Don't Wait for SMTs to Start Building Your Steem App
Last week we announced the dates for our release of the SMT TestNet andMainNet, and in yesterday’s post we shared the open organization and tracking system for SMT development that will enable everyone to follow along as we progress toward those release dates.
Now we’d like to highlight why developers and entrepreneurs considering launching their own Smart Media Token (SMT) shouldn’t wait until the release of SMTs to build and launch a Steem-powered app. You can derive incredible value from Steem integration today, using the tools and technology that are already available on the Steem blockchain. Implementing these strategies will not only allow you to begin generating revenue, gaining customer feedback, and building your brand recognition, but they will also set you up for success if/when you do decide to launch an SMT. The best part is, this will work whether you plan to launch an SMT or not.
When SMT?
Out of our many ongoing projects (AppBase, Hivemind, HF20, etc.), SMTs have generated the most interest and we understand why. Our experience building apps powered by the world’s first Smart Media Token (STEEM) along with our experience dealing with entrepreneurs who are considering Steem integration is what informed our decision to build the protocol in the first place.
Don’t Wait
While SMTs will have incredibly valuable properties, many of the benefits entrepreneurs and developers are looking for can already be achieved through Steem integration today, thanks to Steem’s powerful application-specific features like Reward Sharing. Reward Sharing (or “beneficiaries”) enables people behind an application to take a cut of the STEEM earned by all of their users.
In addition to being able to generate revenue via Reward Sharing, there are many additional benefits to Steem integration that have nothing to do with SMTs. If you wait to integrate with Steem, you’ll be missing out on opportunities and revenue that you could start earning today. For example, SteemMonsters earned over $200,000 in just two months through Steem integration.
STEEM: The Turnkey SMT
Most importantly, Steem integration is a prerequisite for SMT integration. SMTs will be built on the Steem blockchain after all. Taking full advantage of Steem will give you invaluable knowledge about what you will need from your SMT. Those who launch their SMT without first learning the upsides and downsides of STEEM, will be putting themselves at a huge disadvantage.
Think of STEEM as a turnkey SMT that’s ready for you right now. By integrating the Steem protocol into your application, you can immediately start incentivizing your users and generating revenue without having to first bootstrap your own token. Successful Steem integration will enable you to build your user base and generate revenue - both of which will make bootstrapping your own SMT far easier, thereby increasing your odds of success by orders of magnitude.
Be Ahead of the Curve
Existing applications like d.tube, dlive.io, and steempress.io are great examples of applications that have already accomplished so much by integrating Steem into the backend of their web applications. These applications are highly successful, and the expertise they have gained as Steem developers and entrepreneurs will be priceless if they choose to pursue their own SMT. They will have a massive competitive advantage against any developers who decide to wait for the release of SMTs to begin developing their application. In addition, they will have learned first-hand what they need in an SMT, beyond what they can already get from STEEM.
We Believe in Decentralized Distribution
We understand why people are so eager for the release of SMTs. We believe they’re going to be a game-changer. No one else believes in decentralized token rewards (a/k/a Proof-of-Brain) like we do. But the most important reason we’re developing them is that no one else is.
No one else is trying to solve these problems, and the only protocols that could even be used to create these functionalities are not application-specific. In future posts we plan to explore the advantages of being application-specific, but in short, general-purpose protocols are not laser-focused on a limited feature set—which means they will scale slower, have higher fees, and have fewer dedicated resources for ensuring that your app is successfully tokenized. Also, most importantly, they will lack Steem’s most valuable resource: its massive community full of engaged, passionate, blockchain-familiar users and developers.
How to Start
We know the process of building an application is daunting, but we are confident that Steem is far-and-away the easiest blockchain protocol for powering web applications. It’s designed from the ground-up to power applications built using the web development tools the industry has spent the last 20 years perfecting so that developers don’t have to learn new or esoteric programming languages like solidity or C++. Instead, we offer simple APIs that enable any web developer with knowledge of JavaScript, Python, or Ruby to immediately pipe into Steem and use it to power their website. You can find all of that information and more at https://developers.steem.io. The Quick Start section has information on how to work with nodes and testnets. You will also find tutorials that will walk you through the basics of interacting with the Steem APIs in JavaScript, Python, and Ruby.
We also recommend you check out our Recipes section of the developer portal. Recipes are a series of instructions that enable you to efficiently accomplish common objectives such as how to calculate the approximate value of an upvote, interpret raw bandwidth data, optimize your local applications with Jussi, and maintain global state information.
If there are other resources that would make it easier for you to begin building on Steem, please let us know in the comments below.
Steem on,
Steemit Team
One question that a businessman should ask himself is, "What problem am I trying to solve?"
