Just finished watching. Really thought provoking stuff. The challenge for crypto right now is it's not easy and convenient enough for the mass market. There's obviously massive, massive potential, but it needs to be packaged and marketed very well. Only then will billions of people come in, and give us power over the governments.
There's no shortage of talent on the engineering side, but what we really need a master marketer to take it forward - kind of like Steve Jobs. There were smartphones before iPhone, media players before iPod and tablets before iPad. But no one did it quite as simple and convenient as Apple. Often at the expense of features and power, but ultimately, for the mainstream audience, convenience wins over all else.
So, we need applications that are simple and easy. Steemit is an awesome first step - the first app that can really be sold to the mainstream, but it's still not quite as easy as Facebook or Reddit. I'm sure it'll get there though.
On the Bitcoin/currency side, we need something as easy as PayPal. Bitwalas and the like are promising, and I think this is happening soon.
This is one of the best comments I have ever read on this site! I am biased toward marketing so guess that influences my opinion, but pointing out that the greatest engineers in the world does not translate into mass adoption is a point I have been trying to make. MARKETING is key. To me Steemit can be seen as a cryptocurrency marketing incubator. A lot of people sharing marketing ideas and some really great ones rising to the top and people jumping on them and giving them a life of their own that will attract more people to Steemit and cryptocurrecy. Steemit itself is just one big cryptocurrency marketing machine. The question of its longterm sustainability is something for engineers and programmers to worry about, for now it is to be used by marketing types to get newbies into cryptocurrency.
Bingo.
rufanoz, firing the battleship big gun
Are you serious ?? Blast of with Steemit
lol awesome. I need an upvote battleship.
I totally agree. It's fine for crazy, pioneering souls like us, but to really take it mainstream, the interface needs work. Piston is a good work in progress. Would be nice to see more projects like that. I'm sure there will be plenty of them soon though because the incentive is obviously there.
Piston looks great! I'm waiting for some mobile and desktop apps, that'll really help. I'm sure they figure all of this out - we're still in beta after all.
My bigger concern for the mainstream audience are the three different Steem assets. It's a powerful and robust system, but may be a bit too complex for the average Facebook user. Perhaps there could be an "easy mode" with just Steem Dollars? And tie up with an exchange which does Steam Dollar to US Dollar / fiat currencies. Just a thought.
easy mode is a great idea! The 3 different Steems are definitely confusing a lot of people including some tech people who just don't want to deal with such complexities.
Nice guys good to see you 2 get together :D
I appreciate Adam's dedication to bitcoin, but thanks Gabriel for keeping us all asking questions.. Ultimately who knows whats next.. I even heard Steemit is trying to be a new market place in the future!
But regardless we had
In the last 24 hours.. check it out!
https://steemit.com/socialnetwork/@stealthtrader/over-2000-new-users-in-the-last-24-hours
Good to hear from you! I'm glad you like the idea. I'll try and write up a post about it.
I wrote up something about it here - https://steemit.com/steemit/@liberosist/suggestion-an-easy-mode-for-steem
Do have a look and comment, would love your feedback!
Yeah, I'm launching a new series to provide help with stuff like that for the newcomers who don't have a programing or economics background. The current platform takes for granted that people have a certain level of familiarity with this stuff and I think some newbies are feeling overwhelmed when they see things like the internal market.
Great, that'll really help. I hope there's some clear documentation from the Steemit folks too. A one pager - the white paper is too complex.
By the way, I wrote up a guide for beginners a couple of days back too - https://steemit.com/steemit/@liberosist/beginner-s-guide-to-steem
yeah, there are plenty of written guides but unfortunately, very few people bother to read them :-/