Comprehensive Blockchain & Alternative Social Platforms Review

2nd Updated Version Blockchain Social Platforms Review Updated

Hey everyone,

I want you to start off 2019 the best way possible. One of the best ways to start off your year is with your online and social presence. It’s a huge part of how you operate online and connect with the world. Currently major platforms have been attacking free speech and we’ve seen waves of censorship.

I decided to do a massive comprehensive list and quick overview and summary of the many various platforms out there. You can join alternatives to Facebook, yes. I review those, but you’re better off getting ahead of the trend with the latest blockchain social platforms that in my opinion are better and offer more. So here I go through everything and give you my take and help you save loads of time deciding and researching. This by far took the most effort and time dedication out of all the content I’ve done in the past, so if this is valuable to you please give it a like, share it, and follow my content for more. I will end up doing comprehensive reviews on the better platforms and a revisit to see if any platforms on this list that I put down for potentially improving did get better or not. I will even just link the sites directly for you, not even to my profiles, but if you found this useful and join any feel free to follow me at @scottcbusiness

I will list below the various categories I’ve ended up sorting these platforms into with their name a little blurb as to why they are in that category and the link to them. I will jump through some examples in the video too. Let’s dive in!

Informational:

I’ll include some lists and websites that provide useful information

Fediverse – lists all node based social platforms you can join working on a P2P model - https://the-federation.info/

Article that I referred to as a partial list for the platforms I have reviewed - https://levelnaut.com/2017/12/19/cryptocurrency-social-networks-list/?blogsub=subscribed#blog_subscription-5

*NOTE*

There were a handful of sites that were so poorly setup, not working correctly, or had no English whatsoever that I chose not to include so use the links above if you want more, but less organized and informational.

Essentially Unusable:

DMUNITY – closed down

CryptoCommunityWorld – Can’t use symbols in your password which is odd – Couldn’t update my picture – way too many tabs (unnecessary and unorganized) – Feels spammy, there are so many memberships and things to join or pay for on top of everything else – couldn’t post a picture and the site is slow. https://cryptocommunityworld.com

Diaspora - Too small of a network currently - https://diasporafoundation.org/

Hubzilla - too technical - https://project.hubzilla.org

GNUsocial - hard to find, poor UI and confusing join process - https://gnu.io/

Mastodon - not a fan of the small hub like setup where you in these echo chambers like Hubzilla, Diaspora, Gnusocial, and more - https://joinmastodon.org/

Movim - Server based, no close by servers - https://movim.eu/#try

Peepeth - great idea, slow network, awkward & cumbersome signing every 15 actions - https://peepeth.com/

Enumivo - Not enough users and topics https://enumivo.com/

MyLot - Couldn’t get past how bad the UI looked - http://www.mylot.com/explore/toprated

Belacam - barely had any users, looks like twitter, but can only post very short videos ( 9 mins was too long) and pictures so it was limiting since you can’t just share text or a link with a preview. - https://www.belacam.com

Akasha - same issue as peepeth previously (expensive transaction gas fees), it was 0.22$ to follow one person so it’s not viable - https://beta.akasha.world

Freezoxe - Terrible loading times and virtually unusable - https://friends.freezoxee.com/

Retroshare - No one downloads social media on their computer - http://retroshare.net/

Peertube - No one is using this - https://joinpeertube.org

All.me - Decent UI, but not many users and a little clunky to navigate - couldn’t connect my wallet to actually utilize their coins either so I couldn’t post - https://all.me

Manyverse – Only on mobile and not a lot to it / pretty basic - https://www.manyver.se/

Alternet – Couldn’t change my profile picture or cover. Wasn’t updating. Too many advertisements. Very few users. - https://alternet.com

Adzbuzz.com – The UI is decent and it’s features are good. It’s got a lot going on, maybe too much. It could be cleaned up a bit. There is essentially no engagement on the platform. I scrolled though so many posts with not a single like or comment so it’s not ready yet clearly - https://adzbuzz.com/

Adorin – UI is okay, functionality is decent. It’s essentially Facebook, but there’s little to no users or engagement and it could use some design improvements - https://www.adorin.cc

