take “years” to come up with our own “better and unbiased” algorithm).

The only ones of these ‘features’ I would like to see on Presearch are possibly Autocomplete and definitely Filters. None of the other items listed are something I’d like to see Presearch spend time on. I want a search engine that does just that, provide search results.

nabeards

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13

In its current design, is rewarding users for search in the best interest of Presearch or users of it? It seems like something that is not worth the amount of pre other than for those trying to farm tokens, and not a USP worth spending too much time on. I’ve used Presearch on all my devices since 2021 and only earned 840 pre.

What if there was a “premium” version of Pre that users pay for and is tied into areas like Shopping, where a user purchases items and gets a reward based on the amount spent? Similar to how credit cards reward users, it’s tied to transactions making it difficult to game.

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14

Thanks for the contributions. I know many people have different ideas and you can’t make everyone happy. The Community if the team would only listen and heed the recommendations we can often come up with better way forward and better prioritization than the Team by itself.

Autocomplete, audio to text searches, filters, and more settings for language preferences etc as has been mentioned by other community members.

15

I just want a “shopping” tab. Hopefully it comes down the road especially now with Amazon and Ebay “on board”. I use this a lot at work and have to “click the Google icon” on Presearch results page to access it. It seems this may even be a priority for the team as it would lead to much more potential “rewards” for Presearch from Ebay and Amazon and …who knows whom else…

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17

NO you don’t win by mimicking Google! As I have said numerous times you have to change the game and force them to play by new rules.

Yes absolutely! you have to go for uniqueness…

Currently decentralization and privacy are the biggest USPs but this is not as important as quality to many people so you need to maintain those and be close or better on the quality side for it to be an easy transition for most.
Keywords are unique but in the current form and low number of users/searches just not interesting yet, but you can take this concept and make it very interesting in other ways.

The biggest places Presearch could change the game is with the use of PRE and NFTs (non-fungible tokens ie OWNERSHIP of something unique) and AI. Not only would it drive adoption of the platform but also drive utilities and use for PRE at the same time.
-AI unfortunately is no longer unique, we missed that opportunity but have our own unbiased AI and even better being the meta-AI portal for AI with built-in privacy and accessible to users via PRE consumptive charges or a Premium service stake could be very unique. Provides value added services to the network of users and brings massive opportunity to those AI experts to be compensated in PRE for launching their unique, or niche AI on Presearch maybe even exclusively on Presearch.
-Presearch communities owned via NFTs with PRE subscriptions would be very unique. Creates income for Presearch and income for the community owner via subscriptions in PRE.
-Presearch ad slot ownership via NFTs that requires consumptive PRE for use is very unique. Basically, selling digital presearch ad space ownership to the world. But every ad slot requires PRE consumption to enter the ad rotation and have ads displayed to the world. If these are sold or given away slowly the presearch platform would be able to make tons of money and PRE from this model continuing to sell space to advertisers but it also allows any entrepreneurs to try to buy these limited ad slots off of the open market or from presearch to then go out and sell ad space to additional advertisers that presearch may have never brought into the network on their own. Instead of presearch doing all the work on advertising the world can now get involved and be incentivized to do so presearch just continues to make PRE income from this without lifting a finger.
-Community-run search nodes, but the model needs to change eventually to fairly reward quality, decentralization, loyalty, and resilience.

However, none of these are on the roadmap yet?

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19

There are good points in the previous post. At the same time I would like to make a few comments.
1 3 days chosen for the post is not enough to make statistically valid conclusion. We need longer time frame to compare month to month.
2 I don’t think drop in registered uses as we see now could have been avoided. If people’s primary motivation is to earn financial rewards, they would leave anyway. Because the value of Presearch for them is almost gone.
3 Registered users who enjoy Presearch lost the opportunity to earn 1000 pre. For now they haven’t been treated fairly. The team does not want to give them the chance to withdraw their rewards because this can flood the market with pre for a while. But it’s not right. You need to keep your basic promise.
4 If you disagree with someone it doesn’t make him a bad person.
5 Tim’s manners are not perfect but communication team is very good. Sometimes it’s not easy to find common language with a rude user who is very upset about rewards.
6 I think you are right about the ads. Some people were clearly put off by sports betting ads for 7 days in a row. They consequently stopped using Presearch. Banners are also bad. I actually liked affiliate programs. P sign is nice and small. I already bought something with Amazon using Presearch. I think most of the ads should be like that if possible. Because people generally think of Presearch as a community not a commercial project. It’s a good learning experience for the team. With better ads users who like Presearch but don’t like whole page sport betting ads and banners will return.

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21

It’s a good idea to distinguish between registered and unregistered uses.
1 For registered uses it’s possible to distinguish between people with different motivation. Google users do on average 3-4 daily searches. Of course, active user can search much more. But on average it’s about 3-4. For Presearch it should be very similar now. It could be somewhat more, let’s assume 6-7, before the 90 percent decrease in the rewards.
People who were primarily interested in rewards did close to 25 daily searches.
This means that the drop in searchers is not equal to the decrease in registered users. Also a big chunk of searchers done by people interested primarily in rewards had small actual value for the project.
2 How can you explain possible decrease in unregistered uses?
We know very little about these people. So you can come up with a lot of theories. A One is bad marketing campaign we discussed before. If Presearch improves the users are likely to come back.
B Unregistered uses don’t normally follow Presearch on social media.
C Some registered uses used Presearch without logging in sometimes or on some of their devices. When they left Presearch because of the rewards, unregistered searches also decreased.
D Some of them left because they can no longer realistically get to 1000 pre. Presearch needs to find solution to this because it is very important to keep your basic promise - a possibility to reach 1000 pre and withdraw them. These people are legitimately disappointed. I think many of them can stay with Presearch or still come back if they get the possibility to get their earned rewards. It can also be a very positive sign for most users.
I like that the team is leaving pay for search model behind. It leads to bad searching patterns. People should search on the platform because their searching experience is valuable. There might even be a few premium services for which users stake or pay in pre. Then pre won’t be inflationary anymore.

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