New THORChain.org v0.1
Over the last few months, a group of pseudoanon community contributors collaborated to craft v0.1 of the new THORChain.org website.
Vision
Their ultimate vision is GRAND: develop towards an “all things THORChain” resource which not only welcomes newcomers to deep dive into the THORChain universe, but also acts as an amplifier and promoter for the greater ecosystem thanks to contributors’ fresh outlook on future cross-community collabs.
THORChain being chain agnostic welcomes any and all chains — and just like RUNE price inherits the properties of assets via its economic design, the THORChain brand should also. It’s for this reason that the website won’t be one hit wonder push. It won’t belong to THORChain only. It won’t be left to be forgotten as an effective source for driving awareness. It’ll constantly evolve with market trends while acting as a funnel to drive attention to both THORChain and the bridged assets the network supports.
Expect to see pages, components and marketing funnels which welcome tribespeople from fellow chains. Marketing secret #1: be relevant. Care more about others than yourself.
Expect to see THORChain contributors navigate social channels with missions to bridge new cross-community connections that’ll form collabs and ultimately drive funneled and segmented traffic to both initiatives.
Expect to see this new resource be a social channel highway off-ramp thanks to targeted placements and brand new starter packs / @THORChainHammer bot commands.
Expect to see a constant flow of content being posted and reposted in channels, reminding relevant audiences to participate in the THORChain ecosystem.
Expect to see it feature a wide array of THORChain supporters.
Expect it to make the difference you didn’t expect.
Architecture
Now to get a little technical, the new architecture places itself in-between official documentation and outbound communication channels. THORChain GitBook documentation will remain as a resource for more technical write-ups. Contributors plan to improve the GitBook repo to better organize technical content, which’ll include brand/creative assets soon.
The purpose of the website is multifold:
• Anticipate discovery needs via organized topics.
• Anticipate common objections via obnoxious yellow “But sir” interlude boxes.
• Enable cross-content discovery via suggested topics within “But sir” interlude boxes.
• Embed real-time THORChain protocol data using MIDGARD API to accurately communicate points.
• Act as an onboarding vehicle to a variety of roles in the THORChain community and ecosystem i.e. Liquidity Provider, Node Operator, Arbitrageur etc via educational funnels.
• Design a modular component framework where an aggregation of topics and sections can be repurposed and fitted to new landing pages designed to be distributed (by community marketers) to new targeted audiences. For example: custom designed landing pages for specific asset audiences i.e. BTC community. Perhaps this community will value a different set of topics when first introduced to Liquidity Providing on THORChain. It’ll be the landing pages’ job to anticipate their needs, and it’ll be the community’s job to help distribute this content to the right audiences via outbound efforts / channels.
• Communicate in multiple languages (long term goal).
Phased Rollouts
Over the coming weeks / months you will see phased rollouts of new sections on the website, and at any point in time you can get a sense of what’s being developed simply by looking at the navigation menu or footer. You’ll notice tags like “UPDATE IN V0.2”, which clues-in on the next scheduled rollout.
Here’s a preview of the V1.0 sitemap:
• Technology: Covers TSS, audits and introduces users to explorers / on-chain transactions / Bifröst module development.
• Economics: Will cover the incentive pendulum, fees, CLP, impermanent loss, prices and governance.
• RUNE: Covers the use-case for the RUNE token, its emissions, its deterministic value, where to buy it and introduces users to Liquidity Providing / Node Operations.
• Decentralized: Will cover the the trustless nature of the network, its safety, its permissionlessness and more.
• Roles: Will cover the details of each network role (Liquidity Provider, Node Operator, Arbitrageur). Think of them as very detailed “getting started” packs.
• Ecosystem: Will cover the interfaces / products developed by the community, while also highlighting previews of what’s to come from core developers under a “Labs” section.
• Community: Will cover the various community roles available along-with the tools available for them to contribute to the initiative. Roles included are: Developers, Creatives (designers, marketers), Analysts, Social Influencers and Partners.
As a temporary solution, many sections link out to various public resources i.e official documentation and Twitter threads. Over time these will get converted into unique views on the website.
Mobile Support
Given that a majority of first-time traffic will come from mobile devices, it’s important to properly prioritize its support with an adequate design philosophy. The website content is rich, filled with a variety of tools — and the discovery experience on mobile has to be as pleasant as it is on desktop devices. A mobile-friendly version of the website will be rolled-out as more core sections are unlocked and the ideal mobile experience is discovered.
Feedback
Take this opportunity to browse the website and discover sections so that you can better-guide newcomers. Many sub-sections have anchors placed in their URLs for easy linking.
The project welcomes feedback, feel free to post comments on Twitter and the newly created THORChain Feedback Telegram channel.
Special thanks to MehowBrains (vision/architecture/content/ux/design) @aminazgol (ux/development) Bitcoin_Sage (vision/ux/content) and Esther (illustrator) for their contributions towards this project.
