Content

• Introduction.
• What is Knacksteem?
• Knacksteem categories.
• Categories suggestions.
• Best category on Knacksteem.
• The Knack effect( Objectives and Advantages of Knacksteem)
• Knack tokens
• Knackstore
• Summary
• Join Knacksteem

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Introduction

A talent (or gift, or aptitude) is the skill that someone has to do something very well that people usually like and that is difficult.

Talent is considered to be a gift because everyone is born with it. Some people have one talent, some people have over ten, while a great majority of people don't know if they have a talent or not.

Having a talent, however, doesn't guarantee financial success. More often than not, people have deviated from their talents and pursued other means to earn income.

In this series, I'll be discussing about Knacksteem, which is a project that aims at rewarding talents. In this first post, I'll be doing a general overview of the project and its basic features(categories) and operations. Furthermore, I'll share some personal ideas that will have a great impact on the project.

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What is Knacksteem?

Project repositiory: https://github.com/knacksteem
Knacksteem is an open source platform on the steem blockchain that seeks to reward talents on a much broader scale, which eradicates partiality, and infuses transparency, on the blockchain. The initial goal of steemit, which was to reward quality content was defeated in the sense that, creators of absolutely great content weren't recognized, and really cool talents were ignored. This major problem was the bane that stirred up the idea, creation, and finally, the development of Knacksteem. Talents and skills would never go unrecognized and unrewarded. The organization of Knacksteem makes this possible.

The project(Knacksteem) was officially launched some months ago via a blog post by the founder and the concept of the project is really attracting and alluring. The project packs lots of benefits that can revolutionize the entire blockchain and restore law, order, and credibility on the blockchain once again. This stirred me up to research about the project and here are my thoughts about Knacksteem.

Prior to the creation of Knacksteem, platforms that existed on the blockchain rewarded individuals who had specific abilities. Knacksteem brings into consideration, virtually the whole world, as there is a very low probability of an individual not having an ability or talent which falls under a category on Knacksteem.

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Knacksteem categories

Knacksteem currently has the following categories, which are flexible as further developments occur and the platform is becoming more adopted, meaning it's subject to change which can be affected by community members.
The categories on Knacksteem are;

DIY(DO IT YOURSELF)

This category deals with life hacks and virtually anything that an individual can do, or create either from already existing resources or creation of new ones. On Knacksteem, this category would basically be a visual display of anything an individual can do themselves and will also have an advantageous impact on community members. This category has the tenacity to become the most active category on Knacksteem in terms of the number contributions it'll receive on a daily basis. Virtually everyone has a thing a two they can do and create that someone cannot. Ultimately, there may be issues arising from this category, this is because the community aims to reward originality, and for this category, it is expected that similar contributions will emerge, which may be a rip off of some existing contribution somewhere else. However the case may be, Knacksteem has the capability to checkmate this discrepancy with the help of dedicated and trustworthy community members called mavens and supervisors.

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ART

Art deals with a variety of human activities. Virtually everything perceived to be done with a kind of professionalism and precision is often called "Art". However, that's not the case in this context. Art is a way of expressing the imaginations, concepts, and ideas of an individual who can be called an Artist and he/she converts or bring those ideas to life in an artistic drawing or painting. Art in itself is a broad category which houses subcategories such as Music, theatre, film, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature(poetry). Although these subcategories are all embedded in the concept of art, there will be a slight tweak on Knacksteem as a subcategory music is a major category on its own. Therefore submissions and contributions that are likely to be accepted in this category, in my opinion, are artistic drawings, paintings, and poetic renditions. This might change in the forthcoming release of Knacksteem.

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ALTRUISM

This category seems to be the most unlikely category on Knacksteem. Altruism is synonymous to charitability. While this may not seem like a talent worthy of reward, this is the part where Knacksteem community shows it's own altruistic side by reaching out to reward individuals who engage in philanthropic activities. This is because most times the cost of carrying out philanthropic activities is burdensome and thus a lot of people tend to shy away from it. This category will stir up the altruistic side of every Knacksteem community member hopefully and this would be a way Knacksteem affect the society directly. The pattern in which submissions and contributions to this category will be made might be somewhat complex and honestly, I don't know how the founder plans to go about it. This category also might be a subject of abuse as some individuals may want to milk the system by engaging in fake altruistic acts. However, as I had already stated, Knacksteem has a team of dedicated and trustworthy moderators called mavens who help to thoroughly scrutinize contributions for originality and score them respectively.

