The Witness Files - Issue 11 with @fyrstikken

I had the pleasure of having a chat with @fyrstikken for today’s issue of The Witness Files. He is involved with SteemSpeak Radio, and is an investor and active Steemit evangelist.

If you are new to The Witness Files, it is a series of interviews I did with some of our top witnesses, to get an insight into who they are and what they do.

You can find the previous issues of the Witness Files below: Issue 1 with @complexring, Issue 2 with @riverhead, Issue 3 with @picokernel, Issue 4 with @jesta Issue 5 with @roelandp, Issue 6 with @pharesim, Issue 7 with @klye, Issue 8 with @clayop Issue 9 with @good-karma, Issue 10 with @roadscape

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Welcome to today’s issue of The Witness Files with @fyrstikken

Thank you for taking the time to chat with me.

My pleasure, I hope you have a great time on Steemit :)

Tell me a bit about yourself. Who is @fyrstikken?

I run SteemSpeak Radio & Discord at http://steemspeak.com, it is a raw uncensored 24/7 talk-radio where we discuss and debate everything from the next steemit-update, economic models, global politics and steemit politics - moderated by a broad spectrum of moderators and broadcasters from the bottom to the top of steemit. It is absolutely a wonderful place to listen and to be heard.

I am also an active Steemit Evangelist, blogger, cartoon-creator, writer, entertainer, producer and net investor in SteemPower and an advocate for a balanced economy.

Wen you’re not on Steemit, what do you enjoy doing?

I have my day job which is trading the legacy markets for a collective of small funds, and I run a few other businesses - I enjoy creating, it is my passion - creating good stuff, good revenue streams and enjoying a good steak with red wine.

How did you first find out about Steemit, and when did you first become a witness (using the @fyrst-witness account)?

I found out about steemit by someone telling me that people used my content (articles, videos etc) and made money on them. So to protect my brand I had to step in and say no to plagiarism. Since then I have learned a lot about the amazing technology and believe Steemit is a sustainable solution for the future under construction.

In your mind, what makes a top witness?

Someone who contribute greatly to the steemit platform and continues to do so. A Witness should not be a witness if he is no longer contributing. Nobody should rest on their laurels.

As someone who has been involved professionally in sales/marketing, how do you think we could attract more investors to Steem? What changes or new features would you like to see to attract more investors?

First we need to get the inflation to a sound level so we can great a mean uptrend.

Second we need revenue streams like advertisement, product-sales, services that bring in outside-money to steemit in a way that will benefit the investors with voting-rights (SP Holders) and the bloggers who contribute with content that outside viewers will read.

There have been discussions recently about introducing advertising on to Steemit. How do you think advertising could benefit Steem, and what do you think would be the best way to do this?

It is a great idea. And as I suggested in this post, I believe that the easiest sandbox-solution is to start with something as trivial as Google Adsense which will teach our developers a lot about the business so they can work on our own SteemSense solution.

If you could change any one single thing on Steemit at this moment, what would it be and why?

I would add private messaging, add profile picture and profile-information. But those things will come soon enough. Steemit just started and I am sure we will see a lot of nice stuff rolled out at and after @steemfest.

How do you see the Steem ecosystem evolving over the next year or two? And what new features and projects would you like to see implemented?

I have a 9 year perspective on steemit, I made this keynote-draft with some insight to what I value as important on this post:

User-Growth is key, and if we are 20,000 real users on the platform now - with a doubling in users every six months then in about 9 years we will be at facebook-levels and with our economy structure as the base fundament for everything built on top of steemit - who need banks then?

I´m in Steemit for the Long Run.

Thank you for your time

It was a pleasure, thank you for interviewing me. Don´t forget to vote for @fyrst-witness

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Hope you enjoyed this interview with @fyrstikken.

For more interviews with our witnesses, please follow me @nextgen622.

And to vote for a witness, you can go here: https://steemit.com/~witnesses To vote for fyrst-witness, go to the bottom of the page and type fyrst-witness, and then click vote.

Jimmy