Derek Richardson - My Digital Domain

My Digital Domain

The Beast Has Moved On!

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Picture By John Price

So the beast from the east was rather unpleasant last week. I don’t think I have ever been this cold on the Isle of Man, ever since we arrived nearly ten years ago. Day time temperatures we only between 0 or -2 Celsius, now we are at 6C which is so much better!

In January I wrote about FacebookZero, which is about the drop in organic reach for brand pages. Now it looks like Facebook is targeting groups, they have rolled out a ‘Boost’ test button on some groups which tell us one thing; that organic reach in groups is dropping and this was confirmed in a graph I saw last week.  The way forward on Facebook is a paid media strategy, make sure you don’t miss out as the costs are expected to rise by 50% in this first half of the year and then it is predicated to double by year end.

I’ve been paying attention to the price of Bitcoin closely and if the price hits $11,750 it could mean the price is going to rocket. Let’s wait and see, but I am feeling bullish on #BTC

Thanks for reading.

Day 30 – Goal Achieved

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I made it! Yes 30 days of writing. Now let me tell you, this hasn’t been easy for me. A prime example was yesterday’s post, that was the hardest one to write.

Looking back it looks like a graph of the Bitcoin price. Yes lots of ups and downs. I am really happy that I didn’t throw in the towel and quit. It would of been the easy way out.

During this journey, I have two posts that I really enjoyed writing. ‘The Rise of the Social Algorithms’ and ‘Let’s talk about Vinyl Records’ now this has shown me that when you write about something you know about and love then the process becomes so much easier.

I know my writing structure is not great and I plan to work on that as I move forward. I am still busy with the writing course on Udemy and have learnt a few good tips but I know I can do better.

As I write this final blog in my 30 day challenge, it’s Saturday and normally I would write more of a diary about the weekend. Not this time! I am done and going to enjoy my weekend and not feel pressured to write on a daily basis.

I will be updating this blog and it will be a weekly post which will give me more to to focus on the structure and not be pressured to get som words down.

If you have followed my blogs for the last 30 days, I would just like to say a big very thank you for taking this journey with me.

Thanks for reading!

Day 28 – Gazing at the Sun

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You might have noticed I am rather obsessed at the moment about the lovely dry weather we are having on the Isle of Man. It has been really cold with top temperatures reach between 4 and 7C during the day. Today started off lovely and dry, a few moments ago we had a winter hail shower which only lasted a few minutes. Now let me explain about this hail, it’s nothing like we used to get in South Africa. It is tiny, no bigger than the size of a pea. Sunset tonight is at 16h01, we are getting close to the peak of the short days, and then we start gaining more light after the 21st of December.

HOW PLASTIC IS CONSUMING OUR LIVES

Lots of debate around at the moment regarding plastic bags which have been banned recently in the UK and it’s now filtering through to the Isle of Man. Sky News recently ran a campaign about the big topic of plastic is our oceans. How as humans can we do this? We have absolutely no regard for our environment and it’s just getting worse.  In the UK, thirteen of the big retailers has signed up to cut the packaging of food, but this just isn’t enough or soon enough. As touted a plastic tax is being considered, but this would mainly affect the consumer and not the manufacturer, so what happens then?  People stop buying the goods in plastic and then profits go down for the retailers, perhaps when it starts affecting their profits they will be motivated to make these changes quicker. We have made an effort to collect our plastic bottles and drop them off at our recycling centre every weekend.

IS THE BITCOIN BUBBLE ABOUT TO BURST?

I have been very tempted to invest more into Bitcoin, but I have decided to wait for a really big correction. The growth for 2017 has been over 1000% which is insane. I would rather err on the side of caution.  It is so volatile, after reaching a high of $11,000 it slumped nearly 20%. The energy drain is rather intense; a recent estimate by tech news site Motherboard put the energy cost of a single Bitcoin transaction at 215 kilowatt-hours, assuming that there are around 300,000 Bitcoin transactions per day. That’s almost enough energy as the average American household consumes in a whole week.  Did you know that Bitcoin’s smallest unit is a Satoshi, named after the elusive creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. One Satoshi is one hundred-millionth of a Bitcoin, making it worth around $0.0001 at current exchange rates. I don’t doubt the cryptocurrency but I think the growth may be inflated and it’s going to drop. Hey, I could be so wrong on this as it could keep growing in value and then it costs even more to buy. Something is telling me to hold for the moment and I think I will.

