How long will Steem lead the blockchain social media arena?

It’s only been a couple of years when Steem blockchain showed the way to a successful blockchain based social media possibility. Since then, several social media projects sharing wealth with users have cropped up in the market.

However, as of now, none of the functional projects looks any challenging to Steem network. Steem has got a superior concept and ecosystem than others. But personally, I believe there will soon be a project which will put a strong challenge to Steem. But this doesn’t mean, Steem is going to loss its sheen immediately. It too will keep rising and innovating itself to be in the game for quite some time.

Historically, pioneering players dominate the market only for some initial period. Then better technologies and fresh mind comes up to up the game. E.g. Hotmail pioneered the free emailing revolution but disappeared from the market after a while. Who remembers the search engine pioneer Alta Vista today or AOL instant messenger? Everything disappears after their phase is over. With the rise in alt coins, Bitcoin too is losing its market share quickly. At the start of 2017, its market share was over 87%. Today it’s below 40% and fell to about one-third of the market size several times. History repeats itself. I have no doubt that same will happen to Steem too.

_{Image source: CoinMarketCap}
…but wait! Before you all loyal Steemers start cursing my stand-point and start looking for the flag button, mind you, I didn’t say that it’s gonna happen in some days. It may take quite some time. Steem hasn’t even reached its prime yet. But the historical trends compel me to have an eye on what the market has to offer in this segment. So in this post, I’m going to look on to some of the projects that exists or are coming up in this sphere. However, I can tell you that I don’t foresee any serious competition to Steem anytime soon.

Who is a would-be Steem killer?

To start with, I checked up with blockchain based Twitter alternatives and found them no where in competition with Steem based alternative like Zappl. However I’ve no idea about Squeek.io while it was being touted as Steem alternative for Twitter for over a couple of years. But when squeek.io launched last month, it neither seem to be a Twitter alternative nor on Steem blockchain. Perhaps, it’s a new project by someone other than @oneshot.

Peepeth

Originally launched as Leeroy.io as a Proof of Concept Twitter clone on Ethereum blockchain with no central authority at the backend system, it needs users to pay some ETH using a Metamask plugin for every transaction. But will users really want to login through their Metamask account to pay for every transaction like tweeting, replying or faving a tweet? All fee paid by users directly go to the Ethereum network. The platform believes that though initially users might have some reservations to pay but over the course of time users who find this platform more interesting will readily pay for it. I doubt it. I didn’t even dare to signup on peepeth.com, forget peeping on it! BTW peepeth.com is invite only at the moment. I got the invite within a couple of days of confirming my email address.

Memo.cash

This is another experiment being done on Bitcoin Cash blockchain. It’s UI is not much developed yet and doesn’t have any fancy feeling. But you can start exchanging memos over BCH by sending small amounts of BCH for every transaction. Just like Peepeth, Memo charges small fee for every trx being done on blockchain from signing up an account to follow a user, liking or posting a memo. You can also send tips to other users. But everything cost you money. However I signed up to this website using a small Bitcoin Cash earned in a faucet linked there. But I don’t think I’ll ever buy BCH to spend for memoing.

Compared to these apps, Steem is not only free to use but earns you a handsome earning for just using it.

Belacam

This blockchain based Instagram alternative looked good to me. I discovered this about the same time when I discovered Steem. As I was not into Instagraming, I preferred Steming over this. Initially, I figured out that Steemit needed to post a weblink to a photograph to include it in your posts or to use it as your profile picture. But I wanted to post my photographs on a blockchain too. So I used to post my photos at Belacam and then include a link to these photos in my Steemit posts. Once I learned to upload photos directly into my posts, I forgot about this project. Today, I see the value of a Belacoin is just about 10-20 cents and it is being abandoned by this blockchain. Blockchain based Bela coin is now being swapped with an ERC-20 token in a 1:1 ratio. In case you have got some Bela with you, do not forget to swap or sell it before May 31st deadline.

Solo

Solo offers a mobile app which is something like Instagram. You can create and endorse user generated cards. When someone endorses your card, you earn SOL tokens. To start with you get 100 AP (Attention Points) in your account with which you can endorse other cards or users or create your own content. Endorsing a card or skipping it is as simple as swiping down or up. You also get a bonus for your daily attendance on this app. SOL is an ERC-20 cryptocurrency listed on several DEX including Open Ledger and Ether Delta. This app is fast gaining popularity and has acquired about a million users.

