Are we ready to start making getting jobs easier with Steemit? Claim my 2000 Steem prize to make the first functional server for steemj.com which I hope will be an online freelancing platform that quickly becomes 10 times better than Upwork and Fiverr which are two of the largest websites where clients and freelancers connect!
Would you read the 6 bullet points below to learn the basics of this new project because I think it will help us all add massive value to our community?
SteemJ Prize Explained Fast!
- OPPORTUNITY! Why build SteemJ? For five years I have had a dream of making earning money online easier with the world's best online work platform because today it is just as challenging to start from zero as it was for me six years ago. Upwork.com is currently the world's largest online freelancing marketplace where over $1 billion dollars in jobs are posted annually by five million clients. Getting a job and making good money on Upwork is challenging because there are over 12 million freelancers competing for 3 million jobs with fees beginning at over 20% of what the client pays versus what the freelancer receives. Alternatives including Fiverr, Craigslist, and many more all offer opportunities but none makes it easy if you want to work to get hired. While few entrepreneurs are crazy enough to start a new freelancing website today because of the initial problem of getting user signups and capital, on Steemit we can literally make one with the existing users where no one pays transaction fees and all the work we do posting and commenting serves as our resume! Getting a functional freelancing marketplace for Steemit is almost guaranteed to provide enormous added value to users, bring in many more new signups, and at least double the Steem price as cryptocurrency traders buy in on the excitement!
- DEVELOPMENT! Will we work together to combine Steemit and SteemD into profiles on SteemJ because there every Steemit user's profile and data from SteemD would be available immediately for hire and hiring? To make getting started as easy as possible, for this prize I am simply asking to use the existing data from Steemit/SteemD and make it into a functional interface for SteemJ! Future projects posted on SteemJ which also will naturally be visible on Steemit will continue providing additional rewards for updates and adding new features!
- STEEMJ.COM! Using the posting key to sign in, we should be able to post new jobs created as new Steemit posts, upvote jobs, and comment on jobs to apply. Each Steemit.com profile should have a matching SteemJ.com profile link featuring the account value, basic profile info, listing of blog and job posts, and total SteemJ payments tracked via memos. On the homepage, we should see a basic definition of SteemJ as a marketplace for freelancers built on top of Steemit with user numbers from the distribution, new job posts, active freelancers, and videos explaining how to use SteemJ from YouTube.
- PRIZE! Make a functional server with SteemJ live on it according to the full specifications listed in this post. That server should then be validated by the community in the post you make asking to claim the prize based on the comments made by Steemit users which should include at least 5 top 100 Steem witnesses verifying that it is safe to use and giving their approval for paying the prize to the author of the post. Complete this and I will pay everyone participating as listed by the lead developer out the total prize of 2000 Steem by powering down my account for one week or making a transfer from Bittrex. At the same time, I will change the mapping on steemj.com to the new server from its current pointing to my profile!
- GROWTH! Whoever claims the prize successfully also will receive first access to each new job for developing and upgrading steemj.com! For example, the next job might be 1000 Steem to add private messaging. Once we have a functional version of SteemJ I will then begin my efforts to bring freelancers and clients to sign up for Steemit to start using the freelancing marketplace! When we combine all of the value we currently have with what we can do with SteemJ, I hope that this will continue to provide greater rewards and opportunities for every new user that signs up!
- LIMITATIONS! While SteemJ offers huge potential, the one big downside is the requirement for users to get involved with cryptocurrencies because all payments will be made in Steem or Steem Dollars. I think as digital money starts to reach mass adoption, this will become less of a limitation. Until then, SteemJ will provide a marketplace for those with Bitcoin, Ethereum, Steem, SBD, or any altcoin to successfully spend their earnings on Steemit!
Will you read more here to see what I am asking in exchange for the prize I am offering and/or watch the video on YouTube today making this announcement in greater detail below?
This project is the same I mentioned in detail in this previous video named "What Do Ethereum, Litecoin, NEM, Dash, Ripple, and Monero Need to Be #1?" as seen below! The Dash community voted on my pre-proposal that I should not even make an actual budget proposal for this which is what gave me motivation to sell my masternode and invest in Steem! I am grateful they did now because our community here is perfect for this project!
Desired outcomes and amazing features possible with SteemJ!
