MAIDTalk: Branding the value of the SAFE Network Stack and overlay NOS

Introduction
This Marketing Proposal is as much a marketing framework to market the value proposition of the differentiators found in the features and benefits of the Maidsafe Network and is specifically designed to get the target audience to rapidly map the differentiators into their buyer needs by making sure these differnetatiors stick in permanent memory by using easy to remember sticky “labels” linked to a sticky “buy line” which can be easily linked to the target audience’s "feature/benefit"buy list of bullets which are used as a mental index to further help the buyer understand what they are buying and therefore increase the chances of a buy.

This is a proposal FRAMEWORK which is tried and proven through the years working at Cisco, Fore, MontaVista, Cloakware , etc… In short it works and has been the foundation of the Marketing and Sales effort of these Multi Billion/Million companies.

As such I encourage those interested to substitute their own content within the framework and see what they come up with.

Have fun. :slight_smile:

GENESIS/BACKGROUND TO PROPOSAL
In reading the following Article which nicely sums up the best virtues of the Safe Network… to give credit where credit is due

https://briandcolwell.com/2017/09/maidsafecoin-introducing-the-new-decentralized-internet/.html

I noticed this bit about MAIDSafe… It just jumped right out at me…

“A network that requires no administrators or human intervention of any kind.”

This was Appletalk circa 1984, I do know of what I speak :slight_smile: (see below)

What’s in a name?

Well Appletalk became synonymous in 1984+ with “it’s sooo easy, just plug it in and it works…”, which was why Apple at the time owned 10% of the worldwide PC market with a blackbox solution, totally proprietary riding a wave of FatMAC adoption…packaged with early publishing and early photo manipulation programs mainly… (It drove MS-DOS Bill Gates nuts at the time, Windows was nowhere in sight, and Quarterdeck’s Quarterdesk ruled the PC windowed desktop for a short time)

THE HISTORY OF NETWORKING SHITE- Lessons learned
In the meantime I was slugging it out in the trenches back in 1984+ in the big smoke (Toronto or “TO” for short) trying to get IBM PCXTs and PC ATs to network using software shite from Novell, 3Com and later MS… wasting endless hours at night configuring and installing networking drivers and operating systems and looking at consoles while running ping commands trying to figure out why much of it never worked “out of the box”. The best part of that midnight insanity effort was leaving at midnight the networking madness behind, grabbing a bit of sleep and the very next day, jumpting in front of a PC AT to get programming on early CRM/ERP systems in dBase while getting to watch my Clipper compiler speed dbaseIII up 10X… In short networking was a nightmare back then and it still is a nightmare today (despite what Apstra tells you…:wink: )

So much for past reflections, fastforward to MaidSafe and the Safe Network…

THE MAIDSAFE VALUE PROP BRANDING OPP
I do think the SAFE Network has the chance to pull off what Appletalk did long ago in 1984, however, IMNHO today MAIDSafe has no “Top of Mind” Label with a sticky “buy” tag line or phrase at the moment which jumps out at you and just sticks, and this is one of the primary reasons IMO, this lack of “Top of Mind” stickiness as it applies to investors, why MaidsafeCoin keeps slipping down the MarketCap ranking table of coinmarketcap.com

PROPOSAL GOAL Create a sticky label and buy line for MAIDsafe enabling tech

VALUE PROP Marketing Suggestion
Create a Maidsafe sticky brand label for the underlying privacy and safety created by Maidafe’s technology with the goal of:

creating sticky permanent memory Top of Mind Awareness of MaidSAFE’s Core Value proposition in the minds of the collective target audience that is:

  • users;
  • developers and;
  • investors alike,

where the sticky branding label is linked to a sticky “buy line” which describes the core differentiation these audiences are buying/want to buy/need and as a “buy line” creates a strong permanent mental link lead/link in the buyer’s mind to the MAIDsafe created technical features underpinning the MAIDSafe differentiation found in the “buy line”.

In short, the GOAL of the proposal aims to “Brand the Value of the Network Stack in MaidSafe” to create more “Top of Mind” permanent memory stickiness with developers, investors and users which in turn, will

  1. **generate more rapid community engagement participation in developers,

  2. setup future rapid adoption in users, and,

  3. re-stimulate a keen interest by investors** wishing to hold MaidSafeCoin as a store of long term value.

