LONDON (Bywire News) - Zalatimo is credited as having led the rebuild of Forbes.com over recent years, transforming it into a profitable publishing platform. As per a Voice press release, the EOSIO software-based platform-in-development describe the new CEO as a digital transformation expert who was a “blockchain fan early on.”
Voice says this is “in sync” with its goals of putting users in control “of their own data and content, while engaging in a network populated by real people, made transparent by the qualities of blockchain.”
Anticipation is building for the blockchain-social platform after Voice announced in early December that it would launch in beta mode on February 14th, 2020. Voice writes:
“Learning from the successes and troubles of familiar platforms, Voice will add verified identity to encourage real content from real people and a blockchain backbone to enhance transparency and provable data integrity.”
Voice plans to reward users with cryptocurrency tokens for different forms of engagement, thus “aligning the interests of users, content creators and advertisers.”
Zalatimo was hired by Forbes in 2015 after the publisher acquired his startup, Camerama. The executive re-engineered the Forbes platform and integrated an AI editor to improve the effectiveness of the 3000 and more contributors to the platform. During Zalatimo’s time at Forbes it doubled its audience to over 110 million monthly users and became a global top 100 website.
Block.one CEO Brendan Blumer says Zalatimo’s “experience in creating state-of-the-art content monetization and publishing tools makes him uniquely qualified to lead Voice.” Blumer adds that:
“As users enter an era of being rewarded for their contributions to social networks, we believe it’s also important to focus on equipping creators with tools used by the world’s most successful journalists.”
The new Voice CEO says that “blockchain is becoming a clear driver of digital media product innovation,” and that Voice’s tokenization design is “fundamentally better.”
In the December announcement of Voice’s progress and planned beta launch, Voice also began its community building efforts. It launched its own social platforms and called for community support and scrutiny in the name of transparency as the project progresses.