What is steem?
Steem is a social media platform that provides a monetary incentive for people to create and curate useful and interesting original content. Some consider it a free blogging platform on which you can get paid for writing an article and upvoting other articles. You earn something called "steem dollars" which you can exchange for bitcoins which in turn can be cashed out from an exchange.
- You can write posts with photos and video links (blog format)
- You can upvote or downvote others posts and they get some reward
- You can get rewards if your posts become popular
Here is a great article on steemit: https://steemit.com/steemit/@mindover/steemit-for-dummies-like-me-everything-you-need-know-to-get-started
How your steemit earnings work: https://steemit.com/steemit-faq/@nanzo-scoop/steemit-faq-a-very-simple-explanation-of-how-your-steemit-earnings-work
And for the more technically inclined: https://steem.io/SteemWhitePaper.pdf - Steemit White Paper
Opinions on Steem
This is what the world desperately needed. "Need is the mother of invention". Kudos! In my humble opinion, steem is the content creators dream platform.
- This gives us more of an incentive to create and share content.
- The quality of comments would be drastically greater due to the monetary incentive involved.
Idea about Steem:
- It could even turn into a sort of Stack Exchange or Quora where people have a monetary incentive to provide solutions and give useful replies etc.
- This could even provide programmers or others with disabilities or otherwise unable to work an opportunity to earn a living, in whatever capacity it may allow.
Concerns About Steem
I don't fully understand how it all works yet, but my only concern rises from that it seems that voting power could be problematic in the sense that it shifts the focus of power and power dynamics even when there are amazing posts that really have more value on the merit of the content, but voting power seems to ruin that in my opinion.
Write content that will add value to the network and you will get more votes. This community is striving to survive and grow, and we need to work together. Entertaining posts are funny, but not as useful as a dev who codes anonymous transactions into Steemit, or someone who gets their friend Dave Chapelle to join the community. Help add utility and you will get paid more because the whales around here care about infrastructure and user growth over cool content that only the 50 people that are here are going to see.
What kind of content adds value to the network? Could you help me to understand this?
Others may have more valuable answers than this one, but I'll share my understanding. Adding value to Steemit is a little like being a volunteer at a start up business. The few major players are too busy to hand hold so you have to figure out how you can best help and do that. In random order, here are some ways people try:
Writing articles of a quality that could be in a major publication, posting them on Steemit and promoting them around the internet adds value by telling the world that Steemit is a source of great articles.
Creating and circulating Steemit promotional items, graphics, placing ads on billboards etc. that increase name recognition.
Pitching Steemit to your friends and the influential people who might listen to you, getting them to join, invest, or simply to check it out and read articles here.
Creating apps that help all users, writing articles, making charts and reports that help new users navigate Steemit or all users understand information.
Being a community leader by getting to know a lot of people and helping organize collaborations, group efforts and reaching out to those who might be brand new, frustrated, or simply need help.
Writing articles that start conversations, contests and other cooperative community building posts or that feature and further circulate great posts.
By pioneering in a creative way that only you could think of.
Not everyone finds their niche immediately. I'm still experimenting with content and getting to know how it all works and meeting like minds, etc. You seem really engaged and that is wonderful. It may be I said nothing new, but I hope I answered your question. I'll be following and am curious what you'll choose to do next. :)
Did someone seriously get Dave Chapelle to join?
Great write-up.
Recommendation : add a picture to get more visibility for this post. It deserves it.
Welcome to the party.
Thank you for the compliment and for the suggestion which I took! Article updated with image.