Instagram-like App on Steem - Testing Steepshot and My Early Review of the App
Hello Steemians!
Following the latest release of steepshot, I've decided to get off my butt, download the app and start testing it out to bring feedback to the developers.
If you find yourself compelled to do the same, please join us on the steemit.chat of steepshot for us to discuss.
A Photo Centric App is Essential
Every app has it's culture and it's own psychology. I see steemit.com has a great place for content. It's kind of a mix of medium and reddit. With the incoming community feature, the feel will get even more similar.
With Steepshot, the idea is for people to upload photos they take from their phones and share what their life's "looks" like to people they know or share photos about a topic they care about.
Testing and Debugging Makes Perfect!
The IOS version isn't out yet but if you have an android, go ahead and help the team discover bugs and squash them. How to do that? Just open a github account and then add an issue to their repository: https://github.com/Chainers/steepshot-issues/issues/new
Make sure to include what kind of device you use!
My review of the App
I know it's early alpha and that this project is far far from being finished. I am impressed about what the devs have been able to do since I'm sure that at this point, developing on steem is far from a walk in the park. I know that a lot of the issues that I have with the app are temporary and that they will be rectified with time...but just in case, I'll put my concerns here so that the @steepshot team know what I think about my experience.
My Review
The Good
It's fun to post photos that I take from my phone directly on the steem blockchain. It's mostly functional apart from a few bugs but it's been fun to use that feature.
The Bad...
1- First Impression
When I opened the app, I was expecting to see a personal feed just like I would on my instagram. That wasn't the case. What I got was the "trending". I don't know for you but as an "instagram-like" user, I didn't care about how much the post in the trending was making. If I wanted steemit.com app on my phone I would be using esteem.
2- No Feed
I was then looking for my feed...couldn't find where it is. So I guess this feature isn't out yet.
3- Browsing
I then tried to browse around and I couldn't get to the kind of posts I'm looking for...namely, people who posts photos using steepshot. I mean, why would I care for any other type of content when I use an app for the express intent of seeing and posting pictures?
When I went to #life, for example, what I got was all the posts on steemit. So basically, I felt like I had steemit.com without the ability to read the article. Meh...
4- Content discovery focused on Trending/Hot/New
I think it's a poor choice of content discovery for this type of app. It makes sense for a reddit-type user who wants to find what's up in his field. But for an instagram-like user, tags make much more sense. And to find the best quality photos, "popular" and "latest" in every tags is what a user need on Instagram.
Also, I hope they will consider other metrics than rShare to define what is popular content. Engagements, mentions, comments could be a better indicator of "popular".
Conclusion
This app can be a success if the community gets together and give honest feedback. I discovered while talking with them on steemit.chat that they are very open to talk with the people who test their app. So download the app, give feedback on the steemit.chat of steepshot and post issues on github when you find bugs!
Between this Zappl and SteemVid I'd say the Steem price might hit 1,000,000 Dollars next week. LOL
https://steemit.com/steemit/@decentralizd/a-steem-powered-world-why-steem-powered-projects-are-the-future-of-social-media-the-attention-economy-is-real-and-you-deserve-a
edit: I added this post as a link into my post as well referencing the instagram concept.
TO the MOON!!
To the moon :-)
Thanks for a thorough review of the app. Coming from such a knowledgeable person, these are important considerations to include in the thinking of this app as well as to whether or not get into it right away.
Namaste :)
Are you going to join the alpha tester?
How can I make this happen, I'd be glad to help out!?! Namaste :)
just download and join the steemit.chat #steepshot :-)
Nice review! I'm looking forward to testing it personally, but I only have iOS devices, so I will have to wait. However, waiting for the final release might be worth the wait, seeing as a lot of features seems to be missing.
Make sure to join us on steemit.chat when you do.
Thanks for your information!
My pleasure 😊
Dammit, despite the drawbacks you have convinced me to give it a whirl!
Awesome. Join us on steemit.chat!
This is really interesting. It's amazing all of the different things that are coming to steem like esteem, zappl, and now this. Great post.
I'm hooked. The STEEM train is still only leaving the station but it's so exciting already.
Its only the beginning.
Buckle Your Belts, Pull Up Your Socks...
Not To Forget To Polish Your Shoes & Gel Your Hair To Take Steemit Selfies 😆
Amen!
☺Amen!
Looking good!
Does it have a web version ?
Not yet
Thank you for your review.
I was able to post my first edited photo with Steepshot this morning.
In general I like the idea of the service. BUT, what will go miserably wrong is how it eats from the same reward pool as all the other posts and voting and curation on Steemit is totally different then what we will gonna see at Steepshot. Sharing photos will be seen by the Steemit curators as simple posts and may even get downvotes when SteepShot users give a lot of upvotes.
SteepShot does not have any special corner in Steemit, as SteepShot does not make a difference between 'normal' posts and photo only posts. The later means that a SteepShot user 'like' (vote) a post for its first image; That has nothing to do with voting for the post itself, since this is not visible in SteepShot. I think this is a MAJOR flaw in SteepShot. I left a comment to the latest Android SteepShot post at @steepshot already. SteepShot content shall have it dedicated channel and shall be the only content available in SteepShot.
Steemit users shall know which post is a SteepShot post so it can adopt a different way of curating. Either a special channel, starting with a Steepshot tag or something, but in my view shall be dedicated channel, like NEW, or HOT is. Separate from the other posts.
Stepshot can only choose which post to display on its app, it cannot decide whether or not to display on steemit.com(only steemit.com can do that) - there are plenty of steepshot like post already on steemit.com in #photography.
Also, the UI of steemit.com might be radically different soon because of the community feature. Steepshot might end up in a single community for example.
I know :) Unfortunately a 'like' in SteepShot App is always with 100% power! Steemit INC + witnesses + community may need to think how combined services on Steem blockchain will work when competing over the same funds from the same reward pool. We shall not run into a situation where we get even more wars within the community over reward distribution. Quality is one of the statements made to what posts needs to comply to for rewards (I think this was even mentioned in the Whitepaper). Quality is to some extend subjective, but I'll tell you, with SteepShot we will potentially see a lot of everyday photos but the way SteepShot is created these photos could get high rewards. With SteepShot people give rewards for the images they see, but the give rewards to antire posts that are invisible at SteepShot; That is not though through very well IMHO. The same is likely to happen when Zappl launches their Twitter like service.
I'm looking forward to it, but to me it is still very unclear what we will get when and indeed how Steemit UI will look like. The 'might' and 'for example' part of your statements do not give me a good picture. I actually miss the function product management, in Steemit Inc and Steepshot.
Reward distribution is a very important topic at Steemit and reason for many wars amongst members of the community, and I do not think Steem blockchain owners have a good and solid thought through story, strategy wrt multiple services using it and how the prevent the wars being brought to the various sister services in the future (ie wars not only on Steemit, but bridged to SteepShot and Zappl and who knows what other services).
I also think the Steepshot owners should have focused on Pictures only, not displaying images of any post, and at least the possibility to adjust power on a vote. They even decided to name 'vote' different, namely 'like'. It took me at least 5 likes to understand I was casting votes and rewarding images that were part of posts.... Now I need to go to steemd.com to check which posts I voted for, then go to each post to check if I'm ok with my vote...the image at SteepShot I may like, but the post maybe not.
I know we are in Beta, and Steepshot is in Alpha, but to me we are not in Beta/Alpha modus when we are competing and distributing financial rewards.