streemit.online is Being Developed & Needs YOUR help!
Not everyone on the STEEM network is a strong writer & streemit.online looks to solve this issue by allowing users to stream their thoughts, art and world for Steem Backed Dollar tips right on site. Streemit to the World!
Update: The Site is Slowly Coming Together!
Currently deposits have not been properly automated server side and all must be checked manually. The withdrawal system currently doesn't have any system accessible built to display it on the front end which means any withdrawals would have to be done by personally contacting me. That being said I've worked all night and day on this project to get it somewhat running and I need to sleep some time here shortly.
You're welcome to come sign up for an account and fight for 1 of the 10 currently available connection slots on the small sandbox server I set up for folks to get a taste of the site in open alpha.
Roughly two days ago development started on streemit.online which was devised to add a site allowing video streaming with Steem backed Dollar (SBD) tips integrated right on site to the ranks of services offered accepting and using SBD! We're in desperate need of services running exclusively on our network's currency and given the fact I've previous projects similar in nature that are currently nearing completion it was decided as part of my on going STEEM witness campaign services using SBD would be set up to support the ecosystem.
While not currently open for registration the plan is to launch by the end of the week. However before we can fully launch streemit.online some help from the community is needed to cover the financial cost of getting the servers set up for streaming and the software licences bought to get the site out of alpha mode and able to stream to thousands of users concurrently.
The Business Model
(click the image above to visit the site - still under construction)
The way streemit.online will pay it's upkeep costs is by taking a small percentage of all SBD tips and transfers on the site as a fee. While popular streaming sites featuring tipping charge upwards of 40% fees on all tips given to the users streaming on their sites streemit.online doesn't exist to pad my pockets. It exists to give Steemit.com users a sweet place to hang out and tip each other their hard earned SBD for streaming fun and interesting content.
We're going to launch the site with fees set at 5% taken from tips to see if it's enough to cover server costs. The hope is this is enough to cover all streaming and web server costs but if it isn't we'll adjust accordingly. If the site breaks even or runs in a tiny profit that would be preferable.. However it's not built for profit.
(A dated screencap of the balances / transfer bits being displayed)
Projected Costs to get streemit.online Running
Streeming Engine: (~$2000 or $65/month)
While that is a lot of money for me personally (in fact more than I currently possess) it's my hope that with this proposal a fair chunk of that raised by this post to help cover the costs of the streaming software. It's also worth mentioning that paying a monthly fee for unrestricted access to their software and streaming codes is available for around $65 / month (plus server costs) and is a viable option to get the site running if I fail to raise the funds to purchase the Wowza streaming engine license outright.
Streeming Client: (~$450 or $45/month)
On top of the Wowza streaming engine a license for the actual client setup used on streemit.online also has to be purchased. While setting up a similar streaming site an affordable and easy to use streaming client was found which enables nearly all modern browsers to be able to view and broadcast live streams world wide. To outright purchase the license is $450 or to rent it monthly is $45. Depending on what this post earns towards the development of this platform will dictate if we outright purchase the whole license or rent it monthly:
(Rough Preview: The layout will be changed shortly to make it closer to STEEM styling)
Servers for Streeming: (~$??? or $???/month)
All of this expensive software needs servers to run on as well! While the web front end server has been purchased and is currently being developed on another, larger, more powerful server must be attained in order to run the Wowza streaming engine and store video that users wish to store for the future. Currently a monthly budget of $100 to run servers seems possible and the front end server costs around $18 a month which I'm covering out of pocket. As demand and usage grows servers will be scaled up accordingly.
Why Services are Important to STEEM
Transparency & Anonymity are Key
Looking for Coders, Testers & Streemers
(screenshot from http://streemit.online)
Vote @klye for Witness!
Every vote matters!
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
Thank you for your votes, the opportunity and support!
You Can ReSteem (share) this by clicking the 
button below
A Massive Thanks to Those Who Donated Out of Pocket!
| Donator | Amount |
|---|---|
| @etcmike | $5 SBD |
| @funnyman | 13.435 STEEM |
| @exploretraveler | $10 SBD |
| @modprobe | $100 SBD |
| @hilarski | $25 SBD |
| Total: | $140 SBD / 13.435 STEEM |
If you'd like to help support the development and ease costs associated with this project feel free to upvote this post and/or send a Steem Backed Dollar / STEEM donation to account @streemit.online with mention of donation in the memo.
Yessssss!!! This is so awesome!!
If I can get everything up and running by the end of the week I'll be thrilled. :)
Dude thank you so much, this is the coolest!
No problem man! I know everyone here on steemit isn't the best writer. (I know I'm not)
With this site hopefully folks are able to earn SBD by streeming their day to day lives. :)
Upvoted and Witness voted!
Thank you for your support of the SteemIt Community.
Steem on,
Mike
Thank you for both Mike! Cheers man!
Can donations to this cause be sent to the @streemit.online account?
Absolutely Mike. Thank you for considering a donation. Much appreciated!
I'll be copying this announcement over to that account here shortly!
edit: Thank you for your $5 SBD donation to the @streemit.online account!
