The potential brilliance behind SteemPress-io

in #blog6 years ago

Last night I posted my first post to @SteemPress-io. If you don't know what I am talking about, you can see their announcement as delegation recipients here.

Now, 1,000,000 Steem Power is a lot of power to wield and the two guys behind the platform @fredrikaa and @howo are doing their best to both distribute widely and reward content of higher quality. There is a lot of trial error in this of course but, they will get there soon enough.

I have never met either of them in person yet, chatting over the last six months or so has given me enough faith in them to give my backing and support. This is not a shill, they are both good people and for me, that means something. As brilliant as they may be though...

They are not the brilliance behind @SteemPress-io


steempress.PNG

I honestly hadn't thought too much about SteemPress as they were developing it and I saw some of the mock-ups. It wasn't until last night that a couple of things dawned on me when I finally decided to give it a go. Before that though, there were a couple of reasons I really wanted to try it.

  • I already draft and flesh-out on WordPress so this might make workflow easier
  • It supports and encourages my kind of content providers; writers/bloggers
  • It connects a very large non-Steem platform to the blockchain
  • And of course, @howo and @fredrikaa have been working hard on it for months
Since I already had a Premium WordPress blog for my business that I hardly use (for some reason), I decided to commandeer it for a SteemPress experiment but, when I tried to install the plug-in for SteemPress, I had to upgrade.

A costly move for me. My blog is hosted on wordpress.com and to upgrade to a Business Account, took 204€ that I really didn't want to spend at this time. With all that is going on in my life at the moment it was a bit of a decision however, last night I made the call. The reason is simple, the future.

As said, I hadn't really thought that much about what Steempress-io does and the potential ramifications of it until I realised I would have to invest more into Wordpress to get access. Yes, there are cheaper options out there than hosting on wordpress.com but, I don't have the time or energy right now to get into changing over but this cost is a Key Benefit of SteemPress.

There is an off-site economic hurdle to posting on SteemPress that other apps don't have. This doesn't sound like a benefit but, it is a massive one in my opinion since there is no guarantee of votes (there is a percentage that is currently randomized though) and, the guys are going to do their best to limit abuse.

What this means is:

  • There is less likely spam content coming through
  • Incentive not to abuse, get blacklisted and lose the initial investment
  • Lower quality will be discovered, go unsupported and loss of investment
Yes, there are some ways around this to some degree but, it takes a little more effort and it is going to cost someone something. But, this isn't the major benefit of SteemPress as I see it. It is this:
Finally, we hope this delegation can help us onboard many new bloggers and creators of the 76 000 000 WordPress websites out there by providing a low barrier of entry to the Steem ecosystem where they can participate from the comfort of their own blogs. @SteemPress-io
76 million WordPress powered websites is not the real thing to pay attention to yet, this is:
entry to the Steem ecosystem where they can participate from the comfort of their own blogs.
Any of those websites who are currently on a Business Plan have the immediate ability to post straight to the Blockchain and both introduce a new audience to them and of course, monetize their site which may not currently be monetized at all by doing nothing more than they currently do now.

This has three major benefits:

  • The quality of content is likely of a higher standard
  • Some will buy some Steem and start engaging more widely
  • Steem itself will fall into the eyes of WordPress
The quality is obviously welcomed onto the chain as is the mainstream diversity of content that WordPress users would offer and of course, awareness and buying pressure on Steem is great for mainstreaming and prices. The really interesting one though is WordPress paying attention.

They are a massive site and if people start upgrading and installing SteemPress plugins, that is going to also get their attention. If we look a little further into the future and consider the potential role of SMTs, WordPress could offer immediate monetization functionality to all of its customers with a fee of course. For WordPress it has massive potential, ease of monetization and massive potential for their user base, and for Steem through SMTs, ubiquity without anyone needing to see Steem at all.

I can't predict the future but, if this one SteemPress app goes well, this is the potential key to near instantaneous mass adoption through a 'traditional' partnership with WordPress and, it takes nothing directly away from either party, at least in the beginning. If anything, it allows WordPress to offer something that their competitors will likely struggle to implement into their own systems.

Perhaps the founders of SteemPress-io are brilliant


For me personally though, I have struggled to find a foothold in the other apps. I am not into memes, nor am I into streaming, video or gaming. I am a writer/blogger, which is still strange to say aloud. SteemPress gives me an opportunity to still do what I love to do and be incentivized to put quality content on to the blockchain via their delegation.

