In today's world, a hashtag can bring powerful people down from their towers of glory. Trends are being made and unmade daily at the click of a button. A hashtag on its own is not powerful but when people increasingly rally behind it, it can become a force to reckon. Hashtags are the order of today's society especially when they start to trend. That is why I believe trendit is a really good initiative that can get a lot of people promoting and benefiting from all the positivity the world has to offer.
Hearing about trendit made me wonder if it will be any different from steemit. I questioned if it would be necessary to have another social media and blockchain face-off when one already existed. So I read their whitepaper because maybe the fact that both are social media platforms does not mean they will both offer the same things.
I came across certain differences when I read the two whitepapers. They both definitely have their own uniqueness. The question now is, 'what are they?'
HOW TRENDIT DIFFERS FROM STEEMIT
1. TOKENS
It is true that on both platforms, users earn cryptocash for interacting with other users, so obviously they would have different. Whilst steemit's fundamental token is STEEM, trendit's tokens are called trend tokens. Steemit has other tokens, namely steem power and steem dollars (SBD- Steem blockchain dollars) but with trendit the only other token you can use is ethereum(even though this option is more expensive).
The more pledges (from other users) a creator's content gets, the more cryptocurrency rewards earned.
How does this work? Let's say I created a challenge claiming that I will write a 30,000-word novel in 30 days. The more I get other users to pledge to my challenge and comment with their own progress, the more trend token I earn.
One difference I noted was that steem's whitepaper refers a lot to bitcoins while the trendit whitepaper goes on and on about ethereum. This, I suspect, might be responsible for any difference (which may be present) in economic approaches to sharing profit on these two platforms.
2. PLATFORM
On the trendit platform, you can create new trends (new fashion statements), create awareness for events (monthly health walks), and create challenges for people on the platform (write thousand words everyday for thirty days). These are quite specific things you can do on the trendit platform. Although to a large extent one can do all these on steemit successfully, content created on steemit are not organised this way. On steemit, your content is either trending, new, hot, or promoted but trendit takes content organisation a step further by organising them into explore, promoted, trends, events, and challenges. Also, steemit does not validate events or offer help to sell tickets for any event. Although any organiser can easily sell tickets with the way steemit's platform is set up, it is not a specific service offered by steemit.
Trendit's whitepaper states that...
Trend Tokens or Ethereum can be used as a medium to pay for the tickets or passes. The organizers pay a percentage fee to the Trendit platform for ticket distribution. The Trend Tokens or Ethereum paid to the organizer is held until the event is validated. This is done to ensure the safety of Trendit’s users and their finances.
Whether you are a stalker or you just want to be sure you are following someone who shares your interests, trendit has made it easy for you! Every user's profile page is sorted and can be filtered according to the following categories:
1. Trends created
2. Challenges accepted and completed
3. Events created
Even the content that the user had pledged to can be further filtered into different categories for easy navigation.
3. PROFIT SHARING OR CURRENCY DISTRIBUTION
Steem commits to paying a fixed amount to all its users and it also pays those who put the work into it. It draws inspiration form bitcoin mining rewards.
Trendit, on the other hand, has a mechanism in place that is inspired by ethereum. It uses the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) which is ethereum's smart contracts that have been designed to manage trendit's revenue.
Their whitepaper has this to say...
The Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) is a collection of Ethereum smart contracts designed to manage the revenue of Trendit. The DAO keeps track of all the transactions and payments made by content creators, promoters and advertisers. It is also responsible for managing all the costs associated with the development and operation of the platform.
The whitepaper also goes further to expound on how DAO will be used to calculate earnings and distribute funds.
ROADMAP
One final thing I have to add is that, steemit is a full functioning social media platform which is successfully using the blockchain technology to pay users for their content. Per their roadmap, trendit has finalised their platform's design and strategy and are now headed towards the sale of their 'Initial Coin Offering (ICO) so they can raise the necessary funds for their venture. This sale has been scheduled for February 2018.
According to trendit's whitepaper,
A total of 200 million tokens will be created. They will be split into three sets:
- 120 million will be reserved for crowdfunding through our ICO smart-contracts.
- 40 million will be reserved for the platform including advisors, founders and for mass-
marketing.- 40 million will be reserved for acquiring users early on and paying beta users.
Full launch is expected to take place some time next year.
Interact with Trendit on Facebook, Telegram, Reddit, and Twitter.
Please make sure to read their whitepaper and get informed as to the risks involved and also to generally get more information and clear any misconceptions.