From 17' to Now
The Latium platform has come a long way since it’s early alpha in late 2017.
Let’s take a look at some of the changes Latium has been through since it’s early beginning, to better understand the process and efforts regarding our latest batch of development updates.
If you just want to get right to the update and full explanations of many of the new features available, go ahead and click HERE.
While the initial, early releases and revisions of the Latium Platform were simple, at best, they existed early in our development cycle for a very definitive and purposeful reason. Namely, at a time when every idea with a whitepaper was seeking to be created, we chose instead to show what we were capable of creating, while giving a more defined concept of the development to come.
First and foremost, while whitepapers were helpful to portray an IDEA, Latium was always hyper focused on ensuring and proving TRUE daily usability and application. For this very reason, it was always our goal and successfully completed foundation to release an alpha version of our platform as early as possible for our growing community.
And what a journey it has been. From a simple, relatively bare alpha, on into eventual beta and additional revisions, the Latium platform has continued to expand and evolve alongside the parallel industry of both Digital Currencies and the Gig Economy.
Similarly, the launch of our Android app was another step towards realizing our vision for Latium fully and better embracing a system of accessibility for Employers & Freelancers alike. By allowing users to truly earn crypto anywhere, at anytime, a road-map for crypto general adoption began to emerge. As our own CEO, David Johnson can attest to:
“ …to truly innovate and build out within an emerging industry, you must first identify where you are, as well as plan accordingly and reach for the future.”
It is our shared opinion among staff here at Latium that the current state of the Blockchain industry is comparable to the computer hardware state of approximately 1992. Similar comparisons can continue to be made, seeing that while possibility and promise is exceedingly high, general adoption is still low, with a multitude of both technical and social aspects necessary to be refined at this time.”
We’d be the first to admit that our initial Android app was far from what we wanted to see in the full production version of the Latium app. With that said, it is the ongoing process of development and design to not only continually offer new features, updates and upgrades, but also to gather data from the ongoing usage by our community of users. The veritable deluge of usage data, metrics and direct feedback we received from our user base was exceptionally valuable in assisting our development team.
We’ve Released the Next Phase of Latium
Suffice it to say, a new era for the Latium platform has dawned, one in which the largest update since the inception of the project is now live.
This update is truly a “labor of love” from each and every one of us as Latium staff. In the past, we’ve pushed more individual features or changes, while our latest update is more focused on a complete overhaul of many core features and processes of the Latium platform.
Proof of Human Update
Proof of Human began from a core need for developing a system of ensuring that each and every user interacting within the Latium ecosystem truly is a unique, un-duplicated human user.
The internet as we know it today is plagued with ongoing spam, bots and duplicated accounts across countless social media and application platforms in existence. Without a system in place, many users were simply forced to trust that the user they were interacting with was legitimate, with a positive reputation and not creating countless accounts to be paid multiple times for a listed project.
With our latest launch, we’ve continued to refine the efficiency and user experience for submitting Proof of Human verification requests. As one of the innovative and premiere features of the Latium ecosystem, Proof of Human remains a central focus for ongoing development and expansion both within the Latium platform, and even further utilization within third party API integrations.
Proof of Human is a quick, voluntary method of verification that allows for users to easily verify the validity of their account and negate any possibility of duplicate entries within the system. Through a series of quick, minor head movements with the users webcam, members are able to create a digital identity stored to the Latium database.
Through a growing user involvement, the database of users is able to expand and further add validity and legitimacy to individual contract tasking accounts across the platform. Employers can rest easy knowing that each task participant is a unique individual account.
Earn and Pay YOUR Way
In our ongoing goal of truly allowing for flexible payment and earning opportunities, we are happy to announce that Latium users can now both pay, and receive payments, with all of the tokens supported within the platform.
This added flexibility of supported payments allows for an even more efficient and effective workflow experience for Employers and Freelancers alike.
Employers looking to spend supported currencies are freely able to create projects for completion with budgets defined in cryptocurrencies they currently have on hand. Similarly, Freelancers looking for specific payment in tokens they already utilize are easily able to filter and search for specific projects that are already defined to pay the way they want to earn.
Currently, the list of supported tokens to the platform include:
- Latium (LATX)
- Bitcoin (BTC)
- Tether (USDT)
- Litecoin (LTC)
- Ethereum (ETH)
- Basic Attention Token (BAT)
- Pundi X (NPXS)
- OmiseGo (OMG)
As we continue to expand the Latium platform, we will continually look at various currencies and methods that both Employers and Freelancers would like to utilize and consider supporting an even wider range of options for our users.
With a New Design Comes New Ways to Work
An updated look and feel to the platform brings with it even more ways to earn. First and foremost, we’ve defined and implemented project categories and filters, a highly requested feature in the past. By allowing for more detailed search and filter capabilities, Freelancers can more quickly identify the type of projects they are interested in applying for.
