Peerhub: Bringing Steem Beyond Social Networks To The New Economy!

in #steemit8 years ago (edited)


Introducing Peerhub to the Steemit Community

Dan spoke about Steemit's plan for world domination here and described how the Steem network can extend far beyond just a social network and can be used to bootstrap an entire economy using Steem Dollars. I agree!  

The Peerhub marketplace will now be focused around Steem dollars and the Steemit community.  Just like Craigslist you can post listings for Goods, Services and Housing.  

Here is an example of what a listing looks like:   

Here is an example of the Gallery View of listings:

Here is an example of an AirBnb-style room listing:

The Peerhub Difference

I started Peerhub in early 2014 and worked on it for a year before putting it on hold.  It is meant to be a Web 2.0 upgrade to the old online marketplaces that include Craigslist, Ebay and Etsy.  It is meant to use the best new blockchain money of the world and be a foundation for a New Economy.  Peerhub started with Bitcoin as a payment option, but I wasn’t convinced mainstream users would spend or want to learn about Bitcoin.  People don’t want to spend an entirely new and volatile currency and Bitcoin owners really want to hold Bitcoin as an investment just like gold.   I had Peerhub waiting in the wings until a strong cryptodollar solution came along and am confident Steem dollars and the Steem community will be a perfect fit for this platform!  I expect that the Steem dollar will eventually become much closer to parity with the US dollar and that there will be much more liquidity in the near future, so let’s do this!

Open & Social Platform

Peerhub is meant to be an open and social platform.  However, you can remain anonymous on the platform if you want because all you need is an email address to sign up.  The social revolution of Facebook and Twitter hasn’t extended too far into marketplaces yet, although Etsy and Airbnb have led the way.  People make purchase decisions based on social influence and trust so there is definitely a huge opportunity for more open and social marketplaces.

Product & Technology

 Search Bar / Filters / Menu

This marketplace platform was designed around making things very easy to use and our goal is to maintain a minimalist and intuitive UI/UX.  We also want to keep the website performance high and loading fast.  Our core philosophy is making things simple, easy and fast.  Excluding the time to find a photo and write a product description, it should take less than a minute to sign up and post an item!

Reputation System & Private Network

User Trust Ratings 

One of the key features of Peerhub is a very simple trust system.  All you do is click a button to trust or untrust someone. The higher trust rating you have the more comfortable others can be with buying and selling from you. Anyone you trust is part of a Private network and you can list goods/services/housing to only those in your Private network if you choose.  Sometimes you may want to sell an item for a deep discount or give away something for free to your Private network.  Sometimes you don’t want to rent out a room to a stranger, but might be willing to rent to someone you know.  

Rating System

Rating systems are difficult.  Some are too complex and many aren’t meaningful.  We have a simple four-point rating system that adds more meaning than Ebay’s three-point rating.  We have the following:  Love, Like, Neutral, Dislike.  Hence with the Love button you gain a greater ability to distinguish between products & services.  We will also allow both buyers & sellers to review and comment on each other.  

Messaging System

You can communicate with other members individually, as a group in your private network or in a forum with the entire community.

Local Filter

You can list items from anywhere in the world, but currently addresses and the Local filter just work for those in the US.  The Local filter displays items within a 50 mile radius of an address.  We would like to expand the Local filter for our international audience soon.

Steem Payments

All you have to do to accept Steem is to Edit your profile section and add your Steemit username in the form next to the word Steem.  Whenever someone buys an item from you, they’ll know what Steemit account to send the payment to.  That’s it!

Business Model

Listing, buying, or selling in the marketplace is completely FREE! How will we survive?  The main way we'll make money is from the Peerhub Store. It's important to know we have a sustainable business model, otherwise we won't have the resources to grow our platform much less maintain it.  

Peerhub Store

Our main priority is building up the marketplace, but we do have a store section we’ll use to sell thousands of new products we have access to through wholesale relationships. We'll start with books, health supplements and children's toys since we have access to good wholesalers in those categories. We have a book distributor with access to millions of books. Watch out Amazon!

