01The Idea
3tags went into beta in April 2013 and fully live on August 20, 2013. It was a passion project. The core idea was already in the first presentation: the news you really care about is always just three tags away.
As with Dshini, a model of sharing in the proceeds sat at the center. “To me, social networks always meant social participation, too.”
02What Members Could Do
Follow topics, collect posts, rate and recommend them, and later write their own. Every tag got its own page with a header image, moderation, and trends.
From 2016 on, members wrote in our own editor: cover image, headings, quotes, lists, pictures, and videos.
03The Content Theory
Here’s the math. Say a post brings in a dollar in ad revenue. 3tags keeps ten cents. Ninety cents go to the writer and to the people whose invitations brought them in. The writer gets half of that, and the rest is split along the chain of invitations.
Earnings came as credits: for your own posts and their views, and for your network. You cashed them out through PayPal and Stripe. And people did get paid. At best, members earned amounts in the hundreds.
Screens from the 2015 drafts. The model is spelled out in the credit redemption terms of April 6, 2015.
04The Axolotl
The mascot guided you through the site. He walked you through every step, from your first post to getting a cut, and gave every topic its own picture. Gustavo Utria drew him, from my ideas, in every scene you can imagine.
05Scenes and Comics
3tags also reached out to illustrators and comic artists. I set up the scenes in rough form, and the storyboards too. Gustavo Utria drew them, first as sketches, then finished. They grew into full comics: the “3tags Pun Fun” series.
From October and November 2014 files. The Star Wars and Walking Dead characters and references belong to their rights holders; the axolotls are original drawings.
06Who Did What
The groundwork, the name, the mascot, and a first framework. Then the Content Theory, on paper first.
As cofounder, the pixel-perfect design work and the visual polish.
Gustavo Utria: the axolotl, the scenes, and the comics, from my ideas and storyboards.
Our most capable one. He built the data structures, the databases, and all the code, written from scratch for the site.
07On to Pionic
In 2016 the platform turned into a place to write: apply, get reviewed by the editors, write in our own editor. That was the shift from 3tags.org as a social media platform to the publication Pionic. We’d founded the company for it in 2015. I ran the editorial side and wrote almost every piece myself.