Few would contest that video platforms are huge today.  With advancements in video creation tools along with broadband, most anyone can develop video content.  This is a major shift in the social media realm which Google was able to take full advantage of.  

Steem was fortunate early on that one of the first applications to appear was @dtube.  This was a YouTube clone but decentralized.  Video, obviously, is a lot more involved than text, hence the progress of the platform was a bit slower than many would like.  Hosting the content is also a problem since video files are much bigger than text.

Recently, we saw the addition of @threespeak to the Steem ecosystem.  This is a platform that gives a voice to those who were targeted for censorship by the mainstream social media companies.  Believing in freedom of speech to all, this seeks to enable conversation about all topics.  Essentially, 3Speak is the idea that even though we might not agree with what others are saying, they do have a right to say it.

The last couple days we saw a some major announcements by both these platforms.  Both are adding features that will surely help out the entire ecoystem.

<center>![image.png](https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/Qmc7DyyUfDAva8KvXABu8FCTDz9WshYXfzjuKHPx3DkoxT)
[Source](https://d.tube)</center>


D.Tube is now open to all users.

Previously, sign up was reserved for only people with Steem accounts.  This was during the testnet phase, which is still going on.  

Many questioned D.Tube's commitment to Steem.  The team created Avalon which is another blockchain that the platform is operating upon.  This breaks from the basic functionality of Steem that most are accustomed to.

There are many reasons for this move.  I will not delve into them all since they are expressed in this [post](https://steempeak.com/dtube/@heimindanger/the-core-concepts-of-dtube-s-new-blockchain).  Basically, D.tune is now able to add features to its platform that are not possible on Steem.  Anyone with a Steem account can post to the Steem blockchain via D.tube.  In fact, the video posting for many of the Tribes is done using D.Tube.

One of the biggest benefits to the move is the fact that users can be signed up without being on Steem.  This might seem like a negative but it is not.  The bottom line is it is costly to set up a Steem account.  This cost makes it prohibitive for all the masses to on-board instantly.

D.Tube has a way around this by offering a sign up process through Avalon which will get users on D.Tube.  After than, the ones who show the desire to participate to a high degree can be offered Steem accounts.  It is evident the retention rate of Steem is not great meaning a lot of accounts were set up that went to waste.  Hopefully, this will mitigate that a great deal.

Ultimately, we are seeing **D.Tube becoming a feeder system for Steem which screens the users base**.  Only those who show the inclination to be heavy participants will be offered accounts.  Those who simply drop by once in a while to comment or upvote will still have full benefit of Avalon but not Steem.

It also helps to identify those who create original content as opposed to those who simply link videos from around the web.

Thus, the more success that D.tube has, the more users it will be able to on-board for Steem.

https://steempeak.com/dtube/@dtube/dtube-open-sign-up


The second announcement deals with communities.  This is something that is a hot topic of late.  In fact, @steem.marketing put out an interview where this subject was discussed.  It was conducted with @roadscape who is the lead engineer on the hivemind for Steemit Inc.

https://steemit.com/hive/@steem.marketing/hive-communities-an-interview-w-steem-s-senior-product-engineer

@threespeak had its own announcement pertaining to this topic.  

Communities is a way of helping to categorize content to make it easier for users to find.  Presently, Steem is basically a river of streaming posts that run by.  Tags are mostly useless since there is no way to moderate who is using what tag outside of a downvote.  Even if a post is hidden, it does fill up the feed.  This is a problem if a lot of people are using popular tags with content that has nothing to do with that community.

3Speak went ahead and started adding this feature to its platform.  With the communities feature, one simply clicks on the preferred one and all videos pertaining to that individual or topic will be show.  Presently, according to their announcement, there are two that were set up.

https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmNakoF4uXA8piar3sF9g1SAZLwPSDw34NZwNyjX2VVD1M/communities.png

The nice thing is anyone can set up a community.  There is a fee of 500 SPEAK which need to be paid to set one up.

In addition to this, the team is approving people who quality as Citizen Journalists (3CJ).  Since the platform was started as a response to the silencing of viewpoints by the mainstream media, this only makes sense.  Those who are out there trying to uncover the truth while operating independently are now given placement so their voices can be heard.

https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmUeSU7UJh4RtZS8Q5jmcPV9NR4AuDFV5oU3UGPQwABggS/3cj.png

There were a couple more features that were highlighted which can be seen in this post.

https://steempeak.com/threespeak/@threespeak/welcome-communities-feature-on-3speak

Watching the development that is taking place is very exciting.  Video content brings in a lot of viewers.  The traffic YouTube gets is well known.  Videos posted on there which go viral can top a billion views.  Tapping into even a small portion of this market will be a major win for decentralized platforms.

One thing that I am on the look out for is when advertising is added to these platforms.  One of the key benefits of tokenization is the rewards that can be paid out.  This is not only of benefit to the content creators but also the viewers.  Imagine the first time you click on a video to watch and, before it starts, an ad runs.  We all had this happen on YouTube a thousand times.  However, in this instance, **there is some cryptocurrency put into your account for viewing the ad**.

The question is how many other people will be interested in having the same thing happen.

This is the future of video and these platforms are laying the groundwork for what we are going to be using down the road.

We are living in very exciting times.

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![image.png](https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/QmPvBkjBFuAKHQR7MacQ1679NryWNG5ZexgaPZdUmTo4so)


![image.png](https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/QmYRwbaYkV7kubaAqefvGi6kxW25EdzUdZRP8XWsRWXKTj)

Images from article linked.