Why aren't you on Steemit yet?

I'm going to be calling out a few of my real life friends with some very basic questions topped with some facts about Steemit and blockchain technology. Thanks to IFTTT, it's going out to my Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn feeds and I'm going to tag my real life friends with a follow up.

Whether you click - Whether you join - Hey, it's up to you after that.

QUESTIONS

> Have you posted your inner-most thoughts and opinions on Facebook?

> Do you have stories, anecdotes, photos, art and music that you want to share to a diverse audience?

> Are you sick of having your voice censored because you have strong opinions?

> Are you an expert in any particular field?

> Do you like memes, contests and challenges?

> Do you spend at least an hour a day on your other social media sites?

> Have you thought about expanding your brand or outreach to a new audience?

> Have you wondered how you might take your business to the next level?

> Do you have the capacity to learn new things?

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If you answered yes to any or all of these, guess what? You are a perfect match for Steemit.

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What is Steemit?

In its current form, Steemit is a blogging platform built on blockchain technology where our coined phrase is: "Come for the rewards. Stay for the community." But we are not JUST a blogging platform. We've got dozens of independent projects in development by enterprising groups and individuals.

Let me give a cake analogy. If the blockchain is the spongy part of a cake then the foundational currencies: STEEM, SBD & STEEM POWER is the icing. Okay. It's kind of a plain cake but it's still a cake. So we add some decorations to this cake: a whole bunch of sprinkles, some candles, and whatnots...

Translated: We have a monetized blogging platform, apps, marketplaces, creative arts studios, digitized galleries, etc.

Now, most of us don't care or really think about the spongy part of the cake.
We want the whole shebang!

Come on! Stick some candles on it, sing happy birthday and dig in, right?

But a cake isn't a cake without the spongy center, is it?
We need the blockchain and the witness nodes, otherwise we've got sweet ideas

-- and nothing else --

Why I choose Steemit

I joined Steemit in July, 2016 because I was looking for a place to hang out and possibly earn some money for my content. I've written for HubPages, have maintained my own blogs for several years, and really made no significant money. I've never had a trending article with millions of views to command a large payout.

Then there were other pay-for-content sites.
Well... I made sure I saved all of my Bubblews articles about a month before they shut down because they never had a plan for sustainability. I wrote two posts for Tsu before I absolutely knew they were doomed from the beginning. Frankly, I'm surprised that SkyPip and PersonaPaper are still around.

These four mentioned sites have several things in common:

• rely on ad generated revenue to pay their creators
• revenue based on unique views (which is usually negated if your reader uses Ad Blocker)
• no backup plan... errr... Let me rephrase to NO PLAN AT ALL
• censorship
• minimum payouts (if you ever make it to the minimum)
• your content is WIPED when the site dies

Where are the whitepapers? Where is the roadmap for growth? Where is the transparency?

As a content creator, do you think the sustainability of a site is kind of important for your work?

How about value?

Do you think Mark Zuckerberg values your time and creativity?

You bet your ass he does!

Is he sharing the revenue generated by your time, attention and creativity WITH YOU?

::hears crickets::

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Why is a blockchain important for your work?

“The blockchain is an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions but virtually everything of value.” Don & Alex Tapscott, authors of Blockchain Revolution

What's that again?

"An incorruptible digital ledger..."

What's that good for?

• Smart contracts, data management, PoI (Proof of Identity)
• P2P (Peer to Peer) transactions
• Crowd sourced venture capital funds
• Transparent, publicly accessible, and verifiable transactions for governance and auditing
• Provable date and time stamps for intellectual property

So I had a quick chat with witness @timcliff about the accuracy of my cake analogy and he was kind enough to give a thumbs up with a secondary explanation of a blockchain.

"The blockchain is kind of like the cloud. It is a bunch of computers out there, and everyone's "stuff" (content, comments, votes, etc.) is all stored in the cloud. The witnesses (nodes) are the ones hosting the computers which make up the cloud. And the reason it is called a blockchain is because all of the computers that make up the cloud need a way to communicate with each other and keep each other up to date, so the system packages everything that happens in a 3-second period into what is called a 'block' - where a witness produces a block, and then that block (with everything that happened in that short time frame) gets sent to all the other computers in the network/cloud."

Get on board you stubborn fool!

I don't need to know how to build an engine to drive a car.
I don't need to know how electricity powers my coffee maker to brew a pot.
Guess what? You don't need to know how blockchain technology works to open up an account and start a digital wallet.

Steemit is not perfect.

In fact, we've just celebrated our first year and we've probably got a few more years to go before we breach beta. But I'm telling you as a friend, a blogger, a creative person, an entrepreneur, and a freshly minted cryptocurrency noob fanatic - you may never find an easier gateway into the future of things than Steemit.

We are a community of amazing, helpful, knowledgeable people
and we can get anyone past the learning curve

But I'm sharing this with you because
the gifts YOU bring to the table will benefit us all.

Join Us!

To my Steemit friends: You are welcome to take any or all segments of this post to recruit your friends if you find it helpful, with the exception of my SteemVerify badge unless you are sharing this post as a whole. Thank you.