MARKETING REVIEW- SOTU for MaidSafe Corporate Label

Maidsafe Core Value Proposition

M-A-I-D Massive Array of Idle/Internet Disks with

S-A-F-E Safe access for Everyone…

This is what the emerging market remembers after the first two marketing steps, awareness, education.

A BRANDING LABEL FOR MAIDSAFE VALUE DIFFERENTIATORS

First MaidSafe is indeed a SAFE Network devoted to protecting the user’s privacy/anonymity and securing their data in a distributed fashion and of course has a reward system targeted at users and developers.

Branding Label for VALUE differentiation- MAIDTalk
A Proposed Value Branding Label for the Technical Goodness of MAIDSafe creating the value Differentiation (define further below)

“MAIDTalk” as proposed as that catchy “hook” label… to first brand the REAL value of the network stack/overlay NOS being built which makes up the clear technical differentiators underpinning the end user value of the SAFE Network which again IMNHO is privacy and safey

nb- Safetalk is taken… and asscciated to a suicide watch service in Canada
https://www.google.ca/search?q=safetalk&oq=Safetalk&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0l5.4072j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Proposed “BUY Line” for the Target Collective User/Developer/Investor Audience

First a few basics…
The “BUY Line” is always found accompanying the “Hook” label
and should be designed as the Value statement the target audience will buy into :slight_smile:

For example…(2)

MAIDtalk…

The WHAT

**MAIDtalk..**
  1. “Private and Safe Network Communications for the people, by the people”

The WHAT for 9linking the Value prop label to the corporate label)
2. " MaidSafe is powered by Maidtalk to uniquely protect the user’s:"

The desired result in permanent memory is to get the prospective user/developer/investor to ponder the above and quickly create the answer to the obvious questions" (natural early objections)

Why MaidSafe? What makes MaidSafe different…?

The first answer is short,

  "First, The MaidSAFE Network  is **powered** by MAIDtalk" its the technology 
   under the bonnet/hood"

“ok”

“Tell me more” or “so what” or “and?” can be typical first responses

The second answer is the setup to six differentiated silver bullets, plus one… with three of the them targeted specifically to the audience, the three+1 will be different for each audience segment: users, developers and investors, but three of them shall always be consistent…

The first “Three Consistent” silver bullet lead in response:

My 3 picks:

the GENERAL WHY

1 - " Privacy" => list a short 3 Anonymity Protection Feature Set Bullets
matching privacy

“Ensure the user’s”

2- “Security” = list a short 3 Attacks and Disruption protection Feature Set
bullets matching security-

and make the user’s networking experience uniquely

3 Rewarding = list a short 3 Rewards System Feature Set
bullets matching Rewards Systems

The above is part of the 6 Story Elevator pitch and +1 as you exit the elevator :slight_smile:

The HOW
“By simply sharing excess disk space a a secure anonymous vault”

“OK I get it generally, but how does this apply to me personally or my business?”

The specific WHY
The Second “Three Audience Specific” silver bullet lead in response:

This is the elevator pitch floor 4 to 6 (hold back the last audience specific silver bullet"

My 3 picks by Audience

User Audience

Developer Audience

PROPOSAL SUMMARY: Value Prop Label and Buy Line.
To summarize how “MAIDTalk” is the hook label used to brand all the technical innovation and goodness found in the MaidSAFE network which is made up of all the good work being done by the core development team and 3rd party developers focused on the creation/improvement/testing/deployment/update and scaling of the very private and secure(safe) network protocol/vault machinery/overlay NOS/reward system under the hood (ie how safe does overlay routing, datachains, utp/UDP hole punching etc, overlay connection oriented mesh network signalling, smart vault re-location, servicevault hosting rewards, app dev rewards, etc…, )

The buy line is
“Private and Safe Network Communications for the people, by the people”

Which is exactly what the developer, investor and user can all “buy in to” it’s a vision of how we can communicate safely and privately in the future which is in our own control, as sovereign, ascended human beings wanting to do their own thing their way.

yes this buy line statement attached to the hook label MaidTalk which is of course a deliberate, blatant play on the USA Constitution which is very, very sticky everywhere, in everyone’s mind, worldwide! This type of wording is what creates Top of Mind Awareness, all the time and keeps MAIDSafe at the forefront of investor, user and developer thinking, burned into permanent memory when it comes to seeking Enterprise IT of Web based service solutions which are really private, secure/safe and viable (profitable, rewarding…)

So that is my 2 cents and I am sticking to it… :slight_smile:

Have fun plugging your own label and buy line ideas.


