Block.one and EOS find their own “Voice” but will they shout down the competition in social media, like Steemit, etc?

in #bitcoin5 years ago (edited)

Block.one June finally arrived yesterday and the cryptosphere was abuzz with what exactly the long awaited surprise from them might be. EOS.IO and the EOS cryptocurrency token are perhaps better known, since they are the public persona of Block.one, and for weeks now, or what seems like months, they have been hyping up their big news release that was due on the first birthday of EOS, which was yesterday on June 1.
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Well, at a big launch in an auditorium in Washington DC, they announced the long-awaited news... Block.one is launching a social media platform called Voice. That’s it. That’s the big news that has pushed the price of EOS up from just under $5 at the start of May to a high of around $8.60 on Binance, a hike of over 85%, on 31 May, just before the much anticipated news conference.

In true trader form of “buy the rumor, sell the news” price then retraced more than 10% on the day, to where it sits around $7.70 at the time of writing. The other news is of course that EOS is now listed on Coinbase, one of the top cryptocurrency exchanges globally, which should boost the EOS price and liquidity for traders and investors alike.

I watched the keynote speeches on the video released, the addresses by the heads of Coinbase as well as the heads of EOS and block.one and the new Voice social media site. The leading figure is – as you may know if you study crypto – that serial social media developer, Dan Larimer, who founded Steemit, the popular social media platform that is built on the Steem blockchain that has already been operational for a few years now.

So Dan built Steemit but then left it for EOS and has now launched another social media site there. One wonders what the serial entrepreneur is up to and if this new Voice social media platform will become a competitor of Steemit on the blockchain? Both Steem and EOS work on the same protocol of DPoS or Delegated Proof of stake, as opposed to Bitcoin’s original Proof of Work PoW.

Now many are mostly probably fed up with the original social media sites of Facebook, who own Twitter and WhatsApp and Instagram, because Facebook has been exposed as miners of our data, which they sell of to the highest bidder for marketing purposes. We have grown tired of being the product, and of the giant social media companies making huge profits of our creative content, what to speak of their invasion of our privacy.

So naturally there would be an interest among users in gravitating away form those old platforms to the newer blockchain-based ones, like Steemit, etc. But what is Dan doing by building a direct competitor to Steemit? Well, fortunately he has learned a few important things to improve the platform, learned with us on Steemit as guinea pigs. Dan and all of us have learned that bots are a problem in a platform that thrives on curating authentic creative content.

As a result he was clear to point out that the new Voice will not allow bots. It will only allow validated real accounts for live account holders. Using the Proof of Life PoL protocol comes into play here, above and beyond PoS. And that is what makes Voice quite different from Steemit. Steemit has around 386 000 active users, and EOS around 171 000, according to Dapp.com, so EOS may have a way to go before the Voice social media site gains any traction. Particularly is 67% of the EOS users are their solely for the betting features.

We may be a little fed up with the fake bidbots and upvotes on Steemit, but who would want to move to a new site like Voice if there are no users there to interact with ...yet? It is still in the beta phase but if you really want to find your “Voice” as a writer or content creator, then Steemit is by far the best place currently available, along with the other numerous Dapps built upon the Steem blockchain.

It seems from the outside to a novice that Dan Larimer doesn’t care much about the projects he launches and leaves behind to flounder while he goes off to start something new. Those who are more experienced may know more and see it differently. What is your opinion as a user of Steemit or blockchain-based social media platforms? Is Steemit and its bidbots worth maintaining? Does it provide a platform for us to find our voice? Or will the world benefit from another social media app called “Voice” to really make us feel heard?

What will the EOS blockchain bring to the social media industry that will be any better than what we currently have? EOS may have been the biggest ICO ever, raising over $4 billion for Block.one a year ago, but will they be able to attract over 75 000 monthly users like Steemit currently does? Other blockchain-based social media apps are there too, though some have come and gone, while Steemit remains.

