The announcement that @ned made about the new Smart Media Token protocol they're about to release has really made the Steem vision complete in my mind. This is like the peak, the climax of the whole Steem creation story and yet it is just the beginning for the Steem ecosystem's journey. It will be a new and exciting world and the attention economy will never be the same. Expect to see even more apps and sites that come up after Steemit, that will bring even more people into the Steem ecosystem!

For clarity, I'll restate some definitions to avoid confusion:

• Steem refers to the blockchain, the platform
• STEEM is the token/currency used on the blockchain
• Steemit is the app/website/interface we are using now

STEEM is the first Smart Media Token

STEEM is the first Smart Media Token to ever come into existence and it is the mother of all Smart Media Tokens to follow. It will give birth to many tokens that are just like it, but with different configurations to suit different purposes. New SMTs can be tweaked in areas such as the number of tokens to issue, the inflation rate, rewards pools, payouts, and more.

By sharing the ability to create Smart Media Tokens with the world, @ned is actually giving everyone the magic formula they came up with and giving people the chance to replicate different STEEM-like tokens to suit different purposes, with relatively little effort. All this while making sure that all STEEMholders (get it) benefit because STEEM will be the parent currency/token and therefore, when someone creates a token, the demand for STEEM will increase. And when SMTs grow, STEEM grows too. This spreads value to all STEEMholders, no matter what community you are a part of or what app you are using. Of course, many other effects of this new model will be seen and we will see value flow through the entire ecosystem in ways I cannot even imagine.

I will be sharing more of the implications that Smart Media Tokens will have on the Steem ecosystem and other thoughts on Steem in follow-up posts.

Stay tuned and thanks for reading.