Some R2 Background to the above rant/revelation (read only if you have the time, otherwise ignore)
It dawned on me, being an Internet Dinosaur circa the day the IBM PC XT showed up in 1984, when reading the above listed article about MAIDSafe, that at the time in those dark 1984 years, of some networking tech which just worked in the network space was called “Appletalk”.

I was then a diligent Clipper/Dbase II/III programmer/developer by day (sometimes Pascal hacker, C knob (before C++), and yes MASM) and an early network VAR/integrator for Novell IPX/SPX NOS as well as 3Com 3+ NOS which, at the time, the latter supported a suite of networking protocols XNS/Appletalk/TCP/IP/LAT-DEC bridging) with a software install-able NIC driver that was called demand protocol architecture “DPA”. 3Com 3+ was eventually purchased by MS and became their early LAN Manager product while 3Com shipped in parallel 3+Open for a time before exiting the NOS market after their buy of Bridge Comm. (lots of early small “c” cisco people came from Bridge in the early days of DARPA/ARPA as Bridge had created the world’s first router called the IB/3 bridge/router) .

The point is, every time we plugged a 3Com 3+ NOS powered 3server (A fancy PC AT) into an existing Appletalk network full of FatMACs with 512kilobyes of RAM doing desktop publishing, it just worked!.. Appletalk truly was plug and play… and an easy buy for the FT500 and SMB marketplaces as well as the homebuyer.

Again IMNHO STICKY is what the SAFE Network Foundation and community is striving for in a value proposition label and buy line statement linked to the corporate label MAIDsafe, in order to repeat the success of the Appletalk phenomena way back in 1984… but this time maybe it’s a MAIDtalk private plug n play success…with rewards. :wink:

Please hit the like button if you agree :slight_smile:


8 Likes

That’s unfortunate.

To the typical american TV junkie, “MAIDTalk” may be easily confused with something from Downton Abbey. :grin:


Dear Scottish natives and expats: please take no offense to the following brainstorm… :thinking:

I’m no marketing expert, but thinking about concepts like obfuscation, encryption, security, pop-culture, MaidSafe’s point of origin being Scotland, and the background story about dirvine’s love of being out on the water sailing… somehow leads me to Loch Ness, and it’s famed monster, Nessie.

So now a word/phrase that might bring all this together : Safeness

There are a few quick acronyms that come to mind. I can’t say that I like these 100%, but maybe someone will get a better idea via me throwing them out there:

  1. (S)afe (A)lgorithms (F)or (E)ncrypted (N)aturally (E)mergent (S)ecurity (S)ystems
  2. (S)afe (A)utonomously (F)unctioning (E)conomic (N)etworks (E)nsure (S)ecure (S)ervices
  3. (S)afe (A)utonomy (F)or (E)galitarian (N)etworks (E)quals (S)ecure (S)implicity

Cheesy Tag lines:

  • Safeness: the monster inside The SAFE Network. Stealthily keeping your data safe and secure byte after byte.”
  • Safeness: the monster inside The SAFE Network. Data thieves won’t know what bit them.”
  • Safeness: it’s about time you loch down your data with The SAFE Network.”
  • Safeness: even if they drain the loch your data stays hidden in The SAFE Network.”
  • “For safeness sake, join The SAFE Network already!”

More than a bit silly, I know. Maybe it just needs to be hyphenated with an emoji at the end (Safe-ness :wink:). Hopefully, this thought-train makes someone come up with something better. Maybe I just misunderstood the OP?

