The easy answer to the question "What is Steem?" is "Imagine if Facebook and Bitcoin had a baby" which suggests combining the most innovative powerful parts of what they introduced into something new.
Facebook revolutionized social media and now there are over 2 billion users on Facebook monthly, according to Wikipedia.
Bitcoin has revolutionized money in 2009 when it was started, just a few years later it was only worth 30 cents for a Bitcoin. Today it's worth over $4,000, which is 10,000 times as much in just six years.
What would happen if you put the amazing innovation of these two into one?
I'll show you right now.
Facebook + Bitcoin = Steem!
First, to make this clear, I will need to share the basics of the best of Facebook and Bitcoin with you, if perhaps you haven't heard of one or both of them.
Facebook was started in 2003, when Mark Zuckerberg wrote a program called "Facemash." Two years later I was one of the first users relatively to join Facebook and I was really excited about it.
Now, 12 years after I joined when it was just still a relatively new start up, Facebook has 65 billion dollars in assets.
Meanwhile, let's look at Bitcoin.
Bitcoin has revolutionized money online introducing the term cryptocurrency and shaking up financial markets around the world. Bitcoin started in 2009 and after two years it was only 30 cents for a Bitcoin.
Today, the price of Bitcoin is $4,000+ which is a 10,000 times increase over what it was six years ago.
Doing the math on Facebook, I would guess that Facebook had similar growth from the time I joined it in 2005 to 12 years later, which is today where some estimate it's worth as much as several hundred billion dollars.
Now, what would you get if you put Facebook and Bitcoin together, had them mate and have a baby into something that introduced as much innovation as they introduced?
Here's what I think.
Steem.
Steem is the equivalent of a baby of Facebook and Bitcoin.
It brings the innovation in terms of the cryptocurrency that Bitcoin has and it combines that with a social media network.
I'll show you right now.
You can see right on my Steemit profile today exactly what I'm doing.
I think this is really amazing because, even though Steem is new, even though I've only been on it for three months, you can see it's basically just a social network where you can host your blog.
And yet, if you look down, I'm making hundreds of dollars, sometimes a little less than that, sometimes much more than that. $3,000 was the most I made on one post and this is still brand new.
Now, I've been working online for six years, I don't know anywhere else where it's this easy to start something, and even if you have an existing audience to actually turn that into money. This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen and I was one of the first Facebook users, I was in Bitcoin several years ago, and this absolutely blows my mind.
Why? Because it is simple. You sign up for SteemIt, you make an account, you start posting. Now, are you going to earn millions of dollars over the night? No.
It does however give you a chance to actually earn money from what you do on social media.
How much money?
Here's my actual accounting data.
If you add up all the numbers, it adds up to $33,944.47 that I've made in the first two months on Steemit.
Now, I've reinvested almost all of that. If you look at my Steemit wallet you'll see that I've put in about $30,000. I cashed out my retirement portfolio and put it all into Steem. Today I have an account worth $61,000. I've also cashed out around $10,000 over to my Coinbase account.
This is just the beginning.
I think while today the price of Steem is at $1.22, it has a chance to go up a thousand times in value in the next eight years. I'm not investing in it because I thing it might be a little interest on my money, or it's cool and it's new. I'm investing because I see this as my entire retirement plan. No social security for me, no stocks, Steemit is my retirement plan.
At the same time, this is my daily job. I can go on Steemit and just make posts every day and earn money, even if they don't earn a whole bunch it's still a lot more than nothing that I get if I post on Facebook.
In my opinion, the biggest difference in life is from zero to something and Steemit crosses that threshold with the social network. It crosses over into money and allows less censorship. I absolutely love Steemit.
Would you join me on Steemit, because while you might have missed out on Facebook and Bitcoin, I'm going to guess that you probably didn't have the chance to be an early investor in either of these within the first two years they were launched.
This you don't have to miss out on. You can even put nothing into it, just try to make an account posting. You can even put a $100 into it.