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TECH TRENDS

Are you tech savvy? Then this category is for you. This is a common activity on Youtube, individuals reviewing products could be a mobile device, a car, gaming consoles or any technological inventions. Knacksteem now creates an environment to share those reviews to everyone on the steem blockchain. For users who already have a huge number of subscribers on Youtube can see this an opportunity to diversify their income which is one of the objectives of Knacksteem by earning on two fronts which is the general Knacksteem reward and also from their youtube accounts. Personally, I spend a lot of time watching review videos of several products especially gaming consoles and mobile devices so the existence of this category on Knacksteem is really exciting.

So for this category, it, therefore, means that submissions would be mostly review videos of technological inventions, discussions about future tech and could also be a display of creating a technological device. I'm not entirely certain but I think this category would not be restricted to hardware.

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MUSIC

Music! This category would be the busiest category on Knacksteem without an atom of a doubt. Virtually everyone can sing or perform music. This category might be hugely abused but with very smart and concise guidelines for contributions, it can be curtailed. On Knacksteem's landing page the music category has the caption

Share your musical talent directly with your audience and get rewarded.

This might seem that Knacksteem would accept any sort of music contribution but I think not. While Knacksteem seeks to reward any sort of talents they accept on the platform, professionalism in displaying these talents is necessary and I think this would be more evident in this category. That being said I think submissions that will be accepted and duly rewarded in this category will be organized musical renditions(could be voicing only or voicing accompanied with instruments), instrumentations and even music productions. Knacksteem platform sponsors the idea of originality so to be rewarded the performances have to be your original piece. Music lovers with a reasonable amount of differences from the original musical piece might be accepted but I'm not entirely sure as the guidelines for contributions is not yet available but will be really soon.

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JOKE AND HUMOUR

Is it a talent to make people laugh? Yes, it is every bit a talent. I've discovered firsthand that it is not easy to make people laugh talk more of a person who is sad. This category is sure to make Knacksteem community a fun place to be. Submissions to this category I think would be accepted are stand-up comedy performances and comedy skits. I can't wait to laugh my ass out(LOL).

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GAMING

Knacksteem brings the fun in "FUN" in this category. Not until a few weeks ago, I never knew gaming has had a massive revolution as there are now professional gamers who make videos of themselves playing video games and make a living out of it. How this is possible I'm yet to understand but I think I can find out as contributions on this category starts to emerge. However, Knacksteem will reward gamers regardless of being a professional gamer or not. Just play, win and share the fun the fun through your review. In the future, I think there'll be a documentary page that can house this category as a subcategory.

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CATEGORIES SUGGESTIONS

The current categories on Knacksteem are cool but I still feel some more can be added and the categories can be modified to be more organized and then contain subcategories. The essence of the inclusion of subcategories is because most of the categories that are existing are really broad and are sort of conflicting themselves and could fare better if they were explicit designations. In this vein, I'll like to see the inclusion of a documentary category, entertainment category and finally lifestyle category.

If these categories are created, it'll lead to the extermination of music, gaming, jokes&humour and altruism categories. These categories will not be totally exterminated per se but will become subcategories.

Eventually, if this idea is adopted by the founder of Knacksteem, the categories and subsequent subcategories will be;

CATEGORIES	SUBCATEGORIES
DIY	nil
ART	Painting, drawing, sculpting, graphic design and photography
ENTERTAINMENT	Gaming, music, jokes&humour, poetic renditions and choreography
LIFESTYLE	Altruism, fashion, tourism, health&fitness
DOCUMENTARY	Plants&Animals documentary, People&Culture documentary
TECH TREND	Tech reviews and tech creation

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THE BEST CATEGORY ON KNACKSTEEM

All the categories currently existing on Knacksteem are all amazing but DIY, in my opinion, is the best and is likely to receive higher rewards than the rest and this is why.