Social.Ambblox – Essentially a copy of Adorin with a different design https://social.ambbox.com

Fyre – Very aweful UI and setup

Bearshares - A replica of Steem, but they have had many issues with their platform staying online lately and it seems not worth it to me. Update: it’s been down for days. – Updated: It was finally brought back, but everyone lost their posts and money. Wow. https://bearshares.com/ (not linking for security)

View.ly – Couldn’t publish on their network or obtain their crypto to publish - https://view.ly/new

Memo.cash – Decent setup – Very similar to Twitter – I don’t see bitcoin cash as a viable method for actions when it costs $0.20 – Same issue as Peepeth, but with the added transactional issues – Used their suggested faucet and got little to no BCH so I didn’t proceed. - https://memo.cash

Bitbin – Very raw UI and only has like 117 posts so I just didn’t bother with this one - https://bitbin.it/

Baflike – Couldn’t change my picture or edit my settings. Slow to navigate. Felt pretty unusable and no one was using it. - https://baflike.com/

CoinClub – Only has news, not very viable for general social use – must sign up via google, facebook, or mobile. Slow to navigate - https://www.coinclub.global

Contynet – They explicitly state they can only accept you if you use a gmail address – I used a gmail address that I have with my domain and they didn’t accept it, only if the address ends in “gmail.com” so I just gave up and will chalk it up to them being censorship compliant. - https://contynet.com/

Dream-Real – Didn’t even bother signing up after I saw the homepage was all but 3 people and the top tags were all spam like “sssssssssss” or “111111111” - https://dream-real.com/

File Army – Images were poor resolution, site was too basic, no easy way to identify users for photos - https://file.army/

Golos – Almost all non-english users and I wasn’t trying to get into that since they probably won’t read my posts and vice versa - https://golos.io/

Xenzuu – Just a rip off of Facebook with no users and a slow connection - https://www.xenzuu.com/

SwiftDemand – It’s hardly a social platform, it’s more of a forum and the majority of topics are just about the platform rather than actual social conversations and discussion. It couldn’t verify my identity, so I can’t make money. They want all your information to give you swift which you’re supposed to be able to claim for free not for trading all your privacy like this is an exchange. I gave up after a while. https://www.swiftdemand.com

Infinityloop – It could be better in the future, but it’s just basic and doesn’t have much going on, plus it’s weirdly a huge advocate of iTunes which I don’t like given that Apple censors a lot now. Maybe it will improve, but the fact that I couldn’t share links with previews or even have hyperlinks in posts killed my interest in posting there. You can post YouTube links and have them posted as videos which is nice at least, but it’s very limited. I tried to explore and find other people, clubs, topics and failed to find anything useful. The search is awful and only lets you search clubs (groups) and users, but not posts or topics. I searched “blockchain” and it had 0 results all around. I gave up. https://infinityloop.com/id404773

Leapzip – They had an interesting concept where you set up everyone you connect with to be a friend, family member, etc. and categorize everyone and then share specifically with them. The profiles and newsfeed are weird and don’t work as I assumed though. Your posts don’t show up on your profile, everyone sees everyone’s posts, and there is no way to filter or categorize. This could only work if you only connected with people you were very close with and didn’t mind seeing everything. It’s an unintuitive design and I don’t recommend it. They tried. - https://www.leapzip.com/

Mix – It was okay, but there wasn’t a lot going on and the posting style was very limiting. You can have collection of your posts which was interesting, essentially the way you interacted was people added your content to their collections like pinterest, but without any ability to just repost or like it, so I don’t see it as a viable platform if the only way to engage something is to add it to a list that you will probably never look at again. This platform seemed way too basic and didn’t have much functionality or features. https://mix.com/

Scrypto – Looking at the home page I was already unimpressed and felt I didn’t need to bother signing up. All the new joiners didn’t even have pictures and all the posts on the homepage were spam. https://scrypto.io/

Quinto – I don’t know if the point is to ask questions you genuinely want to know or if it’s a game, but this site feels rather pointless. People earn crypto for getting questions right, but the site looks like an outdated mediocre Facebook attempt - https://www.qurito.io/

