When I woke up and checked Steemit this morning, my feed was pretty filled up with posts that celebrated the fact that we have hit one million user accounts, with @xmlvnx being the millionth user. Unfortunately the user has not made an #introduceyourself post, or made any comments, so we don't really know anything about the account. Anyway, this is a huge milestone to celebrate, but we are still a very long way from being a well-known community outside of the crypto space, but I believe we will get there.
I don't think it's such a big problem that we have taken two years to hit a million user, but I also had wished for the growth to be a bit quicker. However, I really like the technology behind the Steem blockchain, which I believe is what will bring us to hundreds of millions users in the future. Here's a few thing we got going for us, that I think will be a vital importance when we are going mainstream:
1) There are lots of promising projects built on the Steem blockchain!
Many people forget that Steem is so much more than just Steemit! Don't like to blog? Then no worries, there are lots of different interfaces for the Steem blockchain where you can earn Steem by participating in different ways.
@Utopian-io. This is most likely the biggest non-social media interface for Steem, and they give Steem to users who contribute with content to Open Source programming. You don't need to know a programming language, and you can even earn by translating projects, provide suggestions for improvements, help promote it, make tutorials, or even create photos or images for them to use.
@Steepshot: this is a "clone" of Instagram that only allows users to post photos to share with their followers, and gain upvotes on these. The interface does not allow for blog posts or any text-only posts, so this is a great app for only seeing photos.
@Zappl: Zappl wants to complete with Twitter, and let us earn Steem by typing short messages. I bet most of you know what Twitter is like, so I won't explain further.
@DTube: Uploading videos to the Steem blockchain, without the fear of being demonetized or censored.
Musing.io - @musing: Post questions or answers, and get paid to answer other users' questions. The released the app just yesterday, so there are currently a few problems (but they have assured me that they are working on it), so this is another new app that has a huge potential to gain new non-Steemit users. Who does not want to get paid crypto to help other people out with their questions?
@DLive: Stream yourself playing games or whatever, and gain upvotes. Twitch is the only big player is the streaming game, and there is a huge potential to get users to use DLive instead, because Twitch is not really all that good.
Parley.io: A Reddit-type interface. See below for some more info.
And many more!
2) Communities / Hivemind
People are beginning to be really fed up with Reddit these days, now that they are trying to change it from being a link-sharing site with content, and turn it into a type of social media. Right now people seem to hate all the changes that are going on, and I know that many Redditors are looking for a new home. While I would love to send them over here to the Steem blockchain, finding good content that you are actually interested in is an almost impossible task right now.
There's even a project that has created a Redditesque UI for the Steem blockchain, called Parley. I think this website has a huge potential to be the new home to some Redditors, but right now it needs more content, more users, and most importantly a lot more non-crypto content.
The frontpage of Parley.io. It sure reminds me of Reddit in some ways.
When we get the Hivemind feature for Steemit, then I believe that it will act as a natural place for users who are fed up with Reddit, and wants another place to hang out to discuss their favorite topics. We have been waiting for this update for a very long time, but according to the Github, it seems to be pretty close to being ready these days, so let's hope they are able to get it working in time for us to grab a lot of Reddit-refugees.
3) Smart Media Tokens.
We have also been waiting for these for the longest time, but as I said before, it's better to wait a bit longer to get a stable release. I think SMTs will be a game-changer if any big websites implement them to reward their users, and in the long-term I believe that we will even see lots of people that have a Steem account that interacts with the blockchain trough a third-party app, that have never even heard or used Steemit.
How will this work? Let us say that a popular newspaper create their own Smart Media Token. They will allow other users to upvote other comments below their articles, or maybe even let users reward the authors of the newspaper article. The reader of the newspaper will be able to receive and distribute this SMT, see their stats on the newpaper's website, and never really go to Steemit at all. However, if they wish to ever use one of the Steem apps, they can just login with their already existing account!
Once a few popular websites implement SMTs, a million users will only be a drop in the ocean!
Do you realize how much of an early adopter you are?
I see so many people here on the Steem blockchain that complain that they were "late adopters" just because they didn't buy Steem at 10cents a coin. But do you really think that people who were among the first million for a social network (with so much more going on) are really late adopters? Of course they are not!
The fact is that even Bitcoin is still in its early days, and most people have no idea what a blockchain even is. There's is no way that you are too late to the party, and we are still in the very early states of this technology. Just imagine how many users there will be once all the apps listed in the first bullet-point here begin to gain a momentum? It's not like all of them are going to be very successful, but I bet that some of them will grow pretty popular.
I have no idea how the price of Steem will be once the get a momentum and see real user growth, but I know for sure that I will hold onto as many Steem as I am able to!
Thanks for reading
How do you think the future of the Steem blockchain is going to be? Do you think we are at the top, or have we just got started?
