Announcement
Hello Steemit and fellow steemians! It’s about time and we are very excited to introduce the Steem project we’ve been working on for a year now, Deegram!
We’re a startup company based in Norway, and we’re developing Deegram, the decentralized telegram, built on the Steem blockchain. It’s a mobile application for Android and iOS to share content and showing the real you. Share a picture, a song close to your heart, or an article that you found interesting, let people know what matters to you.
We want to be part of building the next generation of social media, and we firmly believe that the Steem network is the place to be in the years to come. Steem has seen healthy growth since the beginning, and we now have over one million users, and there’s been over $40M distributed in rewards.
Why Deegram?
We started working on the concept of Deegram about a year ago before we discovered Steemit and the Steem blockchain. One of the team members had a summer internship at the Norwegian tax administration, working with a proof-of-concept blockchain application on the Ethereum blockchain.
During the spring and summer we kept tuning the concept and doing further research, and the more effort we put into it, the more we realized how much this generation change of social media and content creation is needed.
We produce the real value and all the fascinating content in social media, we are the reason social media is so great. Facebook and Instagram is a comprehensive source of information and entertainment, however, the big corporations own our data and make all the profits. Our personal data is analyzed and used for campaigns and building a ‘bubble’ of information around us that reinforce our current beliefs and doesn’t challenge us. Corporations using our data against us needs to stop.
But this seems similar to other projects, what about Steepshot, Appics, … ?
We're glad you asked!
There are a lot of great projects and applications being built on Steem, and we hope that we can contribute to making the Steem ecosystem even stronger.
You can post pictures on Deegram, but that is not our only purpose, it is just the first implementation we’re publishing.
Deegram is a place to share everything, whether it’s music, articles, books, movies or places to visit. The feed is highly customizable and we’re building a cleaner and streamlined way of filtering content to your personal preference.
Perhaps you’re not interested in Greg sharing 80’s glam rock, but you would like to see pictures of his pet and take inspiration from his great taste in movies and articles.
We work continuously with other people and users to help us make Deegram better, by distributing questionnaires, performing interviews, and testing both design, user experience and prototypes.
We want to tailor this social network for the users. We want Deegram to bridge the gap between blockchain and the masses, we want to make Steem the new mainstream in social media.
A big part of making that happen is in our minds the communication with the users. We’ve had several rounds on our pitches; pitching Deegram, explaining how Steem works and where the money comes from, explaining blockchain as a concept. If the users can’t really understand where the money comes from and how this is possible, the threshold for joining will be higher. Skepticism has been a major hurdle for crypto, so it’s up to us all to show the world what crypto really can mean for society.
Another important factor we have a lot of focus on is simplifying the experience for the user. Getting the payout needs to be as simple as the click of a button. As of now, we don’t have that yet, but we plan to.
Speaking of the users, one interesting discovery we made during our market research for Deegram (we were granted some funding from Innovation Norway to do market validation) was that a lot of the respondents didn’t find the aspect of monetization interesting, as “it's not the reason they are on social media”. That’s when we brought in the charity aspect.
“What if you could just set your favorite charity to receive the earnings from the effort you put in social media?” - We asked. The response was a lot better than when we asked if they wanted to earn money themselves.
Technology
We’re developing the app cross-platform for both Android and iOS using Xamarin forms, and we’ll host images on infrastructure that ensure that users on our client can have their media files deleted. The references to media will be on the blockchain, yes, but we need to be able to invalidate the references to meet the requirement and demand for privacy and control for the users.
We’re following and looking into the possibility of integrating decentralized alternatives with projects such as Sia, IPFS, and Datum once they are more mature. However, as of right now we will keep using established cloud services to ensure the best product quality and stability.
Who are we?
The startup was founded by Robin (@robinron) and Sondre (@sflovik), but we’re not doing this all alone, we also have Stefan (@steblo94) on the team as a designer and web-developer. Morten (@amigos) has been a great help by developing major parts of the application as part of his Bachelor's thesis. We’ve also hired a developer part-time over the summer to help us finish the Alpha version, as well as a consultant from an established firm to do code-review and some optimization.
