The past couple months, my excitement for the Steem platform has grown tremendously. With SteemFest² now in the past, we can get back to work to continue to build the best blockchain in the world.
Here is a video I made using Gource to show the development of the Steem blockchain from the beginning back on March 22, 2016, until Oct 24, 2017.
There a many people that think Steemit, inc needs to do this and do that for the frontend UI known as Condenser, and that they aren't doing much but here's a video to show that they have been actively working on a lot for Steemit.com. It starts from July 28, 2016, until Nov. 10, 2017.
Applications
There are so many projects now for the Steem platform and I look forward to being a contributor to that list soon. I think one of the most interesting projects that sprung up recently is @Utopian-io. I think it is ingenious to have users be rewarded for their open source contributions to the development of the Steem platform. Thanks to 
Zappl
I really enjoy how @Zappl has been set up and allows a different way to interact with the Steem blockchain and give a Twitter-like user experience. It's been a little rough launch of this application but there is a great team working around the clock to get it running smoothly and have fewer bugs to fix. Overall, it's a great application to onboard new and different users to the Steem platform. 
chainBB
A forum-style frontend that long-time Steemian developer and witness 
My goal in building chainBB was to bring a product that was focused very deeply on engagement. It can be hard to keep up with a busy discussion using a reddit-style interface having to hunt-and-peck at responses as they come in.
https://chainbb.com/chainbb/@jesta/chainbbcom-a-blockchain-forum-platform-for-steem
Now, users can create their own community forum on chainBB that helps makes it more organized and easier to find the discussion you want.
Busy
Also been up and running for a long time now, @Busy.org was one of the first applications that were launched after Steemit. Founded by 
eSteem
The first mobile app that was developed for Steem. Witness 
SteepShot
Started as a mobile app, 
DTube
A decentralized video sharing platform that not only uses Steem, but also IPFS protocol to have decentralized file storage. There are a growing amount of people tired of Youtube and 
DSound
dMania
And More!!!
These are just the different frontends that are up and running. There are more to come and on top of that, there are tons of other apps I haven't mentioned in this post. You can check out http://steemtools.com to see the huge growing list of applications and tools that have been developed by your fellow Steemians.
This is looking to be an even better year for Steem in 2018. To add to all of this, there will be Smart Media Tokens, Decentralized Exchange, and Communities added to the Steem blockchain. I don't see any other blockchain with an ecosystem as diverse as Steem.