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

Introducing Peerhub to the Steemit CommunityDan 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

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

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.

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