Most prominently, we are happy to announce the introduction of Bidding! No longer are Employers & Freelancers constrained by a set budget per project contract, but instead can optionally allow for bidding before acceptance to the project.
For Employers, this opens the doors to a more competitive outlet of the Latium community of Freelancers.
Unsure how much to pay for a project?
Allow for bidding and let the freelancing community better dictate an appropriate amount to pay for the work.
For Freelancers, this feature allows for a more effective way of requesting fair and appropriate pricing for your work.
Think you can provide better quality and timely deliverables?
Place a bid on the contract and let the Employer know your unique qualifications for the pricing amount.
Why Use LATX?
We believe that this change creates an even more accessible bridge to general adoption by a wider variety of crypto users to the platform. With that said, Employers can continue to take advantage of zero fees on any projects created and paid in the native LATX token. Other supported tokens such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc. will have various platform fees to account for this token support. Employers looking to take advantage of this cost-effective fee structure can deposit LATX directly to their wallets, or alternatively utilize the Latium internal exchange to efficiently trade from their token on hand to LATX.
Quick Tip: Boost Your Profile
NEW to our recent update is the introduction of Boost Your Profile. By completing a wide variety of questions about your work and personal life, you can begin building a foundation of who you are as a Latium user. This will continue to tie into many current & future developments of the Latium platform, allowing for more accurate project suggestions and offers catered specifically to you. What are you waiting for? Boost your profile and see how you stack up!
Instant Hire, Auto Pay & Contract Management
Alongside these contract structure changes, we’ve continued to both introduce and expand our existing management options for Employers. From Instant Hire, to Auto Pay, the full range of advanced settings refines and reduces the stress of contract management, allowing for Employers to be as involved in the details as they prefer.
Hire Instantly
Employers can easily set their projects to “Hire Instantly”, simplifying the contract management process significantly. This option is ideal for projects with a preset budget, while having clearly defined and minimal effort actions. For instance, if an Employer was looking for 100 Freelancers to like, comment and share social content, they could easily use this feature to create the framework for an auto managing project.
Auto Pay
Help automate your payment process with Latium by enabling Auto Pay. With this feature set, you can pre-define a set period of time in which contracts which are successfully applied, hired and set to review are auto paid. As is the case with all advanced settings, this feature is optional depending on how you would like to make use of it within your project.
Automatically Close Hiring
With Automatically Close Hiring, Employers can set a date in the future in which their project will stop accepting contract applications. Have a set time frame you want to complete a project within? This feature easily allows you to set it and forget it, to allow for better time management.
Multiple Contracts
Do you have a project you’d like Freelancers to complete multiple times? In this specific use case, you would set Multiple Contracts options to allow for this to operate, removing the need for tedious review of each individual contract application and completion.
Auto Cancel
Already have a set time frame for your accepted Freelancers to complete the required work? Easily set Auto Cancel to automatically cancel and decline payment for any contracts which fall outside the preset time to complete you’ve set. Don’t let Freelancers lack of completion hold you back.
Efficient Project Creation & Editing
It’s important to note that we’ve made further updates to the process of both creating projects, and editing after they’ve gone live. Additionally, Employers on the Latium platform are able to archive a project that they’d like to make inactive, but possibly activate again in the future.
Employer Hiring Example
So let’s start tying it all together. As an Employer, you’ve decided to register to the Latium platform to create a project. This project is to help you legitimately gain more of a social following by incentivizing users to like, and eventually share, your Twitter content.
Before we get to any of the other settings, we’ve got to decide if we would like to hire one Freelancer, or multiple Freelancers. In this case, since we are looking to attract multiple, ongoing users to our twitter following, we’ve decided to select Hire Multiple Freelancers.
Next, you would decide whether to Receive Bids, or instead, to Hire Instantly. Since this is a very quick and easily definable task, we’ll go ahead and set it to hire instantly since we don’t want to spend time reviewing bids under our already set fair price to follow on Twitter.
As an optional step, you can select pre-suggested pricing for a wide variety of project actions. For instance, under Digital Marketing, Twitter Followers is already a listed action with a USD suggestion of $0.10-$0.25. While you in no way are forced to use these pricing models, they are offered as an ongoing suggestion of market value for defined projects and contracts.
The initial project information is relatively standard, needing a Project Title, Description, Category and Cover Image.
Next you can build the instructions for your Freelancers from Add a Section. Clearly defining project requirements, steps and scope will help not only set your project apart, but also ensure that Freelancers are able to efficiently and accurately complete the project for you.
Instruction
With instructions, you can write out specific steps, text or include links that your applicants may need.