For now we’ll only sell items in the Store for Steem dollars.  That will encourage outsiders to purchase Steem dollars on the platform.  Here are just some of the items we have in the store:


Books

Health Supplements

Children's Toys

[Note: We are in the process of updating our store listings so for now please message us before you purchase so we can verify the stock in our product inventory. ]

In The Future
  • Easy payment/checkout system (eg. Steempay integration)
  • Steem Escrow
  • Customized shopfronts:  Add your own business logo, theme, style and personalize your store. 

Community & Contest

We’re extremely excited to have @anwenbaumeister take the lead role in growth & community outreach.  She’ll also be posting newly listed items in the marketplace weekly and that should help you advertise your products to a wider audience!  Peerhub is live in beta so please sign up and list some items! 

Now Let’s Have Some Fun With The First Peerhub Contest Raffle!

We’ll have our first ever raffle contest for a total of $300 in Steem dollar prizes!  If you post a listing on Peerhub or if you reblog this post, you can earn raffle tickets to win Steem dollar prizes!

$150 Peerhub Listing Contest!  Three chances to WIN raffle drawing !!!
$100 First Place / $40 Second Place / $10 Third Place

Listing Contest Rules:

  • Your item must have a photo and must be something you really want to sell. 
  • You get one raffle ticket entry for each unique listing 
  • You must add your Steem username in your Peerhub profile section so we know where to send you Steem$
  • One unique winner for each place
  • $150 Promotion Contest!  Another three chances to WIN !!!
    $100 First Place / $40 Second Place / $10 Third Place

    Promotion Contest Rules:

  • Reblog this post !
  • You get one raffle ticket for each 10 followers you have if you reblog.
  • One unique winner for each place
  • Both raffles expire next week at 11pm ET Tuesday on September 27th.  We’ll make final determination of all qualifications and rules are subject to change for unintentional errors and omissions.  @anwenbaumeister will announce the winners of the contest next week. 

    Thank You.  Good Luck.  Have Fun!

    https://www.peerhub.com

     


    Let’s build this New Economy together.  The Economy for You and Me!

    Please click the reblog button to support us.

    Thank you!!!


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    Woohoo! Just posted my first item for sale. NOTE: if a user attempts to upload a png, the post fails with an unclear message. You really should either:

    • Allow png images
    • Warn users to only use jpg images

    Thanks! Here is a link to my product

    ScreenShot2016-09-20at4.37.29PMa53a0.png

    Exciting development in itself, glad to see you are starting this part of the revolution! Namaste :)

    Congrats @ned for being the very first customer on Peerhub and purchasing Bill's tumbler! (I don't believe anyone has purchased or sold anything before on the website other than myself. ) Thanks so much @ned and I hope Bill delivers. =P

    @ned also has the second purchase ever from Michael's Doge Astronaut painting by James Heninger here:

    Let me know how the transaction process goes. Thanks so much @ned @billbutler and Michael! Jd.

    Actually I think the Doge Astronaut painting was the very first transaction? Anyways thanks everyone!

    Fantastic! Yes I think that's a popular request so we'll try to bump that up in priority. Look forward to your listings!

    I'll deliver. Getting them etched on 9/29 and in the mail 9/30!

    Great to hear! Maybe wrapped with a bow/ribbon and a personal note? Just kidding, but people do like the personal touch. .. great job on creating the product btw!

    Thanks Bill! Looks nice. Yes jpg only for now. We have to get work on the error message screen. There is a info callout so hopefully that helps a little. Anyways nice job with the tumbler!

    Joining :) thank you for the info! Reblogged as well :)

    I love this. What a great way to leverage steem dollar utility. Thanks for creating this. Reblogged and tweeted!

    Great thank you for the support!

    Upvoted! I really like what you are doing here. Shared on
    https://www.facebook.com/vetvso
    https://twitter.com/exploretravel1
    and much more :-)

    All for one and one for all! Thanks and namaste :)

    Thanks so much for the share! Feel free to reblog to enter our contest!
    Hope you list a few items. Thanks!

