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At its simplest Zim will work with SAFE out of the box, letting you store and retrieve data (with complete privacy and anonymity) from anywhere by logging in and using the network like any old cloud storage - no need to sync, just access a virtual drive on the local system. Your SAFE drive will be like Dropbox with sharing, sync etc but with complete privacy, security and anonymity (and no company or centralised servers to pay for, go bankrupt, get blown up etc.). This is what most people will see and want at least in the beginning, because the storage will be extremely cheap, effectively free even for TB if you can share a decent chunk of disk space with the network. But SAFE has far more features and potential, particularly for apps that use the SAFE API (login, storage, communications etc.)
The reason for this post is that I believe the SAFE API presents a big opportunity for Zim. For example, it would be great to have Zim as *the* structured document creation and publishing app on the SAFE platform, bringing its features to a wide number of users. If a Zim app were there early on, it could be massive. I am confident that this network will grow rapidly to very large numbers indeed - but right now hardly anyone has heard of it. So to start with there will be relatively few apps available. Imagine being one of a hundred apps with a user base of millions that is growing exponentially. I want to declare that I have a small investment in this project, but assure you this is not my reason for suggesting this. I got involved because I believe in the project's goals, technology, team and community ownership, but it would not be fair to hide the fact I invested by buying a small amount of the crypto currency that will live on the network (similar to bitcoin but with many improvements). I hope this doesn't stop people seeing the potential for Zim here though!
Zim has many advantages in this situation. It is very easy to understand the basics of what it does and decide to try it, will appeal to a large percentage of people, is easy to learn, has a mature codebase, its own community, and will easily exceed the expectations of any new users - it would create quite a buzz.
While websites and the web will not be going away anytime soon, SAFE makes server based web redundant - and provides a simpler, cheaper, functional alternative. Enter Zim: the stand out authoring tool for the next web! Ok, but *a* stand out tool of that I'm sure . Users wanting to publish material will simply save it to a public share, so it will be possible to share any kind of document with anyone, and if Zim were a free app, that immediately becomes a two way process should the publisher want it to be. (Note: SAFE has document versioning built in, and never deletes data, which is what you need for a collaborative publishing platform).
In the short term, Zim will stand out for its abilitiy to create structured documents and publish them in different formats, most recently as responsive web pages (thank you Paulo van Breugal) and the many other features of Zim. I think it would gain popularity with early adopters of SAFE and then become very widespread as the network grows.
In the longer term Zim could be the, or at least one of the, most used publishing and document editing tools on the *new internet*. New developers will be drawn to it as well, to contribute to the core, to add new plugins etc. And for those that want it, there is the opportunity to use micropayments to support their work and the project as a whole (the SAFE crypto currency can handle this far better than bitcoin because transaction rates and transaction times are several orders of magnitude better).
I started to write just a short note here, and now look! Hopefully this is a sign of some real potential for Zim. Let me know what you guys think, and if you want more info on SAFE please ask or check out MaidSafe.net (main website), MaidSafe.org (forum). Plus I've written a bit more about SAFE below.
SAFE Network SummarySAFE Network (Safe Access For Everyone) allows users to join and create a complete internet replacement (eliminates HTTP, DNS, SSL, SMTP etc and all their security weaknesses) and replace it with a completely anonymous communication network, encrypted unlimited storage (fog rather than cloud!), and an application platform, and a cash like crypto currency that will outperform bitcoin without losing any of its features. It will also offer a massively parallel distributed computing platform, rented out for fees that are distributed to the anonymous individuals who allow their computers to be part of SAFE. Users who contribute storage, connectivity and processing are known as "farmers", and rewarded with crypto currency, similar to bitcoin "miners". App builders will also be able to charge for their apps or services, for example using the built in crypto currency to take micropayments, with no overheads or fees to the network.
I know that is quite a lot to take in, but hope it hints that this is not just any old save the internet project, but one which could transform the way most of the people on the planet experience the internet and computing.
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