4 Likes

I’d have to agree MAIDtalk is not going to work well. Sounds like some English TV show or some porn movie.

I’d go for SecureTalk if you cannot have SafeTalk. After all SAFE is Secure.Access.For.All

That’s the important thing that Apple did, not naming it Appletalk. I understand what you’re trying to do, and if SAFE becomes plug’n’play as planned then that’s definitely a really strong virtue to be sold (probably the stongest from a dev point of view), but having a name XXXXtalk is not important. It won’t be meaningful to anyone who wasn’t a network engineer in the 90s either …

2 Likes

This is a framework proposal first, to prompt ideas, I tend to agree that MAIDtalk would not be ideal, I am hoping someone will come up with something creative…

@jlpell SafeNess is actually pretty cool :slight_smile: definitely could have Nessy wrapped around the vault in the logo used with the label to get the point across… :slight_smile:

3 Likes

Yeah, ol’ Nessie (Nessy) is serpentine-like, so maybe the neck, body, and tail together could make the shape of a big ‘S’ hugging some data chunks in a vault or a…
treasure chest full of safecoin! :sauropod: :scroll::gift::crown::dragon:

After that all we would need is literally a pirate lurking in the background or running away from her… :cowboy_hat_face::skull_and_crossbones: (sorry, cowboy was the closest looking emoji to a pirate.)

Just for fun…
Here is Safeness (monster) in her sea of data, protecting Everyone by keeping Censor-Ship at bay; that infamous vessel of thought thugs, mind slavers, and private data pirates.
image
source:public domain

7 Likes

How about SafenetTalk ?

Unfortunately “Safenet” belongs to another company and this would not be good for them or us.

It could be a bit Pythonesque, not a bad thing, maybe something like this will work?
SAFENess Logo Concept

2 Likes

Considering recent changes on reddit, I think there is a clear desire to separate the branding of the two entities. It may be more appropriate to think in terms of something like :

  • “MaidSafe gave you The SAFE Network… The SAFE Network keeps your data wrapped in safeness.”

  • “The SAFE Network : simplicity and safeness itself.”

  • “MaidSafe : building SAFE to give you safeness.”

  • “Safeness is as SAFE does what MaidSafe made.”

  • “Find your safeness in the SAFE network.”

Also, in the U.S. any time you can hop on the “Got Milk?” ad campaign or any kind of health fad you know you’ve arrived :wink:.

  • “Got SAFE?”
  • “A daily dose of safeness does a mind and body good.”

Then there is the simple play on words from cult movies :

  • “The SAFE Network isn’t like a box of chocolates, you always know what you’re gonna get… safeness.”, “Safeness is as SAFE does.” ( Forest Gump)
  • “I’ll be SAFE.” (Terminator)
  • “Who you gonna call? SAFE Network!” (Ghost Busters)
  • “In the end, there can be only one Safeness.”, “It’s better to be SAFE than to fade away!” (Highlander)

Star Wars has some gems too:

  • “May the Safeness be with you.”
  • “Traveling through XOR-space ain’t like ddos ops, script kiddie.”
  • “Remember…the SAFE Network will be with you, always.”

And let’s not forget Lord of the Rings for the Tolkien fans:

  • “One Core to rule them all, One Crust to find them,
    One Coin to bring them all, and in the safeness bind them,
    In the SAFE Network where the /etc/shadows and self-encryptions never lie.”
4 Likes

@jlpell, I think we need to be mindful that the major ingredient in the SAFE network is Security and not safeness. You can still be very un-safe on the network and there is no automatic mechanism to make your experience safe. Its more about security and the safety that can be obtained through secure communications and secure (safe) storage of your data.

I am just concerned that promoting safeness would be getting the cart before the horse so to speak. People see safeness as a greater thing than safe. safeness implies almost impossible to be unsafe, whereas on the network it is easy to be unsafe. For instance give out personal ID or bank details etc while using MAIDTalk (or whatever its called)

Just my thoughts here and I’m sure others will see it differently.

1 Like

Yes, I think your points are important to consider.

