While surfing the blockchain,

it's good to take notes to stay on top of any ensueing clutter that may emerge during your time on Steemit! Tons of information to ingest and the Meta Game doesn't wait! Let's see how we're doin after just about two months of flappin' about in the steemit #blockchain ocean.Nautical creatures and references aside, let's have a look under the hood in a journal meets benchmarking kinda fashion. Keeping track of stats to guesstimate your progress has never been easier thanks to simple insight and transparency that the Steem Blockchain provides! Hopefully like this we can expand upon what've learned so far. Here goes!

Stats from Nov 11 - Dec 14:

Last Benchmark - Dec 14.2017 Current Benchmark - Jan 12.2018 Gain Followers: 93

Following: 79

Own Blog Entries: 93

Posts & Comments: 463

Est. Account Value: 111.95

SP: 30

RP: 40

Delegations: 0 SP Followers: 260

Following: 123

Own Blog Entries: 198

Posts & Comments: 1390

Est. Account Value: 1,247.97

SP: 203

RP: 51.1

Delegations: 4.347 SP +167

+44

+105

+927

+1136

+133

+11.1

+4.347





Acronyms, Lingo and Vernicular:





Lotsa new acronyms flying around and making their way into the vocabulary around steemit and the blockchain! Let's try and stay on top of things by listing some of the more relevant ones up:

SP: Steem Power

VP: Voting Power

RP: Reputation

STEEM: Steem Currency and Blockchain

SBD: Steem Dollar

STINC: Steemit Inc.

PoB: Proof of Brain (thanks to @street.yoga)

PoS: Proof of Stake

PoW: Proof of Work

Of course this is just the beginning, to learn more you can check out the blockchain glossary.





About Reputation (RP)

Every new account starts with a (25) reputation score Your score increases with the number of upvotes and proportional strength of those upvotes Your score decreases with flags/downvotes Each successive number increment (i.e. 44 to 45) is more difficult to achieve than the former





Flows:

Investing in Steem Power, STEEM or SBD and then turning liquid or the decision to hold is up to you!

Using Blocktrades (for example) and a Crypto Wallet/Exchange of your choice you can pay in and out of steemit in just a few clicks. Here are a couple of example "flows" to illustrate how you can use your SBD or STEEM.

SBD > STEEM > SteemPower/Delegation

SBD > ETH/Dash/BTC > EUR/USD/FIAT

SBD > ETH/Dash/BTC > Alt Coin (e.g. LTC/DOGE/IOTA)

SBD > ETH/Dash > Purchase

ETH/DASH > STEEM > SteemPower > Delegation

STEEM/SBD > banjo/randowhale/boomerang/echowhale (bots) > Promotes your post! (fairly random, use at your own risk)





Synergies

Here are a couple of good app/blockchain combinations that you can try out at your own risk!

Steemit + Blocktrades + BitPanda

Steemit + Blocktrades + BitFinex

Exodus.io + Blocktrades + Steemit

Exodus.io + BitPanda + Amazon

Blocktrades + Freewallet + Twitch.tv

DLive + Restream.io + Twitch/YouTube/Hitbox/RTMP

Steemit + Blocktrades + Exodus.io

Steemit + LastPass + SteemConnect

Steemit + Chrome Extensions





Taxes and Legal Considerations

I am by no means an expert on taxes and law but I do know that you should read up on the local tax laws concerning crypto currencies so you shouldn't take my word for granted on these things but I have done a good deal amount of reseach into this too. In Austria (where I live) for example the Government has posted some pretty clear rules that you can check out, understand and adhere to here (if you speak german). But like I said, it depends on where you live! The more you know!





Tools:

Steemit More Info - A google chrome extension that adds all kinds of useful information, features and links to your steemit interface. From a detailed breakdown of your voting power to individual vote worth over to delegation and analytics link this one is a real game changer.

steemworld.org/@username - A detailed breakdown of all your steemit statistics. From simulating SP to a detailed breakdown of all your votes and stats, this might be the most complete analytics and statistics tools for the steem blockchain out there.

steemd.org/@username - A blockchain analyser and feed. Keep track of your and others SP, VP, Voting Patterns, Investments, Value, Transfers and more.

steem.supply/@username - A powerful tool that helps you see your monetary performance, how well your posts/comments are doing and when you can plan with the income.

steemtracked.com/@username - Think Google Analytics but for Steemit. Great way to keep track of your data and progress.

steemviz.com - An interesting and constantly refreshing aggregator of everything going on on steemit that shows you "snapshots" of the current state. Created by @ausbitbank

steemsql.com - All the data of the steem blockchain.

steemdunk.xyz - A useful curation/auto vote tool to support your favorite authors with. Occasionally also -

comes to upvote you for a small boost.

steemauto.com - Another useful auto curation and voting tool. I especially like it for it's "scheduled post" option.





