Greymass is proud to announce Reprint - an open source framework for creating blockchain-based websites and blogs.
Reprint allows for a new era in blog syndication, allowing anyone to create a website of their own design, populated with content living on the Steem blockchain. This powerful new tool empowers website creators to make their own decisions about what blockchain-based content is most relevant to their visitors (regardless of who wrote it), and tailor how it's presented as they see fit.
Take control of your content and choose how your readers interact with it.
Reprint Core
The initial release of Reprint will include the core website engine and a basic set of features. The first production ready build will be released in early December, with many incremental releases along the way. The entire project will be available on github.com/greymass for those interested in contributing or experimenting immediately.
Reprint will initially support the following features:
- Engine: A simple web presentation engine capable of pulling information from the Steem blockchain and presenting it to website visitors.
- Themes: Using a combination of HTML and CSS, designers will be able to craft modern design templates that can compete with those of any other platform.
- Plugins: Developers will be able to extend Reprint’s core functionality, by leveraging its plug-in support, to allow for website features far beyond those of a simple blog.
This initial release will not include authoring, curation, or any other blockchain-manipulation tools. In the short-term, all blockchain input will need to occur on steemit.com or another compatible application.
What’s next?
We’ll continue providing further detail on our plans and updates on our progress regularly, at least through the end of November. This includes a more detailed timeline of Reprint’s incremental release schedule and our crowdfunding target for it, planned for week 3.
Expect to see Reprint-based websites start popping up soon, as we work with select early adopters to showcase the engine.
Why does Reprint matter??
Lots of great Steem blog posts don’t get the attention they deserve on steemit.com within their first payout window. After that first 24 hours, most content is essentially lost to the ages. Reprint allows website creators to extend the life and value of this written content by sharing it whenever they want, however they want, and with whomever they want.
Since it’s installed on their server, the owner of a Reprint website is free to promote themselves or their brand however they see fit, attracting an entirely new following of readers. Some of these readers will become Steem users, creating a trickle of new, real content consumers that both grow the community and vote on the content that exposed them to the platform.
We think that Reprint, when paired with Steem’s revolutionary content reward systems, has the potential to redefine blogging. We hope to convince you of our vision, because Reprint can only realize that potential with your support.
How can I support the project?
In a couple of weeks, we’ll be asking website creators to start using Reprint and giving us feedback. After that, we’ll be asking developers and designers to start making themes and plugins for it. Right now, we’re asking supporters to start donating to it.
We chose to open source this project to lower the barrier to entry and help us build community support around the initiative. We think this is software that needs to exist and we’re happy to build it, but we have bills to pay and can’t do it pro bono forever. Whether or not we gather enough support to allow us to continue beyond our crowdfunding campaign, Reprint is our gift to the community, free to use forever.