The Big Dozen - my 12 indicator projects for the State of Steem in 2019 (part 2)
I introduced the other day my 'Big Dozen' - the 12 key indicator projects that for me will determine the state, and the fortunes, of steem in 2019.
I revealed numbers 1 through 6 in my part 1 post.
There was no great dissent generated from that first post so now I will move on to the second half dozen.
I look forward to reading your commentary on these six that may not be quite so obvious and upfront.
In case you missed the first post here it is again...
Here are projects 7 to 12...
7. Advertising
As part of the major restructuring of Steemit Inc that took place at the back end of 2018, the company realised it needed to develop new income streams.
With a high usage site like steemit.com being at hand advertising was an obvious source of new revenue for the company.
After some early usage of Google Adwords, Steemit Inc is now developing its own in-house advertising sales strategy.
Although usage of steemit.com would appear to have dropped significantly over the past year (according to its alexa.com ranking) Hype Stat still puts the unique visitors to the site at 254,988 per day or 7,649,640 per month.
Hype Stat calculates from these figures that the site should be able to earn $3,750 per day from advertising revenue.
Even half that projected figure would be able to make a very useful contribution to Steemit Inc's required income, and potentially allow them to reduce their programatic monthly steem sales which should in turn ease the pressure on the price of steem.
It will be interesting to hear from Managing Director Elizabeth Powell on how advertising sales are progressing.
8. SteemOnboarding
@SteemOnboarding is a major initiative announced by @anomadsoul and @coruscate shortly after Steemfest on 16 November last year.
The project was set up to develop a professional, comprehensive, multilingual, one-stop-shop welcoming platform to guide newcomers through their early life on steem.
It is hoped SteemOnboarding will be able to have a significant impact on the high drop-out rates amongst new steemians.
SteemOnboarding has received backing from most of the major organisations on steem including @oracle-d, @utopian-io, @steempress, @blocktrades, @dtube and @sndbox.
The original roadmap indicated that a beta version of the website would be up and running by 15 January. Unfortunately the project is experiencing delays.
Hopefully SteemOnboarding will be able to meet the wider roadmap target to be fully operational by the end of Q1 2019 (31 March).
Meanwhile a number of smaller scale onboarding / early stage mentoring projects like SteemSavvy and The Welcome Wagon are operational and continue to be developed.
9. Steem Business Alliance
The idea for the Steem Business Alliance was conceived at SteemFest 3 last November.
It is understood that the aim for the organisation is to present Steem to the outside business world to attract investment and development.
The Alliance is taking the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance as part of its model.
Matt @starkerz from Oracle-D has been the main spokesperson for the nascent organisation so far speaking about it on a number of the State of Steem Forums.
Alongside Oracle-D, it is believed there are four other major steem dApps as founding members.
There have been ongoing delays in finalising the Alliance's structure and ways of working but it is hoped it will be launched very soon.
10. DApps & Apps
Steem's visibility in the world of dApp and App development has made some major strides forward in the last couple of months.
It started to take off when @therealwolf and @soyrosa managed to get steem included on the StateoftheDapps.com website.
Steem has quickly made a very strong showing on the site claiming five of the top 10 spots, including number one...
Alongside this @therealwolf set up a site listing all steem dapps and apps...
Steem is now included on most of the other main dApp review and listing sites.
The question now is whether this increased visibility will attract more dApp developers and investment to the Steem platform?
11. Exchanges
STEEM is currently listed on just a handful of significant exchanges. CoinMarketCap.com only lists a total of 22 markets for STEEM...
Other better known cryptocurrencies have their markets measured in hundreds.
Getting on more markets means more exposure, more trading, more volume and hopefully a higher price.
The community regularly initiates campaigns to try to get STEEM on new exchanges. One recent example was the push to get Steem on Coinbase...
Unfortunately success has been limited so far.
Generally to get STEEM listed on an exchange it will require the direct involvement of Steemit Inc.
David Jefferys @birdinc, who is charge of Business Development at Steemit Inc, mentions on his LinkedIn profile that he is "Responsible for exchange relationships (both active and prospective) for a top cryptocurrency - Steem".
It would be very interesting to hear from David as to what the game plan is for getting STEEM listed on more exchanges this year.
12. Direct Fiat / Steem Conversion
Getting money in and out of steem has always been a bugbear.
I would go as far as citing it as one of the four technical barriers to the mass adoption of steem (along with signups, passwords and multiple 'currencies').
Unless you are lucky enough to have a peer-to-peer / steemian-to-steemian arrangement in place moving money in or out of steem inevitably involves movement through one or more exchanges, and conversion into one or more different cryptocurrencies.
This inevitably leads to unwanted fees, delays, complications and risks.
