Conclusions on SteemIt + MaidSafe, Featured Articles, and Footnotes
Part 4 of 4. Hello fellow Steemians. Dr. Bryan here. We should all be excited about MaidSafe and the SAFE Network. Why? Because it "completes" SteemIt in a critical way by allowing you to store photos and videos forever.[1]
This is Part 4: Conclusions on SteemIt + MaidSafe, Featured Articles, and Footnotes. Scroll to the bottom of this post for links to parts 1, 2 and 3.
Part four of this series covers links to other articles on SteemIt about MaidSafe which I selected to feature here, background information, sources and footnotes for the entire article series.
Conclusion
SteemIt and MaidSafe are complimentary in many ways. MaidSafe does not have some of the benefits of a blockchain while SteemIt does not have some of the permanent media file storage benefits which MaidSafe has.
I hope we can figure out how to make these two projects "play nice" together. The future is bright!
This has been a long series, but there is a lot of information to share so thanks for sticking with it.
Background Information and Sources
I've been watching and learning about MaidSafe and the SAFE Network since before the crowdsale (MAIDSAFE SELLS $6 MILLION OF BITCOIN 2.0 SOFTWARE IN FIVE HOURS).
Note that AFAIK "forever media" was a term I came up with to describe how data is stored forever on the SAFE Network.
Will the Data Be Stored Forever (safenetforum.org)
https://safenetforum.org/t/will-the-data-be-stored-forever/2056
SafeNetwork.org: https://safenetwork.org/
Footnotes
[1]: Keep in mind that it will be possible to use the SAFE Network from SteemIt via proxy sites. Also, note that although the SAFE Network alpha client is out, it is currently unstable and data uploaded today is not guaranteed to always be available - though once it is out of the testing phase this is the plan.
[2]: MaidSafe / The Safe Network is not a blockchain based project. They use a different method to achieve Byzantine Consesus. Consensus Without a Blockchain - blog.maidsafe.net
[3]: Note, that there are promising projects such as Storj, IPFS, FileCoin, and others - but as far as I know, none of them promise forever media
[4]: Been there, done that, thanks SmugMug - oh and thanks for no longer offering to mail DVDs backups before you changed your terms, even if I pay you - it was so fun to write a perl script to download all of my photos and videos to make sure I had them. But I digress.
[5]: SAFE Network Alpha Release! Create your first SAFE website, store private data, host websites and share public data! Click on the download button and get started! You will be required to download and install both the Launcher and the Demo App to access the network's features. The Launcher connects you to the SAFE Network without providing your account secret or password to any application while the demo app provides access to some network's key features. Source: http://maidsafe.net/
[6]: The marketcap for MAID (MaidSafeCoin) has gone from about 30 million to about 50 million over the past couple of days (written on Aug 14, 2016). Source: http://coinmarketcap.com/assets/maidsafecoin/
Featured SteemIt Articles about MaidSafe and the SAFE Network
I'm hand selecting the following recent SteemIt.com articles about MaidSafe. Thanks to all of the authors!
@cryptos ~ What is MaidSafe, SAFE Network, Safecoin and Why it is Exploding Now
@desmonoid ~ Maidsafe is about to revolutionize the internet, and you can too.
@endaksi1 ~ MAIDSAFE the Decentralized Internet- A Brief Explanation of what Maidsafe is and How to Acquire/Store Maidsafe Coin.
@mrgrey ~ Incredible MaidSafe Coin The One To Watch - Alpha Just Released
@decentro ~ Sshhh! The Internet is having a decentrolution: MaidSafe goes alpha
@jimmco ~ Today is the day: MaidSafe just launched first alpha release for general public. What? You haven't tried that yet?
@mono ~ MaidSAFE Alpha Release is finally here...50% JUMP Already..Where to next? 50 000Sats
Cover Image Credit
@nonlinearone (me) plus freely available icons: https://www.steemimg.com/image/l8WMI
But, don't you like SteemIt? Why are you talking about this other network?
I'm a fan of most blockchain and distributed technology solutions. This includes Steem/SteemIt, IPFS, BitTorrent, Ethereum, StorJ, Bitcoin, etc. I think it's silly to focus on one technology as the solution to everything (do you really want to be a "maximalist"?). We need to be open to other blockchain and distributed solutions, especially when they might be able to help improve SteemIt. I'm actually hoping that we can increase the amount of good blockchain and distributed technology news on SteemIt. It is certainly a better place for us to talk about all of these things than Reddit or even Medium.
Do you own MaidSafeCoin?
I'm not telling. I will tell you that in the crypto space you should always assume people hold any cryptocurrency they might write about.
About the Author
Dr. Bryan holds a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Arizona and has been using cryptocurrencies since 2013. He's won prizes at three Bitcoin/Blockchain hackathons and has been Co-Organizing the Blockchain Meetup in Phoenix, AZ for over a year. His life story is outlined in his introduceyourself post if you'd like to know more. Thanks for reading :)
poweruppledge: I pledge to power up 
every STEEM DOLLAR 
earned from this post to STEEM POWER 
! Join the poweruppledge movement!!
An Invitation to the MaidSafe/SAFE Network Crew
It would be great if you all would join us here on SteemIt. Our goals are very much aligned and it would be great to have you.
Links to Parts 1, 2 and 3
Some of the footnotes and references above apply to these parts.
Part 1: How SteemIt Can Benefit From MaidSafe and the SAFE Network
Part 2: MaidSafe 101 - The SAFE Network, MaidSafeCoin, MAID, SafeCoin and Project SAFE
Please show your support for SteemIt and our friends at MaidSafe and the SAFE Network by hitting that up button. All proceeds will be powered up into STEEM POWER :)
Great series, And thanks for Including a link to my post. It's good to see the maidsafe community thriving on steemit :)
Right on Gatsby! Oh, wait... :) @nonlinearone
Excellent series on the SAFE network, and thank you for feeling it was appropriate to include a link to my article at the end :)
Followed and upped.
Thanks @desmonid - happy to spread the links around :) @nonlinearone
The footprint of a market gap left by Steem, Maidsafe fits perfectly into, cool I know!
Great contribution, thank you! I share your fascination of Maid and Steem and cant wait to see what the future brings these awesome technologies.
Thanks @tobythecat. Exciting times! @nonlinearone
By the way all, I linked to this and the other three articles on the SAFE Network form. Cross-MOJINATION at its best :)
https://safenetforum.org/t/i-just-featured-the-safe-network-in-a-series-of-articles-on-steemit/10758
@nonlinearone
Hey Wildcat! :)
Is the info on Maidsafe encrypted? Is it just for images, or for any files we would want to store? It would be nice to have a good encrypted alternative to DropBox.
:) Are you a Wildcat too?
Files are sharded and encrypted. If it all works as planned, your private files will be even more secure than they are on Dropbox. And yes, you can store any kind of file at all, in either a way that keeps it totally private to you (more Dropbox like) or allows anyone to view it (more like YouTube or ImgUr). Note that the SAFE Network promises to do much more than this - but for now replacing Dropbox would be a big enough feat, no? :) @nonlinearone
Yeah, it would be nice to have one encrypted location to keep things safe, share as desired, etc. Balancing Dropbox and Carbonite right now, but would love the ability to keep it centrally filed and away from prying eyes. I used Wuala for a while, but when they got rid of free accounts I couldn't even share with others.
Nope, not a Wildcat. Went to the evil rival in Tempe, but always rooted for UofA the rest of the time. We're just a couple hours from Tucson now, and if I cared to be back in the city would probably go there rather than back to the massive sprawl in the valley.
Here's another article from SteemIt about the SAFE Network which I'd like to feature.