Announcing Finally Network - Turn your Steem blog into a website
I’m excited to finally share my latest idea with you all. This post is intended to outline the project in detail and start a conversation around it’s potential in the Steem ecosystem. I have created an initial prototype that I hope helps users see a glimpse at the opportunity this platform may have but is in no way intended to represent a final product.
Please leave your thoughts and ideas in the comments.
The Vision
The Finally platform will be multi functional but it’s initial focus will remain small to kickstart the development. The overarching aim is to allow speedy website creation for Steem users.
Creators of all types use Steem but are fairly restricted to the current platforms which may or may not best suit their content. Finally aims to create specific themes that suit different styles of content. Creators will have more control over the way their content is views and can choose a theme that best fits with their style.
The best way to imagine what Finally is aiming to do is think of a Squarespace type platform than can instantly setup a website for any Steem account. Combine the website with features that can help support creators/content similarly to how you can with Patreon, all powered by the Steem blockchain.
Finally will grow to support enhanced features users expect from a website platform creating custom pages, feeds and other options.
Why Create This Platform?
Having your own website and being part of a blogging platform are two different things. Platforms help with discovery and make publishing content significantly easier. Your own website can be customised completely but may be more complicated to setup and update. Finally aims to sit in the middle allowing users to leverage all of the current Steem eco-system while still allowing theming and customisation on their own web domain.
Open source
Initial beta repository - https://github.com/code-with-sam/finallynetwork
As with all my projects I believe in keeping them open source where I can. The primary focus for creating an open code base is to share knowledge and allow collaboration. While Finally may be hosting the platform and leading it’s development it is open in nature and will encourage and accept contributions and ideas from outside.
This repo is not intended to represent the full project but to act as an MVP and testing ground for the ideas. Based on feedback the structure/framework of the platform may change largely to reflect the core features. Feel free to submit any issues.
The initial repo holds the prototype platform and a script for checking Steem transactions for unlocking the beta.
Beta Platform & Current Progress
Check out the current progress - https://finally.network/
The main aim of the current prototype is to help users get an idea of how the platform will work and show investors that this is a project with real potential.
Three starter themes show how quick it can be to change the look and feel of existing content that exists on the Steem blockchain.
Themes
Campfire
Campfire theme is great for telling stories, perfect for medium to long form content that includes beautiful photography. Ideal use might be a travel blog but is general enough to work with any photo heavy style of content. This is an adaption of a theme I previously sold on Themeforest.
hckr
A barebones basic theme purposefully left with minimal stylistic choices. Simple choices such as a feed with title only helps to keep the focus on writing good content. Would work well as a technical blog.
Lens
You may recognise this design as an adaption of photofeed.club the beginnings of a project I made to help support the @photofeed/#photofeed community. The code has been repurposed to allow Steem user to create their own version of this site. Perfect for photographers on Steem to show off their work.
There are many more theme ideas in the current roadmap. Thoughts on current themes and future themes are welcome.
Pro Version
To create a sustainable project finally aims to support a pro version with enhanced features. The primary reason for Pro membership will be the use of custom domains. Having your content accessible on 'example.com' instead of 'steemit.com/@example' etc allows greater control of the user experience.
Pro can be supported with delegation or a small monthly fee in STEEM/SBD. The aim is to give back to supporters and creators who are using the Finally platform with vote support.
The pro features for setting a custom subdomain and domain are currently supported by contact only. If you’re interested please send a message, this will be released with automated features in the near future.
Roadmap
There are many ideas for expanding the platform. The first step is to create a number of templates and test which are most beneficial to the Steem community.
Ideas for next Themes to test
- D.tube/Video focus
- Portfolio - Ability to select X number of posts or specific recent posts to highlight as portfolio items
- Magazine/editorial style - Option to make use of resteem as a multi author style blog
An important addition to the platform will be the ability to add custom pages and customisation options. Users may wish to add extra pages that are not blog posts such as an about page.
Future Idea Potential
- Support a theme API and allow custom theme upload
- Support packaging and downloading template for users to use externally
- Theme marketplace for third party developers
Finally Systems
With Finally the aim is to combine a number of projects and ideas I’ve been working towards into a cohesive set of functionality.