That's an awesome news to have 1 million accounts on Steem blockchain.
Yeah, it is indeed awesome!
Hopefully we can hit 2 million this year.
I hope so as well. As @ned said, the first million is always the hardest million :)
Very reasonable review :) It is important not to forget that we all are still early adopters indeed, no matter how gigantic the million milestone might appear :) I also share the optimistic look at the future here btw ;)
Exactly. A million users is of course a lot, but just think of how big potential there is for this blockchain with all the projects that are building on top of it!
Absolutely :) Cant wait to see where we will be in a couple of months or in a year :)
Me neither. I have no idea what the value of Steem will be in a few years from now, but I know for a fact that I intend to hold onto as many of them as possible :)
Congratulations to all steemians to have 1 million user. It's a beginning. Hopefully after touching the figure of 1 million it will exponentially rise. Steemit is a wonderful community and steem have a biggest and fastest blockchain on the planet with so many amazing projects like Dtube, Dlive, Steepshot utopion-io etc. Beside the wonderful project there is an other big factor, progress of steem depends upon us. so it's all depend how we we work for this community to make it more amazing. All the best to steemit platform
I'm hoping for exponential rise as well, @kamchore, and believe that we might see that once SMTs and HF20 is released.
I sure hope that you are right on this. Can’t wait for Steemit to really take off.....👍
I hope so as well. While no one can know for sure what the future will hold, all these projects indicate that it will be a profitable one though.
For once an excellent post about the steem Blockchain in my opinion. Thank you for the recap.
Let's concentrate on the positive and focus on what can be done to improve the platform.
Thanks, I'm glad you liked it @irelandscape.
Yep, it's always best to try to focus on the positive sides of it, rather than just complaining about all the stuff that is not as good as it should be.
The future of Steemit will depend on how well prepared we are for the future. If we can answer to innovation and new trends in a significant way, we're here to stay. Just like Facebook has been doing, for example including new features, acquiring a little company here and there... So, basically, having a growing community of both visionaries and Steemit developers will be crucial for our future.
That's a very interesting point, and I think you are correct. Right now it seems like many companies are focusing on making blockchain-alternatives to many traditional companies, so hopefully some of these will lead the way on this.
Steem is a life saver, I think it's the best thing that is on the internet lately. Steem has changed a lot of lives, really an amazing platform to invest your time in. I think we have a lot more to do, we must aim at promoting steem globally.
I agree. There's no better website to invest your time into! And we should all focus on promoting and improving it :)
With the launch of SMTs and community feature steem price is gonna go through the roof.
It's a good time to be invested in steem.
I think you are right about that! SMTs probably will increase the demand for Steem quickly :)
Am so happy am part of the community and sharing my value and worth here
I never realized we are this small, steemit should have spread like wild fire now due to its value and importance.
I will do my best in spreading the news more and more
@olanrewaju
Yep, we are still very small, and got lots of growing to do! I'm glad to hear that you will try to spread Steem to more users :)
Steem will reach 100$, mark my words.
Desperately waiting for SMTs to launch. It's going to be the gamechanger.
I definitely think it has the potential to do that, @xabi. Now is a good time to get our hands on as many Steem as possible!
After reading each and every word of your post very carefully now I really get the worth of steem, it's huge and I'm gonna follow all of them, I'm so blessed that I've seen this post today and many congratulations for hitting 1 million milestone it's a big achievement 😍
I'm glad you liked the post :)
wawoow thats really a great news for the whole block-chain thanks for sharing it us sir @valth
Yeah, it's for sure great news!
I hope you're right on early adoption XD
I'm pretty confident about this. As long as we keep improving and keep growing, the number of new users will likely grow exponentially, and soon one million will just be a drop of water in the big ocean :)
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Congratulation @valth, you have one million user accounts.
No, I don't :P Did you read the post?
I did, maybe i do not understand, i apologize because i misunderstood with your article @valth
What I'm trying to say is that all of Steem had a million user, not me personally :)
Yep, i see know.
Thanks @valth
I'm glad you understand now :)
hahahahaha :p
congratulations
Yes, congrats to all of us for getting there :)
Hola amiga, pienso que tienes razón nos falta mucho camino por recorrer y dependerá mucho de como manejemos las cosas, pero estoy segur que la comunidad seguirá trabajando duro para lograr el mejor de los éxitos, felicidades por este análisis.
Sorry,but I don't understand Spanish :(
Hello friend, I think you're right, we have a long way to go and it will depend a lot on how we handle things, but I'm sure the community will continue to work hard to achieve the best of success, congratulations on this analysis.
I'm glad to hear that you agree with me. It will certainly be an exciting future!
going up like the foams, that's the goal and you're achieving it
I don't really understand what you're saying, to be honest.
congratulations one more step to continue achieving more success
Thanks.