Steemit Platform is the New Kid on the Blockchain

There is a new social media kid on the block chain.
It is taking the internet by storm. Meet the Steemit.

(I wrote this for the iceCUBED Exchange)

For a long-time developers have experimented with different monetisation models for online content.

Ads are annoying. Hence the existence of adblockers. Paywalls are tedious and also wildly unpopular.

Since the invention of Bitcoin people have looked at different and exciting ways to use Blockchain technology to monetise online content. Creating social media platforms like Reddit on the blockchain, or at least incorporating blockchain tech., has been tried.

These projects have failed. The failures have come for a variety of reasons.

Steemit is Curated Content on the Blockchain

A social media platform is difficult to build under the best of circumstances. Even if you build something great, it still needs to bootstrap.

‘Decentralized Reddit’ Steemit Awards $1.3 Million to Users https://t.co/eyw7DC6X4v pic.twitter.com/9GzKUMtLnn

— Bitcoin News (@BTCTN) July 7, 2016

Network effects are tough. And that is just for a conventional social media platform.

Trying to incorporate an entirely new technology like blockchain, requires an entirely new approach.

Building a monetization model directly into a social media platform requires seriously novel thinking. The rewards are potentially huge.

This is because, with money built directly into the platform, you are able to incentivise people in a very real and visceral way.

Greed, as Gordon Gecko put it, is good. It is the engine of capitalism. It is the greatest human motivator.

Where others have failed, Steem may well succeed.

We do not say this lightly. Learning from the mistakes of the past, and with some very novel algorithms, it is growing massively of late.

Steemit Platform and Monetising Content

You can get an intimate idea of how the underlying technology works by reading the White Paper. If you're not that technical, you can just try using the platform. It's always best to learn by doing.

When you sign-up for steem you get US$ 3 worth of Steem credit to start playing around with it. Of course, you are free to immediately start posting. If people like it, they will upvote and comment. Then you will earn even more.

Steemit is definitely a project to keep an eye.