Soxax – Website had a lot of issues with formatting and was just very poorly designed – looks very amateur - https://www.soxax.com

Tondbook – Really poorly designed Facebook rip off, even their verified users had very poorly designed profiles and low quality posts. - https://www.tondbook.com

CryptoNetwork – Looks like a mediocre forum website and it was very slow and considered not secure by my browser too since it was running a ton of cookies on the site - http://www.thecryptonetwork.com

Kuende – They did a good job of gamifying the social platform, but the posts, discovery, and design just feels uninteresting. Most of the posts are “challenges” which leaves little room for regular social media interaction - https://kuende.com/

Hot.site – Exact replica of Facebook – including all the ads unless you pay a weekly premium – It’s got a lot of glitches and poorly formatted parts of the website that ruin the resolution of images and I would not recommend it - https://hotmedia.site/

Unitymix – Another poor replica of Facebook with a lot of low res images and low engagement. The company’s own page had only 25 followers so that says a lot - https://www.unitymix.com

Howdoo – Little to no interaction happening on the app and it’s mostly in a different language – awkward navigation and challenging to figure out where you even want to go - https://www.howdoo.app/

Liberty.me – Had issues originally trying to sign up and you can upvote content without signing up so it can be gamed - https://liberty.me

Require Approval / Invite Only / Require major traditional social accounts / Censorship:

Ekonty – They refused to let me sign up using a protonmail address so I refused to sign up - https://www.ekonty.com/

Galactikka – Couldn’t sign up so I gave up after trying twice - https://galactikka.com/

Hyperspace – Invite only for some reason - https://alpha.hyperspace.app

Publish0x – You need to be approved to join - https://www.publish0x.com

Snovian – Need to verify with a big tech social account to be able to use the platform and it’s mainly for messaging, you can’t post things on your account for example. Wouldn’t recommend - https://app.snovian.space

SocialChains – They need so much information from you and your ID to let you use their mediocre platform, definitely don’t recommend. - https://go.socialchains.io

Qbk – It didn’t let me register so I couldn’t do much - https://www.qbk.com/

Refind – Must sign up using Twitter or Facebook so it was a bit superfluous – Essentially it finds links to things you might like, it’s not much of a social platform and is pretty niche - https://refind.com/

Serey – Looks like another Steem alt – They have to approve you – In the sign up the countries were Cambodia or “other countries” so I’m pretty skeptical, but we shall see how this plays out - https://serey.io

Monoreto – Could only sign up using big tech social accounts, navigation was unintuitive, the UI was awkward and there wasn’t much engagement happening - https://monoreto.io/

Allyus – Seems like a leftist platform. All the politically voted upon polls I engaged with had major democratic / liberal leaning results and you can only sign up if you use your Twitter or Google account which would be frivolous if you were banned from either platform and looking for alternatives. They also ask you way too many questions and they even ask what your political stance is! - https://allyus.org

Needs More Work:

Holonis – Requires major social channels to sign up (even needed my Facebook page access) – Has a decent design, but even the Holonis team members who post on their platform haven’t posted for about a year, so it goes to show how much they believe in it. If they don’t require you to have censored platform pre screened access, it could do pretty decently - https://www.holonis.com

Worldunity – Another replica of the same site I mention elsewhere that has been replicated many times with the identical framework and no real difference or incentive to use this network over the other mediocre versions - https://worldunity.space

Webtalk – Little to no users on the platform but it seems to be a decent replica of Linkedin – They didn’t let me upload videos - https://www.webtalk.co/

WeYouMe – It’s a decent enough design, but there were less than 8 users that I saw using the platform and the majority of its features are coming soon so it’s just too beta currently – Also had issues navigating the platform and setting up my profile - https://alpha.weyoume.io

LBRY – Must download to use – not a huge fan of this model and I don’t believe people will want to use it (no mobile) https://lbry.io

