The Steepshot series: Features of Steepshot (Episode 6)

Repository

https://github.com/Chainers/steepshot.io

A. Introduction

Features, features and more features. Without these, I don't think some of the technologies that have found their way to the top, would have easily done so. New features are the reasons for updates on apps and for creation of new devices and equipment. New features are the reasons why your phone beeps once in a while asking you to update an app, or carry out an OTA update on your phone.

For applications, the more features they have, the more appealing they would be or appear to their users. There are quite a lot of social media applications all over the internet. However, there is a reason why users choose Facebook over the lots of them in the same category. The reason is simply because of the host of features facebook brings to the table unlike the other social media platforms.

In this post, we will talk about one of the decentralized applications that have shown much promise in quite a while now. That app is the Steepshot platform. A number of new features have been recently implemented on the new versions of the Steepshot applications released. We shall have a look at some of these features and how they have been or can be beneficial to users of the platform.

B. What is Steepshot?

Steepshot is a picture sharing app just like Instagram which is built on the Steem blockchain. This platform seeks to reward users for making their pictures and videos contents through it. The rewards from these activities by users of the platform comes in the form of an upvote on their post from members of the community. At the end of seven days, users are paid out Steem, SBD and Steempower.

C. A few great features of Steepshot

Let us now ransack the Steepshot platform and pinpoint a number of features potential users of the Steepshot platform would enjoy.

i. The post promote feature

Thousands of post are made on the Steem blockchain everyday. The issue however is, how many of these posts get the deserved attention they require? How many of these posts gets to the trending page where they can be seen by first-time visitors to the Steem blockchain? Hardly any. This is where the use of bots for promotion come in.

As you may likely know, apart from being a place where you share your lifestyle and event photos, Instagram is also making waves as a great place to market your products. Simply throw in the pictures of your products, promote it and wait for your buyers to message you.

For users of the Steepshot platform, as well as potential users, this feature has been enabled on the Steepshot range of platforms. Now, you can easily promote a post on the Steepshot platform without hassles. How can you do this?

When you make your posts via the Steepshot app, it appears on the Steem blockchain as well as on your page on the Steepshot platform. Now, on any post you make on the Steepshot platform, there is a button at the right part of your screen. This button has 3 dots and when you click on it, there are several options that pop out.

The first option there is the promote button. On clicking on this, another interface opens where you are prompted to promote your post by inputting the amount of Steem you wish to use for the promotion. Once done, you can now click on the find promoter button to search for the bots you would use in promoting your post. This automatically searches for a bot for you. When done, click on the promote button and your posts will be automatically sent to the bot you have chosen for promotion. In accordance with the timing of the upvote time of the bot, your post will be upvoted.

Luckily, the post promote feature does not work only on posts made by you. You can also promote posts made by those you like, your fans, those you follow, your family members or your friends. This is a great feature on the Steepshot app which now eliminates the need to copy the link to your post and send steem to a bot with your link as a memo. You do not need to do all this again as the entire process has been simplified on the Steepshot platform.

ii. The Share to Steepshot app feature

At times, there are some news articles you come across and read on the internet. They could also be pictures or videos. At the end of, or by the side of these news articles, there might be some little buttons with icons of popular social media platforms. Clicking on these buttons would mean that you are sharing the contents of the news article to the social media platform on whose button you clicked. This content is then shared to your social media page of the platform you have chosen for your followers to see.

This feature helps increase visibility to a post as well as serve as a faster way of sharing information. Now, Steepshot has incorporated that feature on the newest version of its app. The Share to Steepshot app feature allows you upload your videos or pictures right from your device gallery to your Steem blog without hassles. Simply look for the image you wish to upload, select it and then click on the share button. Several options will appear such as Bluetooth, Mail, Whatsapp, Xender etc. Look for Steepshot and click on it.

That action will redirect you to the Steepshot app with the picture you wish to upload. There, you will be required to enter the title of your photo, its description and the hashtags you want to use. Once you are done, click on the publish button and your picture or video content would be published to the Steem blockchain. You can see them when you log in through Steemit or other Steem front ends.

I love this feature a lot as it makes the whole process of posting a content to the Steem blockchain very easy and simplified. Now, you can take a picture and upload it to the Steem blockchain in minutes without having to go through the process of opening the app. I'm sure other users of the Steepshot app love this feature. I also believe intending / prospective users of the app would find this feature to be quite relevant.

iii. The Unlimited Tags

I'm pretty sure all users of the Steem blockchain will know what tags are and how important they are when making a new post. A number of potential users may also know what tags are. However, I'd just put out this explanation of tags for everyone to get a better understanding of what it all entails.

On the Steem blockchain, tags are one of the most important content when making a new post. That is why you cannot publish a post without at least adding one tag in the tags section of the post you are making. Tags are words, keywords or terms that contain specific information which makes it possible for others to find your content. When you use such keywords, and someone searches for that keyword, your post as well as post made by others with the tag appears in the search results.

When making a post via the Steemit platform and a number of other dApps or frontends, users are only allowed to use just about 5 tags. The reverse is however the case on the Steepshot platform. Once you choose to make a post via the picture app, you are allowed to use over twenty tags when creating your post. I believe this is the highest allowed so far by any other dApp on the blockchain. It is quite an innovative feature which a lot of people would easily identify and fall in love with.

I like this feature a lot myself because it allows my post garner a lot more exposure than it could possibly have if I had used just five tags. With more exposure, you can be sure of a higher number of votes and comments on your posts.

D. Conclusion

These three are some of the many beneficial features present on the Steepshot platform. They in one way or the other, make the Steepshot app a wonderful platform for users. The post promote feature gives your post a lot more visibility, the share to Steepshot feature allows you a faster way to make your posts and the unlimited tags allows you use up to 20 tags.

In the next post of this series, we will look at more features of the Steepshot app and their possible benefits to users of the platform.

Merry Christmas to us all!!

I hope to see you on the next episode of this series. Have a nice week ahead.

I remain your amazing dApps presenter, Hive account@curtwriter.

Resources

A. https://steemit.com/witness/@steepshot/steepshot-ios-version-0-3-5-is-finally-available-in-apple-app-store-steepshot-has-launched-its-own-steem-witness-node
B. https://steemit.com/steemit/@steepshot/steepshot-alpha-4-ios-search-for-users-list-of-likes
C. Other pictures were screenshots from my device.