Steemit, an emerging social media platform offering financial rewards for user-created content, recently introduced its beta version. Founded in early 2016 by Ned Scott and Daniel Larimer, the platform operates on blockchain technology and utilizes a unique cryptocurrency system to compensate users for their contributions, such as articles, images, and commentary. Users can earn rewards through activities like curating and upvoting popular content, with earlier upvotes on trending posts resulting in higher rewards. Payouts to users consist of 'Steem Power,' a vesting currency, and Steem Dollars, exchangeable for traditional currencies like USD.
To prevent abuse like creating multiple accounts to manipulate rewards, Steemit implements Facebook registration as a measure to deter such activities. While Steemit represents a novel approach to incentivizing content creation, similar concepts of rewarding users for their posts have been explored in the past by platforms like Bubblews and Bonzo Me, though with different payment methods like Paypal. Taringa, a social platform from Argentina, also rewards users with bitcoins for content sharing. The success of Steemit in attracting and retaining a user base remains to be seen, considering past experiences with other incentivized content platforms and social networking sites.