Greymass is proud to announce Reprint - an open source framework for creating blockchain-based websites and blogs.
Reprint allows for a new era in blog syndication, allowing anyone to create a website of their own design, populated with content living on the Steem blockchain. This powerful new tool empowers website creators to make their own decisions about what blockchain-based content is most relevant to their visitors (regardless of who wrote it), and tailor how it's presented as they see fit.
Take control of your content and choose how your readers interact with it.
Reprint Core
The initial release of Reprint will include the core website engine and a basic set of features. The first production ready build will be released in early December, with many incremental releases along the way. The entire project will be available on github.com/greymass for those interested in contributing or experimenting immediately.
Reprint will initially support the following features:
- Engine: A simple web presentation engine capable of pulling information from the Steem blockchain and presenting it to website visitors.
- Themes: Using a combination of HTML and CSS, designers will be able to craft modern design templates that can compete with those of any other platform.
- Plugins: Developers will be able to extend Reprint’s core functionality, by leveraging its plug-in support, to allow for website features far beyond those of a simple blog.
This initial release will not include authoring, curation, or any other blockchain-manipulation tools. In the short-term, all blockchain input will need to occur on steemit.com or another compatible application.
What’s next?
We’ll continue providing further detail on our plans and updates on our progress regularly, at least through the end of November. This includes a more detailed timeline of Reprint’s incremental release schedule and our crowdfunding target for it, planned for week 3.
Expect to see Reprint-based websites start popping up soon, as we work with select early adopters to showcase the engine.
Why does Reprint matter??
Lots of great Steem blog posts don’t get the attention they deserve on steemit.com within their first payout window. After that first 24 hours, most content is essentially lost to the ages. Reprint allows website creators to extend the life and value of this written content by sharing it whenever they want, however they want, and with whomever they want.
Since it’s installed on their server, the owner of a Reprint website is free to promote themselves or their brand however they see fit, attracting an entirely new following of readers. Some of these readers will become Steem users, creating a trickle of new, real content consumers that both grow the community and vote on the content that exposed them to the platform.
We think that Reprint, when paired with Steem’s revolutionary content reward systems, has the potential to redefine blogging. We hope to convince you of our vision, because Reprint can only realize that potential with your support.
How can I support the project?
In a couple of weeks, we’ll be asking website creators to start using Reprint and giving us feedback. After that, we’ll be asking developers and designers to start making themes and plugins for it. Right now, we’re asking supporters to start donating to it.
We chose to open source this project to lower the barrier to entry and help us build community support around the initiative. We think this is software that needs to exist and we’re happy to build it, but we have bills to pay and can’t do it pro bono forever. Whether or not we gather enough support to allow us to continue beyond our crowdfunding campaign, Reprint is our gift to the community, free to use forever.
I agree with the other commentors; this sounds good! I'll be watching and may create a Reprint site. It seems very similar to what I was doing with YouTube content for the last 11 years at YouTubeStars.com.
The YouTube analogy is actually very appropriate, IMO.
YouTube owes it's success in large part to the facts that 1) it's easy (and free) to host video there, 2) the content is portable to other websites (through embedding), and 3) there are reward opportunities for hosting your content there.
Steem solves #1 and #3 for written content, but the content hasn't been easily portable until now. If we can solve the portability problem, I think we'll have a huge competitive advantage over traditional blogging platforms.
Thanks for keeping an eye on what we're doing, looking forward to seeing your site!
I like your analogy to youtube and how you broke it down to 3 facts. I never thought about the success of youtube like that. Simple.
This sounds good and could be a real selling point. So I assume I could create a blog with my own URL and branding with selected Steemit posts. Could those be from any user? Will it allow for comments? I guess it could require Steemit signup to comment, but that would bring in new users. Looking forward to seeing this in action.
Yep
Yep
This will be a bit further down the line, but it's absolutely something we'd like to add in.
I'm glad you're seeing what we see - some intriguing possibilities :)
Excellent idea !
great, looking forward to use it... ;)
Your mobile app needs a blog, doesn't it :)
indeed
well that is lucky! we should all work together though i'm thinking. Already paid out of pocket to have this built: https://steemit.com/beyondbitcoin/@baabeetaa/open-source-steem-blog-coming-soon
this is just the beginning...but I am looking for people I can help pay for helping us. :)
And of course it comes with its own open source code and hangout series to cover how we use it!
Woot! :D
We actually have something similar that will span multiple chains but use steem as one of the primary ones. Perhaps you should join us!
You should get on chat at some point. Ours will do multiple chains as well :)
This is really interesting. Right now I am on the fence about leaving my larger blog posts on Steemit beyond the 30-day payout period. Why? Because nobody can leave comments after that, and I won't be able to re-work my content to keep image links alive or to update them. Will I be better off to carve out all my content from my Steemit posts right before the 30-day active period ends, and just leave a link so users can go to that same post, off-Steemit, where they can engage and leave comments? If RePrint can help with any of that, how great! Thanks for thinking about this all!
I thought I was going to have to create this myself for steemcomics.com, but now you have... My life and free time thanks you :) thanks to @timcliff for mentioning this in his post: https://steemit.com/steemit/@timcliff/attention-sharks-there-is-blood-in-the-water-are-you-ready-to-invest
Is this still in development?
Any updates on this?