Steem Platforms:

Remember these all work with the steem blockchain so a post from any of these will result in a post on your steemit blog too!

busy.org - Some say it's a little more easy on the eyes. Has more of a facebook feel to it.

steemshot.io - The Instagram equivalent. Better for photo content and short factor posts.

esteem.com - Mobile steemit/golos blockchain app. Handy notification settings on this one!

d.Tube - The decentralised YouTube equivalent using the IPFS (Inter Planetary File System)

dLive - A decentralised streaming platform in the vein of twitch.tv/youtube live

dSound - Looks like soundcloud but is blockchain based and decentralised.

dMania - Kinda like 9gag for the blockchain. Feed it with memes and get paid.





Non-Steem Platforms and apps:

altpocket.io - An interesting mix of cryptocurrency portfolio, social media and discussion.

sola.ai - Similar concept to steemit but favors visual content and shorter posts.

yours.org - Similar kinda blockchain social media to steemit.

exodus.io - A simple, elegant and quick cryptocurrency wallet and exchange for desktop.

cointracking.info - A more "professional" looking option to track your investment portfolios online.

coinmarketcap.com - The website to check current prices and market movement. refreshes

blockfolio -Useful mobile app to organise you cryptocurrency portfolio.





Bots:

Semi-automation is a bit of a controversial topic on steemit these days. However from the sea of shitbots around here are a couple that I've tested/looked at for you to check out.

@banjo : Promotes your post, synergises well with Discord

@minnowbooster : This bot project is the "Swiss Army Knife" for minnows, which can do a multitude of things. It is a vote bot similar to @randowhale, except with a predicible upvote return in proportion to your spending.

@randowhale : Send min. 0.5 SBD/Steem with your post link as the memo to get a vote.

@echowhale : Send min. 0.5 SBD/Steem with your post link as the memo to get a vote.

@boomerang : Send min. 0.5 SBD/Steem with your post link as the memo to get a vote.

@cheetah :A bot that automatically finds similar content.

@originalworks : Determines whether your post ist original content! Tag your work with it.

@appreciator: Send at least 2 SBD to participate in bid and get upvote of 0%-100% with full voting power.





Some of my favorite posts from my buddies and around Steemit:





Encounter- original artwork- progress step by step and GIF

125 years of modern art, visualised

Lesbian Zombies from Outer Space - Horror Comedy Graphic Novel - Pages 1-3

Helloooooooooo Steemit community! Animator in the house~

Daily Steem Stats Report

Interessant ist DAS was weder als "wahr" noch als "falsch" angesehen wird/ what is right what is right what is wrong.

The 12 Principles of Animation. No.10 Is a SHOCKER! You will know why. Lol...

D.Tube 0.6: Pushing it to the limit

Why I Speak"Denglish" On Steemit? Hildegard Knef, DJ Koze Und Meine Erste Post In Deutsch!

A Moment in India's History: Jallianwala Bagh

I'd love to include more but don't want to overdo it either...these are done in no particular order but I find them all excellent, informative, amusing, creative or daring. All subjectively speaking of course!





Goals and Future Benchmarks:

Rough Focus and Goals for the next 30 Days:

80% Steem Power > Goal 500SP

15% Liquid/Payout > Goal 400€

4% Delegation > Goal delegate at least 16SP

1% Savings > Goal save at least 2 STEEM and 2 SBD





Hint of the Day:

Don't forget to occasionally step back and see the bigger picture if you're feeling overwhelemed. As always, don't panic, have a cup of tea and break down big tasks into several smaller objectives.







Bonus!

Gfx.RePo: Badges

Sketch-Off Kraken Order of Chaos Year of the Dog 200 + SP

Just had a bit of fun in Photoshop and made these "badges" or icons to denote some of my steemit "achievements". The vanity! Like a friggin' Boy Scout. Feel free to use them :)





So that brings us to the end of today's ramblings!

You can find my previous Review/Benchmark here.

Hopefully you guys can take some lessons away from this for yourself. Still trial and erroring my way through the blockchain and beyond. Remember to take the things that I say with a grain of salt. We're only human after all so let's keep learning together. #payitforward

Good Luck and Have Fun,

ZeroOoC

Edit: Expanded the text in a few areas and improved the formatting and links a bit.

Edit2: Fixed/Added some links and improved the introduction.