Yesterday was my best day on Steemit ever, for several reasons:
1. I took the plunge and posted my official #introduceyourself post. It started getting upvotes right away and has been my most profitable post to day, by a long shot. It was neat to watch the numbers going on on that one.
More important than the upvotes and the profit, I think it was very important that I put myself out there a little. At first I was leery of sharing real information about myself. My crypto-identity up to this point has been pretty nondescript, anonymous and neutral, and for the most part kept separate from the other things in my life. But the people behind Steemit want to read articles by real people, and so after much thought I decided to give it a go. And now that I have done so, I feel much more free to just be myself, and write about what I care about. Forget branding and trying to write a certain way to satisfy a certain niche. Not that I'm knocking that, just that it's nice to know I don't really have to do that here. While I have much that I can no doubt contribute, the best thing I have to share is simply who I am. There's a sense that this is appreciated here on Steemit.
2. I left a comment on someone else's post and when I came back to read the reply I noticed that the comment was worth around seven dollars even though it only had two votes. It gave me an experience of how the value of upvotes is totally tied to the amount of the upvoter's investment in this platform as shown by his or her Steem Power holdings. It was a great bonus to have my comment upvoted by a high stakeholder (aka whale). But weirdly enough, it also was a good reminder to not obsess too much about it. Celebrate the large upvotes when they happen, but don't turn my entire Steemit experience into the hunt for the next whale's upvote.
3. I discovered that we now have the Feed functionality. This means that I can see all the posts of the people I'm following in one place, just like Facebook or Twitter. I'm LOVING it. Now when I follow you, it means I'm actually going to have the opportunity to see your work. I've already read and commented on some great material in my Feed that I might not have otherwise seen.
Great job, Steemit developers! I'm happy to be here.