Steemit growth on the horizon - but what needs to happen?
What’s going on with Steemit?
Steemit is clearly a great platform. Revolutionary one might say. A total game-changer. The Facebook of the future - only better due to block-chain technology and the way in which our anonymity is protected. And more importantly, you can earn Steem by posting or curating interesting stuff! A feature that will no doubt filter its way into the Twitter & Facebook architecture eventually. But this is where it began. No doubt about that.
Yet it is not moving forward in a way that those of us already invested into the Steem Dollar would like to see. I can only speak for myself of course but I feel certain hat I am not alone with this feeling.
To be fair, the only thing I have into invested into this platform is time. No small amount of it however! Knowing nothing about cryptocurrency or Steemit, the first two months were intense. And as a family man now, with the second baby due in a month, my time is limited! So, be in no doubt, every one of my Steem Dollars has been hard earned. And as such, it has been a real challenge watching the value of this cryptocurrency drop so very much since I joined in August. Especially while the value of Bitcoin has been rising consistently for over two years now.
‘Just hold on’ they say ‘Bitcoin went through the same thing’. I have a friend who watched his entire savings - in the form of Bitcoin - shrink in value to almost nothing, but didn't bail out...he just held on... and now he feels pretty damn happy about that decision! Current Bitcoin value: $746.10.
Whilst this may well be true, as someone new to 'line watching' - that would be the graph you can see below:
Credit: Coin Market Cap https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/steem/
...I can tell you it isn’t easy holding on! Convert to Bitcoin now and it will do nothing but grow. Stay in Steem and... well, no one knows with absolute certainty what the future holds. If it wasn’t for the floor Steem appears to have reached now, I would have cashed out already. It is my understanding that the potential Steem investors are waiting to see a consistent floor in the value line. Once they feel sure it isn't going any lower in price they buy in and enjoy the ride as the value then starts to rise.
And the more it rises, the more people buy into the system, all of us wanting to ride the same wave of Steem up to its rightful rank of number 2, just under Bitcoin.
What is the solution to faster progression?
I did a fair bit of reading to look for the answer to this question and discovered many things. Some of these things went straight over my head, coz let’s face it, there are many people using this platform who speak a kind of computer language that takes years to understand. And I don't speak that language.
Many articles referred to the lack of public announcements relating to Steem or Steemit developments. Apparently there were some pivotal moments in Bitcoin's rise to glory and these spikes were always following some kind of announcement: 'Bitcoin can now be used on Amazon' or 'Bitcoin exchange shops coming to every major city'... these are the kind of words that encourage investment and help spread the message.
I know Steemit is still a beta platform, developing all the time, and I am happy to see the new profile picture option. A feature that immediately personalises the user experience and brings us another step closer to the alpha stage.
But we are in need of announcements Steemit! I can only imagine the complexity of building a site like this whilst keeping it advert free. And I applaud all that I have seen so far. But I look forward to all those announcements which will begin the inevitable rise in value of this most important cryptocurrency.
Potential game changer
The arrival of a decentralised equivalent to YouTube which utilises cryptocurrency rewards & block-chain technology has long been overdue. YouTube is monitored through a central source. Films can be rejected, audio can be muted, and films can be deleted... which they regularly are. The platform is fuelled by advertising, controlled by the corporations and should they choose, the whole site could even be taken down. You can't get it in China, so why not the rest of the world? And after all, it has been the single most responsible platform for the ongoing transformation of this planet.
So, I was very excited to read about SteemQ, a project that will take some months yet before they even reach the beta stage of a useable platform, but a project that I do believe will be a big game changer for the Steemit revolution. https://steemit.com/steemq/@furion/steemq-a-decentralized-video-platform-for-steem
Decentralised and unaffected by the powers that be, any films posted there will be locked into the block-chain, viewable forever in their original and un-deletable form. This is how it was meant to be right? And finally, that day is almost upon us! Forget earning very small quantities of fiat currency on YouTube. Once SteemQ kicks into action, it will be a no-brainer for us cryptocurrency enthusiasts.
