MANAS’s Business Model and Proxy Promotion Mechanism
1. What is MANAS?
MANAS (Matrix AI Network AI Service Platform) is built on Matrix’s highly efficient blockchain. It is the gate through which Matrix directly exports value to the world.
Utilizing the latest blockchain technologies, MANAS is catered towards the demands of AI developers and their clients, aiming to build a platform for monetizing AI models and algorithms in a safe, fair, trustable and smart transaction environment.
You may learn more about MANAS at https://www.matrix.io/manas.html.
So far, MANAS has already launched more than 10 stable and fully tested AI services and deployed APIs on a large scale. These are the foundation for the next phase of MANAS: commercialization. Different from other AI service platforms, MANAS will adopt a mechanism called proxy promotion.
2. What is proxy promotion?
Proxy promotion is an arrangement where Matrix does not participate in the commercialization of MANAS itself but will delegate business operation to third parties, who can access MANAS services through open API tools. Generally speaking, there will be two categories of third-party participants on MANAS: proxy service providers and app developers.
Proxy service providers can build their own AI service platforms that integrate MANAS APIs to serve their own clients.
For app developers, their products may feature one or multiple MANAS AI services. When this happens, they will need to integrate the relevant APIs into their apps to ensure a holistic experience for users.
3. Why use proxy promotion?
Simply put, we believe that everyone should play to their strengths. Matrix’s expertise is in tech development, not in commercial operation, while people with commercial talent and resources are not rare in the Matrix community. Thanks to proxy promotion, everyone in the Matrix community will have a chance to make a contribution to MANAS’s success. This arrangement also helps to ignite community activeness, offering everyone a way to profit by promoting MANAS services.
4. How does proxy promotion work?
As mentioned before, proxy service providers can build their own AI service platforms to integrate MANAS APIs and directly sell services to their own clients.
By integrating APIs, proxy service providers can bring AI services on MANAS to their own platforms. This way, users can directly purchase AI services through these portals (i.e. websites, mobile or PC apps), and MANAS will provide services through API and charge the proxy providers accordingly. Users will pay service fees directly to providers, who will then pay the cost of the services to MANAS and a certain percentage of the profit to algorithm scientists and miners.
Proxy service providers can decide how to price AI service products offered on their platforms. After the cost of the services has been paid, whatever remains is the proxy providers’ profit. For instance, imagine we have a plant recognition service on MANAS, and a proxy provider wishes to access its API. The service provider on MANAS has priced the service at $0.01, and the computing power cost for running the service is also $0.01 per use. Now the proxy provider has decided to price the service offered on his platform at $0.05 per use. So if a client purchases this service through the proxy provider, he needs to pay the provider $0.05, and the provider in turn needs to pay $0.01 to the AI algorithm developer and the miner each. Here the gross profit of the proxy provider is $0.05 - $0.02 = $0.03. The formula for calculating gross profit is as follows:
The proxy provider has full freedom to set the price for services on his platform based on how many clients he has. Generally speaking, ideal proxy service providers are people having a stable client base, for instance, the manager of a tech forum, an Internet data center or a public workspace. For these community members, MANAS can provide them with a way to make a substantial profit, in addition to better client loyalty and engagement.
5. How do app developers work and make a profit?
Different from proxy service providers, the goal of app developers is not to directly sell services to clients, but MANAS services can be a crucial part of the user experience they build. For instance, if an app developer is making a natural science education app for kids, he can choose to integrate MANAS’s plant recognition service in his app so that kids can use their smartphones to identify the plants around them.
When using such apps, clients are not directly using MANAS’s services, but these apps rely on MANAS to function. For instance, imagine a developer has made a photo display app that can recognize and label landmarks in the photos people upload. While the service is essentially about saving and displaying photos, the landmark recognition and labelling features also serve add to the user experience.
MANAS also charges app developers based on the number of times their apps access MANAS APIs. For app developers, this is part of their operation cost, and they will in turn get to make a profit by charging membership fees, displaying ads on their platforms, etc.
