Voice: First Thoughts
Valentine's Day was especially kind to me this year. First when I went to eat my morning bowl of cereal, I found a wonderful card from @mrsbozz sitting on the counter. It immediately brought a smile to my face even though it was only 5:00 AM. The second surprise happened later that day when I received my beta access email from the EOS Voice team allowing me to create my account.
To say I was excited would be an understatement. As devoted and vested in Steem as I am, the idea of being involved in something that EOS had a hand in from the ground level was enough to make me giddy.
The differences between the two platforms are apparent right from the get go. To create your account you need to go through a pretty extensive KYC process. It felt more like I was creating a trading account with Binance or Kraken.
Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining. I knew that Voice was going to be much more transparent than most of the other platforms out there. They have been very clear about that, and in fact it is one of their selling points.
I have to admit though, it still feels weird having my full name appear on my profile page. You don't see it in the image above because I scrubbed it out, but trust me, it is there right above where it says @bozz in large bold letters.
The Bad (If you can call it that)
My biggest gripe so far is the fact that they did the launch on a Friday. Since there is no official mobile app yet, this means that I need to use a desktop. My desktop at home is more of a server than an actual daily use machine. This means I wasn't really able to play with it over the weekend and now I feel like I am already behind the curve on followers and potential earnings.
Right now the tokens are worthless and when the product moves out of beta whatever worthless tokens you have earned will all go away. Be that as it may, I know from experience on Steem that building connections is what really matters and my fear is that not being active this first weekend will deny me those important connections to future influencers.
Another issue is the fact that I am hesitant to post content right now. As I said, the in app currency is worthless right now. Sure they might give us a swap when it moves out of beta or some other incentive, but why would I want to waste my good content on potentially worthless rewards? It is a fine line between posting engaging content to garner followers now without tipping my hand on my really good stuff.
Finally, my last bad thing would be that the platform is pretty restricted. They have some very specific rules against certain behaviors and things like explicit content. Where pretty much anything goes on Steem, censorship is much more prevalent on Voice.
The Good (See Above)
My first good thing is the same subject as my last bad thing. The fact that Voice has greater restrictions on content means that it is going to be a cleaner, safer environment for individuals of all walks of life. I like the heart of the idea of keeping the platform a friendly and welcoming place devoid of the darker stuff that sometimes pops up on Steem.
The second thing would be the fact that there is going to be something here for everyone. When I was first introduced to Steem, my impression was it only contained well written, highly technical content. It was pretty intimidating at first, but I soon found that wasn't the case. My fear was that Voice would follow a similar route and I would have no chance of competing. Those fears were quickly resolved when I saw that one of Dan's (Larimer) first posts was a picture of his cat.
Finally, the interface is clean and pretty easy to use. I am still learning the mechanics of how everything works, but I think once I get the hang of it, things will be pretty cool.
Final Thoughts
The rewards system is not what I would call conventional. From what I gather voting on posts is more of a contest than what we see on Steem. It is almost like you are bidding to be the highest "voice" on a person post. I haven't dug into the documentation completely, but I am guessing that being the top voice gives you more of a reward than being one of them that got "outbid".
This is really only my second day on the platform and I have a ton to learn yet. Right now I can see Voice as being a good supplement to my work on Steem. I wouldn't be surprised if I do quite a bit of cross posting between the two platforms in the future. Most of my stuff is pretty tame anyway, so I don't need to worry about the censorship aspect.
If you are a US user who has been given beta access, what are your thoughts on the platform so far?