(I’m not mentioning @Appics here as an Instagram alternative; as it is Steem based SMT project only).

Zonto

Zonto is a native token for Zonto Social Network. Zonto is many things into one. It is a very big plan to encompass everything called social into this platform. From social networking to dating, to chats to wallets to job-search to shopping for services being offered or proposed to be integrated into this platform, you can do lot of things. You can earn and spend Zonto exclusively in this platform. So Zonto is a local currency in this platform with no value outside of it.

There is also an interesting feed for ICO ratings. In fact, Zonto is also positioning itself as a platform for crowdfunding.

Currently, to ensure the price growth of Zonto tokens, all old Zonto tokens are being burned and are being replaced by ERC-20 based ZNT tokens. This will pave the way for its listing on several crypto exchanges.

Whaleshares

Whaleshares is a Steem fork. Hence it has quite similar interface as Steem and Golos chains. Here you get Whaleshares tokens (WLS) and unlike Steem, probably there won't be any place for bots. The blockchain is currently into beta stage and is going to launch soon. It is designed to do away with the current flaws of Steem blockchain and to improve upont it.

ONO

ONO Social Network is being designed on EOS blockchain where value creation is incentivized. ONO is also an EOS block Producer Candidate. This Social network has several interesting features with a diverse reward-metrics; an option to turn off advertising; instant messaging feature etc. The ONO social network was already launched for Chinese market last month. It exists as an iOS and Android dApp. The international version for it is going to be launched soon. I’ve not researched into this one much but those interested should take a peep into its white paper here. I have very high hopes with this project. Since it is going to be launched in a few days' time, I'm just waiting to explore it once it is fully launched here. I hear that it is more of a Facebook killer than anything else.

Wildspark

This is a Chrome extension by Synereo, which helps monetize content shared on other centralized media like YouTube or Medium. You just need to share the link through Wildspark. You can earn AMP cryptocurrency according to the likes you receive upto 2 levels of your followers. Essentially, Synereo has created this blockchain reward token to compliment the current centralized social networks and it’s not in direct competition with them. But this hassle-free tool makes it damn easy to earn cryptocurrency for everyone. Even if you are not a content creator, you can earn AMP by just amplifying awesome content. AMP is currently prices about 20-30 cents on exchanges.

Current App

Current is an incentivized blockchain enabled streaming ecosystem which reward CRNC cryptocurrency through its recommendation algorithm. CRNC (pronounced as currency) is rewarded to people for their time streaming, ad impressions and personal data collected on the app. Users can stream their content on networks like YouTube, Spotify and SoundCloud. This app already has about a million users though it has only iOS version so far. Android version is expected to be launched in this quarter itself.

U Network & U Community

U Network is also a Steem like decentralized protocol for publishing and valuing content which reward UUU tokens. In addition it has an on-chain prediction market protocol for pricing upvotes as well as downvotes. U Community is the first online content community built on top of the U Network. This month an alpha testing for the first Dapp on U Network was launched in China. It is an online crypto and blockchain discussion community where several prominent project founders including co-founders of VeChain & Ontology were invited to join.

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There are several other blockchain projects in this arena like P R Network (a social influence network giving out cryptocurrency for predicting the public opinion); Refereum (which gives rewards for gaming), Theta Nework (which is trying to revolutionize video delivery on blockchain network), etc. There were some early reward splitting projects like Patreon which can be said successful predecessor to blockchain projects.

Once there was a Steemian viz. @elfspice who got fed up of this system and decided to design his own Steem fork called calibr.ae I don’t know what happened to him or his project; but it’s a fact that not every aspiring or ambitious project succeed in this market.

Steem has already proven itself and considering that it is still not out of its beta state, it has immense future potential. I don't see any of the projects in the making as a threat to the position of Steem.

• Do you know any such project that can challenge Steem?
• Do you see any Steem killer in near future?
• Which project has caught your fancy apart from Steem?

I'd love to hear your input on this subject.

Eagerly looking forward to your comments and feedback.