Darkblock Viewer – Darkblock

Elevate Your Fans’ Experience by Embedding Darkblock’s Collection-Level Viewer on your Website

Whit Richardson — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 21:10:21 +0000

We’re thrilled to announce a new and improved tool that lets creators give their fans access to a wider range of token-bound content directly on their own website—the collection-level Darkblock Viewer.

From the beginning, Darkblock has offered its Viewer as an integral part of its end-to-end solution for helping creators sell premium content in a web3-native way—i.e., we don’t want to just let creators encrypt and attach multimedia files to their NFTs, though that alone would be super cool, we want to provide them with a simple, no-code way for their fans to decrypt and access those files on their own website rather than rely on third-party apps or token-gated platforms.

Darkblock’s Viewer is a powerful tool designed to provide a seamless and immersive experience for both creators and NFT holders. But the original version did have its limitations, especially when it comes to Ethereum and EVM chains. This is because when a creator embeds the original Darkblock Viewer on their site—which is as easy to do as embedding a YouTube video—they need to designate a single token the Viewer is set up to handle, which means it works well for creators who want to give access to content attached to an ERC-1155 edition, but not a great fit for creators with an ERC-721 collection.

Darkblock’s new collection-level Viewer eliminates those limitations. Check it out now in our docs or read on for what it enables for creators.

Breaking Free from Single-Token Constraints

With the new collection-level Viewer, creators can break free from the shackles of single-token limitations.

By embedding the collection-level Viewer on their website, creators can now let their fans connect their wallets and access all the content they own from an entire collection, even if it’s unique content attached to multiple ERC-721 tokens within that collection.

Here’s an example that will help illustrate why this is relevant. Say Yuga Labs wants to enhance the value of its Apes and uses Darkblock to encrypt and attach a unique 3D, metaverse-ready Ape avatar to the corresponding ERC-721 token (easy to do via Darkblock’s PFP Content Factory). That would be cool (especially if Yuga partnered with a metaverse or game that uses Darkblock’s Unity plug-in to enable the automatic upload of that avatar at runtime…). Then, say, it wanted to attach some exclusive VIP passes to its solid gold- and trippy- fur Apes.

If Yuga wanted to embed the original Viewer, they’d need to get developers involved to allow holders to enter their individual token or build a wrapper that would enhance the Viewer to display multiple 721s. Both doable with Yuga’s resources, but out of reach for many small projects and indie creators.

With the new collection-level Viewer Yuga could embed it on their site with some simple HTML code (like we said, as easy as embedding a YouTube video) and each holder, after connecting their wallet, would immediately have access to any token-bound files attached to any NFTs they own from that collection.

The collection-level Viewer means it’s no longer about one token – it’s about the entire collection.

Seamless, Intuitive, and User-Friendly

Our mission at Darkblock is to make it as easy as possible for creators to monetize their content in web3. The collection-level Viewer is intuitive, ensuring holders enjoy a user-friendly interface while navigating through the content attached to their NFTs, whether it’s art, music, ebooks, or any token-bound asset.

This enhancement is not just about functionality; it’s about transforming the way creators showcase their NFTs. The collection-level Viewer enables creators to offer a richer, more engaging experience to their fans right on their own website, fostering deeper connections with their community.

As we continue to build and evolve, we’re excited about the endless possibilities this enhancement brings to the world of decentralized, token-bound content.

The collection level embeds are only available for EVM chains currently. If you need this functionality for another chain, please contact us in our Discord to request the feature!

About Darkblock

Darkblock, a web3 pioneer in decentralized content delivery and monetization, enables creators to control the distribution, accessibility, and monetization of their content without making it right-click-savable. By repurposing NFTs into tokenized vaults for digital content (e.g., music, videos, podcasts, films, comics, ebooks, 3D metaverse or gaming assets, or even HTML files), Darkblock provides the encryption infrastructure creators need to harness the power of web3 technology, unlock new storytelling and community-building tools, explore new business models and ultimately build a new creator economy free from platform control.

