Steem Trek. (My Journey on Steem).

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Hello! Steemians!. Today, I'm beginning a new blog series. The title is "Steem Trek (My journey on Steem)". The series title sounds weird, and I know it does. I will explain later on.

Last year, on the 15th of December 2018, marked my first full year on the Steem blockchain. Happy belated anniversary to me.

I got the notification from @steemitboard on one of my posts. To be honest, it didn't feel like a thing to be excited about. So I made no fuss about it, heck! I didn't even post an article about it, as most people would do. However, a few days ago, I began reminiscing amount my journey on Steem. It was shocking to see where consistency has brought me. In a year, I have achieved something quite tangible. Built up my steem reputation to a whopping 64.49(As at the time of creating this content). Well, maybe the reputation is not something to brag about as people have achieved more in less time. Anyways, it is something I'm proud of. It reflects my resolve to be consistent at a thing. A lot of personal friends I started the journey with, withdrew when they weren't getting returns from the time spent on the blockchain. It became even worse when the price of steem hit rock bottom. I will be honest to say that, there were challenging times for me on the blockchain. But, I am happy I jumped over those hurdles.

In this series, I will be recounting my journey on the steem blockchain. In the actual sense, I won't be discussing the blockchain but, the dApps built on it(the blockchain).

There are over 200 dApps built on the steem blockchain. Honestly, I never knew there were a lot of these dApps until I looked up steemprojects. I was amazed at the number of projects I saw because, before checking out steemprojects, I was only aware of 15-20 steem based projects. So you can imagine my state of surprise when I realized there are over 200. That being said, in this series, I won't be talking about all the dApps on the steem blockchain. I will be discussing the ones that are open-source, and I know of.

This is the list of projects I will be reviewing in this series.

• Steemgigs
• Steepshot
• Hede
• Steemit
• Ulogs
• Steemhunt
• Dtrip

The list is in no particular order.

There are some projects that didn't make the list. They are;

• Utopian.
• Knacksteem.

The reason why these projects are not included in the list is that I have started a series on them before thinking of this new series. Links to those publications are in the links section below.

In each publication, in this series, I will be reviewing one project on the list I shared above. I will be honest to say that before starting this series, I didn't have a concise knowledge of all the projects on the list. But for the sake of this series, I delved into those projects. It was an adventure for me, and, its one I was excited about.

The first project I will be reviewing in this series is "Steemit". The reason is that I started my steem journey on steemit. It was the first steem dApp I knew and used.

So here are the talking points in this article;

• What is steemit?
• Steemit misconceptions
• Steemit features
• Steemit benefits(My opinion)
• Summary.

I hope you have a wonderful read.

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What is Steemit?

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Steemit has redefined social media by building a living, breathing, and growing social economy - a community where users are rewarded for sharing their voice. It's a new kind of attention economy.

This is the developer's definition of Steemit.

From the definition, Steemit is a social media platform. But, it is not like every other platform. The difference being that, users are rewarded for sharing their voice. Correct me if I'm wrong, but, this definition makes up for the lot of misconceptions people have about Steemit, especially newbies.

Misconceptions of Steemit.

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What comes to anyone's mind when they read that definition is that, as soon as they join the platform, they get paid for every and any kind of content they publish. This thought is provoked by this line in the definition,

"a community where users are rewarded for sharing their voice".

Although the project owner further explained how the system worked in Steemit FAQs, the definition of Steemit was the only information most people passed when they tried to get their friends or any random person onboard. Further information about how the system works was not given. For some newbies that were onboarded, they were smart enough to do their own research about the project. For others that didn't do further research, steemit would have been difficult for them.
Unfortunately for me, I wasn't among the smart ones who carried out further research. So you can guess that steemit was difficult for me at the beginning. I expected that for every article I published, I was going to get paid. Well, reality hit me fast and I was very disappointed. My difficulties were a bit alleviated by some friends in an offline community I belong to. They taught me some other valuable basics such as; using appropriate tags and creating valuable content.

Another misconception people had about Steemit is what it was tagged. "A social media". I have asked myself this question several times. Is Steemit really a social media platform?