- Provide a clear reason for freelancers and clients to begin using Steemit. Freelancers would continue joining Steemit to earn on posting, build a blog which acts as a resume, and apply to jobs all with one profile requiring no fees! Clients invest in Steem Power to earn interest, earn even more with upvotes, and then use SteemJ to find freelancers clearly qualified based on their posts that are excited to work for them!
- Offer a marketplace for all cryptocurrency users to connect and exchange services. Those with huge profits from trading and mining wanting to hire help for their growing businesses would easily be able to connect with users hoping to make their first money freelancing online without having to convert to cash and sign up on other websites. Steemit users hoping to freelance online would gain concrete motivation to make their best posts regardless of upvotes to be most able to then land a job with a whale!
- Reward clients for posting new jobs with upvotes thereby simultaneously promoting those jobs to many Steemit users and even in Google search traffic! What client would ever again want to waste time signing up on another website when they could potentially make hundreds of dollars just offering a job on Steemit? What freelancer would want to waste time hunting for jobs on another website when they could verify the account posting the job on Steemit had or did not have enough cash available on Steem, Steem Power, and/or SBD to pay them?
- Built in accountability to the community for following up with job postings. On Upwork clients often do not follow through with the hiring process because there is no one that oversees this part of the process. About half the jobs I applied to were just closed with no one on Upwork being hired to do it and many of the jobs I posted I did not hire anyone for or I paid hardly anything for them because I could get away with it without even taking a bad review. Posting out in the open to the community on Steemit provides enough excitement to follow through with the hiring and a big penalty in building a negative reputation if jobs are posted without following through on the hiring.
- Flexibility in types of jobs offered and simplicity recruiting for large jobs online. On Fiverr, Upwork, and many freelancing websites, the types of services allowed can be restrictive while on Steemit we can offer an amazing variety of jobs because of our openness in what types of posts we allow. For example, on Fiverr I wanted to get hundreds of users to beta test an app for the iPhone in 2014. I spent hours ordering hundreds of gigs which seemed close to offering this service. A few hours later, Fiverr support decided before they even contacted me to cancel all of my orders because a few buyers complained that they were not offering to specifically beta test an iPhone app and were afraid of me giving them a negative review. I then had to go back and much more carefully place orders again which still caused problems with a few sellers because they did not want to cancel the gig or get a negative review or complete a beta test. What a nightmare this whole process was when really the job was simple! Just download and test a new app on the iPhone for $5! How easy would it be on SteemJ? I just post a job saying I want 100 beta testers for an iPhone app and am paying 2 Steem per test and a link to the survey to complete when the test is done.
- Increased buying demand for Steem on exchanges like Bittrex. Speculators and traders often will place huge orders on a cryptocurrency when any new and exciting feature is in development because of a desire to make money before others do the same. Announcing and promoting our online work platform with SteemJ provides a perfect public relations opportunity to get more buying demand on Steem making all of the Steem and Steem Power we have worth even more! When we combine this buying demand with new clients joining with the intention of posting jobs and hoping to impress freelancers into applying with large balances, I think a functional SteemJ.com is ideal for a consistent Steem price rise to over $10 within nine months!
- A reason for mass market adoption of Steem especially by exchanges like Coinbase and Bitstamp. As I explained in my second video above, most of the existing cryptocurrencies provide little reason to use them over a credit card, bank account, or PayPal because of the perceived pain of changing and trying something new. Why bother paying in Bitcoin when I can pay with my credit card for the same service a family member asks? When I already have a Coinbase wallet with Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin, why bother using anything else to send payments online? A freelancing marketplace like SteemJ makes a foundation for a lot of USD and fiat currency conversions to Steem and back. Coinbase, Bitstamp, and similar exchanges where fiat currency can change easily with cryptocurrency are likely to base decisions on which cryptocurrency is most profitable to include next based on their estimated volume of fiat straight to Steem now and in the future. Any cryptocurrency likely to drive in new users with USD to spend and sell especially at the $1,000+ level is likely to get included because of the opportunity to earn profits from fees on the exchange while those that are just traded are less likely to be included. Addition to a major fiat exchange would help us all a lot because of being able to directly withdraw without using another third party service.
For this prize, I hope the goals are clear and easily targeted for coding!