I think the question to ask here may be, "Why does nobody else see this problem?" or, "Why is nobody else trying to solve it?"
I know a lot of time and other resources has gone into SMTs. But...what are we trying to solve and does anyone else care?
If nobody sees the unique "problem" here as an actual problem, then what makes it so attractive for potential investors to sink their money into a project that's working on "resolving" it? Would it not be better or more useful to find the things that the market is demanding and then fill that need? The token-creation and ICO craze has pretty much bottomed-out over the past year. It can be done on other platforms by competent developers and they still don't garner much attention or sustain any long-term hype and investment. So why would a "turn-key" solution that's available to any schmo running a blog site suddenly be more attractive to potential investors?
I think what's lost in all of the internal Steem hype about SMTs is the fact that there is practically nobody outside of Steem interested in creating this "solution" and seemingly no interest in Steem itself for being "the only" blockchain attempting it. In the investment world, if this were truly a revolutionary and/or highly-demanded thing, there would be tons of speculative hype surrounding it.
But there is none.
If this continues to be the case, then it will likely just turn into an albatross for the Steem blockchain. And it will be an albatross that we can't simply roll back. I think there needs to be much more careful consideration about the impact on the Steem blockchain that this will have - on both resources/performance and perception.
Nobody needed oil, nobody needed cars, nobody needed highways, nobody needed computers, nobody needed internet, nobody needed smartphones, nobody needed bitcoin and now we can´t live without them. Do you see a pattern here??
lol...no
He's right. Did you know you needed Steem before it hit the marketplace? How about the internet? No, you didn't.
You don't seem to understand how entrepreneurship and innovation works.
Low quality comment from a high reputation user.
You seem to lack vision and imagination.
Excellent! Maybe I’ll be STINC’s next hire!
Fingers crossed! :)
Haha, well put. No one "needed" Steem either. It's funny that apparently having the foresight to build Steem apparently gives us zero cred with respect to the decisions we make with our next products ... even one that everyone agrees has widespread support within the community! LOL
Well...lol...everyone doesn’t agree. LOL
And...lol...who built Steem? You? Ned? Who was the brainchild behind it and where is he now? LOL
Also...lol...you know what else is funny? LOL
The fact that you have made four replies on my thread...lol...but not one of them was actually made to me in response to my concerns/criticism. LOL
Are you that scared to talk to me? LOL
Some “community liaison” you are. LOL. Amirite? LOL
One last thing:
LOL
JFC...
I wouldn't bother with this community liaison/content director if I were you; there will be no to-the-point and intelligent discourse or discussing of problems coming from this guy ever.
In my opinion, he's full of shit and as slippery as an eel in a bucket of snot. He makes a living ignoring or diverting criticism and encouraging those who agree with the party line. A paid shill best muted, LOL.
“LOL” means “lots of love” right?
I thought Dan built it cuz we were splashing Qora all in his face. You mean, Dan and Ned were already building Steemit prior to spamming Qora all over the BitShares forum and going on and on about "decentralized blogging" to the point Dan said he could do it better?
Dammit, my entire life is a lie!
Do you have polling data supporting this claim? And were factors like : most people would rather not get involved in such discussions, nor have the ability to understand the discussion in detail, and therefore do not participate in such "polling", thereby skewing the data in the favor of those who approve of the decision, for they are the most vocal in most all cases.
;)
Get out of here College Boy!
Actually, I know few others.
One was: https://www.ttc.eco
Forgot the names of others.. 😝
Thanks for sharing a potential competitor! But unless I'm missing something, there is no mention of giving people the ability to launch their own token, let alone one with the properties we are referring to. It's still good to see the progress (or lack of progress) other teams are making with respect to doing what did 2 years ago. Of course, as the original commenter points out, the fact that no one else is building this is obviously not a good reason to do something. This is why this was not even considered when making the decision.
Our goal with SMTs is to fill a niche we know for a fact exists from dealing with entrepreneurs and developers from outside the community who shared why they were refraining from adopting Steem. Most reasonable people would conclude that the fact that the community has bought into the idea so completely supports the claim that it is the right path, though obviously nothing in this world is certain. But interpreting overwhelming support from the community as a bad thing is certainly an interesting approach. If anyone looks back at before SMTs were announced, you'll find hardly any mention of adding a token launching protocol. The fact that so many Steemians are excited about the protocol is clear evidence that it's just a good idea. Everybody loves the Beatles for a reason, some things are just obviously awesome :). Discounting the opinion of the user base, especially in a system that is designed around stake holding, is certainly one way to go, but not an approach we believe to be productive. But by all means, people are free to argue that the stakeholders should not pursue what they believe to be good ideas.
