When it comes to roaming the steem blockchain I am personally using three platforms: Partiko for my phone, Steempeak for anything else and then for a very specific itch I am having, I go to travelfeed.
While I see Partiko and Steempeak as very convenient ways of doing my main activities without too much hassle. @travelfeed got my attention not only for their already pleasent website to write on, but also their vision for what they want travelfeed to become.
without further a due let me take you on a tour onto travelfeed.io so we really can get to see what this project is all about and how why this team is going to be a major player when it comes to the success of the steem blockchain.
Full disclosure: I am currently writing on steempeak because this article is not particular travel content.
Travelfeed is all about getting out in the world
Without even any background reading it is easy to see what travelfeed are trying to achieve. They wish for a platform that both can support travel bloggers for their honest work. But most of all also a platform that is the go-to place for curious readers who wants to travel the world.
This is first and foremost done by requiring you as an author to point out what part of the world you are writing about, that they will show up on the map you see above.
Even in its early stage it looks like the whole map has by now gotten covered with articles. But what exactly happens when you press on one of these places then?
Let's say you are going to South Africa, you can then go in and find an article written in that area by clicking on it.
You will then be seeing articles listed up with their titles and thumbnail picture, possibly catching your eye with something of interest. In this case, you can see there are 4 articles about Cape Town, Wine tastings and Nationalpark guide. All potentially super interesting reading into if you are having plans to go travel to South Africa.
While I do prefer the map to find articles, you can also easily just go to directly to certain destinations and read "the most popular" articles for that particular place. (yes, that goes all the way down to cities, not only countries).
Also, Travelfeed seems to do a good job of keeping the most relevant posts at the top so it wont get overflown and to prevent making it hard to find useful posts.
As an example when I wrote an article about Romania over a year back I could STILL see that very article somewhat on the top of the page. This is something we have not yet seen(to my knowledge) anywhere else on the steem blockchain where usually your articles would slowly drown away.
This whole setup are turning travelfeed.io into the ultimate travel-database. Where anyone can go in and find firsthand information from places they might want to go and visit. While at the same time create a space for authors to unleash keep going by paying them through steem. It is also just recently announced they are going to give authors a share of ads revenues that will be implemented in the future. Talking about giving authors even more incentive to make top-notch articles.
Educating the author through criteria to ensure quality
Not every author knows the common rules for when they decide to write their posts. This usually means in an uncontrolled environment things may get out of hand. Most of us have seen a fair share of that on Steemit.
Travelfeed seems to have been aware of this as well and because of that made the decision to make certain "check boxes" that you have to check off before you can post.
This forces the author to take certain actions and reflect a bit at his own work before posting it to the world. Personally I have been enjoying this feature not only to ensure my own work is done correctly but also gives a certain trust in other authors on the platform.
Like I talked about before they also have implemented the map that you will have to point out where in the world you are writing about. This can be specified to a country or even a city/area. It also has the additional positive effect of making you feel like you are contributing to the course filling out the world with travel-related information.
Additionally, I would also like to mention the super easy-to-use "featured image" that will be appearing as a thumbnail and background of your article when people will be reading it on travelfeed.io
Travelfeed is a team with a realistic vision
It is very easy to see why @travelfeed could become(and already are) a major player for the success of the steem blockchain. I still remember them being a somewhat small curation team and yet, here they are, showing what true passion can do. Sure they still have a lot of work ahead of them but it is, without doubt, one of those visions I can see actually become real. Information is a powerful thing and the way they have managed to create a platform for travelers to comes and share their stories, getting paid for it and even getting inspired for further travels are amazing. It all seems just to go so neatly together and I am super excited to see how it will continue to develop in the future.
I would advise you to check out their recent announcement where they are showing the next major steps they are intending to take. This includes the creation of their own token, funding campaign and implementation of adds. Once again proving how serious the team is about this project and their realistic approach in terms of creating a sustainable business model that will keep the development going.
Imagine what they have done so far out of their own pocket. Then Imagine what they can do with an actual budget.
If you are a travel blogger make yourself and everyone else a favor and start writing your work directly from travelfeed.io it will not only help your own work getting better recognition - even on longterm. It will also help us curious readers who still has a lot of the world to explore to find some inspiration. :-)
-holm