Social Media!!. One of the most used tools in this modern age.
Everyone is out there, making social communications, conducting businesses, etc.
Another thing that is common on social media is;
Sharing our lifestyle with other people(friends or, followers).
This we do by uploading pictorial content of ourselves or whatever, into that social space.

Today, I think these kinds of social media are the most commonly used ones. An example is Instagram.
Instagram which is basically a photo and video sharing platform, has grown so big in little time, and everyone is talking about it.

But, what do all those people get back in return?
What are the benefits of actively engaging in social media activities?

Well, it is quite beneficial in so many ways, especially for people who use it as a business tool.
But for those who don't, their benefit is "Dopamine". The feel-good hormone. That feeling we get when our pictures get so many likes and comments.

But, what if there was a platform where you can visually express your life, promote your business, feel good, and also earn passive income?

There are few platforms like that. The ones that exist are on a blockchain.

In this article, I will be talking about STEEPSHOT.

This article is part of my series; "Steem trek(My journey on Steem)".

I've been journeying around the Steem blockchain and my long walk has led me here.

In case you haven't been following the series, it a series I started to highlight my experience across several apps on the Steem blockchain.

So far I have reviewed 6 projects on the blockchain. They are;

Steemit
Steemgigs
Dtrip
Steemwallet
Steemer
Steemplus

Links to those reviews are available on the Links section below.

In this article, I will be reviewing Steepshot under some talking points.
The talking points are;

What is Steepshot?
Review of Steepshot's features
Are we about to witness the end of Steepshot?
Summary.

Without further ado, let's delve into the discussion for today.

SteepShot: Share moments. Earn coins.

Are you someone that likes to put visual content about your life on social media?
If your answer is yes, then Steepshot is a great platform for you to try out.

What then is Steepshot?

What is Steepshot?

Here is what Steepshot is, as described on its landing page.

Steepshot is a blockchain-powered censorship-resistant social platform that you can use to share photos with your family and friends. On top of that you can earn crypto rewards for everything you curate, and when others engage with your activity!

To cut the long description short, Steepshot is a platform where you can share photos and earn rewards while doing so.

The liberty that comes with the word share photos means you can share any kind of photo. However, I feel photos that are showcasing your lifestyle would get more attention and then rewards.
You could share your lifestyle as a traveler, a fashion stylist, a musician, etc.
Those are the contents that this platform ideally planned to host. Well, I'm not sure though.
But it would be great if those are the kind of contents that are published.

Steepshot has been on the blockchain for a very long time now. According to the first article published by the team, Steepshot has been around for two years.
That's a really long time.

The platform has advanced since its first launch. Starting first as an android app, then the IOS version and finally the web version.

This means that Steepshot is a cross-platform software. Which is great, and will bolster usability.

In this article, I'd ideally have loved to talk only about the Android mobile version. I don't have an Ios device so I can't talk about that one. I doubt if there will be any difference between the Android and IOS versions.
This leaves me with the Web version and the Android mobile version.

For the review, my focus will be on the android app, but I will highlight some things about the web version along the way.

Review of Steepshot's features.

In this section, I'm going to be reviewing the features of Steepshot. The Android version especially.
I already stated my reasons why I will be doing that.

This review would also be a sort of first impressions for me. The fact being that although I have heard of Steepshot, I have never used it until recently.
The reason is that I'm picture shy. I'm not a fan of taking photos all the time. Especially of myself.

Without further ado, let's review Steepshot's features.

Steepshot's User Interface (UI).

As usual, the user interface of any app or web platform is something I check out first. It's become a habit, and not a bad one though.

I have got to commend the designer of Steepshot's interface. It reeks of elegance and class.

What I loved about the interface was the avoidance of Steem's color scheme. That is, the blue and white.
I once talked about this issue of project owners sticking to Steem's color scheme and not trying other colors. I don't dislike the blue and white color scheme though. I just feel designers could be more creative and use colors that depict their project.

Steepshot is rocking a color scheme almost similar to Steemhunt. I have expressed my love for Steemhunt's color scheme, so you can be sure that I love it on Steepshot too.

