Can you teach an old Steem-dog new tricks? How to give your curation rewards a boost today!

As my followers will know, I run a weekly curation league and give out a little Steem to the weeks' best efforts, as far as financial return goes.

Over the past few months the curation game has changed, not as far as a new Fork where 'rules' will be adjusted, but in relation to what we have available as content to vote on.

I see many dolphins and orcas seemingly aiming for rewards, but not hitting any where close to the returns I think is possible.

More on this below...

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This week my curation league was was won by @miniature-tiger, not by a nose, but by a distance! I gave him a virtual pat on the back, and his well deserved 5 Steem reward.

He is currently sitting on weekly rewards of 12.7 Steem Power and has around 1,400 Steem vested.

So in the past 7 days, he has gained about 9 Steem Power for every 1000 Steem Power owned.

If we add that 12.7 on to his total Steem Power of 1400, use the same percentage of rewards gain each week, and continue compounding this for the next year...

In just 52 weeks his account would be at 2218.779 Steem Power.

This is about a 58% increase - Fifty-eight percent in 1 year!

That is a fantastic return on investment by an standards, and for supporting content on Steem Blockchain with the click of a mouse - ace!

Fifty-eight percent is stand-out, but if you are personally only looking at 5-10% when you do the maths, you ain't doing it right...

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So, what's the secret?

The secret is there is no secret, it's all right in front of you!

In the past six months or so, there has been an exponential increase in applications using the Steem Blockchain.

dTube, busy.org, Steepshot, and utopian-io to name but a few. These applications have more than the Steem Blockchain in common though, they all reward content creators using their application to submit 'proof of brain' to the Blockchain. (You could also include 'sndbox' and 'ocd' in this list although they are accounts and not a separate application - see @acidyo's replies below for more information)

And so, if you haven't guessed already, @miniature-tiger's focus this past week, was based around these applications, and in particular, utopian-io.

A quick scan through his wallet and the 'Curation Rewards' section, you can easily spot the best rewards coming from the utopian-io submissions.

The key here is that the utopian-io votes are on a schedule. You don't have to time your vote perfectly or within the first 15-30 minutes - If the submission is approved (and there will be a comment in the post saying so), you just need to be there before the @utopian-io vote.

A closer look at the utopian-io votes shows that each submission category comes with it's own vote 'weight'. Contributions promoting Steem/Steemit, and 'Analysis' posts normally receive a bigger vote than 'Suggestions', or 'Bug reports'.

However, that's not to say you cant make a good return on a lower vote. Many of the contributors are newer Steemit accounts and don't have a huge following - It is easily possible to find a contribution sitting at 20-50 cents, that is going to receive a $10 vote from utopian-io.

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Everyone's a winner?

For the most part, yes. As i said, many of the accounts submitting content to utopian-io, and indeed dTube, are quiet new. In fact, the average reputation of a utopian-io contributor last week was 55.

Also, this is a game anyone can play. If you have 1000, 5000, 50,000, or 500,000 Steem Power, a good return is waiting as long as you adjust your vote weight accordingly.

At 1000 Steem Power, 50-100% vote might be required. At 100,000 Steem Power, a fraction of this percentage will be enough.

So if your account is big or small, you can boost your curation rewards and support new content at the same time. Good eh!?

Of course not everyone is seeking financial rewards here, but if you do want a little boost for the new year, this is one of the easiest ways to do it.

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I'll end by saying that the utopian-io voting round will start in about 8 and a half hours after the time this blog was submitted and that I have an approved contribution to the 'Analysis' category that should receive around a $50 vote later. Ha!

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Any questions just ask. I'm here eating chocolate and drinking a beer.

Cheers!

Asher @abh12345