Smart Media Tokens - A Crypto-enthusiast's Perspective

Last Thursday was one of the worst days of my life.

It was the day I got my work ID renewed. My work ID is a little plastic card that lets me get into certain buildings. It also lets me log into my work computer, which is necessary for my job. Renewing the ID is a necessary part of the nature of my workplace.

It is also one of the worst things that can happen in this workplace.

I arrived at the ID office at 8AM, and they finally got around to me at about 5PM. Meanwhile, I saw entire crowds of people moved through the assembly line. Traffic was particularly bad because a recent computer glitch had locked most people's ID cards. And these people were given priority. I was not called until every last one of them had the problem fixed.

I don't have much to complain about (I was still getting paid, after all), but I had not taken the good advice of my coworkers to bring a long book with me to pass the time. I only had my phone.

So, for most of the day, I was on Steemit.

Talk about good luck.

Steemit Evolves

Little did I realize, as I came into work that day, that something big was happening in the Steemit world.

If I'm being honest with myself, I must confess that I have had a healthy amount of skepticism toward Steemit, even at the beginning. Most days, what was happening here seemed too good to be true, and I kept wondering when the whole ecosystem would collapse, though I was happy to be making a few bucks here and there, on the way down.

And yet, despite my skepticism, the entire thing has persisted. Steemit has not died, even during those times when I can't tell what is holding it up. Perhaps I simply didn't understand enough about Steemit's particular blockchain, or what was going on behind the scenes.

But when, as I sat down in the waiting room, almost sure I would never be called into the ID Badge office, I saw Ned's freshly published post---a post about a new implementation of the Steem currency.

He was calling them "Smart Media Tokens", or SMTs.

Now, Steemit's biggest roadblock (which is common to all new social media platforms) is adoption. We have to convince people to use the platform. And while Steemit adoption has been increasing at a healthy pace, it hasn't really struck a nerve...yet.

The announcement of SMT's basically turns this problem on its head: if we can't bring people to Steemit, then we shall bring Steemit to the places they already are.

SMT's, in summary, are a way of Steemitizing any media site. They take the existing Steem blockchain and infrastructure, and they give it to anyone who wants to create their own Steemit. Sites like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, any news site, and even personal blogs, could hereby adopt the Steemit model of people paying creators with upvotes, and being rewarded for their curation.

That. Is. Mind blowing.

The arduous task of winning converts to Steemit is now a non-issue. We instead can now tell people to stay where they are. Or not say anything at all, and instead just put the Steemit features in places they are already looking.

It is an elegant solution, and one that could potentially be a killer app, both for Steemit and for blockchain currency in general. It is only missing one thing:

Endorsement by any of the major media sites.

Seriously, SMTs only need to be adopted by one of the already popular sites---like Facebook or Youtube or even a common news site like the New York Times---and once people get a taste of it there, it will quickly spread to all the others. That is my prediction.

I can see now why the developers have been working so hard, and so covertly, on this project. I wish them the best, because it will still take a huge amount of luck to get this thing off the ground. But if it does, then the dividends will be incalculable.

Are you all as excited as I am?