SWARM 313-Sticker-Market have made great strides as they move past the research phase and into design and implementation. The primary focus is on the end user including buying stickers and using stickers in chat.
Summary:
SWARM 313-Sticker-Market provides a clear SNT use case as described by the whitepaper. Stickers offer a fun way for users to visually interact with their friends and family, and have been shown to increase engagement levels within messaging apps, particularly among millennials. The messaging app Line for instance derives about a quarter of its yearly revenues from sticker sales, or about $268m USD (Line Corporation IPO Filing).
We propose the implementation of a Sticker Market within Status, allowing anyone to create and begin selling their own designs to users all over the world, and to begin using stickers within any Status chat.
Goals:
- Allow users to buy and use stickers in chat using SNT.
- Allow creators to sell stickers permissionless through a curated marketplace, for SNT.
For the initial scope, the focus is on use case #1.
GitHub: https://github.com/status-im/swarms/blob/master/ideas/313-sticker-market/readme.md
Designs https://www.figma.com/file/aS1ct66VQ6V0cio7vSqS8UoG/Chat?node-id=1521%3A13711
Status: Implementation
Team: Julien, Rachel, Andrey, Nastya, Hester, Maciej
Status Channel: #313-sticker-market
Intro
The Sticker Market is a highly anticipated feature within Status. Not only does it provide real use case for SNT, but it enables users to have a bit of fun within the chat itself. After all, we are building a tool for free and open communication which inherently implies the freedom of self expression. All stickers within the Sticker Market will be sold as packs (not individually) and will require SNT for purchase. More details on pricing in the spec doc below.
To narrow the scope and provide a clear roadmap towards production, the team’s focus is on the “use” and “buy” user stories defined as:
Using stickers
- As a user, I want to send stickers to my friends so that I can be more expressive and liven up my chats.
- I want to first choose from the packs I own.
- I want to to select a specific sticker from within a given pack.
- When I send a sticker, I want everyone to be able to see it, regardless of whether they have the same pack installed.
- If I have no stickers downloaded, I want to buy some directly from chat.
- When I receive a sticker in chat, I want to tap on it to open it in the store and purchase the same pack for myself.
Buying stickers
- I want to buy stickers in the context of use, from chat.
- I want to browse all sticker packs available.
- I want to use basic filters to find what I want, e.g. free/paid, search by emotion, etc. (dependent on metadata attached to each pack)
- When I find a pack I like, I want to know the price in SNT and fiat.
- If I purchase a pack, I want to use it from my sticker drawer right away.
Recap of Work Done
Much of January was spent researching the UX of other successful sticker markets in production, looking into the user flows, price points, technical specifications, and all potential security risks associated with this feature.
Research notes found here
Meeting notes found here
Detailed Specification doc can be found here
Where We Are Now
The team has swiftly moved into implementation and early demos can be seen here.
Next Steps
Next step is to implement the existing designs and continue to rigorously test. Further implementation of the of the contract interface is needed and additional testing and auditing before we can consider this feature available for a stable release.
The latest contract has been published to ropsten for testing.
Following the initial release, the team will continue to scope use case #2 associated with The Sticker Market - Allow creators to sell stickers permissionlessly through a curated marketplace, for SNT.
Initial Sticker Design & Community Submissions
We are working with illustrators to design some initial sticker packs to be available upon the launch of the Sticker Market. We will also be accepting submissions for community created stickers. If you are designer, illustrator, or just have some interesting ideas for stickers, stay tuned for more details.
We will be sharing out all the details for community submissions, detailed assets specs, and judging/voting criteria shortly.
Challenges
Many of the challenges facing the team are that associated with the nature of permissionless participation and the ability to screenshot or steal another's work.
This problem is not unique to Status, but in our case, users can not only screenshot stickers, they can als0 upload images to the marketplace and sell them as if they were their own. We expect to mitigate this through community curation and arbitration methods.
Specification & Designs
A detailed Sticker Market Spec can be found in GitHub here. This detailed document outlines the following:
>Price & Purchasing
- All packs will be priced in SNT; SNT required for purchase
- Stickers will be sold as packs, not individually
- We will likely price Status commission stickers around $2 however, artists will be free to price their stickers however they’d like
>Status Fees
The Status team has had lengthy discussion on whether or not to implement fees that could help finance our project in the future.
For now, we are opting to give 100% of the sales back to the artists. However, we have written functions in the contract that would support a fee in the future.
>Measurement & Tracking
>Sticker Implementation Details
- Formats
- Sizing
- Storage and accessibility
- Sending and recieving
>Pack Implementation Details
- Use as extensions
- Metadata
- Categories
- Price
- Registry Contract
- Potential Risks & Security
>Contract Migration Strategy
>Future Iterations
Get Involved
Check out the Repo in Github
Join the conversation in Status #313-sticker-market
Need to Install Status?
iOS
If you don’t currently have Status installed, access via TestFlight here https://testflight.apple.com/join/J8EuJmey
Android
You can find Status.im in the PlayStore and click ‘Update’