Steemit lacks chat / messaging capabilities

I complained a bit 83 days ago in my 5th post after my first full week of being here on Steemit, about not having a built in chat program. I was devouring "how to get started with Steemit" posts. So many of them said to get outside of this program and join discussions on Discord.

• bah humbug I expect any program claiming to be the next generation social media platform to have built in chat. Or at least someway to openly or privately discuss with someone.

Here's the 1 week on Steemit @WizarDave's quote about it...

Perhaps I'm expecting too much from >>>this<<< social platform?

Steemit lacks community capabilities

I was also complaining about not having communities built in. 30 days ago, I posted about hivemind which looks to be a huge step forward toward solving the lack of communities problem.

What can the Internet (Steemit) do?

As I explained in my very first post, when I first saw the Internet in '95

• I saw 2 things the Internet would do:
  • Connect People to People
  • Connect People to Information

As this beta version of Steemit stands, it does both of those things to a certain extent.

• It allows people to share and find information about an almost overwhelming variety of subjects.
• It allows people to discuss that information in the comment section.
  • But it really has come up lacking by not having a built in direct user to user chat or messenger type of interface.
    • Today I discovered a new tool to help solve the problem.
      It's called Steem Messenger.

Introducing Steem Messenger beta by @therealwolf

@therealwolf started @SmartSteem and https://smartsteem.com/

• That project includes a bid bot, a marketplace to buy /sell upvotes and you can delegate for a 95% profit share with them.
  • It's been very successful.

His new project was just announced in this post

Off the top of my head, this project looks very promising!

• It introduces an easy way for users to communicate directly using messaging through your wallet.
  • Yes, that capability is already available to you, but this tool makes it way easier to do and will even give you notifications when someone messages you.

I first learned about wallet messaging from @thecryptofiend's The Complete Steemit Etiquette Guide (Revision 2.0) linked in the Steemit FAQ

#11) Don't use the wallet to get attention
The Steem wallet allows people to send messages. Unfortunately people have recently been using it to send out tiny amounts of Steem as a means of advertising themselves or their posts. Don't do it you will waste your money and annoy a lot of people.

I never did anything with it besides notify winners of a couple of contests I've held.

• I do get random $0.001 messages from people advertising resteeming services and such.
  I'm not holding my breath, but I think a person could eventually become a millionaire one $0.001 message at a time! 😏

And I also learned from this post, you can encrypt your wallet messages by simply adding the pound sign as the first character of your wallet comment. That way it doesn't even show up in your Steemit.com wallet, and only shows up as encrypted gibberish on other platforms such as busy.org.

So, why have an external tool to do something you can already do through the wallet?

• Quick Answer - This new tool makes it easier.

How do I get it?

FREE download from GitHub

• Versions for Windoze, Mac and Linux

I don't want to give it my passwords

The passwords are only used to verify who you are. They are not actually sent to the program. I believe this is similar to the way other programs such as eSteem do it.

• Your encrypted passwords are stored encrypted in a local file on your computer.
  There is actually a double encryption happening behind the scenes.
  • You setup a password for the tool. After 60 idle minutes, you have to enter the password to continue using the app. Meaning, if you go lay down for a nap or whatever and someone else starts using your computer, they will have to know your password to see or send messages.
    • When you first start using it you, will have to give it your account username, active key and memo key. These are encrypted using a new password you create that will unlock the double encrypted local file.

Additional features:

• You can use it for multiple accounts.
• You can choose your favorite RPC-Node.
  • As was recently experienced sometimes there are problems with certain nodes. In this post, I explained how SteemWorld and SteemStats seemed to be experiencing problems. Come to find out it was because certain nodes were having problems. Luckily in SteemWorld I was able to simply choose a different node and continue working with that program. Unfortunately SteemStats lacked the capability to chose a new node, so we just had to wait until @jesta was able to correct the problem, or the node that site uses corrected itself.
    • So, my point is, this is a very nice feature!
• Updates every 10 minutes. (You can choose this setting)
• Default encrypted messages. Meaning you won't accidentally send personal information to the blockchain for everyone to read.

Random thoughts

• My first thought was that I didn't want to spend 0.001 SBD to send messages.
  • But then I realized if your friend replies, they will send you back 0.001 SBD
    • So basically the chat messages are free.
• I think I will install this on my work machine which is limping along using WinDoze 10.
  • I will try to get it installed on my home Linux box later.
    • I'm open to wallet messaging with anyone, if you are interested...
• Having built in chat / messaging capabilities is a step forward toward Steemit becoming the de facto social networking platform.
  • Perhaps eventually this messenger code could be incorporated directly into Steemit front ends such as Steemit.com and busy.org...
• It was already brought up in the comments on the original post by @roomservice, wondering if this could some day include chatroom capabilties?

Conclusion

That's STEEM Messenger - beta in a nutshell.

• If you have questions, you probably should post them over on the original post, so @therealwolf can answer them...
  • What's your first thoughts about this new tool?

👍 yay or 👎 nay?

What is jabi?

jabi = Just Another Bright Idea
pronounced jab eye

Who I am @WizarDave	The KEY to Life!