At the University of Agder, we have access to a large network of competency from students, lecturers, professors and Ph.D. candidates from several different fields within engineering, marketing, finance and social sciences. We have office spaces at the university incubator, where we also have assigned project mentors and advisors, including a professor in alternative finance and a renowned crowdfunding expert.
We will go into further detail and present our team members in the future.
A picture of the founders and the fantastic team of IT students at the showcasing of bachelor's project at the University of Agder. They all did their bachelor's thesis on Steem and performed development on Deegram. @sflovik representing with the @steemfest t-shirt from Lisbon
Wrapping up
We’re all really excited to share more about the project with you in the time to come, and we’d be pleased if you leave a comment or give us some feedback on the work we’re doing.
If you want to know a little more about your project you can visit https://www.deegram.com/ and follow us on traditional social media (@deegramofficial) to check out our activity, coverage and more information about who we are.
We’re eager to stay in touch with the community here and find the best way possible of bridging the gap between the blockchain community and the everyday user. We’re doing our part from Norway, and hope to get in touch with as many of you as possible! All tips, feature suggestions and criticism are definitely appreciated.
Steem on!
Edit: Wow, thanks for all the support! We noticed that a lot of you want to try out the app, we have a form for you if you want to be prompted right away when it's ready to test (we will of course announce here as well).
Link: http://eepurl.com/dx9jy5
Excellent work guys! The design looks really cool and I love how you try to come at it from a user-centric angle and then make it work with Steem, rather than taking the UIs we've already seen plenty of and just giving it a new brush. Looking forward to trying it out myself!!
Seeing how you've worked on this completely off the grid while also building solid awareness of Steem in your community in Norway makes me wonder how many others are currently doing the same all over the world :).
Good luck boys!
Thanks a lot, Fredrik!
Yeah, we've thought of several angles; data and privacy, monetization, influencers, etc. But at the bottom line, the end user should always be the focus :)
That's a good point though! We're not quite sure why we kept it off the grid, it's partly because we started questioning ourselves last year when we saw Steepshot and then Appics and wondered: "Is there even room for our idea?", but considering that we have different visions and goals we figured we'd give it a shot!
Best case: You and all of the world love it and we help bring Steem to the moon!
Worst case: We had fun, learned a lot in the process and educated Norway about Steem :)
Finishing this long answer off with another big thank you to you Fredrik, you've been a good friend to us ever since Steemfest. Real proud of what you've done with Steempress, Steem on!
@fredrikaa and @deegramofficial I am in agreement. Recently was asked to build a UI similar to VERO as a test to work with EOS though I wasn't happy with any of the loose process they had on from interviewing to professionalism to challenging work. Agreed with @fredrikaa though, how can you guys build something that is easy enough to use while monitizing something effectively. Id be happy to consult with you guys if you need another pair of eyes and ux skills to review prototypes, concepts and assistance. Overall nice work you guys. looking forward to updates.
Thanks for the support @theuxyeti, and sorry to hear about your experience with the other project.
And yeah, the simplified UX is a really important part of the development, so we'd love to stay in touch with you. We'd be delighted to get some help and feedback from you! Could you shoot an e-mail to [email protected] and we'll talk :)!
Your skills are highly appreciated!
Great to see this app coming up going for all the considerations that instagram-type users need. If I may comment as a branding enthusiast, I'd personally try to go after a simplified logo preferably with less sharp edges, a colour scheme going after Pantone's Colour of The Year 2016 (which indeed is what instagram has gone for, the 2018 selections are great too and may even be more relevant from hereon), and a change in slogan. But branding can come later :) All the best!
Thanks for the feedback! We appreciate it. Branding is really important to us (even though we agree that it can come later/be iterated upon), but we have limited resources at the moment. And you're not the first one commenting on the slogan, so we're going to have to look at that.
We'll definitely keep you posted and do our best to take your pointers into consideration.