@klye Would love to be able to expand our content via new services via Steem. We only produce content but would be willing to help test things out. We will send a small donation your way to help out. Let us know how to setup and log into the new site.
Will do here shortly. Trying to nip a few apparent bugs in the butt before I open it up to the public for limited testing. :)
just let us know and we will help kick the tires.
Once you are ready our team @exploretraveler will see how we can use this. I am hopeful others will donate as we have since all SBD adds up. I will do what I can to help promote this project on my FaceBook account since some very active people on Steemit may see it there.
Ok all out to social media and maybe we can get @hilarski interested since I think his brand could also use this.
Ok we are trying to help you create some buzz to generate enough financial support to get started. @vetvso just did a support post for you, and we have sent your post into the WWW via our large accounts on FaceBook, Twitter, and Linkedin so maybe this will help.
Thank you very much for your efforts!
Keep us updated on what you need to get setup by end of this week.
I'm not sure how you are going to avoid deposits appearing by name on the blockchain, unless people deposit from an exchange or some sort of intermediary (and one with a lot of traffic)
I'd suggest going for the rental options initially. See how things go and then switch over to paid licenses. This is all new; everything here is an experiment. Fewer resources burned early on each experiment means more experiments can be funded.
Upvoted and I would consider something like this for teamsmooth sponsorship if it shows some credible progress (but needs more runway before becoming profitable, or at least self-supporting).
I actually use coinpayments.net as a payment gateway to process deposits! Which then transfers the funds into the streemit.online account. As it sits currently the withdraw system is being worked on and it will need to be tested thoroughly before it gets put live for obvious security reasons.
I agree with you on the rental option initially. Hopefully we see usage on the site to justify the large investment in fully licensing the software in the near future. I'm a firm believer on "If you build it they will come" and given not everyone's a world class writer I figure an alternate platform to go and streem while still having the chance of receiving SBD is a great way to get more people involved.
I'll gladly let you in on the alpha if you'd like smooth so you can check out what I am doing. While building a site like this and getting it perfect takes a lot longer than a week I imagine it's 100% feasible that it can be up and running securely by the end of this week with more features being added as time goes on.
I appreciate the vote and support.
<3 KLYE
I don't know how that works exactly, but if people are paying from the steem blockchain, unless coinpayments processes a very large volume of steem payments, you are going to see a pretty obvious:
payer -> coinpayments -> payee
Anyway, this is not a problem specific to your particular project. Anonymous or at least more-private payments are needed more broadly in the ecosystem and solutions will emerge.
which is not exactly anonymous.
I guess it would be pseudo-anonymous if you put it that way.
My understanding is that users send to coinpayments.net gateway.. then after some delay coinpayments forwards it to the account @streemit.online.
However I don't believe many have the time to sleuth through the chain to put these things together.
Another thing is the content preferred on streemit.online isn't something you're going to want to hide from your grandmother or spouse or anything of the sort. This is going to hopefully be a nice mostly safe for work site. I've got another website that accepts SBD / STEEM where folks can stream the nasty / NSFW stuff that I'll be announcing in the near future. :)
Awesome work @klye! I love the idea! And I can see you have put a lot of thoughts and efforts in this! Keep it up!
It's still atleast a week before I'm ready to open it up to the public.. but we're getting there!
upvoted this awesome project, resteemed it, and given you a vote for witnessw. Steemit needs more people like you!
You the man sam! Much appreciated.
Hopefully once I can get the site running 100% and open to the public I'll see you on there. :)
Resteemed, great news!
Thank you future24.
Nice one bro I can see this taking off for sure:)..resteemd:)
Thank you cryptoiskey!
Much appreciated man.
Need some @berniesanders love to jump start this project.
nice project. upvoted.
Hopefully I can get a limited open alpha set of tested in shortly to start checking things out. :)
It's a really cool idea with a lot of potential! I wish you the best of luck :)
Thanks Tim. I think if done right this could be a great addition to the STEEM network.
I hope you pull it off. Upvote, Resteemed and Tipped you 25 SBD.
Thanks Randy we will add 15 SBD to match you. :-)
Thanks x2!!
You sir are great. This should help immensely towards the costs of getting it all set up and running 100%.
Let's just keep pushing and see if we can get this post up to $300-$500 we need a whale to get on board. If this gets traction you might consider going to Steemfest. We don't plan on going since we where just there but will consider having someone represent us there.
Didn't consider it an option this year.. :P
Post has done very well. Looks like you should be able to get started. Once you go live let us know so we can help test, and promote the progress.
We are sending the SBD to your @streemit.online account
Awesome Brotha!
Thank you very much hilarski. Your donation will be used to purchase the streeming server needed and go towards getting some licensing bought. <3
Your post did very well! Hopefully you have enough to get started.
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I liked your article. Helps you like mine ♥ @siams
I can tell from the mock up interface that it's not going to catch on. UX/UI needs to mimic Blab or Rabbit.
I don't know what either Blab nor Rabbit are.. so I guess that sort of speaks for itself on how caught on those sites became..
