Steemit hits 300,000 users

Steem was first mover in Social Blockchains.

Let’s talk about Steem as it hits impressive numbers and followers for its blogging and social networking website.

Steemit is a social news service built on a blockchain that rewards users for contributing content. It uses simple tools for writing and viewing content similar to Medium or Digg, but adds a whole new layer of incentive for content creators.

The front page with trending tags and topics.

Steem’s blockchain uses two tokens: Steem and Steem Dollars. Post and comment and you will be rewarded.

75% to the author and 25% to the curators. This brings a whole new incentive for hardcore redditors and content contributors.

Just as Bitcoin has dominated the market being the world’s first peer to peer digital currency, Steem has the same advantage with decentralized Social Media. And as with any first mover network effects are strong.

What does this mean long-term for Steem?

This means Steem carries a big advantage over new incumbents like Ethereum based Akasha. They will have to develop their user base up like Steem and that takes time. Steem has already proved the product is highly scalable. It could be another year or two before Ethereum gets Casper and starts sharding for high scalability when Steem is increasing the scale already. I am not sure what the user experience will be like on Akasha but my guess is probably not so well since it runs on top of Ethereum.

So what are good and bad sides of this network?

Pros :

• Already good engagement with some 10K+ people.
• Rewarding the content creator and consumer with Steem dollars is a great idea.
• You own the data. And better privacy and ads free.
• Code is fully open-source.
• Decentralised.

Cons :

• Lot of features missing (likes, chats, pages, groups, etc). Current app as mere discussion forum.
• UI/UX is not so great.
• Money reward alone is not enough to keep the users engaged.

Lots of influencers are currently using Steem more than facebook. It really is a great idea. Steem has potential to unseat the social media king Facebook though it still has lots of lags compared to Facebook.

Blockchain is future in the way that Bitcoin and alt coins can make banks obsolete. Steem has the power to make social media companies obsolete. It’s not easy but not impossible either.

Let us know what you think of Steem in the comments below. Even though you won’t get paid for it ;)

Daria Chuiko — writer, journalist,ideas generator of a Digital Nomad Magazine. Originally from Odessa, Ukraine. Write about startups, blockchain, travel, Digital nomad lifestyle and everything what inspires me.

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