DIY(Do it yourself) is the best category on Knacksteem because this category exposes the hidden abilities deposited in individuals. This category has the influence of propelling individuals to search deep with themselves for what they can do and create themselves without having to seek out a professional.
(DIY) is a category which house contributions of individuals displaying creative life hacks that can help community members solve real-life problems and also it's a category in which other people can ultimately learn from.
Virtually every category on Knacksteem steers towards DIY because each contribution and submission on Knacksteem would be individuals doing stuff themselves.
DIY will ultimately be the category that dishes out value for value and this, in my opinion, makes it the best category on Knacksteem.

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The KNACK EFFECT. (Objectives and Advantages of Knacksteem)

The "Knack Effect" is the term for the resultant effect that'll ultimately occur from full adoption of Knacksteem platform.
Knacksteem was created according to the founder ideally to reward the talents and creativity of individuals, this might just be the basic idea. Knacksteem will cause an uprising of several talents and abilities the world has never really seen. Individuals that make up the Knacksteem community will begin to get more creative to stay relevant thus creating an atmosphere for constructive competition. The competition will be to get higher scores and eventually higher rewards from a contribution thus encouraging members to put in more effort and get creative in their respective knacks. This constructive competition that'll arise amongst community members might seem like a problem but it's actually a means by which more value is added to the community.
Knacksteem platform will not only affect lives on the steem blockchain, but its effects will be expressed and seen physically. The more community members strive to get more creative so they can earn higher rewards on Knacksteem, they are unconsciously adding more value to themselves.
Knacksteem offers quite a lot that will be immensely beneficial to every individual who becomes a community member. Community stand to gain the following of Knacksteem's offers;

• Real monetary rewards for talents.

This is the foremost reason why Knacksteem was created. There are several talents on the steem blockchain who haven't actually reaped any fruit of their talents either online or offline. Knacksteem offers to change that reality and create a whole new world where every talent doesn't go unnoticed and gets duly rewarded. Moreso, there are lots of talented individuals who have chased other sources of income and are unhappy in their daily jobs because unfortunately, they ended up in a scenario where they don't enjoy working because they don't have passion for it and their talents which they had passion for wasn't yielding anything tangible for them. This was one of the factors that stirred the idea of the founder to create Knacksteem. Knacksteem will reward talents but only individuals who are passionate about their talents and knacks are more likely to excel and reap the benefits of the platform.

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• Non-physical E-learning hub.

E-learning has become the fastest growing way to learn whatever there is to learn. Majority of search queries on the internet consists of individuals seeking to learn a skill or how to do some things on their own. Knacksteem can serve that purpose for its community members and the steem blockchain in its entirety. This is possible especially with the existence of DIY category and even all the categories generally, where individuals get to display their talents and skills and life hacks and the best part is all these are displayed indirectly for free. Now community members have free access to these resource materials and can now teach themselves from the contributions of others.

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• Online platform to showcase talents.

Knacksteem will indirectly become a platform were individuals showcase their skills. Knacksteem does this at zero cost meaning it is absolutely free. Community members can also gain popularity about their crafts through Knacksteem.

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• Avenue for self-discovery.

Discovering purpose and talents and passion and abilities can be quite easy for some individuals and at the same time a difficult task for some. Several people have abilities they don't know exist. Knacksteem can be a platform that will expose such hidden talents and abilities. In a bid to earn higher rewards, individuals are therefore tasked to get more creative and this can ultimately lead to the unlocking of potentials they never knew existed.

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• Motivation and exposition of amazing innovations.

Similar to being an avenue for self-discovery, Knacksteem will be a platform where individuals with basic talents and abilities can be motivated, groomed and will cause the emergence of great innovations. Furthermore, aside motivating and inciting individuals to get innovative, there is a possibility that a lot of contributions that will be submitted on Knacksteem will be uncommon and highly innovative.

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From the above statements, it is certain that Knacksteem will greatly influence a lot of activities on the steem blockchain that could get steem buzzing again.

KNACK TOKENS.

