From tipping URLs to HumanDeFi Hæck: Superhero’s rapid evolution over its first year

2020 has undeniably been a very challenging year for the entire world. Natural calamities, a global pandemic, as well as political issues left and right have brought great distress to masses across geographies.

The Superhero development team, though decentralized and spread out in different areas of the world, has been fortunate enough to stay connected virtually and work tirelessly amidst this chaos. The platform has come a really long way despite being established, just at the beginning of this year.

Standing on the brink of year-end, let’s look back at Superhero’s first year in existence. Here is a rundown of the features and improvements that have been added to the platform within this year.

Tipping any public URL

When Superhero started, one of the primary ideas was to enable the smooth transfer of aid from anyone to anyone, anywhere in the world – with minimal hassle.

With Superhero, users can send tips in AE to any public URL. And the receiver can easily claim these tips by adding their Superhero wallet address to the web page. This may be used for content monetization, fundraising, and any other cause be it for social good or profit.

From simply tipping URLs via the wallet, an array of tools have further been developed to make the process easier by integrating its functionalities onto other social and content platforms, such as YouTube and Twitter. Other utilities with this functionality are also underway. Such as…

Feed

The Superhero.com feed has also evolved for better aesthetics and ease of use. This will continuously be refined as the platform evolves. Profiles and channels are also being improved to cater to broader audiences and content creators.

Voting

Voting on Superhero utilizes the Governance æpp. Anyone can launch and vote on polls on Superhero, and this will all be done on-chain. For open, public blockchains, the goal is to later shift to a decentralized governance model. The governance æpp is a step to build a platform in facilitating network-binding decisions over a consensus voting mechanism.

At the moment, there is no governance framework to follow – and the community is highly encouraged to initiate discussions on how this framework will be designed.

Meet

As a direct consequence of strict public lockdown during this pandemic, video conferences have been essential in maintaining social interactions across distances.

1. The æternity team launched the SuperheroLeague as an interactive knowledge sharing channel to discuss relevant issues and create meaningful technological solutions to a challenge proposed via a virtual Haeckathon, hosted over Meet.
2. Also, as an outlet for fellow æternity community members to maintain some form of social interaction during this period of isolation, Superhero Meet was created to help keep the work momentum steady and provide Superhero users and visitors a face-to-face (although virtual) channel to stay social beyond just typing on a keyboard.

Superhero is open-source and thus, supports and uses other open-source tools. Jitsi has been integrated into Superhero in order to enable users to launch their own Superhero Meet conferences and SuperheroLeague episodes.

🔜 Web Widget and Paywall – Utilities

The web widget is a button that any website owner can add to their pages, enabling other Superhero users to tip them through their website.

A Paywall is also in development, which would enable content creators to require donations or payment from viewers and readers of their content.

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Looking forward, 2021

Superhero.com aims to redefine the framework for digital interactions through its brand new decentralized and privacy friendly social media platform. It allows anyone and everyone to enjoy the benefits of a new paradigm in social networks, without the need of any technical background. Aeternity has persevered to take the benefits of tokenization to every community and is finally nearing a historic announcement.

In the last HumanDeFi haeck, teams from all over the world developed solutions that fit perfectly with the goals and specifications of Superhero.com. Moreover, the journey of unlocking the potential to develop on Superhero.com by the community has just begun, looks like an exciting 2021 ahead!!!

Contributors ❤️

Superhero’s rapid evolution would not have been possible without the hard work of different contributors within the æternity ecosystem.

Superhero is for everyone – by everyone.

Anyone out there who would also like to contribute to development are absolutely welcome. You may even fork the platform for your own personal or commercial use.

Additionally, Superhero would not have made it this far without the help of users and testers. We are glad to have you with us throughout our journey.

There are plenty to look forward to and there are big things ahead for the Superhero platform. The Superhero development team is grateful for all the feedback and support from the community.

To everyone in the Superhero community and to the entire æternity universe, thank you and have a safe, better, and wonderful year ahead! Happy Holidays from the Superhero team ⚡️⚡️

⚡️ Stay tuned Superheroes and let’s continue evolving together on Superhero.com, like the open-source community it is!