Synereo and Akasha: How the Only Semi Competitors to Steemit Are Faring

I always keep my ear to the ground when it comes to any would-be competitors to Steemit. Of those I've been keeping my eye on most are either laughably inadequate (they work on a direct payment system of some sort or require some sort of financial investment on the part of the user) or their concept is interesting but it lacks anything resembling a complete implementation.

Two platforms in the latter category are Synereo and Akasha. I've spoken a bit about Akasha in the past and, to be honest, not a whole lot seems to have changed on that front. Akasha runs on the ever-popular Ethereum blockchain, but it doesn't quite seem to have a complete fix on what it is - neither do its users. Since downloading their desktop app a few months ago I've seen the platform change barely at all, not really making clear how the voting system works. However, when/if it does get working, it could be a potential threat to Steemit because of how popular Ethereum is.

Synereo, on the other hand, has been pretty mysterious. Other than a few charts that seemed to detail a lot while revealing nothing there was not really any explanation for what it was. Welp, that's changed. They've officially released their app, and I must tell you with no small amount of glee: it's a fucking mess.

You go to their site, then to download the Wildspark extension for Chrome, and it takes you to a YouTube page explaining what the app does and how it works.... with a big sign up form over it. That's right, you have to click out of the sign up form in order to pause the video.

I soldiered on despite the ridiculousness of this, but found that I couldn't create an account. In desperation I finally allowed it to connect via facebook (at this point Wildspark had already dealbroken itself several times) in order to finally see if it was worth looking into further.

I really wish I knew, but right now I must admit that despite my best efforts Synereo defiantly refused to allow me to give it a try. That means, for now, it's totally worthless. However, much like Akasha, if they ever get their act together they might be a little bit of a threat. A simple extension is much easier to deal with than Steemit's sign up process. This is the advantage Synereo might have.

At the moment, however, I'm not too worried. I feel certain that neither will right their ships before next year, which will a thousand years from now be known as the dawn of SMT's (haha, at least I wish). Anyway, I'll let you guys know if anything changes.

Follow: @jenkinrocket

Wednesday, November 1st, 2017

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