Reviewing 1Ramp's Competitions + App Updates

A few days back, a friend was looking for an easy way to delegate Steem power to someone. I recommended 1Ramp. With 1Ramp, Steem power delegations is as simple as Steem transfers. You can read my previous review of the app - Reviewing 1Ramp's Unique Features.

As at the time of writing that review, the competition feature had not been fully implemented. Therefore, I didn't talk much about it. Today, I'll be writing a detailed review on the app's competition feature and its recent updates.

Repository

https://github.com/hapramp/1Rramp-Android

What is 1Ramp?

If you are reading about 1Ramp for the first time, it is a social media platform that unites creatives based on their area(s) of specialisation. Creatives get rewarded for sharing their works with others. It is based on the Steem blockchain. If you don't know yet, every dApp on Steem rewards their users with Steem native currencies - Steem and Steem dollars. So 1Ramp rewards users as well.

The android version of the app, which can be found on Google play store, is the only app available for smart phone users. While the web app was recently released for other users.

On the internet, it is common to see "community over competition". People talk more about how creating a community is far better than competiting with one another. 1Ramp truly understands that, so it gives users a community feature.

Understanding that a healthy competition is needed too for communities to grow, 1Ramp introduces a competition feature. Competition is a part of every community. It helps creatives to continue to develop themselves and improve their crafts.

With 1Ramp, it is communities with competitions not communities over competitions. We'll now be looking in depth into 1Ramp's competition feature and the competitions currently running. And we'll not forget to see how this feature is different from other Steem frontends.

_{• Screenshots showing the competition tab on 1Ramp}

Competition Feature

This is one of 1Ramp's unique features. I have been anticipating to see how this feature would work out. It is finally live now, with two competitions currently on.

Only accredited users have the ability to create competitions in this part of the app. That notwithstanding, one can contact 1Ramp to be able to do so. The two competitions currently visible is managed by 1Ramp's account. The first competition started five days ago, while the other started yesterday.

How can one find competitions on 1Ramp's app?

There is a tab with a competition icon, it shows the ongoing competitions. The icon is after the home icon at the bottom of the app display. By clicking on the competition of your choice, it shows information about a competition.

_{• 1Ramp's competition tab icon is circled in the picture}

The competition details include: total prize amount and how it would be shared amongst the winner, 1st runner up and second runner up. It also shows the time the competition started and the time it will end. A short description about the competition is given. Rules are plainly stated. The list of judges is also included.

One interesting fact about the competition feature on 1Ramp is that it is unrestricted. It is not limited to only 1Ramp users. Other users of different Steem frontends can participate by using a customized tag.

Let's now take a closer look at the competitions currently running on 1Ramp.

The first competition on the app is a writing contest, which is targeted at the literature creatives. The literature tag can be seen on it. It is titled "Finish this story in 20 words." The total prize to be shared amongst winners is 30sbd, currently there are no entries.

To participate from any Steem frontends, one simply needs to use this tag - compete-1ramp-HfpCwbdhvtVFEXntQMZP. To see the contest instructions, you can click here.

While the other competition is a photography contest targeted at photography creatives. You do not need to be a professional photographer to participate. The contest is title "Outside my window." The total prize to be shared amongst the winners is 18sbd. Currently there are 6 entries.

To participate from any Steem frontends, one simply needs to use this tag - compete-1ramp-BYHIgARMiaFvjQfBLkxD. To see the contest instructions, you can click here.

Since users can participate in 1Ramp's contests with other Steem frontends, what makes this feature exclusive?

That brings us to another subject.

1Ramp Competitions vs Competitions on Other Steem Frontends

For the purpose of this comparison, we will be comparing 1Ramp competition features with that on Steemit and Busy.

Have you ever hosted a competition on Steemit or Busy before? Perhaps, a writing competition?

I have organised some competitions in the past using Steemit. The competitions were hosted with a community account. They were writing competitions, so contestants used a community tag in order to sort the posts easily. The problem with that method was tag spamming - I kept seeing unrelated posts on the community tag. I had to continue scrolling and scrolling till I found related entries.

On 1Ramp competition, the situation is quite different. You don't have to scroll for long to see relevant entries. All you have to do is click on the competition button at the bottom of the app display. Then proceed to select the competition you want to see its entries. It's by far easier compared to competitions on other Steem frontends. A helpful tool for both contestants and those who hosts contests.

The first contest talked about earlier has about six entries. Clicking on the the competition's title shows the entries. Since it is a photography contest, it shows images from the contestants. Without clicking on the post, a contest judge can make his picks from the pictures displayed.

Suggestions

The option key (three dots) doesn't work for competition posts. When I clicked on it there wasn't any pop up. For other posts on 1Ramp, once you click the option key, a pop up appears. With that you can share the post to wherever you want. I would have loved to be able to share competition links for others to read, since I can do so for other posts.

App Updates

I recently updated 1Ramp app on my phone to version 0.1.0. The update was made available on Google Play store about a week ago. It was on this update that the competition feature was made active. It has been inactive in previous versions. Some other updates were made on the app to fix bugs that also affected a user's experience.

Credits

The credits tab on 1Ramp shows voting power, resource credits, vote value and activities one can perform with the resource credits. The activities includes the number of comments, number of votes and number of transfers that can be done with an account's current resource credits.

_{• How 1Ramp's Credits tab currently looks on my phone}

1Ramp's credits tab works better now. Previously, the values there were just stuck (on my phone) with inaccurate voting power. It shows more accurate values now. The voting power it shows is similar to what you will find on Steemd or Steemnow.

Feeds

My feeds displays some posts now. Previously it was not displaying any posts, just empty. It seems it only displays users blog posts that were posted after I followed them. Posts made before I followed them are not displayed. I guess that is how it was intended to work.

Conclusion

1Ramp is one of my favourite Steem apps. I really like it's unique features, it makes it less of a competition when compared to similar apps. 1Ramp's post rating, communities and competitions are features worth your time. If you need an android application for your Steem account, 1Ramp is one app you should try out. There are several other features in the app you would find beneficial.

Glad to see you made it here, Cheerio!

Official links

• 1Ramp website
• 1Ramp on Playstore
• 1Ramp's Discord

Series Backlinks

• Reviewing 1Ramp's Unique Features
• 1Ramp vs Partiko (Clash of Steem dApps)