Introduction
The Steem blockchain has slowly evolved into an ecosystem of side chains, exchanges, game portals, frontends, project development forums and so on. It is difficult for the average user to keep up with the different aspects of the blockchain in this kind of situation and this is just the beginning. With time, the Steem blockchain space will not be a community of users but a network of communities and then the user who does not know his or her way around would miss out in many opportunities that would abound.
Notification services like ginabot, steemnow, steemworld and the like have traditionally focused their attention on the Steemit platform only and as such transactions and interactions on the other projects on the Steem chain are mostly lost in the shadow casted by Steemit.com. Whether, the designers have the intention to incorporate other project activities into their notification services, cannot be identified as at the moment of writing. It is believed, no expected, that in the future the top notification services on the Steem chain, would ensure that they cover as much of the activity on the chain as possible.
Project Idea
In a bid to push the possibilities inherent in having a Steem notification service, this article presents the Steem Chatterbox. Like a radio that receives all channels within a certain frequency, the Chatterbox would be able to generate the totality of activities on the Steem chain. What this means is that, instead of getting notifications about posts, comments and votes only, one can get transaction history on Steem engine, cards won with numbers of battles engaged in on Splinterlands, rewards received on steemleo, pal, Steem, and whatever token whether on Steem engine or SMT as well as the value of every token on the chain. Basically this project would cover the whole chain and if you want, you can access your witness activity in the same place as a new bid for a Gold foil dragon card or the price of any given token in the market, powerdown/powerup activity, active and inactive accounts and so much more.
Benefits
The benefits of the Chatterbox project are varied and all cannot be pointed out in this article for the idea is still in its infancy and also due to a lack of technical know-how and how the blockchain functions on its basic level. What can be identified as benefits though, include;
• All notifications will be in one place, saving space on browsers as well as phone memory for apps.
• A more complete grasp of the effect of actions on the chain. Issues like onboarding, active and inactive users per project, the effect of bidbots as well as which projects are enjoying popularity can be easily pinpointed and this will ensure a proper generation of statistics for the overall chain with regards to growth and development.
• The introduction of SMT, Communities, Steem engine has given the chain a more varied ecosystem whereby for example, a player of the Steemmonster game might have no idea that there is a platform called Steemit or Dtube. He or she would have splintertalk.io as his or her blogging frontend of choice. This chatterbox project would give every user on the chain, a link to every project that is of interest to him or her, in one place.
• Fraudulent activities like anonymous fake accounts siphoning funds or circle jerking each other or stealing identities in order to defraud naive users of a certain project platform can be easily traced as tokens moving throughout the chain can be traced in one place.
There are more benefits that better heads would be able to identify in this project. This article will lay no claim to knowing it all.
Constraints
It is possible that such a project would be too big and too wobbly to handle. This idea is not based on technical knowledge of blockchain protocols, programming or software for that matter. It is just a presentation of what could be possible in the future, what can be done to make the space a much more attractive place to grow and sell content.
It is also possible that the project will cost more than anyone person can afford and as such would become a white elephant project. This article cannot pursue the financial stakes that would have to be put forward to make the project possible as that knowledge is not available or known yet.
Another possibility is that such a project already exists or is in the works even though it is not generally known by all. Someone else with the capacity would have thought about it and might already have a team in place in order to make it happen.
It could also be that this paper is saying a whole lot of nonsense and as such none of what is suggested is feasible or realistic. No research was carried out, no questionnaire was shared to check the pulse of the Steem chain in order to ascertain the value of such a project to the chain and as such everything written here is based on the mental mastication of a singular individual with too much time on his hands.
All these things are what can be seen as possible constraints in making the project happen. It should be noted however, that what is being offered here is an idea. An idea that was picked up from a post by @bashadow where he discussed his process creating a page in which all the Steem blockchain based projects he is involved in can be accessed in one place. It was this post by @bashadow that generated the idea for this Chatterbox project.
Conclusion
It is the wish that this piece meets those who are involved in the development and invested in the architecture of the Steem blockchain. It is hoped that they see the benefits in this idea and pursue the implementation of the idea for the betterment of all here on the Steem chain.
When SPS becomes active, maybe someone more technically knowledgeable would be able to present a proposal that incorporates this idea into it to the Steem community. If anyone does so, it is a hope that it sees the light of day.
Disclaimer: The author of this post is not a witness, developer, programmer, financial analyst, project developer of any sort. Everything shared here are his own opinions and ideas. His only claim to his right to write this is his love for the Steem chain and all it represents. If the ideas shared here are redundant or irrelevant, it would do him a whole lot of good to know in the comments below. If it is a viable idea, it would be wonderful to read the discussion below as well. No matter how technical it gets, which it will, at least the idea will have been planted somewhere and as can be seen from the present climate, the Steem chain is quite fertile.
warpedpoetic, 2019.