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RE: Let's Create a Steem Community Roadmap (Discussion)
The main thing I am going to recommend the community focus on for 2018 is to try and add more things that people can buy directly with STEEM/SBD. Do you own a coffee shop? Why not accept STEEM/SBD? Do you sell jewelry? Why not sell it for STEEM/SBD? Do you offer some type of service, like creating avatars? Why not offer it for STEEM/SBD?
Would a business be better off to offer SMTs instead of trading directly in Steem/SBD? At least to get started. They would be able to give out the tokens to repeat customers and then get them back, like punch cards for frequent customers. It seems like the business would have better control of their risks and expenses that way. They would set up a specific amount of SMTs to issue over time, as they wanted to expose themselves more to Steem/SBD.
For myself, I'm trying to figure out a reasonable approach for a foraging community on Steemit. It's not a topic of interest to everyone on Steemit, but it's a good test case for how to build, sustain, and reward niche communities. For many months, I curated the @foraging-trail under the SteemTrail project. Foraging wild plants and mushrooms for food is one area where expertise and being correct really matters - much more than in gardening or homesteading. If your tomato harvest is lower than usual, that's not the same as getting sick or worse from eating the wrong wild mushrooms!
Steemit has some stellar foragers and plenty of people interested in becoming foragers or better foragers. But there are also folks writing without a base of actual experience -- just copying information and photos from other places, misidentifying plants or mushrooms, and providing medical advice and then backtracking by saying don't take my advice - all wasting people's attention and potentially worse.
So a niche community centered around foraging, seems to need the Oracles and Quality Assurance roles that Ned has written about. I like @juliank's model in the photography area for encouraging contributions and engagement with other people. But moving up to different levels in foraging reputation needs vetting that's topic-specific. Folks that go outdoors to look and learn, or that connect with other folks should be able to move up easily in some action-related reputation. But moving up to something like a Master Forager level would take showing demonstrated skill in identifying and using specific plants or mushrooms.
Anyway, some of my Steemit goals for 2018 are to grow the foraging community (outside of the @foraging-trail) and offer a series of foraging courses on the blockchain. That would include using SMTs to reward people as they advance their foraging skills, and build a group of folks that can handle the Oracle and Quality Assurance roles for a growing foraging community active on the Steem blockchain. Of course, I'd like my work to be well rewarded. But I believe that foraging can help us have lives that are richer, more secure, more grounded, and more interesting by getting to know the plants and the land around us – in our yards, our parks, and our wild places.
Anyway, that's my not-fully-developed personal Steemit project for 2018. I'd be happy to talk more about it with folks that understand how Steemit communities and SMTs might work. And with folks interested in foraging!
Wow, this is the best response I’ve seen so far. Your project sounds very exciting!
Specifically for selling goods and services, I think accepting STEEM, SBD, and SMTs (all 3) is really the way to go. If you can integrate your SMT into some type of customer rewards/loyalty program, that would be a sweet use case.
Regarding communities and SMTs, I think this will be a game changer for the platform. Instead of everyone focusing on the one main rewards pool and community, each community will have an opportunity to decide the rewards of their own communities using SMTs, and the communities that create value and attract outside attention/investors are going to be rewarded with higher valued SMTs. I’m really excited to see how it will all play out :)
That is so cool @haphazard-hstead , I am just realizing the foraging community on Steemit, and it is very cool & interesting! Awesome ideas!
Hi @timcliff, promoting SteemCommerce is something I strongly believe will help promote steem.
How cool will it be if we start seeing 'steem accepted here' signs alongside (or instead of) 'bitcoin accepted' here.
To this end I posted a couple of days the second edition of the list of Businesses accepting payment in steem :
And, partly for a bit of fun, I also posted 'Around the World in 80 Steem-Fed Days' - could you get around the world just on food purchased with steem :
Starting this spring (late March/early April) I'll be accepting Steem, SBD and Bitcoin at my farm produce stand.
While its not much, it's a good start.
Has anyone heard of or considered programming a point-of-sales smartphone app for Steem?
Shouldn't be that difficult, but I haven't done much programming in the past 10 years or so...
Just an idea off the top of my head.
As a member of this community, I've quickly observed how every little bit grows organically; and, support your efforts whole-heartedly.
I'd love to be at the Farmer's Market and see a "WE ACCEPT STEEM" sign. That would be like BTC for the honor to be associated with such a promising crypto.
Btw, the POS app sounds like a smart plan. Surely, some developer has an idea in the works.
Best regards!
Peace.
I'm looking forward to adding your stall to my list of businesses that accept payment in steem.
A point-of-sale smartphone app for steem would be so useful.
@progressivechef has taken this idea to heart, opened his own restaurant in Mauritius
https://steemit.com/steemit/@progressivechef/introducing-the-first-restaurant-to-accept-steem-and-sbd-as-payment-pmc-grill-and-resto-a-place-where-i-want-to-promote-steem
And it looks amazing! He even accidentally found a steem logo embossed in the steel on his toaster :)
Check these photos out, and get to know ProgressiveChef (of steemit Iron Chef competition founder fame) and his family here. Great guy! Great ideas about taking steem in retail establishments!
Yes, a research trip to Mauritius to check out @ProgressiveChef's new establishment would definitely be worthwhile.
It is a vital feeding post on my Around the World in 80 Steem-Fed Days itinerary.
Has @YouAreHope got any projects coming up down Mauritius way that need a visit...?
As a matter of fact, one just occurred to me, our own welfare demands we eat @progressivechef's healthy cooking :)
😊
I wholeheartedly agree. There needs to be a much wider acceptance of STEEM/SBD for everyday goods and services. I'd encourage those of us who have some kind of business to consider receiving STEEM/SBD, and those of us who know business owners to do the same. Which includes bringing those folks into the fold if needs be.
That said, if I had a business now, my main concern as a business owner, before committing too much to STEEM/SBD would be the current volatility. As long as it grows so quickly, there's always the chance of a hard correction. While a business could adjust their prices accordingly, so that they derive the same value with each transaction, most of us, even here, are used to getting our morning cup of coffee for the same price every day.
I think that we can take an example for imitation weChat "http://blog.wechat.com/". In China it is very popular. With him you can do almost everything.
I think this is critical for any cryptocurrency to gain wider use. We need to be able to purchase real world things with it.
To that end, I started working on a project called Steemtaskr, which is the steem version of Airtasker.com - a site where you post task you want done (either in the physical world or online) and what you are willing to pay for them. People then tender what they are willing to accept to do the job.
To be honest, though, there's so little support on here for anything that isn't done by a whale or witness, so I'm not even sure I'll bother finishing it off. I'm disillusioned with steemdev.
Dang, I was really vibing with your optimism til I got to this line! We, minnows and planktons, HAVE to stop looking any further than our own vision(s) to see them thru. How do you know your design won't make you the next new WHALE!
Stop with the 'disillusionment'. Promote your idea. If it's good, people will buy. That's what I believe. I'm most times clueless of who's who on the platform, beyond the work they put forth.
If you have to sell your idea post by post, do so. But, don't let a GIFT be squandered with the pity-party effect...so uncool. Be encouraged!!!
Peace.
I'm probably only a couple of weeks away from having a working 'product', so I guess I will eventually get around to finishing it.
My pessimism stems from my notification apps, that got very little support, despite people screaming out for an Android version of a whale's IOS app. I pointed out a number of times to some of these people directly that you can have an Android notification app right now, and all I got in response were crickets. It's seems some people are more interested in fawning over whales and witnesses than actually exploring the platform here.
Yaah true but also we need to fight hard and make steem dollars more prominent so that we receive our cash direct not converting to bitcoins