Friday’s AMA was focused on the rebrand of DADI to Edge, but that didn’t stop us covering a plethora of other topics. Those questions not answered this time will be picked up in the next AMA.
Ravi Chandwani: There have been a number of challenges in replacing DADI with the new Edge brand. A key area of focus has been bringing the different App/Services under a single brand style. The existing offering felt somewhat disparate as there were a number of different styles and approaches being used. We have been and continue to work with the team to create more uniformity across the brand. Ensuring there is a stylistic and aesthetic connection in all aspects of the brand. Finalizing the logo itself has also been challenging. Ensuring the logo resonates with the target audience and sits comfortably alongside competitors whilst also having standout and impact. It is important that it is both distinctive and aesthetically pleasing. Something I feel we have achieved.
Joseph Denne: I'd say that you've definitely achieved! Super happy with the work
Ravi Chandwani: We've spent a few months on the design itself and moved - sometimes frustratingly! - through a wide number of variations and iterations. This included a significant amount of third-party input, including from customers and others within the crypto industry.
Joseph Denne: Since October last year! So, we've been moving towards it for quite a while - starting with the naming of the network, and then through the reduction in use of DADI in comms, finally getting to the point of being able to announce it, and then of course formally launching it next week.
Ravi Chandwani: It is difficult to pinpoint any brand out there that is completely unique. Generally, there will be a connection between brands in a similar space which is what ensures they can communicate effectively in the wider industry. However, the intention with the new brand was to create something which differentiates us from our competitors and demonstrates a fresh approach to this space.
Key points of the brand are a focus on clarity and simplicity. We are communicating some complex ideas in a clear and concise manner. This is done through copy, but also through the overall aesthetic. Reduced colour palette, white space and a focus on minimalism. Combined, these qualities should give us stand out from the crowd.
Ravi Chandwani: The message we want to convey is clarity and simplicity, ease of use and accessibility to a complex and cutting-edge technology. This is achieved through refining and minimizing the visual and textual content. Lots of white space, giving content room to breathe as well as lighter font weights and a reductive palette should help to communicate these ideas. The brand will continue to develop as more elements are added to the visual language. We are taking an iterative approach so we can be flexible enough to accommodate new developments whilst ensuring that everything retains brand recognition.
Ravi Chandwani: The new brand will definitely feed into the new products developed with Blond. This will be through the product design as well as packaging. This has been part of the thought process in developing the new brand look and feel. We are excited to see how this develops into 3 dimensional objects in the future.
Joseph Denne: DADI was right for us at the beginning of our journey: It communicated the ambition of the technology, and it was a memorable name. However, when addressing a market as part of the proposition as now stands it lacked clarity. It's also worth acknowledging that it wasn't universally liked too.
Joseph Denne: Well, #8! Contributors purchased in Eth. $DADI is down ~62% in Eth since the token sale. Eth remains down 76.46% over the same period. I'm not trying to paint a rosy picture, but it's worth calling out the facts. In a very difficult market, our token price has fared reasonably well. The illustration is just that. It's playful and reflective of our ambition, nothing more.
Joseph Denne: Well, we see Edge as central to our go to market strategy. It's all about marking the platform out as the leader in the field of edge computing and edge networking. It's a more grown up brand, and one which clearly communicates the proposition. We believe that this clarity of purpose will help to carry us forward, both internally and with the broader market.
Arthur Mingard: There's a big difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org. And between either of those and Wix. Edge is all about network level services. This will eventually include a 1-click deploy marketplace for different technologies, which will lower the barrier to entry significantly.
What we're doing with the web services under a new brand is much more closely aligned to a Wordpress, in that it is a SaaS proposition designed to lower the barrier to entry. In time we expect this to evolve further, with versions of the offering more closely aligned to the likes of wordpress.com.
Joseph Denne: That's a yes. But it's not our core focus in Edge right now.
Joseph Denne: It doesn't. The DADI Foundation is also rebranding, and will be known as the Edge Initiative. The go live date for this isn't confirmed yet, but we expect it to follow on quickly from the launch of Edge.
Arthur Mingard: This solution is similar to Intel SGX - we really support the introduction of this sort of feature to all chips on the market. We'll be watching each version into maturity and adoption, and if they stand up to scrutiny, they'll almost certainly find their way onto the roadmap.