- Finally Network - Website Creation
- Finally Comments - Comments Plugin
- Finally Button - Embeddable steem like button
- Finally Share - share to steem embed plus browserextention
- Finally Feed - Human curated content Feed + Support
Help Support Finally
Finally is aiming to support content creators and create a system to make Steem blockchain content shine. If you are interested in seeing this project come to life and can spare Steem delegation please delegate to @finallynetwork. SP on FinallyNetwork will be used to support users of the platform who create meaningful content. Any supporters who delegate over 300SP will automatically get Pro features when available.
Your feedback is appreciated
I’m keen to hear your thoughts and ideas about this project.
Thanks for the contribution, @sambillingham! It sounds and looks like a really cool project and it's great to have you back contributing on Utopian! So cool in fact that I've decided to staff pick this contribution. Really looking forward to see how it evolves!
Need help? Write a ticket on https://support.utopian.io/.
Chat with us on Discord.
[utopian-moderator]
Thanks again Amos! Appreciate the continued support and stoked this got chosen as a staff pick. I didn't plan on such a long gap between working on the project but life sometimes has other plans. Keen to send more updates live asap. 👊
Thank you for your review, @amosbastian!
So far this week you've reviewed 14 contributions. Keep up the good work!
Thank you for your review, @amosbastian!
So far this week you've reviewed 14 contributions. Keep up the good work!
Awesome initiative Sam! This really add value to Steem and has great potential for content creators.
I'm really digging it. It's a master piece :)
It will certainly shine when it's all finished up. I'm also more than happy to help out, let me know you wanna have some words.
Thanks, glad you think the project is cool. I am really hoping to be able to help content creators showcase their creations and progress using the Steem blockchain.
Lots of ideas to work on. if you have other thoughts or want to chat i'm on discord as sambillingham#7927
I love this, I want to help test, I want this now!
How much do you need in delegation for using my custom domain?
Hey 👋thanks for the encouragement.
It's been a busy couple days and flying back from Norway today but would be ace to get you setup and testing one of the themes over the next couple days? If you want it can show a specific hashtag instead of all of your content?
I set a fairly arbitrary value of 300SP Delegation for the pro version(allows custom domains), open to hear what you would think is a fair value. The idea with SP delegation instead/aswell as a fixed STEEM/SBD per month would be to give back to the users, the aim would be always to make it more worthwhile than using the SP yourself.
YES! I think we are going to have to chat on discord (ecoinstant#9078) or something similar, I love the tag filtering idea!
An arbitrary 300 SP sounds fine to me because I have it, love the idea of giving back to the users - did you want that on this account thats responding to me? Can have that for you after my breakfast cereal!
Edit: I see now, @finallynetwork account
This is exciting news for so many of the projects I work with! You could say this is one development we've been hoping for!
Looks fantastic!
Any chance we might see the ability to embed as an iframe, hide resteems, and some text-content friendly themes?
I'd love to use this to synchronize my main website with my Steemit blog automagically.
Totally possible! Setting up the sites to run in an iframe is not my main priority right now but something I can add in the future without too much extra code. Can you link to your website so I could understand how you might want to use it?
I'll add this as a request on github so I don't forget.
Thanks for checking out the project.
I started following you a few days hoping there would be an update like this!!! Resteemed!
Ace! thanks for the support. Lots more to work on and release asap
Hey dude!
Nice work!! This is a great idea.
When I click on the link I get a '503 : Deployment is currently unavailable' error message.
I know it'll be harder to program, but I think coding in the ability to set up a shop that accepts Steem will really take this to the next level. I feel that that's the kind of person that will want their work in their own personally website... people who use the blockchain to sell their own stuff... but I also get that might be super hard to code in... so yeah, just throwing it out there. Photogs will be rapt with this though!
Thanks dude!
🤦♂️ managed to break the deployment minutes after I pushed publish on the blogpost. Back online now.
Really want to get the ability to 'add a shop powered by Steem' for people, I agree I think a lot of people would like that. Not 100% on the best way to do that yet. First aim is really photographers and Dtubers.
Lots of ideas to work though yet. Been sitting on this project for awhile so wanted to get the idea out into the wild and see what the response is.