Really, Deegram is looking pretty awesome decentralized platform and partnership with Steem will help it to grow..
I heard first time about Deegram but would like to download on my handset..
It's close to #Telegram but decentralized platform with high potential.
Next generation of social media is going to be change and #Steemit #Dtube #Deegram and few more platforms are ready to replace our existing social media platforms.
Thanks team Deegram and @deegramofficial
Posted using Partiko Android
Thank you for the kind words! Yeah, when we researched what platform to use, there was never a question in our mind: STEEM!
We'll keep you posted so you can be one of the first to try the app.
Together we'll all change the world and give power back to the user! :)
It's great to see another app built on Steem. I'm happy to see you have a charity aspect. I think this is an underexploited field, although there is @adollaraday doing good work. If you can verify charity accounts then people will be more happy to give. I saw this work well on the (now dead) Tsu platform. Wish you all the best.
Thanks for the feedback! And yeah, the charity aspect is actually pretty great for this concept. We thought that who can really say no to doing the same thing they're doing today, but instead of continuing to feed the major corporations money, you actually micro-donate to a charity of your choosing? People seem to like it, and it really doesn't matter how much you make on your posts, everything helps.
We're considering different ways of doing it, the best would be to verify the charity accounts yes. In the beginning, we're reaching out to projects to get them onboard on the app so we can make it all happen in Steem, and then help them manually (and educate them) to get their earnings out.
Any suggestions and tips on how to improve our process is greatly appreciated :)
A Dollar A Day is an established charitable giving project based on steem.
We would be delighted to work with Deegram.
That's great news! We're definitely going to consider you when developing the feature, perhaps you could be one of the pilots that are available to donate to :)!
Thank you for the mention Steve, and for your continued support for the A Dollar A Day project.
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Hats off to you guys for the amazing work. It is a totally new concept where steem blockchain will be implemented.
Thanks a lot, rocksg! We hope that this could become the user-friendly, user-centered app that really bridges the gap for mainstream adoption :)
We're happy to see that you like the concept!
Great work. Love to try out new dapps based on Steem - especially when the app is thought out as well as this one seems to be. Looks like you guys have been working hard in the background. I'll definitely give it a try when it's ready. Best of luck and keep us all posted.
Appreciate it! It's really humbling that you think the app is thought out well. We figured that with all the great dapps out there, we should polish both the concept and the UX with the user in focus, or not do it at all.
We'll definitely keep you posted, looking forward to getting your feedback on the alpha version once you've tried it :)
That's really cool stuff, guys!
Especially the layout looks great!
The only thing I don't like is your slogan.
The true you rewarded
It's not catchy and too long. I even wrote it wrong when I tried to quote it - I wrote the real you instead of the true you.
I personally would re-think the slogan, but other than that - keep on going!
Thanks for the comment and feedback!
We've heard different opinions about the slogan, so we understand your concern. The slogan came along when we tried to figure out how to pitch the app in a simple manner, and we also had some concerns from users about fears of people wanting to post the most sexualized and mainstream content possible to get as much money as possible.
We tried to counter it by saying that on Steemit, people get rewarded for meaningful content. And if you're on a social media posting about yourself, show us the real you, instead of trying to be someone else.
But yeah, the short answer is: We'll really keep that in mind, and ask around. Maybe the slogan does need a new brainstorming. Thanks again for good feedback :)
Wonderful work! This looks nice and I wish you the best of success with it.
Thanks! We're excited as well, and hope to deliver what the community deserves.
Glad to have you guys! I will look it up and write a review on my blog dappcentral.io
Glad to be here! Looking forward to read your thoughts :) Have a great weekend!
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so are you a telegram (which would be awesome) or do you want to be a general social media sharing platform?
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I can say it could be promising, nevertheless there is some ideas that need to be elaborated and more explanation is required.
For instance how about the math ? or in other words what is the advantage of adopting steem block chain. is it going to be like steemit and people vote and get reworded ? moreover do users will have a steem wallet?