Buddylist – They claim to champion free speech however they are funded via patreon and use every platform that will censor them if need be so it may not be super reliable should something happen. The UI etc. was decent enough for me. What was really concerning was seeing that moderators were just public users who have influence and could easily hinder their competition since they too are competing to be a top account. I found that to be an obvious conflict of interest, especially since a lot of the more popular content was coming from moderators and staff. It even suggests you sign up and sign in with Facebook. The site itself was a decent enough replacement for Facebook they just need to work towards making their motto legitimate which was “We honor your freedom of speech here.” https://www.buddylist.co

Sapien - poor UI, not very functionable, not many users, can't follow or engage well https://beta.sapien.network/

Flixxo - Look no one is going to download this to use it and start off by paying for crypto to watch anything - https://flixxo.com/#/

Smoke.io - It’s a steem alternative that is just based around marijuana - I used it a bit, but there was issues with uploading images so I gave up - https://smoke.io/

OnStellar - barely had any users and needs design improvements, but could have potential - https://onstellar.com/

Utterz - Exact replica of Facebook but their advertising is equal if you are a pro user for $2.99 - $4.99 a month you can boost up to 5 pages and 30 posts. It was a good idea but they only accept credit and no other means of payment and I’m just not comfortable giving out my credit card to any random site nowadays. - https://utterz.com/

Easysocial - Definitely could be good, but the UI is cumbersome and outdated looking and though it’s in beta I wouldn’t use it right now - https://easysocial.life

QuoteV – great for writing books online, but doesn’t support regular blogging etc. - https://www.quotev.com

Bitbacker.io – This is a great concept for replacing Patreon in a cryptocurrency form, but using Bitcoin was a huge drawback. I would have rather seen a better coin like Ethereum at the very least. If it can keep up, it can be viable. - https://bitbacker.io/

BitLanders – Was kind of funny to see they have a promotion where you start off with 1.000.000 free bitMiles which is just 1 and or not a real number. They added two decimal points to the number so it looks like a lot. This is my subjective opinion that they tried too hard to gamify it and it comes off a little awkward but I think it’s an awesome platform for younger audiences. You also can’t post your actual picture, you must use avatars so it’s a bit limiting in order to fit that theme. Because of this I found it very clunky to setup my profile and the newsfeed is a bit awkward looking. There’s too many updates on people’s avatar wearing different clothes and random updates. It is cool that they give you points for “daily quests” to encourage interaction, but it feels like a way to just suck your time. https://www.bitlanders.com

Cryptocoinstart – Has a lot going for it and a lot of potential, but the UI isn’t the greatest and a lot of the content is spam – the sidebar doesn’t fully work for navigation. - http://cryptocoinstart.com/

Viuvly.io – This has a lot of potential. Unfortunately they have set way too high a price for me to invest in their very new coin. The platform itself has little to no one on it yet and there are only 2 trending videos for example. The design and integration with the blockchain is well done and given the community grows it will be a great platform but I had trouble uploading videos so I ended up giving up – I will try it again eventually https://viuly.io

Yours.org – This platform is pretty intuitive, and it uses Bitcoin SV. What’s different about this from most blockchain socials is that your crypto is just used to make direct donations and tips to people and that determines the popularity of the post. Unlike staked platforms where you invest and have a staked investment that determines your voting power, here you just have your cryptocurrency that you will just directly give away and receive. I’m not a huge fan of this model, but it does offer something different for people to try. The community seems somewhat small now judging by the top post earning less than $5 and the categories are limited. However, I feel that with improvements and growth it could be a viable platform for people who want a different financial structure on a blockchain platform that ensures any interaction is very genuine and there will be no spam because it’s costly. This is better than the ETH based platforms that charge for every action no doubt because it only charges for donations, not comments or posts. I myself, got no interaction here. - https://www.yours.org

Cent.os – There isn’t a lot of functionality to this site. My profile is just a color of my choice for the profile picture and then my posts are displayed. It feels like the newsfeed is a mediocre version of Tumblr and though I wouldn’t knock this entirely, I don’t like the financial model they use. It could be better, so we’ll see - https://beta.cent.co/

I Wish These Were Better:

These platforms are better than most, but I wish they had some changes to make them better and I’ll share what and why. I still recommend checking these out and getting situated on them.

