Steem’s Own Reddit

I’m always keen on the development and launch of several new apps related to Steem blockchain. Recently I found an app which directly projects itself as a Reddit competitor on Steem. Today, I’m excited to share my review of it here.

Last week @hoxly unveiled a new Reddit like platform called Parley on Steem blockchain. The whole objective of this platform is to allow users to absorb and discuss the latest news, trends and ideas in an absolutely decentralized manner.

Attention: Login requires your Steem account credentials

The UI of this platform is very simple. You can use your Steem account to login to this platform too. But I noted that they haven’t implemented SteemConnect login integration yet. So I was a bit wary of giving away my Private Posting Key to this newly launched website. Therefore, to test this platform, I used a different spare account which I’d specially created for such purposes. I can’t say how secure is it to login to this website and would recommend you to wait for SteemConnect integration if you are too concerned of sharing your Private Posting Key to them.

Just post a link to any website and earn

Once logged in, it’s very simple to use it. If you come across any share-worthy link at any news, video or social media website on the internet, you can post a link to that article, video or post on Parley in a few clicks. Users can view and access the link and comment their views and opinions on it without any risk of censorship.

These links can also be monetized through upvotes just the way Steem ecosystem works. Although the Parley platform is very new, it claims to support the embedding of links from thousands of website including popular websites like YouTube, Twitter, Kickstarter, Dailymotion, Vimeo, Codepen, Giphy, Instagram, Soundcloud, Twitch etc.

However, I could share the links from any website, but I couldn’t see any snippet of the news along with the title. Perhaps embedding of links is limited to the supported website list. YouTube videos are easily embedded into this site with the sharing of the link and plays well in its interface.

Thus Parley provides a window to monetize content even though it wasn’t created using Steem blockchain. Because once it’s posted on Parley, it’s on Steem blockchain and can take a share from the Steem reward pool by earning upvotes from the users.

Upvoting glitch

Unfortunately, when I tried to upvote a few links after logging in, I couldn’t do that. In fact, I could upvote the same link multiple number of times. The upvote counter will keep showing the incremental number after every upvote but when I refresh the page, it all disappears! Same happened when downvoting too. Hopefully, it’s a temporary glitch and will be addressed soon.

Tags & Communities

But Parley has to do a lot of work to make this interface addictive. “Tags” are named “Community” here and are listed in a scroll window on the right side-bar. But it has no search feature. It's a pain to scroll up and down to find the community you are looking for. These communities are also not listed in an alphabetical order making your search tougher. So this long list becomes pointless from the user’s perspective.

You can’t use 5 communities when posting here as you use on Steemit or Busy. It’s perhaps because of the addition of two default tags namely ‘parley-(community you chose)’ and ‘parley’.

If you head over to your profile page, you will find very limited information like your profile picture with the location & some description as added by you in your Steem profile. But it has all the links you shared on this platform.

Promotional Message & Beneficiary Share

I didn’t get any information what beneficiary share this platform pockets from your posts for providing its services. Also, all your posts end with a long promotional message as below:

What is Parley?

Parley is a Steem-based Reddit competitor that allows users to submit links and curate news they find around the web in order to promote discussion on the Steem platform. Read more

I hope with time this platform will evolve and become feature-rich like other platforms. But it’s relieving that the website is completely functional and makes it easier to initiate discussion on any current subject on the Steem blockchain by just sharing a link.

With the credentials of developer like @thekyle who can also be credited for the success of AskSteem search engine; we can hope that Parley will provide Reddit a serious competition in the near future.