I was reading this recent post by @therealwolf and I found an interesting discussion in the comments section triggered by @smooth where it was brought up the need for more effective marketing strategies for the Steem blockchain and the need to create value. My immediate impulse was to reply with a comment. But I would not have been able to elaborate in few sentences what I have to say so I decided to write a post instead.
I think the idea of using Steem to reward content creators it makes sense because it creates a community of people that share the same medium of exchange, this contributes in giving Steem some intrinsic value. However, I see most users focusing on content and blogging and they often miss the bigger picture. You can't have an ecosystem where value is created out of thin air and a community of bloggers cash out indefinitely their rewards. For this system to be sustainable you need to attract investors and give them good reasons to buy Steem. I think something that we overlook is the potential of using our blockchain to develop services. Costs of running a business here are pretty low because transactions are free and there is a pool of talents willing to actually work in exchange for some Steem.
I am one of the members behind the @davinci.witness and few months ago we started an interesting experiment with @utopian-io that I believe could benefit the whole community. As you know utopian is being very active is helping the open source community in multiple ways. The @davinci.witness helps with the management of the translation category.
Why is this important?
Well every week we contact several companies and we translate their software. Many of these companies never heard of Steem before so we are their first contact to this ecosystem.
You don't need to have a vivid imagination to see that this could become a great marketing tool. We are showing companies that they could get extremely cheap services simply by using Steem. The best part is that by doing so we are also creating a welfare mechanism where we distribute thousands of Steem every week to users that work using our blockchain. We have just started but I can see great potential in what we are doing. However, we need to get better at communicating and interacting with the community because if we want to succeed we will need some help. Utopian has been the engine behind this but they support so many communities that we cannot expect to rely solely on them. For this reason, we must try to find additional supports. If you would like to learn more about what we are doing feel free to leave a comment below and if you will go to the Steemfest make sure to look for @misslasvegas, she will be wearing our t-shirt, so you can't miss her. Also, a way to support us at no cost for you would be to cast a vote for our witness @davinci.witness.