- Make a functional server that just needs to be mapped to https steemj.com. I mapped it with http://steemj.com here to my profile to prove I own the domain for this already but would like to make it secure for the real thing. I will get the SSL certificate or use one the developer provides if they/you would rather do it that way! If you intend to do this, would you please state that clearly here in the comments by quoting "I am going to start developing SteemJ today" or "I will consider developing SteemJ if ..." to help each of us see in the comments if you are planning to try for the prize. Ideally anyone interested would work together to build the best for us! I am happy to split the payment among everyone included including any referral fees. For example, maybe @jesta has a friend that messages him this post and then @roelandp joins in to help. Hey this is my post I can fantasize right? The total payout would then be 2,000 Steem divided among the three however they requested with the two developers having first dips on each new SteemJ job related to building itself!
- Have every Steemit profile page available on SteemJ like at http://steemj.com/@jerrybanfield/ although this currently just forwards to my profile! On the SteemJ profile page, have information from Steemit including account name, website, location, join date, followers, posts, following, reputation, and picture plus account value with a link to the wallet, last active taken from last post on Steemd, Steem Jobs posts from the system below, last blog posts, latest comments, and SteemJ transaction amount on SteemJ taken from memos including SteemJ.
- Tag tracking using steemj as the main tag as I have done on this post to trigger checking the rest of the tags. For all steemj tag posts, the two categories should be "newjob" tag to highlight job postings, "jobsuccess" for finished jobs which would make a great resume builder for the freelancer, "jobreport" to share updates or anything besides a success, "resume" for freelancers to make posts to showcase talents, and "jobhelp" for any challenges from clients not paying to freelancers not finishing work or questions. These tags should then be checked for in order to create posts in the SteemJ profile which would show all posts under SteemJ by the account holder in one place and then all posts the account holder commented on in another. For example, I could post the follow up job for adding new features under tags "steemj newjob" to trigger the post to appear in my SteemJ profile under "SteemJ Posts". Then when I commented on the success of another job that would trigger the post to appear in my SteemJ profile under "SteemJ Activity" allowing any user to easily see my posts and comments. Freelancers then could easily review their job applications by checking SteemJ Activity on their profile and clients could review their own job postings under SteemJ posts on their profile which would then separate from other blog posts. Ideally posts would not be shown twice with the highest rank being SteemJ posts, then activity, and then the other Steemit blog posts.
- Track all SteemJ transactions with "SteemJ or STEEMJ or steemj" in the memo and include them for the Steem and SBD transaction value for that user's profile. For example, when I pay out this prize and include steemj in the memo that would trigger my SteemJ profile to show 2,000 Steem in transactions. If I then sent 200 SBD for another project, it would show a total of 2,000 Steem and 200 SBD in transactions for me.
- Build a homepage featuring a basic definition of SteemJ as a marketplace for freelancers built on top of Steemit with user numbers from the distribution, new job posts from the "steemj" and "newjob" tags, active freelancers from the "steemj" and "resume" tags, jobs finished from "steemj" and "jobsuccess" tags, and videos explaining how to use SteemJ from YouTube. Anyone visiting should then be able to immediately understand the purpose of SteemJ, see that active jobs are being posted, view completed jobs, and browse freelancers available for hiring in resumes meaning that we would essentially have immediate full functionally!
- Be willing to continue improving steemj.com with ongoing improvements and updates! For this post as the first SteemJ newjob post, I am hoping to build an ongoing relationship with a developer or team of developers to make SteemJ a ten times better platform than Upwork or Fiverr. To do that we will need to continue developing features like private messaging, job filtering, and suggested freelancers/clients to make the best user experience. I am hoping to start with this prize being paid out and continue offering further rewards such as 1,000 Steem to add private messaging. What might prove even more profitable for the developer would be the chance to post updates about this project which might be worth $1,000 each if they get similar upvotes as existing projects like ChainBB have. You certainly would have my upvote for every update and your own at least ...
Thank you for reviewing all of the exciting potential for SteemJ!
Will you help me make this a reality by contributing your support as an upvote or talking to a developer friend to bring them onboard or by participating as the lead/contributing developer on this project because your support will help us all benefit from SteemJ?
If you thought this was the end, I think after all the comments I read on my YouTube videos yesterday there is one more key point to address which are the downsides and limitations we face in making this. I prefer to see the big picture which usually includes the problems before I go into something.
