A few weeks back I wrote a post about @wherein, a social media application on Steem that was aimed at the Chinese market.
At the time, it was very exciting news considering the size of the market and how technologically advanced the population is in that country. Opening up the Chinese market would be a major windfall for Steem. Wherein is an application that appears poised to do that.
Since that time, all was quiet. Looking at the activity on State of the Dapps, Wherein was not progressing very quickly. The user volume hardly moved. Having a handful of people in a country that is 4 times the size of the United States population is not very encouraging.
Part of the reason was the celebration of the Chinese New Year. This did slow the progress down a bit.
Another factor was the Chinese government blocking access to Steem. Many are aware of the government censoring of the Internet. This is something the Chinese people are accustomed to. A couple of weeks ago, SteemConnect was blocked in China meaning signing on to the blockchain was limited.
To resolve this, since SteemConnect was out, WhereinConnect came in. They designed their own sign up process to work around this blocked API.
They published the code on GitHub for other developers to use.
https://github.com/where-in/whereinconnect
I believe Wherein offers the next step in the evolution of the Steem ecosystem. Up to this point, many on here are focused upon the blogging aspect of Steem. Since Steemit was the first application, that is what the blockchain became known for. From that time, everything was designed with that in mind. Some of the early birds who amassed a large stake are doing what they can to protect that concept.
The reality is that Steem is evolving to the dismay of many. We see this mindset as archaic already. A number of application were created that are not focused upon long blog posts. That is a good thing when you look at the percentages of online activity. In both use case and value, blogging is minor compared to the "micro" activities of Twitter and Facebook. Quick posts are the norm while making up the majority of social media traffic.
Wherein targets this market. The Chinese are very adept at using applications to share their day. This is going to be no exception. In terms of sheer volume, this nation can offer up a tremendous amount of activity. The project team even developed wherein-bit to allow people to express themselves. They believe "it from bit".
Essentially, their hope is to get the users to share the different "bit" parts of their lives. Many noted that Steemit or none of the other applications are threats to Facebook since they are not modeled after that application. I agree with that. Wherein, however, is targeting the same type of activity. They are not concerned about blog posts. The target is an individual sharing about her day at school or what is for dinner. Again, this is the vast majority of what social media traffic is.
And they aim to pick it up.
Here is a full post detailing their plans.
@wherein/hello-2019-whereinconnect-and-wherein-activity
Personally, I hope this project is a raging success. From a numbers standpoint, targeting those in China is an incredible idea. Blockchain is something that could go over well there since the Steem ecosystem cannot be blocked. Evolving to the point where there are enough nodes so that it is impossible to block them all is coming.
It is evident this team understands the challenges of dealing with the Chinese authorities while knowing what the population wants. Applications such as Facebook are blocked in that country meaning there is a hole in the market. Without the biggest bear in the social media world, there is an opportunity for something else to step up. Perhaps Wherein can make some progress.
Another factor is the idea of cryptocurrency is well known in China. A lot was made of the Chinese mining companies with Bitcoin. They received recognition all over the world. I surmise this filtered through to the population. Again, if people in that country have the opportunity to engage in social media while making some currency, it is an added bonus.
I hope every Steemian supports this initiative since it is one that truly could change the face of Steem.
We look forward to more updates from the @wherein team.
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