Notice how SteemQ made almost $5000 with this single post, even while they are just at the concept stage. And look at how many comments they have!
Clearly, many people are waiting for this... Including the new and exciting decentralised media platform #steemtv who are tired of having to post on Youtube, which completely contradicts the nature of a free decentralised media source.
So, keep following the progress of @steemQ and @steemtv. The value of Steem will increase dramatically if they can pull this off. And for those of us who are addicted to 'watching the line', that would be a rather wonderful thing!
@busy.org is another one to watch. A social media platform in development with a more familiar interface, still utilising the Steem blockchain. https://steemit.com/busy/@busy.org/busy-your-next-gen-social-network-platform-based-on-steem-blockchain
In conclusion
Ultimately Steemit is a platform of advanced-minded people and despite its currently over-complicated posting system, it is gradually emerging into the mainstream and if you can find a way to speed up that gradual emergence, you are on to a sure winner.
One of the reason steemit is not really popular despite the fact that it pays people is because people don't like to change their habit/behaviour.
A site like this means people have to start writting stories and spend a lot of time just to create one post. Also it is not a familiar environnement for them because none of their friends is on the site and with social features seriously lacking people don't even suggest their friends to come over here.
That's why I am more optimistic about busy than steemit because busy will look very familiar to most people and they won't have to change their habit to use the site.
Also I think the dollar amount shouldn't be displayed because when people see money they do not interact in a natural way, in the same way they would on facebook,etc..so they change their behaviour. Also if busy becomes very big it means the average payouts will be a lot lower than they are now, even if the price increases a lot which is why if you base your marketing on the money aspect you are bound to disapoint many people when the money dries out. The money aspect should just be seen as a bonus not the actual reason for people to use the site. That's also why I suggested the team at busy to hide amount and to allow people to be able to also like stuff without actually voting ( have different types of like), this is key if you don't want to hurt people's feelings = have them leave the platform.
Regarding steemQ I wouldn't get my hopes up, they havn't given any update in 2 months and @furion seem to be working on other project, so it looks more vaporware than anything at this point.
To me the big winner is going to be busy, because they understand the importance to integrate many apps in the same platform. If you want to please everyone you need everything. And that's what busy is going to have.
I agree. Busy.org is going to rule the roost among all of the current projects/developments going on.
Yep but many of the current steem projects will be seamlessly integrated within busy ( which is going to be the core platform if you like). So these projects will all benefits from the busy user base.That's the idea, they all need to collaborate with each other. Nowadays it's very hard to get an app/website a lot of users and attention because there are big monopolies, facebook,youtube,google,twitter,airbnb,amazon ...the only way to compete with these giants is through innovation ( an all in one platform with all services in one site). What I like about busy too is that they havn't copied facebook, their site looks more like an hybrid between many different social media which is great and the public chat feature ( by common interest) is really awesome.
Thanks for the heads up about SteemQ. This is the first I've heard of that project; will have to go read up on it now.
When dealing with cryptocurrencies, taking the long view is definitely the way to go unless you are a savvy trader and can spend hours everyday analyzing charts. Which I'm definitely not. When deciding whether to invest in Steem Power or Bitcoin, one has to answer this question: do you think it would be easier for Bitcoin to double in value, or Steem? That's a no-brainer for me, I can see Steem going to 40 cents a lot faster than Bitcoin going to $1500.
It's hard to say if Steem price has found a floor or not... there are more positive signs now than negative signs, I will give it that. And the upcoming hard fork is great news for the long term value of the currency, although it's hard to predict the effect in the short term. For now I think a cost averaging strategy, employing small buys every week or so, remains the best way to build up a good position for yourself and ensure that your average price is somewhere close to the eventual bottom. You already want to be well positioned by the time Steem value has risen back up to 50 cents or a dollar.
Up-voted and followed.
Another video related project that is being worked by @klye on is Streemit Online.
Thanks for that. Good to know there are a number of projects in the pipeline!
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