When making the decision to pursue SMTs we made our decision based on what everyone who matters wanted: entrepreneurs, developers, and existing Steem stakeholders (everyone with any amount of Steem Power). We then looked at the landscape and saw that no one else is doing this, and no one else is better suited to do this. So we decided to do it and then the community rallied behind the idea. That sounds like consensus to me.
I think a quote from billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel sums it up nicely: The perfect target market for a start-up is a small group of particular people concentrated together and served by few or no competitors. Once you create and dominate a niche market, then you should gradually expand into related and slightly broader markets.
There is a reason for that, there is no problem to solve.
Who in their right mind would invest in
shitcoinsSMT's, while STEEM is getting noticed everyday by people walking their dogs in STEEM Park.And why did they refraining from using STEEM, don't want any associations or too embarrassed?
Because they can't customize STEEM to their business logic. There are two arguments: 1. It's a bad idea, 2. No one else is doing it. 1. Most Steemians agree that it's a good idea, if you don't agree with them, that's cool, it's your opinion. 2. No one has presented any proof anyone else is doing it.
Thanks for the reply.
I wouldn't say that it's a bad idea, more like that this feature shouldn't have top priority over other 2016 roadmap features such as Communities, I'll even say that implementing 2f authentication for security reasons should be more important along with proper marketing as @ats-david stated numerous times.
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Thanks for sharing your opinion. Hivemind (communities) is being developed in parallel to SMTs. They are equally high priorities.
@ats-david The 'problem' is that time and attention is not being rewarded on 99.9 percent of websites, and time and attention are the two most important spiritual currencies in the world.
Why should users not be rewarded for their time and attention, for liking, commenting , and upvoting posts? That's why Steemit was created in the first place, to reward users for their time and attention on the internet.
Smart Media Tokens take that same reward system and enable potentially thousands of other entrepreneurs to incorporate it into their product and website.
So, the problem is that, right now, while I post on other forums on the internet, I am not being rewarded for my time. I make my own comments and posts, upvote and 'like' other comments and posts, but receive nothing in return. SMTs change that.
No offense, but you seem to lack entrepreneurial vision. At the time Steve Jobs launched iTunes, there was no demand for having 'thousands of songs in your pocket'. He CREATED the demand. The best entrepreneurs create things that people don't even know they want, who don't even realize that there is a 'problem' in the marketplace to begin with.
SMTs have the potential to 'steemify' the internet, allowing publishers to reward their audience for their time and attention (comments, posts, and likes) as well as authors and journalists. I think it's obvious why so many in the Steem community are excited about this project.
99 percent of the users of Steem didn't know they needed Steem before it was introduced. It is the job of entrepreneurs and visionaries to create demand where no previous demand existed.
Correction:
About 6% of sign-ups think they need Steem in its current form. Of those 6% of users, half or more are likely bots. So perhaps 3% of the million+ who signed up on Steem find it useful...mostly to shitpost, beg, whine, and then cash out.
Outside of that small number, nobody cares. Hundreds of millions of people use Facebook regularly. They don’t get paid and probably don’t even give it any thought. Why do you assume that a) these people are looking for money when they interact there and b) why should they be receiving any?
We know why people come to Steem/Steemit - for the money. That’s how it’s “advertised.” But what exactly has that gotten us? If there wasn’t the possibility to make money for shitposting on any of the Steem apps/interfaces, how many people would actually use them for their regular social media interaction?
I get the allure of “Steemifying the internet.” I don’t get why everyone assumes that giving away tokens for what most people do on social media is somehow going to make everyone rich. The simple fact that you can earn money doing this makes people skeptical in the first place, including in the crypto world. Steem is still not taken seriously. How does an extra layer of shittoken creation change that perception?
Obviously, you and I have vastly different perceptions of Steem. There are no 'shitposts', as you refer to them, on my feed. I see good quality material, on a daily basis, from journalists, writers, artists, and activists - mostly all of whom have a positive outlook about Steem.
Renowned alternative media reporters and journalists are ditching YouTube and Facebook for Steem and DTube because A) They are making much more money on Steem and B) Their work can not be censored. This is a good thing. Public trust in the likes of Facebook and YouTube is also at an all-time low as their mass censorship campaign continues to accelerate.
Honestly, there's obviously no point in continuing because your mind has already been made and I find your attitude terrible, especially from a high-rep user.
Which really begs the question, why are you even here?
Create your own product if you feel you can do better. I won't hold my breath.
You catch on to the toxic culture quickly. Congrats.
I’ll go back to ignoring nobodies like you again.
Good day.
You're projecting.
Goodbye.
You're right, that's a really stupid assumption. But I don't think most people here think what they're doing is going to make them rich. Some money, yes, but rich, not.