This is one of the niches I was talking about the other day and has the potential to be a positive force to increase the visibility of good content. Of course, the beauty of it is that I had to not only make a significant upfront investment, I have to also consistently deliver.

This is where I feel the most at home. And it is only my second day. For the other already established bloggers and content providers out there on WordPress, they would be insane not to install the SteemPress plugin and give Steem a go.

I am getting more excited about the future of these types of apps, partnerships, SMTs and the massive diversity that will flood onto the Steem blockchain. It is an app like this that simplifies the entire process and in time, it will be an app like this that onboards millions.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]

 

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This is really cool and as I was thinking about creating something more, and I mean much more for my Pay It Forward community that I'm building this could be great. I love wordpress and working inside that platform is much more natural to me.

Going to have to play with this.

I have no idea about wordpress . I'll get with you on it later .
I have always said the learning curve is high but when your starting from scratch it is that much more effort that has to be put into it .
Tons of fun

Okay, this seems pretty good. I am sold............ however I didn't get any hints as to how it can work for a regular steemian like me. By regular I mean somebody who doesn't have a WordPress blog.
I would have to take a deeper look at this thing to see if it can work for me.

This is the thing with it as it is only available with business plans but, there are much cheaper hosting services than wordpress.com. I am just not in the right place to redo/reset/change hosting at the moment.

So was this posted with it? Does it work reasonably well for you? (Edit: I see that it was. 15% beneficiary seems like a lot for a WP plugin.)

I manage the back end of my partner's Wordpress blog and we're probably going to be looking at bringing it over through Steempress with me managing the Steem account side of things at least for a while.

Short term, thanks to our delegation and ability to vote on you, using SteemPress should be more profitable than not unless you make consistently more than 100 per post.
Medium-long term, we are considering a pro-version that may come at a low subscription fee but where we remove the benefactor rewards on that account completely. This is something we are looking at and would be happy to hear thoughts from the users of what they think is reasonable and also what results they have experienced in terms of the profitability of using SteemPress. We obviously want it to be a win-win situation.

Sounds interesting with you and your partner's blog! I don't mind if you link drop me your first few posts once you get up and going so that I can make sure your blog is verified as not being spam / plagiarized content, which will help you receive better votes.

Short term, thanks to our delegation and ability to vote on you, using SteemPress should be more profitable than not unless you make consistently more than 100 per post.

Well, in our particular case, it really lowers the barrier of bringing her here at all, so 80% is still 100% more than none. So maybe we can be a good data-gatherer for you to set your prices in the future. She's finishing a novel this week so we might not be getting to it immediately, even though all she really has to do is an introduceyourself post.

I don't know if there's a reasonable way to offer a better deal for people like Taraz who have Steem accounts but just want a better composing system, vs. people like my partner who have existing Wordpress blogs and can use this as a gateway to Steem. It seems like it's worth way more in the second case.

Medium-long term, we are considering a pro-version that may come at a low subscription fee but where we remove the benefactor rewards on that account completely

I like that idea.

Yeah, 15% is a lot but, I also think that 25% is more :) (some other apps). I am going to keep playing around with it and seeing what it is capable of as well as what it is not and hopefully improve it. I think that in the future, all of the apps are going to have to drop their beneficiaries due to competition and volumes. With very large numbers of people, they will be earning too much for what they offer and the market will react.

Hi Taraz. I am happy for the guys. I know they have put a lot of time and effort into this project. I am only getting started and hopefully one day can use their plug in. Don't know where and how but will try and support them.
I understand it will bring in a different type of person on the platform which we need. This is just the start of the change.

I am also thinking in setting up using wordpress.org.

Really hoping to have my wordpress ready soon enough and glad to see yours is going nicely.

Cheers mate @tarazkp

You want to use free or paid wordpress?

It must be a paid one to be able to use the plugins. I want to use wordpress.org for this

What if I host through third party?

I DM'd you.

This looks appetizing enough... I never knew Fredrikaa and Howo were working on something this awesome. I have a Wordpress blog though it's the free version 'BUT' because I plan on working on it soon, you can understand the excitement.

There are much cheaper options that the one I chose. Search for something like one-click wordpress hosting.

It seems to be a very good platform, especially because it would not allow low-content publications, so I imagine that those who strive will have their reward.

Steempress-io is a really good startup the way i see it, it would breed more steemians with courage and consistency of purpose.

Wait, so this only works with WordPress blogs? I'm confused.

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