A Steem-powered shop would be fantastic!
The blockchain can provide not only a permanent receipt but also a way to manage permissions for access to content downloads and the like. It'd take a lot of hassle out of managing a digital marketplace.
saw a recent plugin. I wonder if that works. I will see if I can find the post but it is under utopian development tag as well, in the past few days
Hey! thanks for the support. I've not done any research yet into if any "STEEM Shop" plugins/websites, i'll look for that one on utopian. Totally part of the roadmap eventually.
This is an awesome idea. I've been waiting so long for something like this!
Thanks! Will be working to improve this platform as much as possible.
Thanks! Will be working
To improve this platform as
Much as possible.
- sambillingham
I'm a bot. I detect haiku.
yeah love to see this man, i've added it to my top 10 today, really good.
Hey dude! Thanks for the support. Glad to have this out in the wild and I can start to iterate based on some feedback.
yeah since i last chat i just did not look any further into the code or learning, that's on me, everytime you put something out thou know you are inspiring people to get their shit together to do something about it, especially as i'm trying very hard to move away from all things wordpress. i hope to work more closely with you when the time is right.
hey sam do you think you might support https://carrd.co or netlify for hosting our 'sites' on? like will it be like the finally comments stuff where everything is wrapped in js calls as such/embeds? -- just trying to get my head on straight for the custom domain stuff.
Hey dude. I plan on two options.
First - all you need for the custom domain is to point the Name Servers to my host and the platform does the rest.
Second - A generator/download than will wrap all of the needed code up into a zip for uploading to Netlify or similar(might even be able to do this automatically)
Integrating with carrd is slightly different but totally possible. Another user already requested the themes available as embeds which would work with carrd. This would be a bit of a way off to be honest and will be working on theming finally comments first to also work better on platforms such as carrd.
firstly, thank you for taking the time to reply. only reason for carrd is because i have a yearly package with them and i'm trying to downsize 'bills' so that when we hit the road we have a lot of that covered, i'm totally moving away from 'wordpress' sites and clients! :) we already moved one this week.
custom domains seem perfect, great, will you use something like pingdom or uptime robot to make sure you've got some kind of fail over or 'headsup' management? happy to be a contact for that too to get alerted.
i'm cool with it being on your site/host etc, but would be nice to know we have some like backup redundancy, i realise it depends on the chain thou, hmm, anyway, that's stuff for later.
yeah i'd love to use embeds on carrd for some of those quick spin out projects ya know? -- i've got a whole bunch of .ee domains i bought that i wanna build projects around over the coming year! :)
framer x is my next learning mission! :)
Exciting project and I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on it! Do you still anticipate keeping other aspects of Finally developing as standalone products too?
100% will be developing multiple parts of Finally separately. I planned/expected to work on a quick version of this and got a little carried away, took my longer than expected to get this out of my head into some code. Will get back to working on updates for comments system.
Glad to hear it! I think the integrated solution will be amazing for casual users, along the lines of folks using Wordpress.org, Tumblr, or the like. But the individual components will be critical for more diverse uses and extensive sites.
The screenshots look really cool, though I can't access the site rn.
Any possibility we'd be able to choose what shows up in our feed? I've wanted to do something similar for quite a while, but let the user choose what posts are displayed. I see a frontend like this as something you show people who aren't involved in Steem and I don't really want to confuse those people with my contest entries or stuff like that.
Hey, looks like there was a problem with my datacenter scaling right as I posted 🤷♂️ Just fixed now.
Thats the exact plan. I've not added this functionality yet but will be added shortly. To allow selection via hashtag or specific individual posts. That way users who have a mixed set of content can show only the relevant posts as you suggests.
Awesome! Now I don't have to do it myself :D
Looks at roadmap
oh, there's the portfolio thing... Stupid me :P
Website looks cool. Two things:
I'm really excited for this!
Yeah noticed the re-steems but it is not intended by default. I'll be adding a filter to remove these in the next update (will be available again in future as a separate option - but needs some extra code in some theme ideas).
Thanks for all the feedback. if you have any more thoughts please send them my way and i'll work to include them as I work more on the project.