Storm Product Roadmap — Deeper Dive

Further detail from Storm Product VP about our three core products: PLAY, GIGS & SHOP

Hi Storm Community,

Since 2014, Storm has delivered innovative blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies to over 1.5M Android mobile workers in 180 countries. I (Andy) joined Storm earlier this year and it’s been great working with Storm’s talented team of blockchain fanatics to enable anyone anywhere to earn a living wage by completing tasks on their mobile device.

Today, I’m happy to provide further detail about our three core products: PLAY, GIGS & SHOP.

• PLAY, enables Android users to be rewarded in cryptocurrency by playing games on their mobile phones. Storm Players have been rewarded more than 249 BTC, 570 ETH and 13M STORM since launch.
• GIGS (launching soon), enables anyone to be rewarded with crypto by performing micro-tasks. Unemployed or under-employed players can earn a living wage by performing tasks anywhere, anytime. We estimate that 1 billion people worldwide could benefit from GIGS, so our first release means we’re just getting started.
• SHOP (in development), will be the easiest way to spend crypto on products and services you love.

PLAY // HISTORICAL REFERENCE

We have been developing and deploying crypto-earning software for 4 years. Over this period we have launched many features — too many to list them all! Here are a few highlights:

PLAY // FEATURES IN DEVELOPMENT

We are fortunate to have dedicated Storm Players around the world who contact us regularly with product ideas and suggestions. Keep it coming! We have combined users’ suggestions with our own internal business needs to create the following list of features which are currently in development.

Android App Improvements

We’re making significant improvements to our Android app by implementing UX best practices, refining our gamification techniques, fixing bugs and updating design elements. We’re also rebuilding core platform components to deliver a low-latency experience with an ever-increasing user load. The upshot? A smoother user experience and improved scalability.

Task Management

We launched more than 187 brand tasks in 2017, and we expect this number to explode in 2018. To support this rapid growth, we‘re developing new partner onboarding tools and increasing the types of tasks supported. New geo-enabled tasks will emerge, and we’re even testing VR opportunities.

PLAY for iOS

Thousands of Storm Players have asked, “Will PLAY launch on iOS?” The answer is YES. Due to Apple’s restrictions and guidelines we are unable to release PLAY as a native app, but we will most certainly release PLAY as a web-app, enabling all iOS users to PLAY and earn crypto.

A/B Test Features

We’re creating the infrastructure to quickly test and measure various user experiences. By tracking user behavior we can remove all guessing, and continually improve our service for all users. We’re also blending online customer feedback and focus groups to guide our product enhancements.

Enhanced Authentication

As with all blockchain-related applications, security is paramount. All cryptocurrency earned on Storm apps must be kept safe and readily available — enabling Players to move crypto to their own wallet at their convenience. Our new authentication update will exceed industry standards for safety and security. We’re also improving our secondary form of authentication (SMS) and investigating fingerprint ID.

Continuous Deployment

Most of our core engineers are currently located in Seattle. As we add developers around the globe, we’ll be happy we took the time to modernize our platform — enabling all Storm engineers to rapidly develop and deploy features.

Payment Updates

When Storm Players complete tasks they earn Bolts (our internal currency). Bolts can be converted into STORM Tokens, ETH or BTC. As you know, sending BTC can be rather expensive, so we’re exploring off-chain techniques to reduce our cost of payment, and we’re building internal systems to enable ultra-fast payments for players.

Localization

PLAY has been downloaded in over 180 countries, yet we currently support only English and Portuguese languages. Our new localization platform will power localized experiences for iOS and Android players around the globe — enabling more communities to earn crypto anytime, from any device.

Customer Service

We currently have customer service reps (CSRs) in the Cayman Islands, United States, South Korea and Philippines. Our CSRs are the front-line for our Players, answering many questions about tasks and payouts. We have been increasing staff to tackle a backlog of open tickets and are closing in on completing that project. We’re also building new tools and leveraging self-help features in Zendesk to empower our CSRs to provide tier 1 support for all Storm Players.

Reporting / Analytics

Our CTO — with a background in data analytics — is especially excited to invest in technology which can gather and measure data across the StormX suite of services. Our first project is to take four separate systems and consolidate into one service which we can display in our dashboard for partners. As we launch GIGS, we’ll have an entirely new source of data to track, manage and report. Our updated analytics will enable us to “sharpen our sword” to find customer insights and track progress.

GIGS // FEATURES IN DEVELOPMENT

Storm Brand Refresh

Storm is working with a leading design firm in Seattle to create V2 of Storm’s brand. You’ll first see this new design on our iOS and Corporate website (coming soon). With our new logo — we’re going to need new corporate t-shirts (hint, hint).

Tasks — Making ‘work’ as fun as ‘play’

Imagine getting paid to play games… Sounds like a dream job, right? Well, our goal is to make completing GIGS as much fun as playing games. We know this is a huge lift, and that’s why we’re working with some of the best game designers in the world to make our ‘work’ as much fun as ‘play’. We’ve identified over 20 types of tasks which we must design, develop and test. Our initial iOS release will feature one task type.

iOS User Experience (UX)

We want users to love ‘working’ in our iOS app. So, we’ve partnered with seasoned iOS UX developers to apply iOS best practices and take advantage of many Apple-specific features. UX will be a life-long investment for us.

Web-App

After launching GIGS on iOS, we will port the GIGS experience to the web, enabling anyone with a tablet, laptop or desktop to earn crypto by performing Storm tasks.

STORM TOKEN // STORM DROP

Storm Drop Calculator

Many of you have enquired about your eligibility for Storm’s first token drop in June 2018. Soon, we will release a web tool which will enable all STORM token buyers and Storm Players to determine their Storm Drop eligibility by entering their wallet address. Be sure to join our Telegram community so you’re in the know when we launch this calculator.

In Summary…

Our mission is to enable anyone around the world to earn a living wage on any device, and we’re making great strides towards realizing this goal. We’d like to thank our active Storm Players and our STORM token buyers for your comments, compliments and encouragement — we couldn’t do this without your support!

Thanks.

— Andy Kleitsch

VP of Product for Storm

Storm Product Roadmap — Deeper Dive was originally published in StormX on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.