I guess the mentality I had in some of the previous thought-train was that for marketing purposes the term “security” or “secure” often comes across as gruff and hard or ‘tacticool’, whereas most casual users will be attracted to a greater degree if they are presented with a “warm and fuzzy” feeling. To me “secure” is fine for the techies and the free-speech/privacy minded crowd, but “safeness” provides that easy to approach message for people who might regularly use the internet, but not have a clue (nor want to know) about how it does what it does. Although they are unflattering unless one has a good sense of humor, your comment perhaps shows the need for other edutainment type slogans (or not) :wink:

  • “SAFE provides maximum security; but don’t mix your safeness with your stupidness.”
  • "Be SAFE with your safeness, friends don’t let friends surf stupid.
  • “The SAFE Network : get some safeness here but leave your inner exhibitionist at the self-authenticator.”
  • “The SAFE Network : what happens here, stays here… forever.”
2 Likes

I think safeness is OK as a term - we already have SAFE so safeness is a nice way of embodying both the brand and the (warm and fuzzy) qualities that we want to emphasise and project about SAFEnetwork. I recall that David said he liked ‘Project SAFE’ when we were deciding on what to call this, and I think safeness could also allude to the bigger picture / vision which Project SAFE suggests, and he has for SAFEnetwork.

What I’m not so keen on so far is association with Nessy. I get the wish to acknowledge David’s and MaidSafe’s geographical and cultural roots, but I don’t think we should either make that prominent (eg in a logo) or tie it specifically to an existing image (Nessy) that has been used quite a lot for different things in UK culture, and will be unknown or have other associations in other cultures.

If we want a symbol from nature we might start from scratch and look at where we find qualities that are suitable symbols of SAFE. Maybe we’ll find a Scottish animal or symbol fits that bill, I don’t know, but I think best to start from the qualities of SAFE and go from there.

So what are the qualities of SAFE and which do we think will appeal to the masses?

4 Likes

Good s**t bit long winded but good.

In my opinion it would be good to somehow use words that evoke an idea of creating regenerative ecosystems based on nature. Ideas of a collaborative, regenerative, evolution, of the whole becoming greater than the sum of parts without interference. Something like ‘SAFEevolution’ (though might be confused with forthcoming DASH evolution!) but that kind of thing. It was those sorts of ideas that first grabbed my attention and sparked my interest.

Edit: the word ‘talk’ implies communication where more encompassing words like ‘exchange’ or ‘share’ could be used to imply a sort of decentralised commons where many different forms of communication, goods & services can all be safely shared.

I’m just spouting general concepts that come to my mind to maybe help spark further ideas - not making absolute suggestions!

1 Like

Yes, you are probably very right on this one. Nessy showed up in the thought stream to point at the word “safeness” and I/we just played it out for a while. Although the dragon or serpent is common to nearly all cultures, and is easily shaped into the letter “S” it does offer varying subliminal messaging. For example, to the Chinese it is luck , good fortune and strength; but to the Evangelical it is a symbol of evil. At first I figured it might be a fun marketing exercise to use some of that cultural symbolism, but I think your suggestion to look to more fundamental symbols of being safe, having safety/security or safeness is more appealing. At the same time, nearly every object or symbol one could choose will have some set of preconceived notion or baggage that comes along with it, so Nessy might end up being rather tame, especially in cartoon form. You also get the old symbology related to regeneration and infinity as in the case of a Nessy/Dragon Ouroboros, but that can have a lot of negative baggage too.

A universal symbol for being “safe and secure” or having “safeness” which I’m simply defining simply via the dictionary as “the quality of being safe” is tricky. There is always standard imagery like a vault, or a mother holding a child, a trusted friend, or a person’s home, but it seems like those images would miss their mark in the case of the SAFE network. Other basic imagery that comes to mind is a nest egg or a circle.

How about a single drop of water on a leaf or hitting a surface like this kind of imagery?

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ComputerHotline\_-\_Water_droplet_(by).jpg

That’s all the marketing I can muster… back to work.

2 Likes

Reminds me of an explanation from ‘spiritual entertainer’ Alan Watts about the nature of reality :wink:

“Imagine a multidimensional spider’s web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops. And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that reflection. And so ad infinitum. That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image.”

2 Likes