I found out the other day about a social network very similar to Steemit, thanks to 
. It was totally random: i noticed that below her article, she had posted the message “these are duplicate messages from my account in Sola”.
And I was immediately like…
What the f*** is SOLA?
Turns out SOLA is a social network platform where you can publish content and monetize it, just like STEEMIT. You can access it on any browser or also install the app on your mobile device. I recommend more the mobile device than the browser though, and I will explain you why in a minute.
My first thought was that SOLA was a pure rip-off from the Steem blockchain but according the whitepaper, it's more complicated than that: the timeline provided says it was launched in November 2014 under the name "Plag" and by January 2015 had already 150 000 users (which seems to me a lot - but whatever). Eventually, SOLA jumped on the blockchain-ICO bandwagon in November last year but so far is only listed on the currency exchange platform TIDEX - and nowhere else.
So, how does it work?
So, it made me really curious and I registered. First of all, let's say it: it's way more easier to join than Steemit. Email, password, PIN code by phone and you're IN! Forget about keys and all the security bullshit/features. I don't know if it's a good thing of course in the long term, but at least in a matter of minutes you can make your mind about it.
Once you are connected to the app, user-friendly messages are there to guide you and let you know about the way it all works.
The idea is that you are given a fixed amount of AP tokens with your new account and then each time you positively value a card an amount between 5 and 100 is deducted from your total (you can adjust the reward by "slowing down" the swipe up). Fairly similar to your Steem Power, right?
And let's just say it can go VERY quickly: you don't even have to push a button to "upvote" someone, swipe UP to like, or DOWN to discard - a bit like TINDER actually. You can quickly lose sight of the amount of APs you have spent. Comments as well will cost you: 1 AP apiece!
You don’t UPVOTE, you ENDORSE.
You can engage other users through an internal chat, “mute” them or “prioritize” them to follow them more easily into your feed, create a channel to share specific content with the collaboration of other users, update your profile pic and biography and after 7 days you get your SOL reward according the number of people who swiped up on your card - which can be kept, exchanged or transferred to an Ethereum wallet (although I have not tried those features yet). The good thing is that the amount of SOL you will get does not fluctuate during those 7 days: what you see in your wallet is what you will get.
Web client flaw
The web client is fairly basic and since I experimented it while at work I immediately saw the main flaw of it: since you cannot physically swipe up or down, buttons are there to help you decide if a card is interesting to you or not. However, you have never any idea which card is next and what's going to be on it... So imagine you are at work and suddenly some NSFW stuff appears... Well, better keep your browser window to a minimum to avoid uncomfortable moments.
Conclusion.
Although it's really user-friendly and immersive, with simple features which will make sure to hook you on, I don't see SOLA as a real competitor or threat to STEEMIT. It's true that it boasts way more users than our favourite platform (>750.000 and counting), but I don't know how many active users there are. It may become huge when the SOL token will be listed on more exchanges but it may be more a threat to Instagram or Twitter than STEEM because I don't think you can really create in a card with 240 characters the type of argumented and versatile content that we are used to see on STEEMIT. So, I guess it will be mainly used to publish and share memes, photos and one-liners and may create problems to Instagram and Twitter.
Of course, there is a referral in place on the platform. I used the link of 
Image sources:
All image sources are screenshot from the webclient or the app made my me and collaged on Fotor.com
Sources:
https://www.facebook.com/solaplatform/
https://medium.com/solaplatform/what-is-sola-33c586a0e817
https://sola.foundation/
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