Steemit came from years of blockchain/cryptocurrency development and a realization that we should focus on building an online community first and then the benefits of a growing cryptocurrency will follow.

Steemit is here to empower people like you! and of course the many communities in the world. It's meant to be an all encompassing and positive environment to allow people to communicate in helpful and valuable manners.

The platform will eventually go lots of places as a movement towards the freedom of social media. The first thing we are working toward with Steemit is getting the blogging/curating platform side of things down pat - but there is much more. Steemit can grow into a full fledged social platform that supports followers, friends, personalized feeds - and then more interestingly, 3rd party games can be built as Steem plug-ins to continue to build a more and more vibrant ecosystem. Overtime, we see the core products -- a steemit option for any piece of internet content -- becoming ubiquitous -- and we see 3rd party apps becoming a very important part of the ecosystem. I'm commissioning a design to show many of the possibilities for the platform through the 'tree' metaphor. Steemit is one branch on a small tree called Steem .. but in time the tree will become large and provide cover for many communities and walks of life.

-Ned (ceo steemit)