Here is a list of the challenges I see for building SteemJ into the best freelancing marketplace.
- I have no deep relationships with any of the existing developers of amazing Steemit tools which led me to just post this up here instead of asking them directly because I need your help to make the connection. I am hoping to work with @jesta or @roelandp or @riverhead or @furion or @roadscape or @xeroc or @someguy123 or @originate or @blueorgy or @klye or @bitcoiner or @thecryptofiend or @fabien or @ausbitbank or @shaunmza or @ontofractal or @penguinpablo or @heimindanger or @originate or @arcange or @elyaque or @fyrstikken or @sarasate or @mynameisbrian or @good-karma or @mikehere or @inertia because each of you already have created tools for Steemit. I also am willing to work with anyone who can simply produce the result! The problem is I am new here and am limited in my ability to make deeper relationships on my own because of my existing responsibilities to make new posts and YouTube views and online courses which takes virtually all of my available energy and time. While I do have time to work with one developer or a team, I do not have the ability to hang out for hours and get to know the right developer beforehand. If you are not on the list above and are not interested in making SteemJ yourself, would you help me bring in a developer that will? If no one is willing to develop this, I will learn how to code to the point where I can build SteemJ myself.
- Requiring payments in Steem and Steem Dollars means everyone not already involved with cryptocurrencies have to learn not only the basics but be able to learn how to convert Steem or SBD to fiat which is not an easy process getting started. Fortunately I think that over time this limitation will continue to drop and in the meantime we can focus our market for those already in the crypto world. It is good to start out with a niche of clearly specified users and then with growth expand into the more general public. That said, only transacting in Steem and SBD in the short term eliminates probably 98% of our potential total users because many people will probably not even sign up if they know they have to go through a new process to cash out and many might even be quick to suggest it is a scam or ponzi scheme from contempt prior to investigation.
- Wide open job posts means potential problems from new clients getting thousands of upvotes on job posts where they never actually hire anyone to freelancers offering to sell illegal services. Fiverr got a lot of its early growth off of its fake Facebook likes and bot YouTube video views services. I know because the first profitable services I offered in my business online consisted of finding customers that wanted these services where I charged hundreds of dollars to deliver the same service I bought on Fiverr for $5. With over $100 million in venture capital since then and huge growth, Fiverr has removed these services and now is seen as more legit. You might argue I have made a similar transition. In summary, the same services and problems that might help us grow a lot in the beginning might need to be removed in future versions of SteemJ with no easy way to do it from the beginning until we see what people do with it!
- Payments, disputes, taxes, and accounting. With SteemJ simply providing an interface, my plan is to leave transactions and accounting up to individual users which could potentially be a problem immediately on disputed payments and further along with taxes. With SteemJ not handling payments at all, freelancers and clients would have to completely handle any issues with each other. Clients could easily stiff freelancers leading to a lot of heated posts and frustration. Future versions of SteemJ could have built in accounting tools and escrow services but the fact remains that SteemJ for the foreseeable future would make it easy for clients to get work done by freelancers and not pay them at least on one job as well as allowing people to work online and evade taxes until an audit caught up.
- Law suits, website bans, and classification as adult content. With the features of SteemJ comes the ability for users to post and create jobs to the point of causing legal action ranging from big websites like Facebook potentially banning URLs to Google classifying as a dark web or adult website depending on the NSFW posts and even a company like Amazon suing if users choose to post a bunch of Amazon reviews jobs. Fortunately with future versions of SteemJ we could filter posts, get help with flagging, and work to control many of these limitations. Still, MORE MONEY EQUALS MORE PROBLEMS! A website like this has such great potential for success that huge resistance from established companies, organizations, and even governments is reasonable.
In summary, there are some gigantic challenges we face both immediately and in the long term to make SteemJ a reality. To make this post cover everything, I have explained some of the more critical problems I see with proposed solutions and assurances that we can minimize most of these going forward while being guaranteed with success to also have matching failures. This way it is not just some total fantasy of mine but a vision complete with the excitement and the pain of building what I think could be the key to truly allow our community to take over in place of something like Facebook or Twitter or Reddit.
Would you help me make this a reality today with your upvote, comments, suggestions, and assistance bringing developers aboard because we can only do this together?
Love,
Jerry Banfield