That's why I'm here, to make an investment of a lifetime and to use the rewards from that to do some good in this life, to create a world I would like to come back to in another life. My dream is to help continue building a world that's amazing and a world where we have the chance to just do what we love every day, where we're not required to slave in some job we hate, jut to pay the bills.
That's my vision for this.
I hope this is useful for you.
I love you, you're awesome, hope you'll have a wonderful day today.
Thank you very much for reading this post which was originally filmed as the video below!
Would you join me today, by leaving a like on this video or upvote this post on Steemit?
If you found this post helpful on Steemit, would you please upvote it and follow me because you will then be able to see more posts like this in your home feed?
Love,
Jerry Banfield with edits by @gmichelbkk from the transcript by GoTranscript.
Shared on:
- Facebook page with 2,255,789 likes.
- YouTube channel with 201,369 subscribers.
- Twitter to 105,563 followers.
PS: Witness votes are the most important votes we make on Steem because one vote for a witness lasts indefinitely! Would you please make a vote for jerrybanfield as a witness or set jerrybanfield as a proxy to handle all witness votes at https://steemit.com/~witnesses because when we make our votes, we feel in control of our future together? Thank you to the 516 accounts voting for me as a witness, the 197.4M VESTS assigned from users trusting me to make all witness votes by setting me as proxy, and @followbtcnews for making these .gif images!
That's right
To me steem is twitter+ crypto currency!
Great ideas for telling people about Steemit. I try to tell everyone I can about it but sometimes I have to explain it further, since there are a lot of people that don't know what Facebook or Bitcoin are either but some do know what twitter is so I try to incorporate that in as well. Thank you for sharing more great ways to get people involved with this great community.
I am working on getting the 3 Billion Artists on Facebook to come over to Steemit and at least get paid for their Creations .... https://steemit.com/art/@offgridlife/join-the-facebook-group-steemit-artists-and-share-your-work-with-over-200-other-artists-and-art-collectors
Nice post, thanks for sharing. Your post Will bring easier understanding on steemit to my Facebook friends. thanks
This is a fantastic summary of why everyone and their mother needs to join Steemit.
Posting without any potential return on your time investment is silly! Even if you only get an average of $.01 per post, if you post 1000 times, that's ten dollars you wouldn't have had.
In the world of facebook, twitter, message boards, etc., you can post brilliant content that's extremely valuable to many people and end up with a few pats on the back, maybe a large following to market to, if you're lucky.
You can develop a large following, AND get paid while you do it in the process. Pretty damn cool.
Very true, Steem is like a baby of Facebook and Bitcoin... My only concern is that they should have sex again to produce siblings of Steem.
Sir i agree with you,nice post
hahah very true
Haha made my day :D
good joke funny hahahaha
Haha! Yeah! you got a point :)
Wow, I only wish that you will be checking out my posts , you will see that we are twins when it comes to steemit and steem. Steemit + Steem till the very end!!!!!
You always get my upvote.
The thing I'm worried about is on this post by @dbdecoy
https://steemit.com/steemit/@dbdecoy/steemit-churn-rate-and-engagement-level-an-analysis
He's got a very interesting analysis and lots of interesting input in the comments. The 98% at the bottom of the pile are a whole other ecosystem than the 2% at the top. If the little guys cannot survive, grow and thrive - this concerns me. I feel like we need more new people in Steemit, but they wither fast without support.
fb never had the monetization and I think that is part of the difference of why they grew like they did. As far as the crypto side of things - I'm still pretty ignorant but happy to be learning.
it is true what you said ...I made a post with the same idea of that. although without the numerical analysis
I making a comparison with the disappearance of the krill by the global warming and the extinction of the whales
Exactly! I hope the big guys will believe the analogy since it is so relevant.
