Ned has a new video just realeased here that discussed the following answers for the most common questions.
Steemit.com
- Steemit inc has 23 devolopers (30+ total) on the team now who are working on back and front end development.
- 8 developers working on Steem blockchain contributing code that he hopes the witnesses will adopt.
- Smart Media code in early 2018.
ICOs through SMTs and concern for steem ecosystem.
- Regulations are a concern and lawyer consultations are advised.
- Creating a currency without creating a security is the concern.
- The burden falls mainly on the people creating the ICOs.
My Thoughts
It will be interesting to see what the price of Steem does today. I don't think any "new" information was released in this video, but I think 
Sounds like Steemit.com has a good force of developers working behind the scenes to continually improve the site for a better experience by all steemians. With this team I'm hoping they can stick to the timeline of "early" 2018 release date, but I will be happy if we have the working and released code by 2018 for SMTs.
I was hoping for more information around how the tokens will work and what that means for the future of the marketplace here on steemit. Is the steem team working on becoming the next decentralized exchange? Are they at a point where they are working directly with any customers helping them to create an SMT on release? So many questions and such a short video!
Source
Anyways this is just my two cents and I would love to here your thoughts and questions about SMTs in the comments below.