Bridging the Gap: Darkblock Introduces Kindle Integration for Token-Bound Ebooks

Whit Richardson — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 15:04:46 +0000

Authors have recognized the immense potential of blockchain technology in expanding their readership, fostering fan engagement, and attaining creative autonomy. However, there remains a significant gap in the web3 publishing landscape—a lack of emphasis on actually getting people to read their books.

At Darkblock, we are determined to change this narrative.

Today we’re thrilled to introduce a new feature that lets authors allow their readers to seamlessly send their token-bound PDFs and EPUB files to their Kindle devices and apps once they’ve been purchased and unlocked. The feature is live now in our web app and for anyone using the iframe embed of the Darkblock Viewer.

Through this feature, we aim to enhance the way token-bound ebooks are experienced, showcasing our unwavering commitment to user-centric design that bridges the gap between web3’s innovative possibilities and the real-world aspirations of authors. While it is ironic that web3 technology, including our own, is positioned as an alternative for indie creators to web2 platforms like Kindle, the truth is the majority of readers still prefer web2 and rely on Kindle for their ebook consumption. Therefore, until web3-native digital ebook readers become more prevalent, meeting readers where they are is crucial in helping creators reach a larger audience beyond the crypto-native community.

Given the nature of NFTs and the narrative that drove the NFT craze of 2021 and 2022, it’s not surprising the focus of the first NFT Books revolved around collectibility rather than optimizing them for actual consumption. Our guess is the vast majority of people minting NFT Books are not actually reading them. That may be because many of these early buyers are just collectors or speculators, but we believe it’s also in part due to subpar user experience (no one wants to read a novel on their desktop) and limitations of web3 tech (e.g., Metamask’s mobile browser doesn’t support EPUBs).

Collectibility is a great feature authors can unlock by using blockchain technology to sell their ebooks, but we believe it doesn’t have to come at the cost of utility.

“By enhancing the user experience and making it easy for readers to transfer their token-bound ebooks to the world’s most popular e-reading platform, Darkblock is at the forefront of revolutionizing the NFT book landscape, meeting consumers where they’re already comfortable consuming content, and unlocking the full potential of web3 technology for authors,” says Chris Seline, Darkblock’s CEO.

If you want to test out the feature, scroll to the bottom of this post (past the video walk-through) where you’ll find an NFT to mint for free called Ink Block, which you can see in the embedded Darkblock Viewer has more than a dozen PDFs attached to it. Once you mint and unlock your token-bound content, click on the three dots to the right of the file name to find the Send-to-Kindle feature. Follow the instructions below to select your method for sending the file to your Kindle account.

How authors enable this feature

There are two ways an NFT holder can send PDFs and EPUB files to their Kindle device and/or app: If they’re on a mobile device, they can share directly to an installed Kindle app, or they can use a Send-to-Kindle email address, which requires whitelisting an email address within their Amazon settings.

As an author, there’s an important distinction to be aware of between these two methods: One requires the author to enable downloads, while the other is always available for readers to use, a decision we feel comfortable with because the files remain protected throughout the entire process.

To enable readers to share directly to an installed Kindle app, the author must check the “Allow download” box at the time they upload their files to be encrypted, stored and attached to the NFT. Because this user flow exposes the PDF or EPUB to being easily downloaded, emailed, or even sent via text message, we want authors to decide if they want to grant readers that level of freedom.

However, holders of NFTs with token-bound files compatible with Kindle—the app supports several file types beyond PDFs and EPUBs—will always have access to the Send-to-Kindle flow requiring a whitelisted email address, regardless of whether the author checked the “Allow download” box at the time of upload. The reason behind this design decision is that with the email flow, the token-bound files are never exposed to being right-click-saved, redirected via email or downloaded to a personal hard drive—the decrypted files are sent from the protocol directly to the user’s Kindle account, where it’s safe from being downloaded given how difficult Amazon makes it to jailbreak its Kindle app.

How readers use this feature

In both user flows described above, a reader will access the Send-to-Kindle feature by clicking on the three dots to the right of the file name after the files have been decrypted.

