Some solid improvements an ecency style front end would be cool, its great that its open source and can be easily adopted.
I also think the use case is definitely needed so its great to see that being seriously looked at.
Ad revenue I think you have the right idea, sharing that between rewarding contributors as well as buying outside ads that will bring in new users for growth.
What do you think about referal links for every post, not like D.buzz has done but like read.cash is doing, where you can share any post from any author with an identifiable referal link attached.
Not sure what you could do about incentivicing refers, it could simple be that people signing up become a follower of the referer rather than financially motivated. I think it would encourage #pob promotion.
Either way these are positive steps forwards, I look forward to seeing them implemented.
Thanks for keeping us updated on the progress