Smart Media Tokens (SMTs) are a native digital asset on the Steem blockchain that can be quickly launched by anyone to help monetize online content and create incentives to encourage desired user behavior. It is a Steem-based protocol that will allow any and every application to have their own STEEM-like token.
Knack tokens will be the resultant effect for Knacksteem when SMTs is finally launched and with Hardfork 2.0 already implemented, SMTs will be rolling out soon.
Knacksteem will reward community members for their contributions with Knack tokens.
Why Knack token is unique.
When SMTs are finally launched the majority of the platforms on the steem blockchain will be rolling out their own tokens to reward community members. What's important in the end is the value of these tokens. In the world of cryptocurrencies, it's been observed that cryptos or tokens with high utility cases are priced higher in the crypto market. Knack tokens will not only be the reward of being a Knacksteem contributor but it can be used in these cases which will definitely have an impact on its value.

When Knacksteem becomes fully adopted having a very good amount of community members and with a lot of influence on the blockchain, it'll become a hub where community members can not only earn knack tokens via contribution but also earn Knack tokens as a means of payment from other community members of anyone wielding Knack tokens.
This is possible in this scenario.
Mr. A is a community member who is a very talented graphic designer and an artist. Mr. B is also a community member(or not) who through Knacksteem has been made aware of Mr. A's talents and Mr. B would like to get a graphical job or an artistic work done for him. Mr. B offers to pay Mr. A a certain amount of Knack tokens to get the job done.
This way Mr. A earns Knack tokens not only by making contributions on Knacksteem but has also received value for the services of his talent which was broadcasted through indulgence on Knacksteem platform. Knacksteem can facilitate this operation with the creation of a "KNACK STORE" which can be implemented on its website.
Definitely, there will be lots of talents that will catch the eye of insiders and even outsiders of Knacksteem which will cause the actions stated above and the value of "Knack token" being their instrument of trade will be greatly valued.

KNACKSTORE

A store is simply a shop of any kind or size where a quantity or supply of something is kept for use as need. In the case of the Knacksteem, the Knackstore can also be called a "Talent store" because talent is the merchandise that's being sold in exchange for money which in this case would be Knack tokens.

The Knackstore will be an organized portal where users can display their talents in their various categories as services and then individuals can connect with them and strike a bargain and get jobs done. This can also be a means to boost contributions on Knacksteem because before the services of a talented community member might be requested for, he must have shown his tenacity in that field by the number of contributions he/she has made. This will drive contributors to showcase their skills more often to prove that point. In this case, to ensure Knacksteem doesn't get a bad reputation from such activities, Knacksteem could act as an escrow which will ensure secure transactions between a Knack seller and a Knack buyer as I'll like to call them in this context.
This whole Knackstore idea is roughly thought but if the founder, developers and members of Knacksteem team can share ideas on this, the "KnackStore" as I'd like to call it would be a very cool feature for Knacksteem and I hope the developers find a way to include this in their future plans.

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Summary.

From all the statements made on this blog post, it is not out of place to say that Knacksteem has a lot to offer the steem blockchain and inevitably the world. The points I made on the Knack effect are only a tip of the iceberg of what Knacksteem has to offer. As the community keeps growing, a lot of features will be included which will boost activities and ultimately cause Knacksteem platform to flourish. The platform is fully functional and available for use and contributions are already being reviewed, scored and rewarded adequately.
The growth of Knacksteem won't be achieved solely by activeness in your contributions but also in your giving to sponsor this great community.
There's much more value in being a sponsor of Knacksteem than a contributor.

Spread word about Knacksteem today!

JOIN KNACKSTEEM

Knacksteem only differs in motive and slightly in operations than other platforms on the steem blockchain. Every other thing remains the same.

To get started on Knacksteem you need a steem account. This is the most basic and yet useful asset to own to become a member of the knacksteem community. This account is what gives you access to Knacksteem platform.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT KNACKSTEEM, Check out the Official Knacksteem blog

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Credits

Special thanks to @outwork for designing, and providing the images used in this article.

Resources

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talent

Series Backlinks

This is the first post in this series.