Thanks for reading!

Day 12 – Building on the Blockchain

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Mark Solarski

I saw an interview on YouTube last night with Mark Cuban, where he was talking about what he is currently investing in. He mentioned ‘Mercury Protocol’ now this look fascinating. Being built on the Ethereum blockchain. Here’s some information from their website, I am very impressed with this tech!

Modern communication is outdated. Centralized communication platforms built on private servers are only as secure as their weakest defense, user privacy is habitually violated as service providers sell behavioral data to advertisers, and content is restricted to a single platform.

The solution is the Mercury Protocol, an open-source project for communication platforms to utilize decentralized blockchain technology at minimal cost. Any communication platforms that integrate the Mercury Protocol will be able to exchange messages and content, increase user privacy through pseudonymity, leverage tokens to encourage user participation, and provide stronger network security than any private system that has a single point of failure.

If you know of any interesting projects being built on the blockchain, please share them with me in the comments.

Another interview of interest I watched was with Caitlin Long: ‘Bitcoin and blockchain will Stop Out Wall Street Fraud’

I was shocked at the processing time for trades, T 2 or 3 and they have to pass through 5 different intermediaries. It is very hard to actually track who owns the stock or bonds purchased plus all the companies are putting these on their balance sheets which inflate their earnings.  This is going to disrupt old businesses, but I trust they will against this as it’s currently in their interest to do it this way.

A new startup called: ‘London Block Exchange’ (LBX) is launching a new Visa debit card that will let users spend their Bitcoin and other digital currencies anywhere across the UK. Dragoncard will be available in a few weeks, it has its own app and it has been provisionally approved by the Financial Conduct Authority (FSA).

On a lighter note, we have just discovered one of the closest earth-like planets. Now that is something to smile about, but wait it might be close but it’s still 11 light years away. Imagine being able to take a flight to one of these amazing planets and visiting them. Wouldn’t it be amazing to find out what we would find? I’m sure the scientist’s who look for them would love to be able to visit. No doubt in the future we will be able to get to these planets, but it’s not going to be in my lifetime.

Thanks for reading!

Day 4 – Cryptocurrencies

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I few years ago I bought a bit of a Bitcoin at a pub here on the Isle of Man. I thought that was amazing, the future of money and not controlled by a government.

In some parts of the world it has grown very quickly with a lot of adoption by users and some businesses. There are many different types of cryptocurrencies besides the big one Bitcoin.

Here are some of them:

Litecoin (LTC)
Ethereum (ETH)
Zcash (ZEC)
Ripple (XRP)
Monero (XMR)
Dogecoin

The one that stands out in 2017 is Ethereum.

Ethereum is an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform featuring smart contract (scripting) functionality.  It provides a decentralized Turing-complete virtual machine, the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which can execute scripts using an international network of public nodes. Ethereum also provides a cryptocurrency token called “ether”, which can be transferred between accounts and used to compensate participant nodes for computations performed “Gas”, an internal transaction pricing mechanism, is used to mitigate spam and allocate resources on the network.

A lot of money is being invested into Ethereum based technology.

Ripio Closes $37 Million ICO for Ethereum Lending Network

Bitcoin however seems to be going through a number of forks. Recently there was Bitcoin Cash and coming soon is Bitcoin2X. If you want a fantastic article to read about this, check it out here from TheNextWeb

If you are interested in mining Bitcoin, this is worth reading.

“There are 3 eras of currency: Commodity based, politically based, and now, math based.” Chris Dixon, Tech Investor.

If you plan to invest or mine – Be Educated & Be Careful!

Thanks for your time!