Ever wonder why there is a thumbs up, some amount of money and an option to login at the bottom of my posts? It all has to do with Steemit blogging. Never heard of it? Grab a drink (the choice of type is yours) and get ready to find out.
Steemit, a unique blogging platform
Steemit is a blogging platform built on the Steem blockchain. If I’ve lost you there, just stick with me for a minute. I promise it won’t hurt and it could be just what you’re looking for.
Let me backup. Have you ever heard of Bitcoin? It’s a cryptocurrency (which means it only exists on the internet, you’ll never find any lose bitcoins in the street) that created a phenomenon over the last decade. It’s worth a ton of real money if you have some.
Since it did so well, others have created new cryptocurrencies based on the same basic technology (it’s called a blockchain, but I won’t go into that here). Steem is one of those other currencies.
And Steemit, is a website like blogger.com or WordPress.com. Only bloggers get rewarded with a little Steem for what they write. It’s similar to Facebook in that you “like” a post, but you “vote” instead of like. The more votes someone gets the more Steem they get.
Getting paid for blogging on Steemit sounds great
I originally joined Steemit because I found someone who said you could make decent money there-just for blogging about whatever you want.
Like most things though, it wasn’t that simple. In fact, the cryptocurrency market has pretty much been in free fall since I joined. So for me at least, it didn’t turn out to be a place to make money. For some it is, but that’s too much to explain in this blog. If you want to know more though, tell me in the comments and I’ll consider another post with more details.
I found something better
As I stumbled along in the first few weeks, a few people took note of my writing and invited me to be part of their community. That’s one of the great things about Steemit. There are communities built around anything you might be interested in – art, real estate, photography, your local area, needlework – the list I think is actually infinite.
The first community I joined was focused on helping new “Steemians” (people who write on Steemit) and they thought my writing expertise could help their members. Being new myself, I wanted to help as much as possible so I began teaching some writing classes.
As time went on I found more communities I enjoyed. One that you’ve probably seen on my posts here is The Freewrite House. Its focus is providing freewrite prompts every day to help people with their writing. Don’t know what a freewrite is? It’s when you take a prompt and just start writing. No preparation, just writing out whatever comes to mind. On Steemit, the freewrites are meant to be daily five minute exercises, but they can lead to something bigger. But that’s a secret I’ll share in a later post.
A word of caution
I’ve found Steemit a great place to be, but it’s the wild west of the Internet. There are great people and communities, and there are people who will try to scam you. You can even find a whole new world of memes, art, music, video and even not-safe-for-work posts (yes, I mean porn).
It also isn’t that easy to join. It took my account three weeks to process before I could login. Then there’s the need for multiple passwords, all about 50 characters long…
So while it’s been good for me, it isn’t something you join on a whim like Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit. Once you get in, there’s a learning curve too.
If any of what I said sounds interesting, though, you should check it out. Here’s a link to my blog there:
You can start there and click on the Trending option at the top menu.
On the left is a list of topics and you can click on. Check them out and see if anything looks interesting enough to spend some time getting used to a new writing platform. Note you won’t be able to vote without an account, but you should be able to read as much as you want.
I’m happy to answer questions you may have about blogging on Steemit. Just post them in the comments!