While I welcome constructive criticism.. coming in here like some sort of expert then telling me to rip off some site or app I've never even heard of while not even properly indicating what part of the GUI turned you off just makes you seem a bit well, sloppy.. don't you think? :/
http://blab.im is dead but there is a medium.com article that reviews how it died a year after launch and hitting 3.9 million users. Take a look at https://www.rabb.it to see what they are offering. Wishing you success.
In my opinion the entire front page needs to be revised to industry standard. The theme you see on the front page of Rabbit for example there isn't a huge "Learn More" button but instead a "Chat Now" button or a "Go to My Room" button. The point with UX is you want people to feel invited in, it has to be simple, not something people have to learn. Yes it's Alpha but you might be better off removing the big Alpha signal. These sorts of sites are continuously improved so having Alpha will encourage people to be more cautious and maybe not try it at all. Make Alpha in small text if you keep it and put it in the About section where you list the version of the site.
If you choose to copy the layout of Rabbit then there is no need for people to browse. If there is a need to browse then you want to put the active rooms on the front page for people immediately to see without having to click browse. It should be as simple as go to streemit.online and we see all the most active rooms and broadcasts on the front page just as Blab.im used to do it, or just like other chat sites do it because that is the level of quality people are accustomed to.
The current layout looks designed for crypto nerds and that quality of UX will not get 3 million users the first year. My criticism is based on the fact that I have used Blab and Rabbit and I understand why they got millions of users in a year. UX is the key to the success of Blab and sites like it.
Reference examples
Note: As you see from the front page example, the first thing people would see when they would enter Blab.im was an active room. This allowed the active rooms to advertise themselves on the front page real estate. It also encouraged people to join in discussions.
Front page with recommended rooms
Note: In this example you see that a recommender can suggest rooms to join to a particular user profile based on their particular interests. In the beginning these rooms could just be whatever active rooms are available on the site until there are so many that you can pull off a recommender. Rabbit has the same slider interface too..
Thanks for this well thought out and descriptive insight in to why you think the site design suck. Appreciated. :)
I guess one thing that one has to realize when going through the site is that it was heavily styled off of steemit.com. Currently we've got something like just over 100K accounts and if even 1/10th of the users are active on the site and the infrastructure can be set up to accommodate them I'll be happy.
This isn't a site that's being made to maximize profits. It's a site for STEEM users to go and stream their thoughts, lives and world and get SBD tips. Not everyone is a good writer, this site hopes to help them folks.
Also I'm just 1 man, that admittedly has other things on the go in his life other than developing stuff for STEEM.
Thanks again for your feedback. I'll check out those sites you mentioned or record of them. Cheers.
Good luck, I support your efforts to bring streaming to Steem. I'm only so critical because I want it to be successful very badly. I apologize for any hurt feelings.
No Problem Mr. Edwards.
I appologize for initially being "stand-offish" or defensive. :)
This project is one of my babies. I do appreciate you helping out with it though! Even though I initially perceived the worst! Thanks man.
You're supposed to be the expert. Please do due diligence. If you don't even know what Blab and Rabbit are then how are you supposed to build a video streaming site? Good luck.
Well, truth be told I was geared more towards adult themed entertainment so I apologize for not knowing of these platforms previously. While I'm certainly in no way claiming to be an "expert" on streaming anywhere in this post I've seemingly got enough know-how to get at least the framework for the site going.
Sure there is room for improvement.. But I guess at the end of the day having high rep members of the STEEM community come in and doomcast my project before it even gets off the ground sort of hurts my feelings.
The sites in experimental alpha version.. Stuff will change.
I'd gladly take your constructive criticism if you took the time to point out what you dislike about the current designs and I'll take them into account as I move forward with the site. But with that said I can't please everyone n' how they'd like the site designed..
That is okay, I offered a post with some more constructive criticism and suggestions. Adult oriented sites are fine but the sites with the best UX are the ones who obtain the users the fastest even among adult oriented sites. So if it's an adult oriented site then you want it to be very visual, and the first thing people should see are previews of the live broadcasts side by side. This way they don't have to click browse. By saving them this time to click you will get more retention.
I am not a UX expert but I know all of the popular streaming sites that I've been to work in a similar way. I would suggest you find a UX expert or at least someone with background in that to help beyond my suggestions. It's not my goal to hurt feelings, and it's not a doomed project, I just want to encourage you to focus on UX and don't give up if you get bad reviews in the beginning.
Thanks for actually helping with the project rather than trying to burn it down as I initially thought.
<3 Much appreciate the insight and lessons. :)
Probably because the "wheel" in this case that you're referring to is a branch off of xotika, which has always been kind of lame. Plus otika isn't really pivitol in Steemit advertizing/expansion.
I imagine part of the point of this Streemit.online is to cater largely towards Steemit users and to attract more individuals to become involved with Steemit.
Don't shill your crap on my posts.
Otika and xotika are both Bitcoin based tipping platforms. Streemit.online is for STEEM
Have you no respect? What part of this did you think was acceptable?
As my girlfriend stated above. This site is meant to cater towards Steem folks. And I'd certainly appreciate it in the future if you buggered off with shilling your sites on my posts. Thanks bud.