Hivemind, Communities & SMTs: The STEEM Trifecta That Will Change The Internet
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Part of doing in-depth research is it is easy to acquire a lot of knowledge about something yet not know how all the pieces connect. Sometimes it takes just a little clarification to present that "Aha" moment.
This came to me the other night in reading an interview with Andrew Levine.
Hivemind, Communities, and SMTs form the trifecta that is going to allow the tokenziation of the internet. These three, together, are going to radically change the entire landscape.
Bold claim I know. By the end of this post, I think you will agree with me.
Hivemind is something that many of us heard about yet most are not familiar with it. It is what will allow Communities to be on Steem. Basically, this is a consensus layer on top of the Steem blockchain. It enables Communities to be a part of all applications, not just Steemit.
Here is where will see the smart contract features added to the Steem blockchain. It is also very helpful for developers who get to choose how decentralized they want their application to be. All data that is submitted to Hive ends up on the blockchain. However, features such as naming moderators, as an example, will be on Hive yet does not need to be synced with the blockchain.
It is crucial to keep in mind that all information on the Steem blockchain is the same regardless of the application. Hence, what Steemit reads is exactly the same as 3Speak. No matter which application is being used, the data is always the same.
Why is this important? Because it allows Communities to be a feature of Steem, not just Steemit. The Communites feature is can be used by every application.
For example, let us say that there is a community that forms on Steemit around travel. There are moderators assigned. All interaction takes place among the group members with rewards being spread among the active participants. What is innovative is that if there is a shift to utilizing 3Speak, the community is still intact. There is no need to have the membership enroll again.
This is a revolutionary idea.
The present Internet does not operate this way. Facebook and YouTube depend upon their ecosystems for their business model. Controlling that is where their profits come from. There is no sharing between the different applications. Separate log in is required for each. The largest group on Facebook, when going onto YouTube, must start from scratch. This is something that holds true across all social media.
Hivemind will change that.
The final piece of the puzzle is the Smart Media Token. As most of us know, this is the creation of individual tokens by the applications. They will be paired with STEEM on the DEX providing liquidity to any individuals token. With the addition of Communities, however, a SMT can be created by any community. This is another way to provide incentive to the community members.
Essentially, what is this does it is makes the community an ecosystem on its own. Using our travel group, let us presume they create the Travel token. This is part of the reward system for that community. It holds true whether they are on 3speak, Steemit, or any other applications. Other tokens might be earned using those applications but the community token will also be paid.
This is where you can see a post earning 3 different tokens...talk about a compounding system.
With the community as the focus, people are now choosing to interact with each other based upon common interest. At the same time, people within that community are free to use whatever application they choose to access the Steem blockchain. Since the community spans all applications, one can interact with the original poster regardless of the application used. Try to do that on YouTube and Facebook.
This also might be why we see all posts made by the different applications all feed into the "Blog" section on our profiles. This is conjecture on my part, but if Steemit is set up in a Reddit fashion, with a community formed for travel, then all posts from the different applications will feed into that. Hence, if I log in through Steemit, I will see posts from D.Tube, Zappl, Dlive, and whatever else people put up there. I also can comment and vote without having to log into the application.
The interesting part is that the community could be set up in any application. Since communities crosses all applications, the followers of that community can access it from anywhere. Basically, the applications become tools for the community members to use. At the same time, non-community members can upvote the content providing inflow of Steem and, perhaps, another currency into the community.
Another aspect is the existing sites that are out there. We know many talked about blockchain or implementing cryptocurrencies into their ecosystem yet, for the most part, none have made the move. The biggest entity that I can think of is Kik when it comes to creating their own. I believe YouTube is also doing something with the BAT token. Nevertheless, the traditional social media sites have done little in this realm.
While I would not expect the major outfits to alter their business model since it is so profitable, some of the secondary sites might look hard at what is taking place here. They could easily tie their application into the Steem blockchain, create a token using the smart contract, and start using the system within minutes.
The important feature is the sign up process. This is something we were told will be fixed come Hard Fork 20. Having this automated means that a site with a few million followers could easily on-board them to the Steem blockchain.
Now I can see why it is taking so long from the development team. They are not just working on the SMT but a number of different projects simultaneously. These are also pieces that interact with each other and are, essentially, dependent upon each other. Hivemind needs to be completed before you can have either Communities or SMTs. At the same time, all of it will be worthless unless the signup process is automated.
Nevertheless, there are big things that are going to happen on the Steem blockchain. "Tokenizing the Internet" now makes a lot more sense. So does the idea of 100K entrepreneurs on the Steem blockchain within 5 years.
Hivemind, Communities, and SMTs are the Steem trifecta that could really change the Internet as we know it.
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