6. How to apply to become a proxy service provider?
We are currently at Stage One of commercialization. To guarantee stability and security during this process, MANAS will adopt a business model of ‘reviewing and inviting’. Users wishing to obtain commercial APIs should send applications to manasagency@matrix.io describing their resources and business plans, or introducing the products they plan to integrate MANAS APIs into. A reply will be given within 10 work days, and successful applicants will receive an invitation account number from MANAS.
Users can use these invitation accounts to log onto MANAS and obtain the API public keys and the private keys for the services they need. MANAS APIs can then be integrated into third-party platforms and applications.
API Demo Video can be found at https://youtu.be/Jmp0RgJhrUg.
7. Fee Calculation for Agencies and Developers
After integrating MANAS APIs, agencies and developers will need to pay MANAS a pre-charged fee, whose balance will be subtracted based on the number of times their clients access these MANAS services. All payments will be settled in MAN and processed on the Matrix Mainnet. Users will have access to a dashboard showing which service APIs they’ve integrated, the number of client uses and the resulting cost.
The reason MANAS charges a prepayment is to guarantee service stability for agencies and developers. MANAS will dynamically manage resources based on the amount prepaid and the number of client uses. When resources are tight, agencies and developers with a history of large traffic and a prepayment deposited at MANAS will be given priority. Agencies and developers may also ask to have their unused balances refunded.
8. Why agencies are important for MANAS commercialization?
8.1 Lower Entry Barrier to AI
Using agencies for commercialization will lower the entry barrier to AI services. Influencers, public figures or anyone with a large following can build their own AI service platforms to monetize their influence, which in turn will popularize AI services.
8.2 A More Dynamic Matrix Ecosystem
This arrangement will make the Matrix community more active, as everyone can participate to make a profit. By creating huge demands for AI services, MANAS will attract more top-notch AI scientists, and Matrix miners will also benefit from higher returns. All this will be a virtuous cycle for the Matrix ecosystem.
9. The Advantages of MANAS
9.1 A Vibrant Ecosystem
A key difference between centralized and decentralized AI service platforms is who provides AI services. For traditional centralized AI platforms (for instance, AWS or Ali Cloud), the provider of AI services is also the company running the platform. As we know, diversity is the life of any ecosystem. The decentralized structure of MANAS means that, like iOS or Android ecosystems, services on the platform are provided by independent AI algorithm scientists. This not only diversifies AI service types but also encourages different apps and services to continuously improve in a competitive free market.
9.2 Cheaper and More Personal
Different from centralized platforms, MANAS uses a C2C business model. Clients can benefit from affordable pricing that come from free-market competition. At the same time, MANTA’s auto-machine learning will lower the barrier to developing AI services for MANAS, and Matrix’s decentralized network will provide affordable computing power for AI scientists. All this means that services and applications on MANAS will be available at more competitive prices.
A C2C platform is demand-driven. Personalized needs and niche markets can find solutions here so that AI will eventually revolutionize every corner of the business world.
9.3 Clear-cut Roles for Everyone Involved
This business model means MANAS won’t have to find clients itself as other platforms do. Since MANAS will only be providing services to agencies and developers through APIs, it won’t come in direct contact with their clients. Agencies and developers are free from worries about MANAS stealing their clients. Under this arrangement, MANAS will be dedicated to improving AI services, and agencies and developers can focus on building their client base.
10. MANAS’s Future Plans
Currently, MANAS will review and check applications first before sending approved users an invitation account. This will change in the future.
10.1 Free Registration
After this initial stage, MANAS will remove its review process, and anyone can become a third-party agency or developer for MANAS by finishing a simple registration.
10.2 Opening up AI Services
At the same time, MANAS will further open up to allow capable AI scientists to deploy their services. Users will have direct access to these services, whose pricing is decided by the AI scientists who built them.
10.3 Launching the Customized AI Service Platform
For agencies and developers with a specific demand that can’t be met by existing AI services on MANAS, they can post their needs on the Customized AI Service Platform along with the estimated market size. AI scientists who see these demands can choose promising ones to develop solutions for, thus satisfying various niche markets.
10.4 A Personal, Open and Decentralized MANAS
To build a personal, open and decentralized platform is MANAS’s goal. With each milestone conquered, MANAS will be closer and closer to a dynamic ecosystem that exports value to the world, taking the AI service industry to the next level.