Bitchute - Operates like Bit.tube but my videos weren’t confirming they were publishing and I wasn’t able to view them an hour after uploading when they showed they were on my page but inaccessible. I will keep trying to use it though as I’m really pushing for better videohosting blockchain applications. Luckily coming back a few days later I could delete the double post and move forward with it. I will keep using this to test it out, but ideally a little bit more functionality around the upload process would make it ideal – no embeddable links – by default the preview is a link, not a video. I will keep using this given the amount of praise it gets to really test it out and do a full review - https://www.bitchute.com

Trybe - I really badly wanted this to be good but it was insanely challenging to setup with Trybe. I spent so long trying to get Scatter working so I could use my Trybe and stake it – After more than a week and talking with 4 different support staff at Trybe and EOS, it finally worked. You may have a ridiculous amount of trouble getting started, but after that it’s smooth sailing. Runs on Wordpress, but hopefully they don’t rely on Wordpress. I will also keep using this given the amount of praise it gets to really test it out and do a full review - https://trybe.one

Mewe - Similar to Minds but not on the blockchain - great facebook alternative but no blockchain intergration - https://mewe.com

Brighteon - Must request invitation to use – When I was able to sign up I did enjoy the community and layout especially given it’s a video hosting alternative and free speech advocate – Great, but a little too exclusive - https://www.brighteon.com

Cryptosocial – Has a facebook like version of Minds UI and earning/spending model with boosts etc. – Had the same issue as a previous site where you can’t post an image with a link so it still has issues to work out. Looks like a replica to another platform I reviewed, but it could get better -completely copied facebooks reations and style of newsfeed and posts - https://cryptosocial.world

Voat – Really interesting concept and very much based off of Reddit. I couldn’t get into it myself it felt very grindy trying to get likes on comments so that I could make a post myself and when I was honest on say a theology post, a theist would downvote my answer so I was making negative progress. Maybe it’s just not for me, but if it was easier to get started and get into it, I’d be more for it. Plus the user base is really small. I joined during the beta and little has evolved. They just got a partner so maybe they will start doing more now. I have been told it's not made a commit since early December, so it's seem abandoned. - https://voat.co

Sociall - not fully functionable, no comment threads, missing basic infrastructure, not many users - nice UI though, some potential in the future to revisit https://beta.sociall.io

Steem alternatives - I am still determining how I feel about these alternatives to Steem. I think it would be at the very least a good way to diversify if you were to share whatever you share on Steem to the audiences on these platforms. Given it’s the same format you could copy paste your article from Steem and post it all at the same time fairly easily.

Weku – A Steem alternative that has some potential as a new budding community however their coin has still not reached exchanges as far as a I know, they have one witness, and they have had issues without people illegitimately obtaining Weku via making many fake accounts for the sign in bonus so it has its issues and investing a lot into it may be a mistake, but ignoring it entirely may be a mistake too - https://deals.weku.io/

Whaleshares – Another Steem alternative that is safer and more well setup than Weku although they do not use a reputation system like other Steem platforms which is very interesting. They are also tied to BTS, and there have been some issues with witnesses running scams with their own witness coins used on Whaleshares so again be wary, but don’t ignore this platform - https://whaleshares.io/

Scorum – This platform is well set up, but I do not use it because I’m not big on sports or gambling. This is a very niche platform geared for just that. They have their own cryptocurrency and operate similar to Steem, but with a more Minds like blogging style. https://scorum.com

Hilo – This isn’t exactly a social platform, or at least not a traditional one, but it’s very interesting especially if you follow cryptocurrency trends. It’s a platform made to monitor whatever coins you are following where you can also comment and post status updates on what you think and people can view what you said about the coin at the time you said it. This is a great platform for getting and sharing feedback on coins while watching the trends. You can follow people with great insights to see everything they have to say. It’s intuitive given it’s still in beta, it just needs more active users. https://app.hilo.io/

Indorse - very similar to linkedin, with some UI and ease of use improvements it could do well https://indorse.io

SpringRole – very similar to indorse, but focused on skills - https://protocol.springrole.com