@jerrybanfield is one of the helpers and a lot ... I think that's how I put it in the post ... the great majority are not minnow ... we are krill ... and the whales need krill and that shows with jerry's expenses to attract new members
Upvoted you as a witness 😊
As someone said here many resist the new. I have been trying to get people in steemit and clearly the benefits are there. Yes, the interface is not like facebook but the reward out weights what its lacking. And it's still new so we never know one clever chap out there might improve steemit. I haven't been told why others don't want to try steemit. I would like to know why and why not.
Facebook + Bitcoin = baby Steem! ha ha that made me laugh sooo much! Genius! Jerry you are just Genius! To be honest my opinion is:
I am very optimistic about all the Crypto evolution!
(PS: I like Steem)
Steemit's use case is unbelievable. I am attracted to it because it allows me to not only grow an online audience but I can also leverage my creativity and work ethic to essentially acquire crypto currency.. And the ROI is limitless. Sounds like a great deal to me.
For me, it is more inclined towards Bitcoin + Reddit blogging feature.
But with almost no memes, which is good
@hms818 is very correct! This whole community must be aware the competition is going to be huge. Now there is a "beta" next to Steemit logo and I hope we can dump it soon to make the platform easier to use, insert the chat-function in the home-screen, easier to search other users, and most of all easier to search the topics... I truly hope @jerrybanfield is correct about the growth he projects, but there still is loads of work to do!
Sincerely Pele23
I would say it's more a baby of Reddit and Bitcoin...it's not really a social network since it doesn't really have a social graph. Following someone is different than being their friend / family member and blog posts and comments are different than posting or checking in on FB.
Still most of the points in the post apply either way...I wonder if SteemIt plans to add any type of FB like social graph / check-in elements in the future?
Also now that i'm thinking about it, a big draw of FB is that businesses use it as a way of communicating and connecting with customers. I wonder if there's any way that can be incorporated into the Steem platform...that might really help Steem take a big step forward.
What do you guys think?
I definitely agree with you here. I have often wondered what would happen if reddit users realised that they could start making money doing what they normally do... just somewhere else.
It would be interesting to see the most popular tags change if this were to happen as well. Things like video games, memes etc would shoot up the list.
It's nice to see when someone else shares the same views as you... Let's see if redditers make the switch :)
It does sound like a combo of Facebook and Bitcoin. Another great post Jerry!
People are already trying to create copy cats and are failing miserably.. Just join steem ;) no need to make something different
Steemit is better as Bitcoin- Transaktion fee is Zero
good concerns but steem website needs improvement.
It will come with time, can not wait to see how it progresses!
new social media crypto sites are on the way.
@taspingo, You're right. This site is great, yet it looks uninteresting in its design. I hope some website designer can improve on the look.
BTW @JerryBanfield's YouTube videos got me here :)
I agree, they should improve it.
We still need a better way for writers to reach out to their audience. The way steemit.com is designed now great posts just get lost in between the not so great posts.
Very true...
Considering the fact that daily entrance of new members on steemit increases the chances of losing great post and contribution.
Steemfollower will help you achieve visibilty of your post to a wider audience. Thus earning you more upvotes and followers
Thanks, I hadn't heard of steemfollower before. I registered, but didn't quite get the grips of how it works. Will have to read up on it later. Is there any way I can add you as my referrer?
I Love your picture of Facebook and bitcoin having a baby and that's steemit. I can literally See it with my inner eye. If i could draw better I'd sketch it out. 😀😀
BTW... I am very thankful for your skillshare class about steemit. It really have me Great insights and a good overview of the whole system.
I have 14.2 thousands Twitter Followers, I tried promoting Steemit but people seems to have little interest for money compared to the usual free likes and retweets. I'm still struggling luring my Twitter followers to Steemit.
Haha I like your idea btw, Steem can be facebook as it is social and at the same time it gives us a chance to earn Steem :D Well I love this idea :D
.
