One of the features of attraction in Facebook is the possibility of local connections.
How often do you see the "My toilet is blocked, anyone know a good local plumber", "The snow is falling, is the school open today?", "Help, the Spar (7-Eleven) is closing down, where am I going to get my late night Pringle fix?" type messages on Facebook.
One of the (big) reasons that Facebook has over a billion users I'm sure is the local angle - finding local information, connecting with people in the local area, keeping up to date with local news and gossip...
Although there are steemit meetups popping up around the world they are still few and far between, and generally in major cities.
Of course steemit is still young and innocent and thinly spread. In Wales where I live, I'm not sure if there are more than a few dozen steemians yet.
Steemit wants to grow, and to grow big it will need to evolve.
Part of that evolution will be appealing to the masses. Part of appealing to the masses will be growing the ability to make local connections.
Maybe there is a way to supercharge the local angle by the creation of 'SteemTowns'.
Abersteemit
To explain this let me take you on a short journey into the near future to a small Welsh seaside town called Abersteemit.
Abersteemit only has a population of 3400 people but there are now over 300 people using steemit.
It all began when the Abersteemit Chamber of Trade saw an article online about steemit looking for pioneer SteemTowns.
Like many small towns in Wales (and most likely around the world) Abersteemit is struggling to keep shops open, to get tourists to visit, to keep young people to stay local...
The Chamber of Trade was looking for ways to give the town a boost and to put itself on the map. They sent an email to the SteemTowns Outreach Team and within a few days they had signed up.
Workshops were held, leaflets handed out, talks given to local groups.
Fifteen local businesses signed up in the first week, along with the two local schools, the doctors surgery, the young farmers club and the local youth theatre.
The local history society who are trying to raise money to set up an Abersteemit Museum saw it as a great opportunity to get their collection of old photographs online and to fundraise at the same time.
With only two objections the local Town Council agreed enthusiastically to sign up so they could put the minutes of their meetings online and post tenders for grasscutting and paths maintenance.
They hope it might encourage more people to get involved with the council - they still have five vacant seats to co-opt. They also agreed that any money they earnt on steemit would be put into a special fund to help local charities.
A couple of members of the Town Council raised the issue of whether posts could only be in English. They were reassured that as long as all posts are tagged with #st-abersteemit people could post in Welsh or English.
A local organic veg box scheme jumped at the chance to join in. They are already posting recipes to make with what's in the veg box each week, and they have even put the first video profile on d-tube of one of the local producers that supply the box scheme.
After another workshop with the SteemTowns Outreach Team Anwen Jones who volunteers in the library has been selected Town Curator and Martin Pennington from the history group and Nia Williams from the doctors surgery are assistant curators.
Anwen is also organising 'Get started with steemit' sessions every Wednesday evening in the library.
The SteemTowns Outreach Team helped the Chamber of Trade with the launch of the Abersteemit SteemTown. They even managed to get a minor TV celebrity who lives locally to make the first post at the launch event.
The local paper, the Cambrian News, ran a piece on the launch and already two nearby towns are wanting to launch their own SteemTowns.
We've now just heard that the Welsh TV channel, S4C are going to feature Abersteemit SteemTown on their afternoon show Prynhawn Da next week.
One month into the project and Abersteemit SteemTown already has 307 members on steemit. Altogether they have made over 4,000 posts and nearly 10,000 comments.
Nearly all members are following and upvoting each other. Between them they have 63 posts upvoted by the @Curie project and they have amassed rewards valued at over $60,000.
That is my vision of what could be.
I have spent many years as an activist working on local food projects, engaged on local environmental campaigns, organising local loyalty card schemes, running festivals and trying to get people involved in their community.
Alongside this, in my work life, I have been involved in internet and web development since 1994. That life started by chance when I set up what became one of Britain's largest local online community networks with a six figure user base at its peak.
Now I see a chance to complete that circle.
Could SteemTowns work?
[SteemTowns graphic by Pennsif; images from pixabay - Creative Commons CC0]
If you found this post useful or interesting please do upvote, resteem and follow. Thank you.
You might also be interested in some of my other recent posts :
Pennsif's Progress - The Days are Numbered // Day 941 : When Nature Calls, The Rabbit Runs
[GUESS THE YEAR - WIN 3 SBD] - Professor Pennington's Experiments in Time Travel No.2
Professor Pennington's History Archives : Convent High School, Loughborough (Form 4a, 1946)
Pennsif's Progress - The Days are Numbered // Day 949 : The State of the Prep - 50 Day Review