Not Ready Yet (Unrated):

Substratum https://substratum.net/

SocialX https://socialx.network/

Foresting – Been in the making way too long - https://foresting.io/

Blockchain Integrated Platforms I Recommend & Use:

Steem – This is my alternative to Medium / Reddit / Facebook – Steem is an innovative blockchain that enables you to earn money for every like you receive from other users. It has a reputation system, invested staking, it’s censorship resistant, and it solves a lot of monetization issues. It’s a great solution for the censored, demonetized and anyone looking to earn some money and explore a new platform - https://steemit.com/

Minds – This is my alternative to Twitter / Facebook – You have less opportunity to earn than on Steem, but Minds is much more robust and has a lot features and things to offer. Their blockchain integration currently is just for their boosting (advertising) model where you earn for everything you do, but it’s only usable to spend on promoting yourself. It’s very useful and a great system, but you’re not likely to make profits from it. They plan to integrate further and push for free speech so I am eager to see how the platform progresses. - https://www.minds.com

SOLA– This is my alternative to Twitter / Instagram – Similar to Minds, SOLA has an earning model that only is really useful within the platform to spend on boosting and promoting your content. SOLA is similar to Minds, but a bit simpler and focused on a more Instagram like delivery of content with a mobile preferred experience. I have done the best on this platform and I highly recommend it. - https://sola.ai/

Bit.Tube – This is my main YouTube alternative - I recommend it even though I haven’t gotten much traction because of how seamless it is to import your videos from YouTube. If you use YouTube you don’t have to do any work just open up the site and hit import and it will get everything for you. If this gets big it will do very well - https://bit.tube

Dock.io + sub dapps - like Indorse it’s a replacement for Linkedin, but needs more people and more work done to it – Connects to Springrole, Remote, soon to Indorse, and many other Linkedin/employee recruiting/professional networks – It may still need more work, but it’s the best Linkedin alternative on the blockchain so far - https://dock.io/

DLive – DLive is a well designed and intuitive solution for live streaming on the blockchain that moved off Steem and onto their own platform that is meant to be an alternative to Twitch - https://dlive.tv

Platforms I Will Also Be Using:

Gab.ai – Great free speech platform. They have been attacked for staying true to their free speech principles so I have a stronger support and enthusiasm to putting them on. It’s similar to Twitter, but without censorship. They have talked about potentially integrating with the blockchain in the future and they avoid working with companies known to censor - https://gab.ai/

I previously listed Trybe, Bitchute, Weku, and Whaleshares in the less recommended category, however I think they still stand a chance and I will continue using them and report on them again in the future along with my review of these platforms again.

Conclusion:

After all this work I can wholeheartedly say that Minds, SOLA, and Steem are dominating the blockchain social space and I believe they will continue to do so. Bit.Tube and DLive are definitely making waves. BitChute has potential for video hosting. Trybe has potential to compete with Steem, but is currently a challenge to start staking and getting started. Lastly, be sure to check out the professional network dock.io and connected dapps like remote, Springrole, and indorse which all resemble blockchain versions of Linkedin. I’ve enjoyed using Gab.ai and it’s pretty decent given you can deal with blocking the occasional person who harasses you. Free speech comes at the cost of hearing the worst of it too and that’s fair. Anyway, the top 3 have mobile apps too which is nice. Steem you can use Esteem, Patricko and various others, then SOLA and Minds have apps in the app store, but you can also get an open source version of Minds to circumvent using Google. They are definitely pushing against the big tech which is great to see. Anyways I will revisit this in a couple months to re-review!

If you feel I made a mistake, poorly reviewed something, or missed a key platform to review, please comment below and I will take your feedback in and edit this to include it or edit my post accordingly. I really hope this benefits you as much as I hope it does. This took me a very long time and a good portion of the holidays. Please share this with others if you believe they will find use in it too! For some I explained my reasoning more than others. If you’re interested, you can inquire, and I’ll get more in-depth. Also, I will be reviewing the platforms I use more in-depth too. There are great browsers, messengers and other applications I will cover in the future, this was just focused on social media.

Let me know what you think about all this in the comments below!

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