Thanks and wish you all the best
Awesommmmme, will look more closely at this later tonight.
Re-Steemed!
-exp
Thanks a lot! Have a good evening, and don't hesitate to ask if you're wondering anything :)
Im really interested about this !
Thanks! Glad to be revealing the project, can't wait to let you test it :)
Congratulations!!
Thank you :D !
Definitely I’m going to download the iOS app.
All the best!
Great to hear! Thanks a lot for the support :)
Nice - looking forward to trying this out. How do the posts look when viewed through a Steem client like Steemit.com?
Thanks for the comment! You'll see soon, but basically a normal post with a title, body (Image or content showing up first) and then the description added to the post.
We're looking at different ways of viewing other pieces of content when we get that in the app, for instance when you post a song you like. One thought is using an API to Dsound/Soundcloud/Spotify etc and pull the image there and use the images.
We've gotten the feeling that posts should include at least one picture, but of course that could be tricky if you're just sharing a link or a song.
Suggestions are always welcome, and thank you again for your interest :)
Cool - looking forwards to seeing this in action.
Yeah, it's definitely important to include an image in the post. For links, you can look for the og:image open graph meta tag - most blogs include this now for sharing functionality on Facebook etc.
Is there application for it.
The application is still under development, but we're hoping to have an early version ready for you in a couple of weeks :) There will also be a web-client.
Okay
BOING! You got a 12.00% upvote from @boinger courtesy of @steemium!
Innovation is always welcomed with open arms. Great work.
Thanks a lot! We really appreciate it :)
How will i register for deegram on there website. I can find it
If you scroll down to where it says "Be ready when the alpha comes out!" then you can enter your Steem account and be on the waitlist :) Thanks for the interest!
Have done that
Hi @deegramofficial
This is so cute and I am so loving it................ but when will it hit the ground running?
What is the road map like?
Is it just for mobile? Like the traditional Telegram will there be a PC (windows) version?
Hi!
Thanks for the kind words and good questions. The alpha version will hopefully hit the ground in mid-August, so people can start testing it and we can iterate on whatever bugs may appear.
After that, we have different content types we want to get into the app, and a couple of additional features.
We'll keep you updated and go more into depth about the roadmap soon :)
And no, it's not just for mobile! There will be a web-client, we've developed that in parallell with the app, but it's not come as far as the app yet. We're going to need more people, and will try to staff up during the fall.
Don't hesitate to ask if theres anything else you're wondering, and have a great day :)!
Great post!
Thanks for tasting the eden!
Looks a lot cleaner than the alternatives
Wow! Thanks for the compliment :) We're doing our best to deliver the best possible experience for the end user.
The more the merrier. Hopefully, it will be an astounding success.
"traditional social media" refers to which? All the major ones, or Instagram?
Waiting for your app :)
Thanks for the support :)
It refers to all the major ones, we started off thinking: "Let's put Instagram on Steem!" but we figured that Instagram isn't really the biggest issue here. It's Facebook. Which also owns Instagram.. And WhatsApp... And they tried to get Snapchat as well.
So we looked around and tried to get the best elements of the different platforms, with the customizable feed as a highly sought-after feature from the users we tested on. A lot of them said: "Facebook? Who even uses that anymore for anything except Messenger? The feed is clogged up and Zuckerberg sells our data to everyone."
So if we would categorize ourselves compared to a traditional social media we would probably say a mix between Facebook, Instagram and Vero with our own touch on it.
Let us know if you're wondering anything else :)!
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nice job... lets see when it goes live. For now I could only register myself
Thanks for the interest and registering :)! We'll definitely keep you posted.
you are welcome! You spent time creating it therefore it is always nice to give a try no? :D
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So this is awesome! LOL Best news I've read all day.
Looking forward to seeing this project develop and start to adopt it and get away from Telegram. I'm pretty loyal to Steem based projects so this is heaven sent! Wow, can't wait!
Thanks for the interest!
We're going to keep you posted and let you know as soon as it's ready for testing :)
Have a great day!
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Is it open-source?