Steemfest roundup post

I could write so much about my Steemfest experience, but others will have done it better. As you would expect this event has been extensively covered. You can watch all the talks. I hope someone will edit the streams to make it easier to find each talk, but that may take a few days as people need to get home.

One of my highlights was finally meeting @paolobeneforti and @silviabeneforti. They were almost the first and last people I saw there.

I wanted to write about what I got from the talks. We got a direct line to the developers. The key points I took from that were:

• They have been concentrating on making the Steemit site and the back end more resilient and improve performance. The recent denial of service attack showed this was necessary. They are making everything more modular so things can be split across more servers.
• The steem.io site has been spruced up with a new developer portal to help anyone get into developing for the platform.
• They are trying to improve the log-in experience. Managing multiple keys is too complex for non-technical people. There will be a new mobile wallet app (@sneak says this needs to run on an iPhone to be really secure). There will be more ways to configure the capabilities of the keys for those who need that. I had a chat with @sneak when he mentioned there will be some form of 2-factor authentication available. With the amounts of funds at stake we need the best possible security.
• Hardfork 20 will bring improvements to the sign-up process. There will be new ways to create accounts. I understand they will not need delegation from the Steemit accounts, but there will be a way to 'mine' them. There will also be ways to refer someone to get them on board quicker. I don't know if this will have referral rewards, but ease of sign-up is vital. They mentioned using intelligent algorithms to keep spam accounts to a minimum. They have a cost in processing (and maybe Steem) as well as reducing the available user names for real users.
• Communities were mentioned several times. We don't have all the details, but my impression is that will help more people to get exposure and allow for new curation to deal with spam and abuse.

I also had a chance to talk to @vandeberg and @relativityboy. These guys were really approachable. They admitted that they don't post enough about what is going on, but they are really busy working on things. They said they welcome others documenting what is happening on Github.

Other highlights:

• @surfermarly talked about her charity project @dreamsoftheocean to allow underprivileged kids to go surfing in Lanzarote.
• The @sndbox team talked about their Steem Park project and how they are helping others to build cool things.
• @allasyummyfood talked about how she became a food blogger and how she came to Steemit.
• @hardfork-series is a collaborative project to create a cool sci-fi series. We got to see the trailer that should be on-line soon.
• @detlev talked about his Beer Saturday challenge.
• I missed some of the 'fireside chat' @ned did, but I caught some of the Q&A. He seemed pretty frank throughout, but I can see he's a mix of politician and businessman in how he has to manage expectations.

I couldn't see everything on offer, but if you have any questions I will try to answer them.

The Friday party was great with film, comedy and music.

There's a list of attendees so you can check who was there. There's also a GIF gallery from a photobooth they set up in the venues. Certain people seem to be in a lot of those. I thought I did a couple, but I can't find myself.

Caught between two beards with @teamhumble and @lloyddavis.

Steem on, and roll on Steemfest 3!

I'll buy guitar picks for Steem Dollars

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