BLOCKCHAIN BASED SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS: THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL MEDIA?

Blockchain technologies have been fondly called the basis and the beginning of ‘The Internet 3.0’ over the recent years. But what does this mean for the applications and technology companies of today?

Blockchain technologies have undoubtedly brought about a new era of technological advancement. Applications of the blockchain as enterprise solutions have allowed for an increased level of efficiency and transparency which did not exist in traditional systems. Financial, social and technological sectors have all been affected by the implementation of blockchain technologies into new platforms.

But what does this mean for one of the world’s fastest growing sectors, social media? It would be foolish to deny that social media is one of the biggest innovations of the past two decades. Social media platforms have been the catalyst for change in many sectors around the world. Some of the world’s biggest companies are involved in, and have directly benefited from, the use of social media.

However, there has been a lot of controversy recently about popular social media platforms, most notably Facebook and Youtube. The popular video sharing platform has been under fire recently due to accusations of arbitrarily de-monetizing and shadow banning accounts. Many ‘Youtubers’ (Youtube content creators) who previously relied on Youtube ad revenue as their main source of income have had to change gears to stay financially stable.

In a decision that struck right at the heart of the blockchain and crypto communities, Facebook recently banned all advertisements related to cryptocurrencies. The censorship of these cryptocurrency related ads negatively affects the market as it limits the reach of cryptocurrency related advertisements and therefore overall market reach.

STEEMIT: AN UP AND COMING SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM
A new social media platform called Steemit attempts to alter how social media platforms are run. Censorship is not as big as a problem on Steemit as the platform allows the posting of a vast array of topics with minimal censorship (within reason of course).

Another thing that Steemit has over traditional social media platforms is that content creators on Steemit get paid by members of the platform rather than by advertisements or by the site itself.

Steemit uses an upvoting system like the popular social media platform Reddit however, instead of an upvote representing a number alone, it represents a fraction of the Steem cryptocurrency. This system allows readers of the content to only upvote posts (and therefore pay) which articles and/or content pieces they like rather than any post they view like in classic advertisement payment style. You can also change the ‘power’ of your upvote which will change the amount of the Steem cryptocurrency which the content creator will receive. This simple system increases the competitiveness of the platform.

Steemit allows for a new wave of content creators who previously faced roadblocks such as lack of paying opportunities and jobs to come to fruition. Anyone, across the world, can have access to the platform and can get paid for what content they put on the site.

Over 61,000 people use Steemit on a daily basis. This number may seem microscopic compared to a traditional platform like Facebook with hundreds of millions of daily users but this is quite respectable seeing that just 3 months ago that number was half the current number.

It is clear to see why Steemit has been picking up a lot of steam with requests to sign up for their platform skyrocketing recently. More and more content is being created there with high quality and in-depth content becoming a normality.

What do you think of blockchain-based platforms like Steemit? What do this platforms mean for traditional social media platforms today?