    Joining! nice work :)

    how this affects plans for SteemMarket?

    Fantastic!!! Thanks so much for the support!!!

    Can I post services?

    Yes! You just need to click on the second dropdown filter! We don't have many listings and we're going to tailor the categories for the Steemit community as we get more listings.

    Congarts on the site, I just signed up and it looks neat, I will be adding some services soon.

    I also re-blogged this post so I hope I am participating on the contest as well :)

    Great thanks for the reblog! And yes you'll be entered in the contest! 8)

    First item on Line 😜 Reblog is also done! Let's do it!!!

    Ouppsss reblog doesn't work ... I always have this message :
    TypeError: undefined is not an object (evaluating 'i.get')

    Awesome thanks for the reblog and good luck on the contests!

    Steemit just keeps getting better and better! We are going to blow away any platform that even thought about existing! Good work @steemit

    steemiteinsteinc0177.jpg

    Einstein would be proud

    I added a request in the Steemit Wish List to officially integrate this into the main Steemit website!

    That would be an honor to be integrated. Thanks for the request and great list of suggestions @timcliff!

    There was a comment from one of the people in the thread about using the Steem blockchain escrow vs. your own centralized Peerhub escrow. Is moving to the Steem escrow something that you plan to eventually do?

    Yes the Steem blockchain escrow is what we plan to implement!

    Awesome, thanks!

    I was asked more than once "What can I buy?" or "Can I buy anything with this?" and could only reply that, yes, they could and will be able to do so much more as time goes by... Glad to come across this post, very well done. Thank you and namaste :)

    Thanks for checking it out and hopefully you list some things as well! Namaste

    It would be more interesting if it's ON TOP of Steem, but not only using Steem Dollar as a currency. Something like:

    • No need to sign up but use Steem accounts directly
    • info posted on Steem
    • Use Steem's reputation data of some kind, or reputation data being pushed/linked back to Steem

    Anyway, good job.

    Thanks @abit! Yes we'll try to find ways to use the Steem blockchain even more. We'll definitely use the escrow as well.

    to be honest, I think such service should not be free. Why I think so?

    This should be build on top of Steem and... small fee should be charged with each transaction made. This could be ultimate business model for steem network, something what could bring inflation to 0 or maybe even made a steem network profitable!

    Ned Scott just referenced this on the live streaming of this interview!! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nhqzPlHEt1Y&feature=youtu.be

    Awesome thanks for the plug @ned! Great interview overall by the both of you too!

    Awesome how did I miss this!!!
    Current Listings

    Bootable Chromium (chrome book) OS 32 GB $20.00
    Bootable Xubuntu Linux ISO 32 GB $15.00
    Bootable Ubuntu Studio Linux ISO 32 GB $15.00
    Bootable Ubuntu MATE Linux ISO 32 GB $15.00
    Bootable Mythbuntu Linux ISO 32 GB $15.00
    Bootable Ubuntu GNOME Linux ISO 32 GB $15.00
    Bootable Ubuntu Kylin Linux ISO 32 GB $15.00
    Bootable Kubuntu Linux ISO 32 GB $15.00
    Bootable Edubuntu Linux ISO 32 GB $15.00
    Bootable Lubuntu Linux ISO 32 GB $15.00
    Hacking The art of exploitation 2nd Edition $25.00
    ZAGG RUGGED BOOK 9.7-inch ipad pro $110.00
    https://www.peerhub.com/carlidos :)

    https://www.peerhub.com/items/6928 another great book we need a book section!

    Great... thanks for sharing

    We need more like this ventures! Congrats! Please consider adding the tag #UseSTEEM to your post since we are working on a new cause that looks to foster new and improved ways to #UseSTEEM straight, no need to exchange for fiat or bitcoin, that is the most important thing ever for us, so everyone benefit from having an stronger STEEM market. Congrats again and hope you join us!
    -- @develcuy

    Thanks! Yes will keep in mind to use the hashtag!

