Blockchain powered social media platform Steemit is going to add new features to its platform in order to attract more users.

Some of these features have been frequently requested by Steemit users. These include private messaging, notifications, and more prominent follow buttons, a user ‘albertfall’ wrote on Steemit. Ned Scott, Steemit CEO, explained:

“Enhancing the diversity of our application-specific blockchain is a natural progression for Steemit. Private messaging is perfectly suited for a decentralized system and will empower users in a similar way to how direct messages empower users on Twitter. The ‘follow’ feature will enable community members to receive notifications as soon as their favorite authors post, and the notifications will work just like Facebook in that users will be alerted immediately upon a new post or upvote from their favorite contributors. These features are the pillars of current social media giants and we look forward to integrating them into Steemit over the coming weeks.”

The platform boasts of over 70,000 users currently with more than 21,000 posts every day. In addition,  more than 60 third-party applications based off Steem have also been built in the last two months alone, which includes Steemy, a mobile app in development for Android and iOS, and radiosteem.com, a consensus-based online jukebox. Examples running off the Steem blockchain include Steemy, a mobile app in development for Android and iOS, and radiosteem, a consensus-based online jukebox.

With the addition of new features, Steemit will facilitate more contact between its members and hopes to attract more users from mainstream social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

“We hope to offer people much more than Reddit and Facebook, by simply elevating the user experience and rewarding users for their time, Steemit has a fighting chance to compete with the largest social networks. We still have a lot of work to do and we have a lot of room to grow, but on the whole we see this system as more than a new social network, but as the bedrock for an online social economy. Developers and entrepreneurs are recognizing they can go straight to the Steem blockchain to leverage its data, identities, posts and other content. It’s very inspiring to see so much activity on the Steem blockchain.”

Last month, on the occasion of Independence Day of the United States, Steemit distributed digital currency payouts worth approximately $1.3 million to its user base. However, soon after the platform suffered a major hack in which nearly 260 accounts were compromised and likely theft of $85,000 worth of Steem Dollars and Steem.

Those interested in getting started with Steemit and understanding how it works can refer to the FAQ document here.