Adding on to my last post which went over this pretty little article that featured 36 cryptocurrencies that are providing real products and ways for the public to utilize cryptocurrencies and integrate them into their lives; I want to speak more specifically about one implementation of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency that is proving itself increasingly more relevant.
That is, social media platforms built on a blockchain.
We live in a technological world now.
There’s no getting around it.
Most socializing now is heavily involved with text messaging, posting photos and hoping to get some likes, and most millennials nowadays have “swiped right” in the hopes of scoring some physical contact.
The type of information that these platforms have accrued over the years is astounding.
If you post on Facebook, you’re essentially giving that photo, video, or location information to them. The powers that be that control things like Facebook can also control how much exposure your posts receive by shadow banning your profile, and they can most certainly boot you off altogether, essentially keeping you from accessing your photos and conversations, all without any kind of explanation other than the vague claim that you’ve somehow violated their “terms and conditions”.
With blockchain being the disrupting technology that it is, and the social media platforms that are built on it, we are now given ways to:
- socialize and share content in a way that is censorship resistant
- prevent anyone else from owning your information and selling it to the highest bidder making these options much more transparent
- Earn monetary rewards versus the centralized platforms which get paid big bucks to throw ads in your face.
Ok, now that you have an idea why social media platforms on a blockchain are a great idea, I want to document my journey exploring these types of options.
I’ll begin this series by going over the most popular option: Steem and it’s main application that is Steemit.
VIEW VIDEO HERE^^^
It’s been up and running, open to the public since April 2016. Users have been getting paid to post on Steemit since July 2016.
Here’s a basic idea of how Steemit and the voting system works:
- First, anyone can create an account. There are ways to do this anonymously, if you are interested in learning how, check out the links I’ve provided down below.
- You can post about whatever your heart desires.
- When you create an account, your account allows you to access the rewards pool. This means that when you upvote a post or comment, you are distributing a percentage of that rewards pool towards the individual who’s post or comment you upvoted.
- The amount of Steem Power (SP) your account holds determines what percentage of the rewards pool you’re able to distribute.
- There are three types of coins on Steemit.
- Steem is often referred to on the platform as liquid steem. This is because there is no waiting period for you to be able to ultimately access these coins. You can buy, sell, and transfer them whenever you like.
- Steem Power (SP) is a representation of your vest in Steemit. This is not liquid like Steem, if you want to withdraw your Steem Power, also called “Powering Down” whatever amount you wish to withdraw, whether it’s 10% of your total SP or 100%, you will receive that amount in the form of 13 payments, one made each month. If you wish to boost the power of your account, you can transfer your Steem into Steem power by “Powering Up”. This ultimately makes your vote more powerful.
- Lastly we have the Steem Backed Dollar, or SBD. This is Steem’s pegged cryptocurrency. Although it hasn’t always been able to maintain a very solid peg to the $1, in the past it has seen fluctuations spanning from $0.78-$22.00. SBDs are also liquid, much like Steem.
- When you submit a post on Steemit, that post will have 7 days to accumulate votes. On the 7th day, you will receive the payout and your post can no longer earn more money.
- You can choose the type of payout your post will produce, either 50%/50% Steem, Steem Power, 100%Steem Power, or Defer payment. This last choice means that however much your post earns, it gets sent back into the rewards pool. This means that the rewards pool will hold more rewards that can be distributed to other posts.
- If you see Spam or plagiarism you can downvote a post. Depending on the weight or power of your vote, down voting will reduce or altogether remove any rewards a post has received and also makes that post less visible for others on the platform. I believe that down voting also can play a negative role for your own account if done excessively, but I’m not 100% clear exactly how or if this is the case. It is in this way that Steemit isn’t perfectly censorship resistant, but this ability to downvote, if done correctly, can indeed help remove poor content and prevent it from flooding out the good content we all want to see.
Here are some things to be aware of:
- Steemit has grown a lot in the past 2 years and with this growth comes the challenge of standing out from the crowd as new posts are created nearly every minute. This doesn’t mean it’s impossible to gain a decent following, or earn a passive income, but it’s certainly more of a challenge now than it was in the beginning. It’s for this reason I’ll also be covering newer social media platforms that you can explore and gain the benefit of being an early user.
- The use of tags are a great help to organize the posts you want to see, and create communities within the Steemit platform.
- There are many different communities you can find for non-english speakers, like Spanish, French, Russian, and more.
- Every time you vote, your voting power diminishes, by how much is determined by the percentage of voting power you use when you vote. It is reset every 24 hours.
- There are tons of other apps on the Steem blockchain that are interrelated with Steemit like, DLive,DTube, Busy, Steemd and many more. Some are more user-friendly ways of viewing Steemit, some are video hosting sites that use IPFS, some help you understand and track your activity on Steemit.
- Steemit is a social media platform, full of people who are passionate about cryptocurrencies, or who want to learn more about what this new technology is all about. Some people are passionate about art, photography, poetry, writing, yoga, food, the list goes on. Many enjoy creating meet ups to speak in person and develop more in-depth relationships. One meet up that is organized by many individuals who are very involved with Steemit is called Steemfest. This November will be the third hosting of this event, this time in Poland. I will be there this year, will you?
If you don’t have a Steemit account yet, why not check it out? If you find that it’s not for you, fair enough, I’ll be going over other blockchain based social media platforms in future posts as well.
Here are a few other decentralized social media platforms I’m keen to explore:
Mastodon
Peepeth
Trybe
Minds
If there are other platforms that you think deserve to get a bit more exposure, be sure to leave that suggestion down in the comments so I can take a look!
Additional Reading/Links:
Past Crypto Tips Vid on 36% of Top Cryptos
Steemin Apps
Steemit Help
Anonymous Steemit Account Creation
Tickets to Steemfest 3
My Steemit account