Joseph Denne: Yes, this isn't something that we're doing by stealth, although we are doing it slowly as we continue to test and improve the mainnet. And yes, we're very proud of the technology. The strongest selling points are performance (speed of deployment, speed of delivery), security, transparency and price.
Arthur Mingard: In CDN, once an object has been generated and moved in to the cache of a Gateway, the original node isn't participating in the request, which is why the header changes. We are working on updates that will include a breakdown of all of the nodes that participated in a request, regardless of cache state.
Joseph Denne: We have been working with a handful of partners on this. So yes! I'm not familiar with Tierion, but will take a look.
Joseph Denne: You're correct in identifying this as a key milestone in the go to market. We are working the interfaces for the first services now, and expect to be moving them to live in Q4.
Joseph Denne: We agree that broader reach and liquidity would be beneficial. And in fact, we see it as being essential as we build out the network. This isn't something that has been ignored, but it's also unfortunately not something that we can talk about at the moment.
Arthur Mingard: User account management is something that typically exists within the application that makes use of a CDN. There are however plans for single use cryptographic keys within the solution.
Joseph Denne: So, for example, you could choose to lock down certain content and make it available only to authenticated users within your app. Those users would be given links (or the content would be embedded with) URLs which would expire after a set amount of time has passed.
Joseph Denne: We've started to provide more detail on this front and will continue to do so. We are working on client success stories and will be publishing ever deeper levels of data as we move forward and also as we continue to evolve the network explorer.
Joseph Denne: As I think I mentioned in my last weekly update, next week! (And if I didn't, I meant to!)
Arthur Mingard: In the fullness of time, yes, that is correct. In the first instance self on-boarding will be gated on a first come first serve basis. The reason for this is that we need to monitor and assess performance as the network grows.
Arthur Mingard: Yes, you can. How many devices you can run is limited only by your connectivity and the subsequent performance of the devices in resolving tasks in Gateways job queue.
Joseph Denne: September for backbone rentals. With some potential for onboarding to start sooner.
Arthur Mingard: The right to censorship isn't something that we believe in as a team, however we have to respect the rule of law within those regions in which we operate. How this is handled within the network when fully decentralized is an open question, but we expect to be handled at Stargate level and on a region by region basis.
Joseph Denne: It is, yes, although it has taken a backseat to core development in the past few months. We expect to be picking it up again in earnest towards the back end of this year.
Arthur Mingard: The stability in the Founding Nodes relates to the update process rather than the node software itself. Because we need support for scale in the network, we need support for unattended updates. This is to support a broad array of devices and to remove the need for a high level of technical understanding to contribute. The auto update process has been one of the most complicated portions of development, other than securing the node software, and this has led to a number of issues with the update process. We see this as par for the course and given the cutting-edge nature of the platform it's really not that surprising. This is also why we have a backbone of devices in the network: it allows for testing within the Founding Node programme without impacting live services.
Arthur Mingard: Network scale is a big part of the answer here. But we're also working with partners to build scrubbing centers into the backbone of the network, which will go a long way to protecting us from DDOS attacks.
Joseph Denne: Yes, these are being worked on. As soon as there's something to share on this front, we will do so.
Joseph Denne: It does. We're very, very early in this process and are not ready to announce anything on this front yet. Consider it an R&D line, which may or may not come to fruition.
Arthur Mingard: Well! But it's ongoing and we have changes to telemetry still to make. This may necessitate a further update to Founding Nodes. And yes, I'll be writing and providing a full update on the process soon!
Ravi Chandwani: The branding process is iterative, so we will continue to work on other aspects of the brand which as yet have not been seen. There are a number of strands which are being worked on, including iconography, illustrative elements as well as the product design. We will continue to develop these with a strong adherence to the overall brand aesthetic and tone. Some of this you will see with the launch of the new site, and some will be added over time.
Joseph Denne: It's worth noting that we've made some additions to https://brand.edge.network as well, and that this will be kept up to date as we go.
Joseph Denne: Yes! We've figured out a way to enable this in our bot, and will be rolling it out to our own channel - and to the other crypto projects that our bot power - next week.
