The past couple months, my excitement for the Steem platform has grown tremendously. With SteemFest² now in the past, we can get back to work to continue to build the best blockchain in the world.

Here is a video I made using Gource to show the development of the Steem blockchain from the beginning back on March 22, 2016, until Oct 24, 2017.

There a many people that think Steemit, inc needs to do this and do that for the frontend UI known as Condenser, and that they aren't doing much but here's a video to show that they have been actively working on a lot for Steemit.com. It starts from July 28, 2016, until Nov. 10, 2017.

Applications

There are so many projects now for the Steem platform and I look forward to being a contributor to that list soon. I think one of the most interesting projects that sprung up recently is @Utopian-io. I think it is ingenious to have users be rewarded for their open source contributions to the development of the Steem platform. Thanks to @elear for making this contribution to the open source community and had recently left his previous job to work on this project full-time!

https://utopian.io

Zappl

I really enjoy how @Zappl has been set up and allows a different way to interact with the Steem blockchain and give a Twitter-like user experience. It's been a little rough launch of this application but there is a great team working around the clock to get it running smoothly and have fewer bugs to fix. Overall, it's a great application to onboard new and different users to the Steem platform. @thedegensloth started with this idea and made it a reality for us to enjoy.

https://zappl.com

chainBB

A forum-style frontend that long-time Steemian developer and witness @jesta had cooked up has been up and running for some time now and chainBB is focused on discussions.

My goal in building chainBB was to bring a product that was focused very deeply on engagement. It can be hard to keep up with a busy discussion using a reddit-style interface having to hunt-and-peck at responses as they come in.
https://chainbb.com/chainbb/@jesta/chainbbcom-a-blockchain-forum-platform-for-steem

Now, users can create their own community forum on chainBB that helps makes it more organized and easier to find the discussion you want.

http://chainbb.com/

Busy

Also been up and running for a long time now, @Busy.org was one of the first applications that were launched after Steemit. Founded by @ekitcho and @fabien, they created and user-friendly interface where users were not only limited to the Steemit interface and to help show what is possible to do with the Steem blockchain to expand the Steem ecosystem. With a newly updated UI, you can get to see how Busy complements Steem and the various other applications on this blockchain.

https://busy.org

eSteem

The first mobile app that was developed for Steem. Witness @good-karma has been working on this app for a while now and has come a long way from when the earlier versions of the app were launched. Packed with a bunch of features and he has done a great job to bring the Steem platform to mobile devices and working on bringing us the eSteem webapp soon as well.

https://esteem.ws/

SteepShot

Started as a mobile app, @steepshot also has a webapp so Steem users can enjoy an Instagram-like interface to interact with the Steem blockchain. @pmartynov presented the early version of this app back at the first SteemFest in 2016. Along with their team, they created an app where users can earn rewards for sharing their lifestyle and visual experience.

https://steepshot.io/

DTube

A decentralized video sharing platform that not only uses Steem, but also IPFS protocol to have decentralized file storage. There are a growing amount of people tired of Youtube and @dtube has changed the way how videos are uploaded and watched. Uploaders can be rewarded via STEEM and @heimindanger has done a lot to keep the cost down for us to use the DTube service.

https://d.tube

DSound

@prc followed the same approach with @dsound and created a decentralized sound platform for music lovers and anything audio. Now we don't have to rely on centralized services such as SoundCloud and allows for many people including music artists to distribute their music and earn rewards.

https://dsound.audio

dMania

@dmania is a take on 9GAG but on Steem where users can share memes, funny pictures, and gifs and earn some rewards. @zombee introduced the dMania platform to give users an alternative way to submit content to the Steem blockchain. Not everyone can write blogs and this gives a simple way to onboard new users to the Steem platform.

https://dmania.lol

And More!!!

These are just the different frontends that are up and running. There are more to come and on top of that, there are tons of other apps I haven't mentioned in this post. You can check out http://steemtools.com to see the huge growing list of applications and tools that have been developed by your fellow Steemians.

This is looking to be an even better year for Steem in 2018. To add to all of this, there will be Smart Media Tokens, Decentralized Exchange, and Communities added to the Steem blockchain. I don't see any other blockchain with an ecosystem as diverse as Steem.

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Thank you for taking the time to read my post. Feel free to follow and find me in SteemSpeak on Discord.