Have you been paying attention? If you've kept your eyes open here on Scorum over the past few days, you've likely noticed a trend -- major Steemit users, including witnesses, have joined and are starting to contribute here on Scorum. @tuck-fheman, founder of the Steem Poker League, vlogger @dontstopmenow, Steemit Witness @ats-david, @inthenow, @bethalea, and many others have begun pouring into our great community. Tuck instantly purchased nearly 10,000 Scorum and immediately converted it to Scorum Power, and is now including Socrum in his new poker site in partnership with @ats-david.
This isn't happening by chance. These aren't bums with nothing better to do. People with experience in blockchain and cryptocurrency believe in what we're building.
While Steemit remains the top dog when it comes to blogging platforms on the blockchain, Scorum is taking a bite out of Steemit. Why? Because Scorum is doing many things the right way, many of those better than Steemit even in its infancy.
Here are 10 things I believe Scorum does better than Steemit right now.
#10. Prevents Self-Voting Comments
I've never been a big believer in upvoting your own comments for "visibility." As a community, we've agreed that upvoting our own posts is okay within reason. After we voiced concern about users using all of their voting power to upvote their own comments ("nice post") to steal additional coins from the reward pool, the ability to self-vote comments was removed by the development team.
For years Steemit has had a bad whale problem. While a move like this will not prevent all forms of abuse from happening, it's a great step in the right direction.
#9. Notifications
A small feature can make a huge impact. Native notifications help keep users on the platform and up to date with everything going on with their account. This feature still has room for improvement, but is a big step up from forcing us to visit an external site (like steemd) to get real-time notifications.
#8. Being More Than a Blogging Platform
The Steem blockchain is more than Steemit, but if we're just comparing the two, Steemit, at its core, is a blogging platform. And as a blogging platform, it has many flaws. Scorum was built to be much more than a decentralized blogging platform and the other pieces of it work cohesively.
With an advertising feature on the way, Scorum is also finalizing their commission-free betting service and commission-free fantasy sports site, which all can be accessed (when available) from your Scourm account. The diversity of Scorum is a strength, and will help it rise above other platforms like Steemit that have one core function, as long as they execute them well that is.
#7. It's Deflationary
Steem has a total supply that has crossed over 290,000,000, and it will continue to rise. The structure of Steem impacts each platform built on the blockchain, including the ability of users to earn.
As the number of coins increase, the price of each naturally decreases. While I'm not an expert in the economics of Steem or any coin, I personally prefer deflationary coins like Bitcoin. Scorum is deflationary as there will only ever be 20,000,000 Scorum coins created, which will slightly decrease over time. Each Scorum token will become more and more valuable over time, rewarding active users and investors.
#6. Revenue Sources
Scorum, unlike Steemit, will generate revenue in several ways, including through (pay-per-click) advertisements, which are partially distributed back to users. 50% of revenues will be given to users in the form of Scorum tokens with the other half going to support the development of Scorum products and future research and development.
Scorum is also developing a partner program and a photo database. The partner program will feature a marketplace where users can purchase items from partners. Broadcasts of sporting events, merchandise, and sports tickets among other items will be sold right here on Scorum.
These sources allow users to benefit from the commercialization of the platform, keeps Scorum tokens circulating, and allows the team to receive a consistent stream of revenue to make updates and develop brand new products.
#5. Post Reward Structure
Scorum's post payout structure rewards engagement on posts, and it's clearly payingoff. When you compare the comment section of a popular Scorum post to a popular post on Steemit, you can see the difference. On Scorum posts, its not unlikely to see dozens of strong comments, most of which are rewarded by the author. The author then receives a piece of those rewards, giving them a greater incentive to reward their readers with votes.
#4. Responsive Team
No one understands what Ned is doing over at Steemit in my humble opinion. At Scorum, we hear from the team regularly, and when a user has a problem, members of the Scorum team are quick to offer a DM to solve their issue. I've had around 10 interactions with the Scorum staff from their community managers to their CEO, and each one has been pleasant and helpful.
#3. Constant Improvements
Scorum is a completely different place today than it was just a month ago, or even a week ago. New updates are coming in quickly and consistently, and with the platform already looking and functioning better than Steemit in my opinion, future changes will continue to separate it from current and future competitors.
The updates also keep users happy, and I can't wait to see what they come up with next.
#2. Community-Led Checks and Balances
Banning self-voting comments was a small but important change made by the Scorum team. What we're seeing outside of moves made by Scorum staff to help the platform grow and curb abuse is a community-led effort to stop plagiarism, users gaming the system, and milking of the reward pool. On Steemit, all three of these run rampant with few whales doing much to stop it. Don't get me wrong, there are some awesome whales who spend nearly all of their time fighting bad actors, but they are the exception and not the rule.
#1. Ease of Publishing, Formatting, and Publisher Tools
[Posting on Steemit is a *little* bit ridiculous](www.notarealwebsitelink.com).
After having to use HTML codes and spend an unnecessary amount of time formatting posts that still turn out looking sloppy, publishing on Scorum was a wonderful surprise. The user experience, including the experience of content creators, is much easier, better looking, and faster. And it will only get better with more publisher tools are on the way from the Scorum team.
We may only be two months into the existence of Scorum, yet all the signs of a great platform are there, and many of the problems experienced on Steemit and other communities are either non-existence or have been lessened.
Do you agree? What points am I missing? Is there anything I think Scorum does better than Steemit that you disagree with?
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