Share to Kindle mobile app

This method works on mobile devices that have the Kindle app installed. The user can send the file to the app by selecting the “Share to Kindle mobile app” or by scanning a QR-code provided when on a desktop device. Note: On the Darkblock app, the “Share to Kindle mobile app” method is only available if the creator makes the asset downloadable when it is created.

Send to Kindle via email

Users can also send the files once unlocked to their Kindle devices and/or apps via email. To enable this, users will be led through a one-time process to connect their Kindle email, which will entail adding an email address provided by Darkblock to their Approved Personal Document E-mail List in the Amazon Personal Document Settings, and then providing their Kindle email so they can receive the file. This option is always available to users whether the creator checks the “Allow download” box or not at the time of upload.

Hop into our discord if you have any questions or want to learn more.

Watch the video

Try for yourself

If you’d like to see how it works, you can mint our Ink Block NFT for free. It includes a ton of unlockable content in the form of novel excerpts, short stories, audiobook samples, and poems from more than a dozen web3 creators, including NYTimes-bestselling author Joe Nassise, Erfan Mojib, Katie Dozier, Jon F. Merz, Edward H. Carpenter, Tom Leveen, and M.S. Bourland. Once you mint one (widget on the left if on desktop, on top if on mobile), you should be able to unlock the token-bound content in the other widget. Once you do, you should be able to click on the three dots next to the file you want to send to your Kindle and follow the prompts to make it happen. If you run into any problems, please let us know in our Discord. Getting people to use our tech and break it is the best way to improve it!

Note: You will need some MATIC for gas to mint Ink Block. If you don’t have any, let us know in our Discord and we’ll send you some so you can mint one.

About Darkblock

Darkblock, a web3 pioneer in decentralized content, lets creators encrypt and permanently attach multimedia files to their NFTs, creating token-bound assets that are portable, composable, censorship-resistance and capable of being truly owned via decentralized storage and access. Darkblock’s protocol provides the infrastructure creators need to harness the power of web3 technology, unlock new storytelling and community-building tools, explore new business models and ultimately build a new creator economy free from platform control.

Partner Marketplace Integration

Gillian — Fri, 11 Feb 2022 19:35:50 +0000

ATTN Marketplaces: Integrating Darkblock has never been easier!

If you haven’t already heard of Darkblock, we are a decentralized NFT unlockables protocol. Our mission is to give creators and collectors more control and new ways to monetize their NFTs.

NFT users want unlockables. Why are our unlockables so desirable?

Because Darkblock is:

decentralized
multi-chain (Now: ETH, Solana) (Next: Tezos, Polygon, Binance, Arweave etc.)
gives creators more control
but most importantly…

Darkblock is EASY to integrate thanks to our REST API and Darkblock Viewer.

In addition to our protocol, Darkblock built a REST API and Viewer to make our protocol easy to integrate into marketplaces, metaverses, games and other NFT platforms.

We have a two-pronged product offering that makes it possible to incorporate decentralized, encrypted unlockables.

The Darkblock API

The Darkblock REST API makes it incredibly simple to create a Darkblock during the NFT minting process, or later as an upgrade. With one simple REST call, we take care of the heavy lifting; we encrypt, store the content permanently on Arweave, and handshake with our protocol.

How-to API video:

The Darkblock Viewer

The Darkblock Viewer makes consuming Darkblocks simple. The Viewer is a compact, javascript widget that can be embedded easily into any web page. Simply pass the details of the NFT to the Viewer via a few javascript parameters, and the Viewer takes care of the rest. It will enable users to authenticate their NFT ownership within the widget, and view (or listen to!) the unlocked content. We also have full screen modes for appropriate content types.

How-to Embed the Viewer:

How-to use the Viewer:

The Viewer supports many formats, and will continually be upgraded to support new file types, including epub, 3d assets, interactive content, and much more.

Future

We have a lot in store for the Viewer, including consumption of multiple Darkblocks per NFT, music and movie playlists, and content rental. Owners of NFTs with Darkblocks will be able to embed our widget into their site, monetize their content, and collect a portion of the proceeds that connect back to the marketplace where the Darkblock originated. FOREVER.