I think medium.com is more similar to steemit than Facebook is. Facebook helps you connect with friends, but Steemit helps you connect with fellow bloggers and strangers with the same interests.
Upvoted by @andravasko , upvoted community helps minnow steemit . explanation HERE !!!
Thank you for sharing this article @jerrybanfield. It´s interesting to know how power and potential you see in Steemit. I resteem this post formy network.
Have a great day,
Thomas
Wow! Beautiful analogy, I keep on learning from you everyday, thanks so much for this post
everything that have a fusion with btc become better..
youtube + btc = dtube
spotify + bitcoin = dsound
awesome family
.i follow you.love you.upvote you .now your turn @jerrybanfield
Google Trends: facebook vs. bitcoin
I used 2 windows because on one was looks like this:
Just imagine whats gonna happened when knowledge about bitcoin will match interest of facebook!
-I can't imagine...
I am working on getting the 3 Billion Artists on Facebook to come over to Steemit and at least get paid for their Creations .... https://steemit.com/art/@offgridlife/join-the-facebook-group-steemit-artists-and-share-your-work-with-over-200-other-artists-and-art-collectors
Nice article, but i think Steemit is combination of Reddit with Bitcoin instead.
Your analogies are simple as toast ! , cheers @jerrybanfield
I couldn't agree more with your overall all valuation of Steem and the Steemit platform as a whole. I have been here for about a month now and I can complete relate and understand to you investing as much as you could afford to put into Steem. It's awesome to see someone with as much clout in the YouTube world, here on Steemit and really becoming an ambassador for the platform at such an early stage in its existence. For that I thank you and hope that you along with the rest of us "beta members" are reward greatly for taking this awesome opportunity and running with it. Steem on Jerry!
very nice idea, I attempt to enlighten everybody I can regarding it yet once in a while I need to clarify it further, since there are many people that don't recognize what Facebook or Bitcoin are either yet some do realize what twitter is so I endeavor to consolidate that in too.
nice info about steemit
thankx for sharing!
gracias por compartir este contenido con nosotros te di un voto espero que te guste
You are definitely an optimist. Hope you make it through Irma.
He moved over to a hotel in Alabama to escape the storm :)
sorry, no time 4 a proper reply... Hurricane & on my sailboat.
had some serious issues earlier...
Gave 100% upvote...
Haha Nice Post like always Jerry.
I think it would be if Facebook+Reddit and Bitcoin had a baby it be steem lol.
Hope to one day reach your level of steemness haha. Keep up with the good posts sir!
Great! thanks for share!
I love that analogy of facebook, bitcoin and steem. I can see steem growing exponentially in the next few years.It sure took guts and balls of steel to invest everything into steem. This just shows how much you value and believe in this platform and steem. May your full time dedication and hard work bear fruits. I wish you continued growth and success on here :)
Let's hope the growth is fantastic and the €100 I invested now will be Wirth € 10000 in 10 years. 😀😀
That is a very good way of putting it!
Excellent break-down and introduction, Jerry.. to the unique synthesis of paradigms that Steemit truly represents. I'll share this with my "not yet Steemed" friends so they can grasp what's happening here... thanks Jerry!
Hi @jerrybanfield, You've created a nice equation to help the ordinary users understand the concept of Steem. I found it very interesting. Facebook, Bitcoin and Steemit all are phenomenal steps taken by their founders. In my view, you're the one who is spreading the word more than anybody else in the witness list and taking it to the next level so you deserve to be a witness. I request everyone whoever reads this comments to make Jerry Banfield as your witness because he deserves it. He has given the link at the end of this post.
Thanks and Congrats on earning $30,000 here so early.
Good to see you are doing a lot for the community on a continuous basis.
Your energy levels are pretty high and your talking always motivating and optimistic.
thnaks you !!
If facebook & bitcoin had a baby id like to be the God father to steem!
^_^
I just made a vote for you to be my witness..
really informative post for us and I am enjoying this site and its paying me some money.
Great post