The new year is started already in the East of the world - it will be midnight in 4 hours at the moment I'm writing here in Italy. I would write a post to thanks Steem and all the amazing people I met here. I'll write it in the next days, I think.
But now I want to write about the projects and things I would like to develope in 2018. Looking ahead is always something better than looking at the past, in my mindset.
What news do we expect from Steem in the next year?
I posted about my current projects already (here and here). I can just add something about it. But, before writing about my own plans, I want to remind the new features that are going to be released from Steem in 2018.
Nine months ago, the Marketing Team announced the priorities of Steem for the growth of the Steemverse: Communities, Friendly onboarding, Mobile app. Something changed about Signing in Steem. Nothing new about the sub-communities feature and the mobile app, AFAIK. So I expect to see this feature soon. (Here you can read how probably the communities will work on Steem)
The Communities will go hand in hand with the new feature announced 3 months ago, the Smart Media Token. So I think these 2 features will be released together. When? Soon, I hope, but the next Hardfork 20 doesn't include them, at the moment.
Steemit is still the pricipal interface for the social media community of Steem, and it had been upgraded during 2017. But there are still many improvements needed - in Steemit and in the other interfaces currently running, like busy.org.
The year of mass adoption
In the last months of 2017, the crypto-world and the blockchain technology achieved a very larger popularity. Governments and Institutions are looking at that with more attention, and so do the common people. Steem have to put a bigger effort to stay afloat in this acceleration. And that is not just something about technical capacity: a marketing investment is required, in my humble opinion, as well as official PR.
Maybe 2018 will be the year of mass adoption of cryptos, and just the best projects will get it.
Ok, now my own projects.
Steemarket
I'm going to announce a better release for Steemarket soon. The artist community on Steem is growing. Artists and all freelance creative workers are the ones that benefit the more from the greater innovation created by Steem: the reward system for original contents. So I think a better organization for these contents will be needed (Utopian is doing it greatly but just for programmers and developers).
Steemarket is just a showcase, at the moment: it will be soon able to post in the blockchain and organize data about artworks and art activity.
I have 2 other projects going on at the moment:
- Creating a Steem Point in my city in Italy
- Launching a university research about the "blockchain revolution" from a social point of view.
About the Steem Point, I'm still in the part of talking to the urban authorities to let them understand the project itself.
About the research I'm more ahead: the research plan, created with some teachers of Florence University, will be announced in a couple of weeks, I think. It will be the first actual university research on the social changes coming from the spreading of blockchain-based projects.
Look ahead and Steem on!
Happy new year! :)
image source: https://www.istockphoto.com/it/vettoriale/felice-anno-nuovo-2018-gm636546872-112986311