Aside from the color scheme, I loved the font that was used. It blended perfectly with the colors.

I was hoping to see night mode on the app but I was disappointed. Well, I wasn't so disappointed, the light mode looked great.

Overall, I must say that I was mesmerized by Steepshot's UI on Android.
Kudos to the designer.

The same accolades go to the UI on the web version.

MY GOD!!! (Sorry I exclaimed too loud)

The UI on the web version reeks of the same professionalism I saw on the app. It definitely had to be done by the same designer.

Functionalities

In this section, I will be talking about what you can do with/on Steepshot.

Share pictorial content

This is the basic reason why Steepshot was developed.

You can decide to upload pictures from your gallery or capture it with an embedded camera in the app.

I wasn't particularly impressed with the inbuilt camera though. My device's camera is great. So I expected since Steepshot uses my camera hardware, the quality would be great too.
It would be great if the developer worked on the software.

I liked the multiple photos sharing. This means you can share a slide of pictures at once. It brings that Instagram feel to Steepshot which is great.

On the web version, you can upload pictures and short videos too, which is really amazing.

User profile page.

This is becoming a common feature on every steem based app. Especially mobile apps.
The purpose is to remove the dependency on other steem front-ends with a profile page.
I had hoped I will be able to edit my profile on the app and also profile images.
Maybe I'm asking for too much though. But I don't think it's a big deal for steem based mobile apps these days.

Wallet

Steepshot had me with the availability of a wallet on the app. Honestly, I didn't expect it.
But, maybe I did expect it though. Almost all the steem based mobile apps are now having wallets in them. But, some of them are just a display of a user's funds. You can't use them to perform transactions.

On Steepshot, you have a fully functional and efficient Steem wallet. Except delegation though. But that's not a big deal.

Push notifications

Stay up to date with activities on your profile.

You will receive notifications for the following activities;

post likes
comments likes
follower requests
all comments
new posts
received transfers

I like the fact that you can toggle on/off notifications of activities you don't want.

These are basically the features of the app. There are other things I might not have mentioned though. But, with this information, you have an idea of other features that might be on the app.

Are we about to witness the death of Steepshot?

I won't be discussing this subject matter for too long.
But, I thought to include it in this article.

A few days ago, I came across an article that suggested that Steepshot may go offline soon.
The article pointed to a fact which insinuates that the developers of the project have abandoned ship.
The author of the article posted screenshots of huge sums of steem being transferred from Steepshot to another user.
Well, the speculations might be true though. There haven't been any publication on Steepshot's blog since 3 months ago. Developments seem halted. The app is no longer available on google play store.
All these pointers are why this speculation can be considered true.
But we might never know. Maybe they are planning something big. But it wouldn't hurt to inform ardent users of the platform.
I surfed through the platform today and saw that people still use it. I don't know why they(the developers) would wanna quit now.

Nothing is certain until is done. So I'll advise that we all keep our fingers crossed, and hope for the best.

Read the full article here

Summary.

In this article, I have been able to review Steepshot. I also shared my opinions about some of the features on the app.
The platform's ideology is great, the mobile app is amazing.
First time using the app and I was impressed. Although I had issues with some things, they weren't deal breakers for me.
I'm not freaked about sharing pictures of me, but maybe I can start sharing pictures of my daily ordeals. That would be great.
With respect to Steepshot going extinct, I hope it doesn't. Let it be speculations and speculations only. It would hurt to see such an amazing platform go off the grid.

Do you use Steepshot? Tell me about your experience on the platform. Leave your comments in the comment section.

Thanks for reading!

Links

Project repository: https://github.com/Chainers/steepshot-mobile
Project's landing page: https://steepshot.io/

Resources:

The content of this post is based on my knowledge of the project and mostly from my experience. The images used are screenshots of the platform on my device. Other images gotten elsewhere have their source links provided just below them.

Series backlinks:

Github profile:

https://github.com/HarryHeights

Steem trek (My journey on Steem Part 7): Reviewing Steepshot, the Instagram variant built on Steem.