Hello empowrians! It’s been a few weeks since we last spoke, so I wanted to provide a quick update on some new features that are now live, while also receiving additional guidance and details from you on an idea you have brought up previously. Specifically, we’ll discuss: New citizen and country leaderboard
Cash for shipping
Getting paid when your posts are “Liked”
empowr blockchain coin offering First, an update on what’s new: New step forward for empowr countries As you're all aware, for the past several months we’ve been putting the steps in place to enable the creation of empowr countries so that more power and control can be put into the hands of the empowr citizens. As a next step towards making that a reality, a new mission points leaderboard has been launched allowing everyone to now see how empowr pre-countries (and citizens) are doing based on their 30-day mission points:
 The leaderboard allows both individual empowr citizens and empowr pre-countries to compare how well they are doing in a variety of ways: Empowr citizens can see how well they are doing: · In their geographic country · In the empowr pre-countries they are a citizen of · Worldwide Citizens can also see how their own geographic country and empowr pre-countries are doing based on: · Total 30-day mission points of all citizens in those countries · Average 30-day mission points of all citizens in those countries What’s next? As a reminder, empowr pre-countries that have the most 30-day mission points (based on the total 30-day mission points of their citizens) will be the first eligible to become official empowr countries and receive a growing number of features and controls to self-govern. With literally hundreds of empowr pre-countries to join, many citizens will decide which country they want to join, based on how productive they are, exactly like what happens with real countries (the countries with the highest Gross Domestic Product figures have the most people wanting to go there). So, if your pre-country is among the most productive (as measured by its the Mission Points its citizens are generating) it will benefit from both an abundance of resources as well as an abundance of citizens wanting to join it. With the new leaderboard in place, we now have the visibility we need to determine which pre-countries will be the first to become fully-formed empowr countries. Need a reminder on how to earn mission points? Go here Cash for shipping One of the biggest marketplace pain points you’ve raised is that the cost of shipping can be quite difficult to manage when selling products to empowr citizens around the world. I’m happy to announce that ALL sellers now have the option to require that buyers pay cash for their shipping costs – which will allow them to immediately recoup their shipping expenses after the buyer marks “item received”. Here’s how it works: 1) When listing any product for sale, sellers can choose to require buyers to pay cash for their shipping costs: 
2) By requiring their shipping costs to be paid in cash, buyers will be able to see this before they bid or buy on everything: 
3) When a buyer chooses to bid on or purchase a product that charges cash for shipping, they will be prompted to pay the shipping amount prior to completing the bid or purchase. By default, the shipping price will be paid for with the buyer’s empowr reserves first, and then charged to their PayPal if no reserves are available: 
4) Once the shipping has been paid for, the buyer can complete their purchase and wait to see if they have won the auction and/or received their product after it is shipped. In the event that the buyer is outbid, marks their purchase as an unpaid item, or disputes the item (and wins), the shipping fee will be returned to their empowr reserves. 5) After the sale has been completed successfully and marked “Item Received”, the seller will have the shipping fee deposited into their reserve account, which they can then immediately cash out so that they can recoup their shipping expenses. In addition to enabling sellers to require buyers pay cash for shipping, soon Mission Founders will have the opportunity to accept cash for the products and services they are selling (in addition to any shipping costs). In doing so, Founders can replenish their inventory of products they sell even faster – enabling them to provide more goods and services to the community --- while also earning more themselves. More value for your posts As you know, you earn from your posts (photos, videos, blogs and status updates) each day based on the number of views the posts you've made in the past 24 hours receive. While this approach has worked for quite some time now, after hearing your recent feedback, we thought it was about time that we found a way to enable the most popular posts to earn much more than ever before.
Paying for shares instead of views – starting today By paying for your posts based on the number of shares (likes, comments, and reposts) they receive (instead of the number of views they receive) we can ensure that the best posts earn much more than the average post. Additionally, to give the best posts more time to be shared, each day you’ll now earn from any shares made on a post that was made in the past 7 days (instead of the past 24 hours). Mission points give you more value All shares are not created equal. The more value an empowr citizen brings to the empowr economy, the greater the value of their shares. You earn many times more for every share you receive based on the 30-day mission points of the person who shared your post. The more 30-day mission points someone has, the more you earn. That means that you should place much higher value on the time and attention (and shares) of the empowr citizens with the most 30-day mission points. In summary, you’ll now earn from posting in the following manner: 1) Each day, the empowr algorithms will count the number of shares (comments, likes and reposts) that your posts (that you posted in the last 7 days) received in the last 24 hours. 2) Each share you receive is worth the amount of 30-day mission points of the sharer (the person that liked, commented on or reposted) Earn more from comments? Initially, the value of shares given will be purely weighted on the 30-day mission points of the sharer. In the future, additional value may be given to comments (more than likes and reposts). Why? When a well-thought out comment is added to a post, it starts a conversation – opening the door to more comments and shares on that post and creating more value for the empowr economy. More information will be coming soon, but in the meantime, please make sure that the comments you leave are well thought-out. Tip: When you leave generic comments (such as “Nice post” or “Great photo”), you are not adding value, you are taking away value. Please do not leave comments unless they are thoughtful and demonstrate that you care about what the post is about. And finally… New empowr coin possibility Recently, many of you have suggested that empowr move towards creating it’s own blockchain cryptocurrency, which would not only be used within empowr, but also have the ability to be exchanged with non-empowr citizens on a wide variety of other sites online. As you may know, all ideas you bring up are put up on a list, and despite the very long size of the list, we eventually get to all ideas. We are now seriously considering this idea as the next evolution of the empowr platform. Many details that need to be worked out including how the cryptocurrency would integrate into the empowr platform. We need your ideas 1. How do you see cryptocurrency integrating into the current empowr offering? The more details, the better please. 2. Who should get priority (discounted pricing) if empowr were to do an ICO (Initial Coin Offering)? Should it based on all-time mission points, 30-day mission points, roles, length of membership… ? What is the most fair approach? empowr’s best ideas have always come from you -- the community – so we’re excited about learning more about what you’re thinking so we can give your best ideas to the engineers to launch for you. Your thoughts and ideas please We are looking forward to your feedback and ideas, as always. Thanks again for the amazing level of support you’ve provided; many more exciting things are on the way! Your president, Brian (more) ►
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