    I really like to follow you

    This is really cool. I'm hoping Steem$ will be the new favourite currency around the world. Is Peerhub global or just US? Ah I see it's global. Hope to see it allow local searches soon.

    Thanks! Yes you can use the filter to search for local products/services. We'll have to get enough critical mass to make local searches useful, but it would be ideal for people to invite and build out their own local communities!

    Cool. When I edit my profile I can't select a different country yet. Just being able to query by country would be good to start with as postage gets expensive when it crosses borders. Thanks

    Yes. We started with US based locations and will figure out how to add International addresses and Location filters. In the meantime messaging the buyer/seller beforehand would work. Just connecting with the others is the first step. Thanks for checking it out! Hope you list a few things!

    A serious question. Will "illegal activity" be deleted from the listings and who will be doing the deleting. I don't want to have myself out there and have a bunch of crazy stuff being listed along side of mine.

    This is a Web 2.0 marketplace so any 'illegal' activity will be deleted. Openbazaar and dark markets are great for those items. However we will allow gray area markets because pretty much everything can be considered illegal. Even food is 'illegal' so we'll push the boundaries to maximize freedom and allow most things. What we will do is just manage sensitive listings in appropriate categories just like Steemit does for NSFW. Our company will do the moderation.

    OK, thank you for the reply.

    So, are legal firearms, ammunition, knives, and similar items okay to list?

    Yes. We'll just have it in the Other section for now.

    Wow, this is another giant step for steemain kind. Awesome I think this will be very successful in the future. I think the idea of your own custom storefront will be a huge addition as well. Great post and well done!

    Thanks for your vote of confidence!
    Yes the custom storefronts will be popular. People can market their own store individually as well as participate in the broader marketplace at the same time!

    Amazing. Just amazing. You've put in tremendous effort and I can see this making a real impact. Appreciate you for doing this, respect.

    Thanks so much for your support!

    I have been thinking how to offer Reiki healing ... Then this comes along! merci beaucoup

    Yes please post. I was looking for some Reiki healing, but unless you're in my local area I'm not sure your energy can reach that far!

    Distance is not an issue. I'll write that post tomorrow. 11.20pm in Casablanca and time to sleep now.

    Here is my post.

    Great listing! Thanks!

    Will be checking this out as soon as I have free time! I have lots of stuff to list! This would be much better and safer than the Etsy store I have now. I am constantly worried that Etsy will shut down my store with no prior notification. I don't have anything listed that shouldn't be, but it sometimes happens to stores out of the blue and families may lose their entire income.
    Blockchain marketplaces are already winning.

    Sounds great I hope you do list your products for Steem dollars! This is not currently a blockchain marketplace, although we can transition to one if it makes sense down the road. It's more of a Web 2.0 marketplace using blockchain money.

    Love, love this!

    Thanks for the support!

    wow amazing! good luck with this and good luck to @anwenbaumeister who seems to literally be everywhere these days! When do you sleep girl??

    Thanks @ltm! Yes @anwenbaumeister is everywhere and wonder the same thing sometimes!

    Greatly looking forward to this! Would be a great way to get back into buy, selling, and trading games and collectibles!

    That would be fantastic! This will be a great platform for that!

    Question, when posting a product, the steem$ buttom means SBD right? or steem?

    Yes. SBD. We may change that depending on what people get used to seeing. I thought Steem$ would be good for marketing purposes. I've also seen $BD before too...

    cool, I would give it a try posting something!

    That would be fantastic. Please do!

    Someone should create a style guide. As a new-ish user, the lack of standardized taxonomy Steem-related things is an impediment to adoption.

    It's businesses like this that will bring money into the steem world and make it more viable to a wider audience, kudos to all involved!

    Thanks for the support! Yes we can definitely expand the audience!

    Amazing! Great way to keep the steem dollars in the system!

    Absolutely. We'll never have to leave the system. Self-contained and self-sufficient!

    Yay this is what we've been waiting for <3

    Rather than reblog...I'm sharing on facebook!!