“Our content. Our data. Our attention. These are all incredibly valuable things. But right now, it’s the platform, not the user, that reaps the reward. By design, they run by auctioning our information to advertisers, pocketing the profit, and flooding our feeds with hidden agendas dictated by the highest bidder. Voice changes that.”
Brendan Blumer CEO of Voice on the EOS blockchain under Block.one

EOS also announced that their new and improved faster version 2.0 is also about to be launched, and all Voice content will be visible on a public chain, like the open ledger that we so appreciate in Bitcoin, so at least it won’t be following in the footsteps of the centralized Facebook template. And Voice will not allow algorithms and bots to artificially skew the publishing field for anyone, especially whales. All of us will have an equal chance to be heard, or seen. That being said, whales can still come along and spend more Voice token to push their content into better visibility, but at least you then get your Voice tokens back and don’t lose them in your attempt to promote your post if a whale pays more to optimize their post.

It’s an interesting and presumably improved design, based on the learning curve from Steemit and the pitfalls of mainstream social media sell-outs like Facebook. We shall have to see how the beta testing goes and how the user interface compares to the likes of the already popular Steemit platform. I can imagine there will be divergent allegiances forming among the two opposing blockchains here.

Let us know in the comments below what you think of this news regarding Dan’s new social media site and it’s comparison to Steemit, as well as any further information you have to share with the readers regarding the Voice platform from EOS.

Read more about it here: https://www.newsbtc.com/2019/06/02/sell-the-news-eos-falls-by-7-after-block-ones-june-1st-announcement/

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Where there are people, there will be creative measures
Just the degree varies 🙃
Let's see what will come off it after all that hype...

Humans are by nature compulsive communicators. And social animals who therefore take to social media like ducks to water.

Just still waiting until I can see my account on Voice.

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Just now coming.

There was something about being able to burn tokens for promotion.... I guess it is slightly different... Anyway, I'm not sure that most of the general public really care that their data is being monetised. There have been so many deleteFB things that just don't really go anywhere. People gripe about how much they hate Facebook... on Facebook, and then they don't do anything about it...

Anyway, the annoucement was pretty underwhelming... I was expecting them to say that they had a batch of important people already lined up on the platform... or that they were going to partner with an existing platform like Twitter (whose CEO is buying into BTC...). But nothing... other than that there will be something... later...

Yes I watched the speeches at the announcement and it looked like a press conference in an over-sized hall.
My peers here are beginning to tire of FB - some of them, and apparently kids don't spend time there but use FBs other platform - Instagram. And we all still use FBs other platform WhatsApp. So one way or the other FB owns the social media platforms still. And now they are becoming a bank or remittance service with their own coin for payments via WhatsApp, so many more will be sucked into the FB black hole. Very few of my peers know of Steemit or even of crypto. I can count them on one hand.

Yet again, another blockchain platform with an underwhelming launch. Personally, I agree that bid bots and the general bot nature of steemit is not what it was originally designed for and it's a real shame because it could and should be all about curation, not buying/selling votes on content, certainly no proof of brain there. Plus the rep system just doesn't seem to be worth having as it can be bought, I wish bid bots didn't affect rep as it's meant to be a sign of quality, not purchasing power.

However, outside of that, steem is a great platform and all the signs are there that all these dapps, communities and "growing user base" (have you got your sources on that data by the way?) is encouraging and I think it will get better.

Perhaps having a competition in Voice might be a good thing to drive the platform forward as steem has first mover advantage for sure. Need to make the most of it.

I don't know enough about the workings of Voice yet but no bots is a good start. However, wasn't that what Whaleshares was about...? How did that turn out? I don't think their userbase is too high and it seems people who left Facebook for steem are likely to stick around steem despite these current issues surrounding bots.

It'll be an interesting 6 months 🙂

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I have no idea and so will keep on going until I do know

Hahahahaha lol, there you have it.

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