What is going on Steemit community!
I am here to announce to you that Steemit has arrived, and successfully landed in Area 51!
Yes, that Area 51. The one that is so secretive the US government has yet to declare its very existence. The one that is rumored to be testing Extraterrestrial spacecraft.
I firmly believe that Steemit has forever changed the way we use social media. It has added another layer to Bitcoin's peer to peer protocol. This has been done by adding a monetary value to someone's opinion and/or content creation abilities. What is truly special is that users can gain notoriety by creating content for others to enjoy/evaluate, but also by giving their opinion in the comments section (more on this below). It allows all of its users to have a voice, and the community collectively votes on how credible the individual user is. It is the free market at work, but with social media.
A great example of this peer to peer social structure is Oprah Winfrey. Oprah has the world's largest book review club.
Imagine she starts using Steemit one day. She initially has zero Steem Power behind her. She begins to release her book reviews on Steemit and users like the content she provides to them. In return they "Up Vote" Oprah's book review posts.
Oprah begins to accumulate thousands of "Up Votes" from Steemit users.
Eventually she reaches "whale status" among her peers. She is a whale because the community has approved/appreciates her content.
One day the unthinkable happens. A user posts a comment to one of Oprah's book reviews.
Oprah is completely flabbergasted by what she has just read. It ends up completely changing her view of the book.
Oprah "Up Votes" the comment.
Since she has "Up Voted" a user's comment, Oprah has given some of her credibility to this user. Remember, that Oprah's credibility is given to her by the community. So when she "Up Voted" the user, it is as if the community that approves of Oprah, has approved this.
Now the newly "Up Voted" user has an increase in Steem Power. It shows the community that his/her opinion is now worth more. It is probably in their best interest to begin reading this user's comments or content.
Steemit has implemented a free market, peer to peer platform that informs users how credible or good someone is at what they do. It would not surprise me to see similar systems like this implemented into Facebook, Reddit, comments sections, etc....
Below is an illustrated example of what I had in mind while writing this post.