Public Decentralized Applications Not Broadly Used

The idea of a Dapp  (Distributed Application) is often included in the idea of 'smart contracts'.  The idea of inserting a Dapp into a blockchain is often mentioned.   The below refers to 'public'  blockchains and the creation of Dapps that can be arbitrary applications. Currently examining the concept and how it might support AI algorithms and applications.  So I don't see the below as broadly negative.  Most commercial systems are not public.

CryptoKitties, Dice Games Fail to Lure Users to Dapps 
The Wall Street Journal, Paul Vigna

Attempts to entice people to use decentralized apps (Dapps) as alternatives to Google's Android or Apple's iOS apps have fallen short so far. Dapps cannot be censored by governments or controlled by corporations or other online gatekeepers, but users must first download and become familiar with a wholly new blockchain-based operating system. Developers have created about 2,700 Dapps with sufficient data to be tracked, yet just three Dapps have more than 10,000 daily active users, according to the State of the DApps website. The CryptoKitties Dapp, once a fad, lets users create and trade animated cats using cryptocurrency, but the fad has faded and the Dapp has only a few hundred daily users today  ... " 

Baidu Launches Blockchain with Smart Contracts

Quite intriguing notion of what this is, and the method by which it reaches consensus.   The Smart Contract or DDE (decentralized application) would appear to be a generalized template approach that could implement agreements in code. 

Baidu Launches Plug and Play Blockchain Platform for Dapps   By Daniel Palmer in CoinDesk

Chinese search giant Baidu has launched a blockchain platform aimed to simplify commercial deployment of decentralized apps, or dapps.

Officially announced by Baidu Cloud on Thursday, the Baidu Blockchain Engine (BBE) platform is touted as a kind of operating system allowing developers to produce blockchain applications “just like mobile apps,” and get around the storage and computing “bottlenecks” that are holding up blockchain’s potential.

BBE is built on what the company calls the ABC (AI, Big Data, cloud computing) technology stack, allowing customers to explore and develop ways to commercialize blockchain tech.

Hosted on Baidu’s “intelligent” cloud platform, the system uses a modular blockchain framework to provide developers with a multi-chain system including smart contract templates, dapp templates and other services aimed to make development simple and fast. .... "