Steemit on Medium
Hello Medium, we’re the Steemit Team; the team behind the Steem blockchain protocol, Smart Media Tokens, and steemit.com, and we’re excited to begin using Medium with more frequency.
Competitors?
One might wonder why the team behind a blogging platform would be posting to what is effectively a competitor. But that’s not how we see it. We have a tremendous amount of respect for the work that the Medium team has done, and the innovative solutions they have pioneered.
The vision promoted by Medium Founder Ev Williams was “to build a platform that defined a new model for media on the internet.”
The problem, as we saw it, was that the incentives driving the creation and spread of content were not serving the people consuming it or creating it — or society as a whole. — Ev Williams
These are the same reasons why we released the Steem blockchain protocol; an open and decentralized database designed from the ground up to store and incentivize social information for use in web 3.0 applications.
Steemit
Steemit.com was the Proof-of-Concept that we developed in 3 short months to show off what Steem (and the STEEM token which powers it) can do. While we were able to create a rapidly growing blogging platform that has distributed over $100,000,000 in rewards to content creators all over the world, our plans for the future are much, much, bigger.
In the coming months both the Steem blockchain and steemit.com will undergo fundamental changes that will transform how people share content over the internet.
As of now, Steem is the most advanced decentralized system for storing social information, but it does not really organize that information. The coming changes to Steem, which will begin in just a few days with HF21, will make it the most advanced system for organizing the world’s social information.
Communities
Communities on Steem will deliver, for the first time in history, the ability to own your online community. Just as no one can take away your Bitcoin, Ether, or Steem, the blockchain will safeguard the ownership of your online communities. That means that even if steemit.com, or even Steemit Incorporated, no longer exists, you will still be able to access, administer, and even sell the online community you work to build.
The same cannot be said for subreddits. When reddit does eventually go the way of AOL and myspace, so too will the subreddit you invested blood, sweat and tears into building.
Smart Media Tokens
Smart Media Tokens on Steem will add the capability for anyone, whether they are developer, Fortune 500 company, or Yoga blogger, to launch their very own cryptocurrency with industry-leading capabilities like 3-second fee-less transfers and Proof-of-Brain token distribution which enables one’s user base to influence who earns rewards.
Launching a Smart Media Token will require zero technical skill, while giving SMT creators access to advanced features like the ability to raise capital in Initial Coin Offerings. One will be able to use SMTs inside a Community to help reward valuable community members or moderators, or totally independent of Communities to power business that could benefit from super-fast and fee-less token that can be distributed programmatically.
Because Steem is an open and permissionless blockchain database, any web application can integrate these powerful features into their user interface for free and immediately join the Web 3.0 revolution.
That’s right, even Medium.com
It is now hopefully clear that far from being competitors, Steemit and Medium are kindred spirits. We’ve both experienced highs during which it appeared we might transform the way information was shared on the internet. And we’ve both experienced lows during which we had to restructure our organizations and part ways with co-workers we respected and valued tremendously.
Now we both find ourselves reinvigorated and positioned to thrive. We look forward to leveraging this powerful platform to keep people informed about the progress we are making, and we hope that the Medium Team will consider integrating Steem so that their users can gain access to all the powerful features that will be released on Steem.
The Steemit Team