People underestimate the value of their time and attention. Social media use is but one example of an activity that could be tokenized on the Steem platform as we have already seen. Little streams of income tend to add up. In the current centralized model, all of the profits go to a small number of very rich shareholders. On Steem, the inflation mechanism causes ownership of the platform to spread out gradually over time. A lot of people continue to use Facebook and are very sceptical of decentralized alternatives simply because they have been conditioned to accept the status quo. It takes time for the crowds to get their heads around any new ideas. The vast majority of people simply never consider anything from alternative points of view. Not even reasonably smart people. We all tend to take the vast majority of things surrounding us as given.
Life is so unfair, I'm taking a shit on my own and no one is paying me for it :(
Actually, it's great that you brought up taking a shit!
Did you know that there is some value in never flushing anything but the real McCoy down the toilet? That is, only number one and two and toilet paper? Water works all over the world pay pretty penny every year to keep the sewers clear of waste that has no business being there.
Check this out:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/12/total-monster-concrete-fatberg-blocks-london-sewage-system
I think with some development you could build a system that used sensor fusion (infrared etc. to detect the temperature and consistency etc. of things flushed down the toilet) to detect contraband. (You wouldn't believe the stuff some idiots flush down.) You could implement a token system where each legit flushing would be rewarded with tokens held on an escrow account. Each time you flush, say, turkey fat left over from preparing your Christmas meal, you'd be penalized by losing some amount of tokens. (Fat flushed down the toilet feeds rats and other vermin in the sewer network that cost real money to exterminate.) That would be an actual shitcoin!
Now, what's important here is the concept. I don't know if that concept would be technologically or economically quite feasible, yet. That would depend on if it were possible to reliably identify the most common types of materials and items flushed down the toilet that cause problems using sensor fusion and machine learning. The economics of the system would depend on how cheap the sensors installed in the toilet seat would be. Anyway, this is but one illustration of the near-limitless potential for the tokenization of life.
This is an excellent post. The big thing on my wishlist would be a central repository for resources available to Steem entrepreneurs, not just support from Steem Inc. but basic information on working with projects like Utopian, Fundition, and so on that would be accessible to someone coming freshly to Steem.
Also I would recommend the @steempytutorials account to anyone who wants to learn to develop on Steem using Python, the lessons there are very well-written and make it easy to learn.
And this is a wonderful suggestion. ⭐️ Thanks for mentioning that tutorial account — I may just be crazy enough to look into this whole developer side of things.
Not only python. We also need first class support for the simile millions of other languages out there. I'm probably exaggerating, but it is true that there are many, many different programming languages and each developer should be able to create Solutions within the language of their choice. It seems that right now we favor one over all the rest. I'm actually speaking from minor experience.
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Build an APP that NEEDS a SMT. Don't build a SMT and try to fumble an app. Right on steemit inc.
I am totally stealing that!!!
It's all yours :)
Man, I should build something for this community ... one day. I bet it would get lots of support!
One day T, one day.
I'm not waiting!
There's a lot of stuff going on in my front-end. Would love to see what kind of interest there is in such services.
Alot of people are joining steemit becuse of bloging, and then from that point they discover cryptos.
In May 2018 we broke the 1 Million registred users people dont relazie how big that milestone was and it will keep getting bigger just like Facebook (maybe not in that fast rate but not far behind).
I personally think now it's the best time to accumulate more steem power due to the price decline as you recive more steem per post.
@buildteam has always been passionate about building on Steem, our delegation leasing market for example has facilitated over 15 Million SP in leases in the last year since its inception and we will only be developing it further in the coming months. We also have a BUILDTEAM token on Bitshares which simulates the Steem vesting period with an app layer and we aim to migrate our token across to SMT's.
I believe it's best to maintain the tokens on Bitshares ran side by side with the SMT. It's a perfect combination. Anyway, Our developers have created a white-label DEX exclusive for Buildteam which you can opt to host at something like wallet.buildteam.io .. let me know if you're interested.
Hi @compumatrix would like to discuss with you further regarding running Bitshares side-by-side with SMT's as well as on the topic of the DEX, would be good to explore. Do you use Discord? If so please join the minnowbooster discord (https://discord.gg/S37bYma) and link to me from there in DM.
Sorry I was logged in as @btuniverse, please dm thecryptodrive on discord.
Great communication. It seems you are making progress on many levels.
Keep up the good work.
Full Steem ahead!
Everyone is excited about SMTs... can't wait to see how they add value to the platform!
Thanks for the reminder here and I've noticed startups like @steemhunt have already been setting up for SMTs via airdrops...
Forget the Steem price and hustle now folks! This chain's going to be 🔥🔥🔥