Being able to buy STEEM directly with your local fiat currency, and being able to convert STEEM directly into your local currency would be a massive advance, and 'demystification', for the platform.
There are already some regional facilities in place like @steemexchanger in west Africa that do at least one half of the process, but there are still no major worldwide players on the scene.
Canada based NetCoins who have recently added STEEM to their roster of cryptocurrencies are showing promise as an easily accessible way to buy STEEM directly with fiat.
There has also been a recent lobbying effort to get Bittrex to offer a STEEM/USD trading pair, but that hasn't borne fruit yet.
There are several other new systems in the pipeline such as a direct credit card purchase system from @oracle-d.
A new Peer to Peer Exchange for STEEM and SBD called @swapsteem is currently in development and has just launched a new Fundition campaign.
This is a definitely a 'watch this space' one.
These are the second six of my key indicator projects for the State of Steem.
You can see the first half dozen in my previous post...
Now you have read my Big Dozen what are the projects you are most closely watching to determine how Steem will fare this year...?
[ penguin image from unsplash.com ]
This is a much better list for an idiot like me compared to your first one. I agree all of these things are crucial for success.
Since we have a 90% fail rate, when people cannot even get in the door this is a huge problem. When steemit stopped processing new people in any numbers back in Oct through now, this is really felt down here in minnowland.
The dapps might save us in many ways. They are easier to use and often give rewards. And now that we have visibility on published dapps rankings, this can only help get people in.
I have not heard of the project by @starkerz. I hope he will get active on twitter in support of our efforts there. I have been tweeting steem for 1.5 years to very little result. Finally in the last two months or so, we have steemers activity promoting there.
My twitter account is getting about 50 steem related notifications a day now up from maybe 10 a week. The more steemers making a noise on twitter, the better chance outsiders will take notice.
Maybe you can dm me in discord to discuss this further!! :)
I'm not really the person making this happen @starkerz . I am just in support. You can take a look at this old post of mine to see some of the people making that action happen as I tag them in the post.
There is a second post linked to this one I am sending and that is about trying to get crypto heavy hitters involved. That's the part that would probably be a fit for your project. I am seeing great progress and I think it will only get better as time goes on. Right now, I see steemers reaching out to tag some of these big players and having a bit of success.
https://steemit.com/busy/@fitinfun/twitter-tuesday-reporting-wonderful-news
If you are tweeting, contact me on twitter and I will add you to my list of steemers over there. I have over 500 now and retweet and reply from that feed daily. the more good steem posts going out on Twitter, the better.
https://twitter.com/FitinfunSharon/lists/steemit-friends
Great refinement into an easily understandable list!
So hard to tell where all this will will end up as there's so much occurin' !
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It's a serious good list. Serious good. Being who I am I'd have added an item, 13 is a much more elegant number than 12:)
That item would be PR. After the catastrophe that was the layoff at Steemit Inc that became paramount to me. Not the layoff itself so much as the blowback from it. The whole chain looked like a bad clown show.
Enter Eli Powell. No other particular reason I can see for a very dramatic turnaround. Steem is actually getting some positive press. Who knew?
7: What a concept. I've worked for an Alexa top 1000 website. We'd started with some advertising concepts and started generating some money. The day that FOMOCO signed on was epic. Suddenly our advertising arm was generating more than the site itself. I think Ms. Powell has a serious grasp on that possibility.
8: Onboarding is crucial to long term success and profit (what we all want). Will SteemOnBoarding be the one to crack that nut? I don't know, it would be a statistical anomaly if a first effort does so. I think there will be a path to massive growth in 2019.
SteemBusinessAlliance. I really like what I see from these guys. Their enthusiasm and the just fact that they sustained that enthusiasm through the dark days of winter are amazing. I strongly suspect they will leave a mark in 2019, and the first major announcement from them will literally open the flood gates.
Dapps. The fuse is lit and the powder is dry. The bear market might be our biggest friend here, in that people are making and selling dapps on Steem when everybody else is scuffling. CryptoKitties anyone?
11: Exchanges, or lack thereof is a drag, maybe the drag, on the ultimate growth of Steem. I suspect this is another area where the first big announcement will open the flood gates.
12: Fiat Conversion. I agree that is a bugbear, but we are seeing some coming changes. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but there is a method in place in Venezuela for direct exchange for at least some life supplies. I think our friend @crimsonclad might have an announcement that will change this in North America in the very near future. If there is indeed a way to change the process in North America it won't take long for the rest of the world.
What a great list. What a terrific project. Thank you for it all.
Thank you @pennsif for the mention.
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Definitely an important list critical for the long term success and sustainability of the ecosystem and the community. I feel that these executable projects can also come as a byproduct of successes of the first list and creating demand and user growth would foster the success of this list. Great to see momentum gathering and alignment among the community!
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Very thoughtful list and write up.
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