Hello everyone!

The day has finally come, a big milestone for all of us involved in the Deegram team.. Deegram enters the stage of open beta testing. Deegram has been in an internal/closed alpha since march 2019. We have received so much valuable feedback and criticism over the past few months that we are truly grateful for. And for those of you who kept testing and kept using an unfinished prototype product, thank you!

What is Deegram? Microblogging!

![app.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcRHTC3MdfST8hACvieMwYA8qGff8Jfrfifx7gzzt7iZt/app.jpg) Some (or many) of you may not familiar with our project, so what exactly is Deegram? Deegram is a social media dapp for Steem focusing on the microblogging format, such as sharing images, links, short videos or audio, and text content. The beta, for now, is focused on images and text, while video and audio is a bit down the line. Our mission is to bridge the gap between mainstream social media and blockchain by providing a user-centred platform with simplified user experience.

A social media with social impact

Our goal is that Deegram can be used for good, that monetization of social media content can help make a difference instead of feeding large corporations. From Deegram you can donate earnings directly to verified charities and sustainable initiatives. In the current stage you can donate to @schoolforsdg4 and @womenempowerment , projects by @azizbd directly tackling the UN sustainable development goals 4 and 5.

Additions for the beta release

Below are the latest changes that were done to the mobile app for the launch of the beta.

Account settings

https://steemitimages.com/400x400/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQnUC9nvZYfLEKqT4UmuMGjRN2QDvbNrWgd1gWnMdWMS3/accountsettings.jpg

Voting

We have now added general account settings to set certain preferences. Below 500 steem power, your vote will by default be cast as a 100% vote. If your account has over 500 steem power, either directly or through delegations, you will by default use a vote slider to select the percentage weight. However, for those who please, you can choose to use a default weight for your votes (e.g. 25%) instead of using the dynamic vote slider. This setting can be set in the account settings of the app.

Reblogs / Resteems

In the account settings you can choose whether you want to see shared posts in your feed, which is enabled by default, and you can choose whether you want to see shared posts when looking at a specific profile (default value is disabled). Set these default values as you please in the account settings. When you are browsing a profile, you can also change this dynamically by flipping a switch on the profile page. https://steemitimages.com/400x400/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmdHYgNfbKcN68KQehttm2mzSm9MEvbtDBfHjEWQUSMdeo/profile.jpg

Log out

A small addition. From the settings menu from your profile, you can now log out of the app.

Resteems

Posts that are resteemed are now marked in the feed, showing both the original author and the user that resteemed it. https://steemitimages.com/400x400/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmaVyttQgQB2AGbU9iG8BNagoww6pQWnFU3EvKK15PWmSg/reblogid.jpg

Resteem posts

You can now share posts from the feed.

Delete

You can now enter your profile, tap an image in the grid to see post details, and then click the 'delete' mark. This will edit your post title and body to "DELETED" and the image you uploaded through Deegram will be deleted from our database, rendering the image reference of your post invalid. Any post that contains nothing but "DELETED" in it's title and body will not be loaded in the Deegram app, neither in the feed nor on profiles. https://steemitimages.com/400x400/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmSUonrwc98HevBUX5nZmAd5NEAADJntZgQYrzzzYFMUjS/imagepopup.jpg

GUI

We did several minor adjustments and scaled down some elements by feedback from the community. The popup-images from the profile now contain some data on the author, the upvotes and number of comments. The height and width of the popup images are now limited to prevent large scale images from covering the entire screen of your device. The GUI of Deegram is something we want to rework and improve, as we still feel the app is not as visually pleasing as we would like it to be. If you have any desired adjustments, don't hesitate to let us know!

The beta launch, when?

Announcing the web platform

Lately we've also been working on launching the Deegram website. It's still in its infancy, but we feel it's ready to be tested and shared.

Feed controls

https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmaKDj3ETG59vfvgYCgYvrAxSs6k8A1yGjN5DcdGpXbi2Y/image.png

Browse feeds

https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmRQdJXTUwB4YwTVpxqcnqs3Wkz1SemMzA6MhinWoeRj4E/image.png You have several different feed options where you select your feed, tags to browse, hot, trending, fresh, and you can choose whether you want to browse it in a "blog" format with more text content, or if you want a "content" focused feed with larger images. https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmcuG68CrqCutmYwYWJGBYm14vSz1u5dr6vTAEu22cfZJq/image.png

Search for users

https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmYYdk3aXzw9r6p9mJ9WHt3Sg16SgH7wqF5doAbV817hWB/image.png

Browse profiles

https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmUEVQsVQMVGhR12fPw8NiSnKXfcCGqwup1136jk9EU9UL/image.png

Discover users

https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmayNUmZd42ETSV91kNRe8GGwVER6T75UvbLQp176H6z9X/image.png

View notifications

https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmYvuVJSL3T4tuFvmvH1Uqrm3HsN9hcgU3McRHRwqgpQoK/image.png

Write posts

https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmSpkAebGst9rFMFyWAPH3xtoJZAUAPrbRckgFigWeUdB6/image.png

Crop and customize your image uploads

https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmdUP8Rb3NyNk86GMmT2EJiwUnMkBvU1fJr2DNyxmSpkGx/image.png The web platform is still very early stage, and we are aware it's not the prettiest platform (yet), but we will do our best to maintain and update it to meet the standards that users expect.

Join Deegram

Head over to [Google Play](https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.DecentralizeIT.DeeGram) or [Apple Testflight](https://testflight.apple.com/join/LHy49keZ) to get the Deegram app today, or head over to the [website](https://deegram.no/). We urge you all to try out the app and website. Criticise, roast and give us your honest feedback. We want to get better, we want Deegram to be better, and with your invaluable feedback that's how we can make it happen. EDIT: NOTE TO ALL We are having some problems with Steemconnect at this moment. Broadcast requests are not coming through and you may experience crashes, and you will not be able to post content at this time. We apologize for this!