Excited for this new way to access the Hive Blockchain

Liketu is a new Hive front end that released a few weeks ago and it is one that I am pretty excited for. Right now, there is some work that needs to be done to really refine the experience, and I will try and touch on some of them, but I really think that front end has a really good chance at bringing some new faces to the blockchain.

It is a photography based sharing platform and is pretty similar to how Instagram looks, which is great for new faces that are coming on board, because it helps to lessen the learning curve of starting on a new platform. One of the hardest things about bringing new people to the chain is how different of an experience it can be for them when they get here, and Liketu seems to be moving in a good direction to make that experience as familiar as possible.

On top of voting like normal on posts, you can add reactions to it as well. When they added reactions to Facebook, it was a pretty cool way of interacting with the different posts other than commenting on them. I think the reactions here will take a while for some of the more old school members of the chain to get used to using and embrace, but it is cool to see them.

One thing that is missing from this front end is to see the post payouts. As a curator, this is vital information to see if I were to curate from this front end. I also do not see an option to downvote, which would be needed to remove rewards from plagiarism and other posts with abusive behavior. So for now, Liketu is not a front end I would actively use when curating. I would also like to be able to see what my post rewards are while logged into Liketu. I spoke to @elmerlin about this and it is being added to the list of updates that they have planned.

One of the things that I also think need to be changed and is preventing more photographers from using Liketu is that when you upload images through Liketu, they watermark your image with their logo. They also add your Liketu profile address, which can be good for bringing people back to your profile.

I personally do not watermark my images and do not like any sort of watermark on my stuff, especially if it is not my personal logo/watermark. Other photographers use their own watermarks, and I am sure it would start to look ugly and take away from the image if there are other watermarks on their photos. I spoke with @elmerlin about this as well, and he said they are going to be looking at ways to remove watermarks for people that do not want to use them, so that would be a good move to bring more of the professional photographers over to using this front end.

One thing I am pretty interested in is their tier program you can set up to give subscribers exclusive content. I see a lot of Patreon or even OnlyFans users being able to use this if they were to come to the chain. I think a lot of people right now that we have may not be too interested in paying others for exclusive content, but I think that will come with time and a change in how some people think about rewards and how they use their hive.

For me, I think I could release photography lessons or other stuff using these subscription tiers and then use some of those funds that I receive from my subscribers to rewards those that take part in the lessons. There really are a lot of different ways that someone could utilize this type of service and I think in the future, it could be pretty cool to see what type of exclusive content people are releasing.

Uploading posts through Liketu can be pretty self explanatory. One of the major differences is that all of the photos can be uploaded at the same time and they are all displayed separately from the body of the post. For some people, this may be a problem when they like to incorporate photos along with their text to help them tell their story, but it is pretty similar to how Instagram and the other photography based apps are.

One thing that was pretty confusing the first time I uploaded anything was the monetize box. There really wasn't any information on what the boxes meant. 0% is basically declining rewards and 100% gives you the normal 50/50 rewards distribution. I am not sure what the 50% block does, but I am assuming it is something like declining 50% of the rewards and I am not sure why anyone would use that.

@elmerlin sent me this preview of what the box is going to be changing soon with a future update to the site. This is a much better way to display everything and brings a better user experience.

Another thing I noticed is that your followers and those you follow do not transfer between the other front ends and Liketu. So that can be kind of annoying that you need to refollow people to get a nice feed going. Liketu does not display posts not made through Liketu either, which could annoying some people because they would need to log into a different front end to see their whole feed.

One thing that was annoying at first, but will be changed soon is that when you post through Liketu, you are not able to post to different communities and everything is posted to the Liketu community. I think giving people the freedom to post to whatever community they want will really help people's want to use this front end.

Another important change that I think needs to be fixed soon is the reply box. When you are typing out a reply, you only get a very small box to view what you are typing. Being able to see the entire reply is something that is necessary.

Overall, I think that there is a lot of possibility with Liketu and it will be cool to see it grow and change over time. There are a lot of people that think having a photography based front end could be bad and lead to shit posting, but we already see plenty of people shit posting with all the other front ends.

All over the traditional social media apps, people are sharing their photography and Liketu has given a simple way for people to be able to share their content. I think micro blogging should be embraced and is necessary to be able to bring more users to this platform. With that being said, there does need to be some checks and balances in place to prevent abuse and that is where having a good team and a good community in place to help fight against that abuse is important.

We all want Hive to thrive, and I think that Liketu is a great step in helping to bring more people to our blockchain.