    Fantastic. Thank you for sharing and hope you post a few items too! Thanks!

    Hopefully you could widen the scope as we cant use this in the UK due to the city setting.

    Yes. We're going to expand the address & location filters for International and just trying to find the best way to do that. In the meantime you can post items and just add city/country in the description and can message buyers/sellers to coordinate shipping. Thanks!

    Awesome!

    This would be great for online services.

    Yes. We're hoping to see a lot of listings for writing services, editing, graphics, translations! Right now I've only put one sample out there. We have some old listings from goods, but we just opened up services & housing for this community. Hope you list a few items!

    Marketplace should be on steemit.com to get any kind of traction, someone tried already to create a marketplace for steem and it didn't work out which is why the market is now down.
    Good luck though

    Thanks! There's a lot of work that's necessary to get traction so we'll put the work in. That's why we are lucky to have @anwenbaumeister ... hopefully others in the community will help us as well. Although having a native marketplace on steemit would definitely help traction, I think there's also a case to be made to keep things focused and not to try to do everything all at once to minimize confusion. Everything is still so early now. Hopefully we can bring new people into the Steem ecosystem thru Peerhub and create good synergy. If people don't want to write, but have something to sell they can go through Peerhub just to use Steem dollars.

    Hopefully this website gets some people Gothic clothing and accessories, because Etsy has a lot of them (which is primarily why I frequent it) and it's what I normally buy online.

    Yes hopefully we can attract sellers from Etsy! Thanks!

    Truly incredible! Great job in making this happen. Really like the simple UI/UX and reputation system.

    Thanks so much! Glad you like the UI/UX and reputation systems. We are really focusing on those two areas... Hope you list a few items!

    Resteemed

    Great thank you!

    Wow! what a refleshing and dynamic project...This is the next step in solidifying this community. I'm in e-Commerce and this is like a huge boost for me and my team in helping local merchant go online. We have everything to make things happen. It's up to us guys. Thks @steemrollin for your hard work. I can see how the BTS-Steem community will be coming together as brothers and sisters to take the community to this nex level with SteemPay & BlockPay Payment solutions for Offline & Online. Congratulation ! Yeap, u desserve my vote, my retweet and my network to bring this idea into market. It will be great to build it on Steem BlockChain so to benefit all the coming features of Graphene technology and all the blockchain currently in development (Steem, BitShares, PeerPlays, Cadastral).

    Thanks so much @pnc and great to hear from someone who has experience in e-Commerce!
    Yes we have all the blockchain solutions right here, right now and we can make it happen!
    I agree it's exciting to see everything going on with Graphene tech and there's so much potential for synergy between Graphene blockchains!

    This is just brilliant @steemrollin - AWESOME JOB!

    Thanks so much @macksby! Hope you list a few items too!

    WOW! This is fabulous!

    Thanks glad you like it!

    Great idea! Best of luck!

    Hi Steemrollin, we need your Vote. Please check out

    https://steemit.com/steemit/@ltndd1/reinvesting-in-steem-this-post-is-the-start

    Excellent post by the way....Just keep rollin rollin rollin

    I would reblog it even if you don't asked for it...
    It gives value to steemit 1000%... We are certainly living exciting days!

    PS would it make sense that peerhub get integrated into steemit and we use our existent accounts to make business?

    Yes thanks so much!
    Perhaps we can do oauth with Steemit just like we do with Facebook and have a 'Sign Up With Steemit' button. That might make sense eventually.

    Looks like a good idea, signed up and re-steemed...

    thanks..

    Thank you for re-steeming!

    I like "re-steemed" !!!

    I am an online seller from South Africa and I joined Peerhub directly because of this post. Thank you.

    Great to hear. Thank you! Hope you list a lot of items!

    Great to see this awesome platform. I will soon add all my t-shirts for sale on peerhub. Good luck!

    Fantastic! That would be wonderful! Thanks so much!

    Cool new feature. For sure I will use it at some point. And I have reblogged it.

    Great to hear and thx for the reblog!

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