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My answer is yes and no. My answer is yes because, steemit is an interactive platform, and this characterizes social media. Then again, it is not a social media because of some certain limitations. Limitations most especially on the kind of content that can be published, and, curated. Judging by the stereotypical concept of social media, steemit has limitations of what kind of content can be curated. In a typical social media, I can decide to wake up one morning and post on my page, I had a great night rest. I could attach a picture to it too. Now in a stereotypical social media, where I have followers, that would get me reactions, either in form of likes or comments from them. On Steemit, it can even get you a flag. Although I have seen some whales and dolphins do it, and get fat post rewards. Yes, it is unfair. So what this means is that, on steemit, we don't really care about your social activities, share valuable, original content only. Except only if you are a whale.

Features of Steemit.

There are not much I can say about Steemit's features. The features of Steemit are available to everyone's knowledge. But I would discuss a few things about Steemit's features.

Steemit's User Interface(UI)

Steemit has a great interface. It is not best steem front-end interface I have seen though. I mean, when compared with the likes of busy.org, and Steemhunt it is considered average. Night mode on Steemit looks great. I am always on night mode even in daytime. The user interface is smooth and clean. Icons are properly placed. However, I am not particularly fond of the fonts used.

Steemit's functionalities.

Steemit is one of the most complete steem based project in terms of functionalities. Steemit has virtually everything required from a steem based project. Functionalities ranging from

• Sign-up module
• Standard post editor and preview
• User profile editor
• Wallet
• Market, etc.

These functionalities look basic, but, not every steem based app has them. The signup module especially. Most steem based projects with a signup button automatically redirect its users to steemit to sign up on steem. Even profile editing too.
The functionalities on steemit is a standard for almost every other steem based project. That being said, there are some functions I would love to see. Functions like delegation, a drafts page, activity tracker, multiple accounts support, etc. Well thanks for browser extensions like steemplus, that adds more functionalities to steemit.

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Steemit benefits(My opinions)

I have benefitted greatly from Steemit. My ideology of benefits may differ from others.

Steemit taught me dedication and perseverance:

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Everyone who started out as a newbie without having or knowing any whale friend can testify that steemit in its beginning stages is difficult. It requires someone who is dedicated and can persevere, to keep being on Steemit after the first week. It was frustrating that even after creating content worthy of curation, it was barely even noticed.

Improved writing abiltiies:

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Since typical social media posts are not ever considered on Steemit, I had to learn how to create lengthy valuable content. I am glad I did because that ability is paying off right now.

Connections and friendships.

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This is bound to happen on every social media platform where there is interaction. Through steemit, I met and became friends with a lot of great individuals both online and offline. Although most of them have dropped out of the system, we are still in connection off the blockchain and it is a great thing for me.

Income diversification.

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Steemit diversified my source of income. To be sincere, at first when I joined steemit, it was my only income source. Although my post payouts were minute, it was substantial when converted to my local currency. I have other jobs now but, I am still on steem.

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Summary.

Steemit still remains the number 1 dApp ever built on the Steem blockchain. Even with several dApps that do almost exactly what it does or even better. Analysis has shown that steemit is still the number one dApp in terms of activities and interactions on the blockchain. Although I don't post regular blogs on steemit anymore, I am still very fond of it. It is still my goto dApp on my PC, whether I'm creating content, or, performing a transaction. This may be due to the fact that, it was the first dApp I encountered on Steem. I expect great things from Steemit team this year.

Conclusively, my experience on Steemit has been one of mixed feelings. But, it's a great dApp nevertheless.

Thanks for reading.

Links

Project repository: https://github.com/steemit/condenser

Resources:

The content of this post is based on my knowledge of the project and mostly my experience. All images used have their source links provided just below them.

Series backlinks:

This is my first post in this series.

Here are the links to my publications about Utopian and Knacksteem;

• Incentivizing contributors to Open source projects. Was it the best idea that was birthed??
• Incentivizing contributors to Open source projects. Was it the best idea that was birthed?? (part 2)
• Knacksteem: THE NEW DEN OF TALENTS ON STEEM BLOCKCHAIN(General overview, personal opinions & ideas)
• KNACKSTEEM: THE DEN OF TALENTS ON STEEM BLOCKCHAIN. (Further Insights and reviews)

Github profile:

https://github.com/HarryHeights