We are dedicated to working with any marketplace that wants to enable creators to monetize content of all types and we plan to continue to make our protocol integration as easy as possible for marketplaces.

Partnerships

Darkblock recently partnered with ALL.ART to bring unlockables to the SolSea marketplace. Read the press-release here to learn more about how our missions align.

The Darkblock Viewer: Coming to a Marketplace Near You

Gillian — Wed, 15 Dec 2021 19:40:23 +0000

At Darkblock, we are creating a decentralized protocol that encrypts, stores, and protects content associated with an NFT that is only revealed to the owner. We understand that in order to make this technology available to the masses, it must be easily accessible. Enter the Darkblock Viewer.

The Darkblock Viewer enables marketplaces and NFT creators to embed Darkblocks into their websites. Similar to embedding a Youtube video, all you need to enable interaction with our content is a simple html tag on a web page. Users create a signature with their wallet to verify ownership of the NFT, and the viewer sends this signature to the network of Darkblock nodes to fetch and decrypt the protected content. The NFT is then revealed to the user within the viewer or in full-screen mode.

We created this technology because our objective at Darkblock is to give creators more control over how their content is distributed and monetized. The Darkblock Viewer allows all users to protect and move their content freely and embed the content within the websites of their choice. This decentralized method of unlocking content enables portability and aligns with the ideals of NFTs.

Decentralize or die!

We want Darkblock’s decentralized content access protocol to be intuitive and easy for marketplaces to implement. That’s why we created the Darkblock API. The web delivery tool provides NFT marketplaces (or any website for that matter!) an easy way for their users to access Darkblock directly on their marketplace, e.g. on an NFTs detail view. The tool is a simple JavaScript widget that can be dropped into any web page. It integrates with the crypto wallet, Metamask (other wallets to come…), to verify ownership of the NFT, unlock, and display NFTs.

We are working hard to ensure the Darkblock protocol is fully decentralized, and the same goes for the Darkblock Viewer. We are exploring how we can leverage Arweave and DAOs to control releases of the viewer, while offering verifiable versions that cannot be interfered with. Arweave is a global, permanent hard drive and a big piece of the puzzle on how to ensure Darkblocks are around forever. In order to make this journey collaborative and transparent, the viewer will be open source.

The Darkblock viewer will facilitate new varieties of NFT collectibles to enter the market. These mediums include decentralized unlockable music, comic books, ebooks, and multiple forms of video content like full length movies! Interactive, generative, and 3D content will also be a big part of our future. Our viewer makes adding these new NFTs to marketplaces quick and simple.

Coupled with the Darkblock API, the Darkblock Viewer enables marketplaces and other partners to easily integrate decentralized unlockable content.

But what if I don’t own the NFT?

This is where the true magic of Darkblock will be. Coming soon, Darkblock will enable rental and pay-per-view access to the content. This will allow owners of NFTs to monetize their holdings, giving them a recurring revenue stream from their NFT collection. We believe this will launch a new wave of business models around NFTs.

Darkblock will initially support Ethereum NFTs using ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards, but plans to support all major NFT standards (Polygon, Solana, Tezos, Palm and Flow are high on our priority list). Integration of new blockchains is a relatively simple task due to Darkblock’s blockchain agnostic characteristics.

So how does it work?

First, let’s create a Darkblock. You can use Opensea’s lazy minting to create an NFT, then follow the instructions in this video:

After you have minted the Darkblock at app.darkblock.io, just click refresh to reveal the web viewer and follow the simple instructions here:

Step 1: User clicks the button to authenticate ownership of the NFT

Step 2: User proves ownership with Metamask

Step 3: Locked content available for the user only.

Easy, right? Darkblock can protect multiple format types such as images, videos, music, and pdfs, markdown, 3D assets (avatars for the metaverse!) and much more coming soon!.

As always, please come join the conversation at chat.darkblock.io or contact us for more information at info@darkblock.io. Or go make a Darkblock at app.darkblock.io!