Hello Everyone! This is my first actual post on Steemit even though I have been browsing it for quite some time, so I would like to start off with an introduction and then discuss some thoughts I have been having in regards to Steemit, using Steemit as a platform, and the case against starting a traditional blog if you are a freelance or solo author/editor.
An Introduction
My name is Matthew Cox, I often go by Matthew DC or in some cases GreXX in various crypto spaces. I got my start with very minimal Bitcoin mining right as it started to become economical nonsensical to do so. I didn't make a fortune but it was enough to get me hooked and I started reading Bitcointalk like a wild animal, absorbing everything I could in order to learn more about the tech, the market, and what was out there. The industry as a whole was then and continues to be very intriguing to me.
I managed to meet up with a few other interested crypto enthusiasts (Stas & Mike) in a thread on bitcointalk for a failed pump and dump we had invested in and we decided to start seeing if we could take the idea from the pump and dump and make it a reality ourselves (it's irrelevant, I can't even remember the name anymore, which probably says something enlightening about the crypto space I don't have the time to analyze).
During the process of working on a white paper for our implementation of the idea, Mike and I were asked by Stas if we would be interested in advising/consulting on a new coin idea being developed by a small team that had been working on building a new tech from scratch. Stas was connected to a couple of the guys on the new team and it sounded intriguing so we decided to join the project and formed a 5 member group that became the Crypti Foundation and our project was released as the now mostly defunct Crypti network (continued now as Lisk).
I worked on Crypti as a creative director, community advisor/manager, writer, and core Foundation member for it's full run until the project was forked into Lisk. At this point, I mostly follow other projects, invest where it seems worthwhile, write up all of the random ideas my brain comes up with, and just make friends and chat with others interested in Lisk and various crypto projects. I am also on Twitter quite a bit where I try to keep up with the industry news.
While this is a very brief synopsis or breakdown, and doesn't give the full picture, I wanted to build some sort of idea as to my experience in the industry and where some of my perspective comes from.
Current Interests & Steemit
Currently my main interests are in DPoS (Lisk), Hyperledger, I still hold a special place in my heart for Eris, and studying other intriguing governance and consensus models and issues. I also seem to be growing more fond of writing, which is part of how I ended up here.
I had designed several concepts for possible network models when the original Crypti implementation failed. Many of those models were very similar to DPoS, although I wasn't familiar with the network at the time. I have followed Dan since I started reading the whitepaper and really understanding his work on Bitshares and DPoS and naturally, followed that over to Steemit, which I find very interesting, but was initially somewhat hesitant about joining full force.
A network like Steemit can only be as strong as it's adoption and influence, which appears to be growing as of late. It's still to be determined whether or not it will continue to grow or stall out at some kind of inflection point based on controlling forces and distribution of votes, but it's definitely a really fun experiment at this point and I couldn't sit on the sidelines anymore!
Discontinuing LiskNation & Steemit as a Platform
Due to my large interest in Lisk and the plethora of thoughts and ideas I have had for continuing to grow the network, as well as my belief that Lisk wasn't getting enough coverage or attention, I decided to start LiskNation.com in an effort to fill a possible gap and just to be able to distribute some of my thoughts and maybe get community feedback on several ideas I was pushing around in my head.
Anyone who has ever started a blog will tell you that the hardest part is getting readership, even if you are in a strong niche with little competition. The second hardest part, especially being a sole author/editor is dedicating enough of your time to putting up consistent content to be absorbed once the readership shows up. If you don't, they will lose interested and won't come back. The problem is, keeping up that kind of consistent effort, if you have a day job, is next to impossible.
Unfortunately, I have a day job.
That brought me to the thought process of utilizing Steemit as a blogging platform to build an identity for a person, rather than a new intellectual property or branding, and receiving a small side, almost freelance style earnings scale, without having to actually freelance and write about garbage no one cares about. Just as Steemit is a large experiment, most of my writing here will also be part of a more long term experiment to see if it would be more beneficial for a sole author/editor/blogger, to build up a following and brand for themselves on Steemit, rather than a traditional branded property or blog.
This brings with it multiple perceived benefits in my mind that I will be monitoring and considering to determine whether or not Steemit has really created an entirely new monetization scheme and platform for bloggers or authors.
First, Steemit allows authors to write about whatever they want, much like they would a traditional blog, but in their name and voice, without the need to brand a separate property and create multiple new social media accounts, emails, branding, etc. This eliminates a substantial barrier of entry for many who don't even know where to start getting branded and pushing to market their image. It also puts the focus much more on the author, rather than the brand, as the author actually BECOMES the brand. I find this to be a huge benefit in an entrepreneurial or startup focused industry and it is one of the main draws for me.
Second, it can greatly increase your ability to monetize your writing earlier. Building out a traditional blog or brand can cost substantial out of pocket funds and can take months to years to show a return on investment. Steemit eliminates this aspect in the sense that, if I am writing valuable content that people on steemit want to read, then I can monetize and see a small profit early on (especially since the startup cost is $0). This is also a huge benefit I see of Steemit.
Third, the biggest issue I have always had with previous blogging platforms was that I didn't want someone else to own my content, my writing, and to earn all of the profits from my hard work. Call me greedy or whatever, but I would just prefer to own and control my own content. This was the biggest hurdle I faced in contemplating switching to Steemit in the first place. But, in the grand scheme of things, Steemit isn't a multi-national corporation looking to pay you pennies on the dollar for your work, nor is it structured like a traditional conglomerate. Steemit gives the people the option to determine how much you make and ultimately, those same people theoretically own your content. To me, this new dynamic helps ease the pain and really was what made me feel comfortable making the switch.
So now what?
I will be shutting down LiskNation in the near future and transitioning the content here to Steemit under my profile. I am not looking for upvotes on the previously released content (but I'll gladly take them, lol), I am more moving it here to build out my resume or portfolio of sorts, and because I don't want my work to be lost when I turn off LiskNation.
From this point on, I will be using Steemit as a primary platform for anything I feel like writing about (mostly crypto related), and will be posting some periodic thoughts on how the transition is working out and some thoughts on how to improve and build out the Steemit platform as I get more comfortable with it's unique traits.
In the meantime, thanks for reading and I hope to offer up some great content for the Steemit community and help grow the platform with a unique and hopefully interesting voice to add to the mix.
P.s. on a side note, is their a preview option on Steemit? I don't see one and it would be nice to preview the article for formatting before posting. Let me know in the comments if I'm just missing it and thanks again for reading!