Introduction to the update
The following survey of Steemit community members’ views concerning issues that deserve attention as we move forward to the rollout of SMT program now includes the results of studying articles published during the month of October. To help those who have seen the earlier version of this post, I have placed (Oct30) before each new entry.
The new entries are to be found in the sections on technical issues and on marketing issues. Notable among them is the contributor who has raised for the first time, in this body of literature, the matter of digital media ‘fingerprinting’ now being used by Google and Facebook. The webpage where this matter is discussed is found below among the list of URL sources (see the video item under “October additions”).
To make this report, I waded through 10 Google screens brought up in response to appropriate keyword specifications, and reviewed the texts of 11 articles, including two in foreign languages (via Google Translate).
A number of these articles include commentary concerning issues that are already cited in the earlier report and so they are not specifically identified here. I have kept a file where I have abstracts of all of the detailed commentaries collected since the day of the SMT project announcement (ask if you wish to have a copy). However, these are commentaries that are focused upon identifying work that needs to be done, as distinct from the mountain of commentaries heaping praise upon the project and announcing that STEEM was now “headed to the moon”!
Updated report
What are the main SMT-related questions or challenges that leaders of the “SMT Project” should address as the near future unfolds? Are you interested in seeing synopses of Steemit community members’ views about those questions or challenges? If so, please see one synopsis below. No doubt, others will be published in due course.
You will see how I compiled this synopsis after I present its contents. Also at the end I list all the URLs for the pages from which I extracted ideas shown in the text that follows.
The synopsis is organized on the four broad headings: technical issues, marketing issues, system maintenance issues, and other widely commented issues that I decided to downgrade for this presentation. Please note that some of the points stated below have aspects that involve more than one of the broad headings. Also, it is understood that the SMT project leaders will want to re-group items under headings of their choice.
Technical issues:
- How would the automated market-maker system work, and will SMT developers’ access to it be suitably simplified?
- Assuming that the required software engineering and witness support goals and milestones have been mapped, is progress towards achieving them being systematically tracked?
- What tests are being put in place (for use prior to the rollout of SMTs) to ensure that the leaders of entities that wish to implement SMT's will not be required to be, or to employ, block chain geeks?
- Will the mechanics of setting up a new SMT be made easy enough for people without strong backgrounds in the related technologies? The White Paper does show a related form that people are supposed to fill out; but is that all there is (as mechanics) to setting up an SMT?
- (Oct30) Some entrepreneurs setting up an SMT project might wish to use a different token generation process than that outlined in the White paper. Are your engineers going to design the process to allow flexibility in response to the entrepreneur's needs?
- (Oct30) Some entrepreneurs who wish to start SMTs are going to require the media fingerprinting services be purchased and used for their own legal protection. What steps will be taken to assist these persons to acquire the services at affordable cost?
- (Oct30) The system response to the recent Ddos attacks well as the recurrent performance glitches highlight an important technical consideration in the context of the rollout of SMTs -- “the Steemit-site will need to be a lot better protected than now”.
Marketing issues:
- Are you developing a public communications program, with appropriate communications-specialist support, to ensure that all major aspects of SMT implementation can be well understood by people who do not have specialist technical knowledge and who are unfamiliar with the specialists’ jargon?
- In your public communications, will you ensure that all new concepts and related terminology developed in connection with the SMT project are well defined for clear understanding by well-read lay persons?
3a. Are you imagining various scenarios whereby the growth of particular SMTs might exert negative influences on the future expansion of Steemit, and what steps are you planning to put in place to manage such situations?
3b. (Oct30) Although current software development effort needs to have a major focus on SMTs, is there a consequent degree of neglect of fixing problems in Steemit that will work against having an impressive launch of the SMT program (due to surrounding performance issues in the Steemit environment? - What steps are you putting in place to manage the situation in which multiple SMT's emerge within a short time, including a number that raise the kinds of troubling questions now publicly raised about many ICO’s? In other words, are you assembling an experienced team to manage the situation in which some bad public branding emerges from well-publicized stories about the SMT roll-out process or particular ‘sketchy’ SMT initiatives?
- Since some kinds of SMTs might raise particular issues regarding potential SEC scrutiny, what steps are being taken to provide support, or access to support, to parties that may need help to proactively address possible SEC concerns?
- (Marketing) Teams of volunteers should develop well-criticized statements about potential use cases for SMT’s. That is, the use case descriptions should be made public only after they have received serious criticism from various viewpoints, their realism e.g. .
(Note. Several of the questions just stated might seem to be miss-classified under a “Marketing” heading. What I have in mind is that they have aspects that will or could impact on how well the SMT project will be ‘sold’ to the relevant institution leaders. SMTs are already getting branded, and so concern about how the branding process unfolds as we go forward seems to be in order.)
System maintenance issues:
- What steps will be taken to ensure that the platform is not flooded with scams?
- What steps will be taken to ensure that a party bringing an SMT to the marketplace has satisfied the various requirements needed to promote its reasonable longevity?
Note: it might help thinking about these and related items to think they are about threat management strategies.
Other widely commented issues:
The next two issues appear at the bottom of the list for reasons I will state.
• Should the rollout of SMT's be delayed on to Steem it has achieved needed improvements and much wider acceptance in the marketplace? (I feel that this ‘train has already left the station’.)
• How can SMTs gain and grow value? (I feel that that this issue rests nearly 100% on the shoulders of the parties that will bring SMTs to the marketplace. However, Steem Inc. leaders will no doubt be concerned about helping SMT developers to avoid experiencing well-publicized ‘value failures’.)
End of the synopsis!
How was this synopsis developed?
Starting on the day when the SMT Project was announced, I have carefully watched for related posts under the “New” and “Trending” menus. I have allowed several days to pass before trying to make this report, and last night I checked carefully the items that appeared on the following URLs: https://steemit.com/trending/smt, and https://steemit.com/created/smt . I invested many hours in studying not only the main texts of posts but also the comments.
Here is a listing of the URLs from which I extracted materials ideas that appear in the synopsis. I took the time to check posts that appeared in other languages, in search of ideas that would be useful to have in the synopsis (with the help of the now fantastic Google Translate — the translation quality is invariably bad (I know that from my command of French); but the conveyance of the sense of ideas seems pretty good most of the time).
https://steemit.com/steem/@ned/announcing-smart-media-tokens-smts
https://steemit.com/ned/@coffeelovers/smart-media-tokens-will-it-be-a-reality-soon-2017929t23292569z
https://steemit.com/smt/@the-alien/smart-media-tokens-introducing-the-game-changer
https://steemit.com/steem/@ned/explainer-value-flows-on-steem-with-smts-video
https://sIn closingteemit.com/smt/@heymattsokol/developing-steem-to-its-fullest-potential-why-smts-are-crucial-and-steemit-com-isn-t-so-important
https://steemit.com/smt/@firepower/steemit-s-smart-media-tokens-will-be-the-real-game-changer
https://steemit.com/steem/@yabapmatt/will-the-new-smts-help-or-hurt-steem
October 30 additions
https://steemit.com/steemit/@brothermic/smt-but-is-steemit-being-pushed-back
In closing, I have assumed that the leaders of the SMT Project are actively interested in sampling the views of the members about matters that should concern them as they pursue the success of the project in months ahead. different reports on the same topic might be equally useful. However, this is a personal review of the literature, and others may be also helpful if not better.
Le Statisticien, Arawak_InfoSYS and http://www.marketstatsanalytics.com .