Voice Preparing for Launch + Beta Testing Guide Revealed

After big aspirations to take the social media world by storm, blockchain-based Voice.com is gearing up for its summer reboot as an NFT platform for emerging creators.

When Voice was announced back in June of 2019, the excitement within the EOS community for the human-only, token-powered, social media platform was palpable. Anointed with a 30-million dollar domain and near-endless runway, Voice was aimed at the masses. Two years later, “Social with a Soul,” has done little if anything to lift the community’s spirits.

While launching a successful social media platform is near impossible to begin with, the ultimate demise of Voice’s first attempt can be narrowed to three reasons:

- Failure to identify market fit.

- Failure to successfully launch the Voice token.

- Failure to understand and leverage the overall crypto and EOS communities.

https://www.instagram.com/voicehq/?hl=en

After an unsuccessful and humbling first year, Voice made the brave decision to blow up the platform and relaunch as an “NFT platform for emerging creators,” which was once again, aimed at the masses. The announcement of the pivot was met by a mixture of optimism, groans, and apathy.

While there are enormous amounts of excitement, speculation, and innovation surrounding NFTs on public blockchains like Ethereum and WAX, Voice is attempting to provide a painless user experience for its creators by launching the platform on a private blockchain with mentions of future ability to withdrawal your Voice NFTs to public blockchain such as EOS. These community-appeasing features are typically more easily said than done. While the intentions of Voice have always been good, their ability to deliver on features in the first iteration of the platform was sub-optimal.

As Voice prepares for public launch, a link to a “Voice Beta Testing Guide” doc recently appeared at the top of voice.com/login. The key takeaways have been underlined in the screenshot below.

Key takeaways:

- Public launch is scheduled for August.

- Beta testers will receive a $15 gift card to offset costs incurred while testing.

- Testers can buy NFTs with a credit card or Voice Balance (USDC for now).

- To use the Voice Balance feature, you need an Ethereum-based wallet.

- Everything on the site, including your NFTs will be deleted when Voice launches.

- “…we are asking you to spend real money on NFTs that will be deleted very shortly.”

Opinion

The copious amounts of money that have been invested in Voice, put unjust pressure on the project to attempt to deliver “innovation” on a mass scale.

While improving user experience and network effects increasingly drive decentralized blockchain adoption, Voice attempts to drive adoption through an approach that utilizes a private blockchain and will be more comfortable for creators who have been hearing about all the NFT hype and are looking for an easy entrance.

By definition, Voice is an NFT platform. But it provides a means to withdrawal Voice NFTs to store and then be able to trade a decentralized public blockchain, I would caution any use of Voice as a vehicle for any serious NFT speculation, collecting, etc.

If all “NFTs” on the beta will be deleted when Voice launches, I’m curious to learn what switch they are going to flip to guarantee these assets can’t be deleted at any time. I don’t think a printout of a string of hashes will suffice.

Unless Voice can legitimize itself as a bulletproof NFT platform that’s respected by those in the cryptosphere it will likely serve as a launchpad to other marketplaces on decentralized public blockchains.

Creators would come to Voice for easy onboarding to the NFT experience. While there, they decide to take the leap and set up a wallet on Coinbase to transfer USDC to and from their Voice Balance. If their art finds success on Voice they’ll look towards creating a presence on the trending markets based on public chains like Opensea, AtomicHub, or hic et nunc.

As of now, I still have a lot more questions than answers. I’ve not seen much to convince me that Voice learned from the mistakes they made the first go-around, especially as it relates to growing and leveraging the power of a community. I’m curious to hear the thoughts and opinions of those inside the EOS community, those who interact with NFTs on a daily basis, and those who are just learning about NFTs. How do you feel about how Voice is positioning itself in the space? Are you excited or dissapointed?