Photo
With the photo option, you can upload photos that better help explain or clarify steps or examples of what you are looking for them to accomplish.
Video
You can add a video to even better explain whats necessary to start or complete the project. Feeling creative? Use the video section to introduce yourself and describe the project in detail.
Require a Screenshot
Requiring a screenshot allows you to upload an example screenshot that shows clearly to your Freelancers what you are looking for in proof that the work is completed. Freelancers will have to upload screenshot proofs during the project completion process, allowing for you to review, reject or accept as valid.
After setting the project steps, it’s time to create a budget for your project. First, you can set an estimated budget you’d like to spend for the entire project. This option is always editable and is simply available to create a structure of budget for your project initially.
Next you can select the reward for the Freelancer per contract completed. Since we previously selected Digital Marketing > Twitter Followers, a list of average rewards for the project work is listed which you can optionally choose. Have a different price in mind? No worries, you can manually set any price you’d like to pay for the project as needed.
How are you going to pay your Freelancers? Select your payment choice from the Payment Coin option. While pricing is listed in USD, it is converted at current market average. For instance, if you select $0.25 as your payment for a project, with Bitcoin as your payment coin, successfully completed contracts will be paid the equivalent $0.25 in Bitcoin from your wallet balance upon completion. Payment is not sent until the project is completed, however, the balance has to be present in your wallet for creation of your budget.
Quick Tip
Keep in mind, some Freelancers prefer payment in specific tokens on the platform. Keeping up to date on some of the more active projects is a good way to gauge the overall Freelancer interests so you can ensure your project attracts a greater variety and number of interested Freelancers.
After setting your budget, you next set an expected time to complete. This setting is important as you can use the advanced settings we discussed earlier to automatically decline and close contracts for freelancers that fail to complete within this set time frame. Setting an appropriate time to complete ensures the Freelancer knows the expected time allowed.
Proof of Human verification ensures that each and every Freelancer is a single, unduplicated user. Through the Verified Only option, you can select to only allow applications from Freelancers that have completed this optional security verification step.
Quick Tip
As a general rule, it is a good idea to utilize the Verified Only option. This security measure ensures that you don’t have to question the validity of an account, nor allow anyone to attempt to “complete” the project multiple times via separate Latium accounts.
We already discussed Advanced Options previously in this article, but they are shown above. From here you can select the settings that fit with your intended process of management. You can be as specifically involved as you like, or choose to set automatic management to streamline the workflow process.
The only thing left is to review your project and post to make it live to the Latium community of Freelancers! If you are happy with your project settings, it’s time to open your project up and start hiring.
While we covered the Instant Hire option above, Bidding is equally easy to set for your project. As a Freelancer to the Latium platform, you can easily find the projects that fit your own unique skills and experience, while applying to Employers to get started on your work.
Stay tuned for more tutorials covering our full range of features like Bidding, Communication, Rejection, Approval and Revision in the future!
There’s More Ways to Earn
But wait, that’s not all! There’s more ways to earn in the Latium platform. With the ongoing expansion of our Affiliate and Deposit Rewards program, you always have a way to continue increasing your cryptocurrency balance.
Deposit Rewards
Through Deposit Rewards you are easily able to earn a set percentage on LATX balances you hold in the platform. Simply select an amount and the period of time you’d like to lock your balance for to start receiving competitive rewards. No commitment, cancel anytime risk free!
Affiliate / Referral Rewards
You can also use your existing circle of influence to refer others to the Latium platform. Employers and Freelancers alike can kickstart your earning potential as you continue to build 50% on every fee they accrue to the platform! Pay a task contract? You earn 50% of the fee. Pay a withdrawal fee? You also earn 50% of the fees.
Latium Development Overhaul
The latest platform update is the combined efforts of the entire Latium staff for the last several months. We are extremely pleased with the feature updates we are able to bring to the table within the gig economy, while continuing to even further expand our development efforts moving forward.
The road to development has been a long one indeed, but we are dedicated to our existing and future users. It is our ongoing goal to release the best, most efficient features that truly allow for a stress free and efficient freelancing opportunity. A lot has changed since our first release in 2017, with even more exciting features, expansions, integrations and developments to come.
We want to thank each and every one of our community members that have been with us since the beginning of Latium.
We truly wouldn’t be here without you.
Each and every day we are thankful to be involved full time creating the project that drives our passion for crypto and the freelancing arena. We aren’t even close to being finished, as we have more plans for even more integrations, features and partnership opportunities on into 2020 and beyond. So here’s to all the updates and changes new to Latium, and here’s to future development updates to come!
Thank you for your interest in the the Latium platform. As always you can follow us on Twitter for the latest news, updates and developments as we progress.
