<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">Special thanks to all who participated, artists and voters alike.</span></h2>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">We’re super excited with the new logo designed by @RigaroniB. Many have commented on how awesome it is. </span></h3>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Once it was selected, we had to choose a color, red, blue or black. Of course, everyone seems to like blue. But we didn’t want to theme it with Steemit (hey, that rhymed!). Red is nice because it stands out and makes a nice statement. But the consensus was to go with black. </span>
<h1><span style="font-weight: 400;">So, here it is!!</span></h1>
<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6163" src="http://steemnews.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/1500_BW_on_White.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1500" />
<h1><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wow! Right?</span></h1>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">We had these to choose from in the original contest. The two honorable mentions were late entries.</span>

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-4987" src="http://steemnews.online/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Logo-Entries.png" alt="" width="1200" height="800" />

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5680" src="http://steemnews.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Logo-Entries-2.png" alt="" width="1000" height="500" />

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Special thanks to the artists:</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">@KrNel, @yadamaniart, @RigaroniB &amp; @cebymaster each had successful entries (@son-of-satire &amp; @steemvest17 came in late - honorable mention). Please offer your support for their outstanding entries and contribution to Steemit.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">We relied heavily on votes to help us determine the top candidates. The top three stood above the rest in votes, so we simply went with them. It made our job easier. After all, that’s the point of the voter based contest anyway, right? Still, we wrestled with whether to go with 3 or 6 for the final round.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">@KrNel had the most votes, but had all his entries in one reply. This made it tough to decide. However, @full-steem-ahead mentioned really liking the black background, so we ran with that one from his entries.</span>

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5685" src="http://steemnews.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/5i7WSH0.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="270" />

<span style="font-weight: 400;">The one right behind was @RigaroniB’s entry, which ended up winning.</span>

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5687" src="http://steemnews.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/logo5.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="640" />

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Next was another @RigaroniB entry.</span>

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5686" src="http://steemnews.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/logo.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="640" />

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Behind this one was a tie, followed by another tie. So, we could go with the top 3, top 5 or top 7. We opted to make things easier and go with the top 3, seen above.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Each on-time contestant received 50 TRAIL. The winner, @RigoroniB, received 200 Steem and 500 TRAIL for his work.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Here’s proof of the Steem payment.</span>

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6749" src="http://steemnews.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Payment-to-Rigaroni.png" alt="" width="879" height="97" />
<h1><span style="font-weight: 400;">Branding Underway</span></h1>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">All formats have been delivered and branding is underway. You can see it here in our avatar and on the @STEEMNEWS.ONLINE blog as well as on our </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">[<a href="https://www.facebook.com/STEEMNEWSONLINE-1602795696695851" target="_blank">Facebook</a>](https://www.facebook.com/STEEMNEWSONLINE-1602795696695851) &amp; [<a href="https://twitter.com/STEEMNEWSONLINE" target="_blank">Twitter</a>](https://twitter.com/STEEMNEWSONLINE)</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> pages.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">You may have seen us becoming more visible the last few days, promoting news articles and commenting. Each promoted article is published to our social sites as well as resteemed and upvoted. Each author receives one TRAIL coin for their contribution, in addition to whatever boost we can give their payout. Most promoted articles get upvoted by SteemTrail as well.</span>
<h1><span style="font-weight: 400;">What We’ve Done So Far</span></h1>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Over the past few weeks, since our introduction post just over four weeks ago, we’ve combed through the #news tag, in addition to the #steemnews tag, each day in search of great content. During that time we’ve resteemed at least 66 articles and upvoted many more. The SteemTrail account has upvoted most of those, adding more support and additional payout for the authors.</span>
<ul>
 	<li><span style="font-weight: 400;">We’ve established some of our social sites, as mentioned above.</span></li>
 	<li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Set up a trail on Streemian.</span></li>
 	<li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Distributed TRAIL to authors whose articles we’ve promoted.</span></li>
 	<li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Built a website that still needs lots of work. :) </span></li>
 	<li><span style="font-weight: 400;">Encouraged several authors and built what we expect to be some great long-term relationships.</span></li>
</ul>
<h1><span style="font-weight: 400;">What’s Next?</span></h1>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">We do have a roadmap laid out, that becomes ever more ambitious as we are able to overcome hurdles. Most of those hurdles are technological, but many also simply include participation.</span>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">Formatted Updates</span></h2>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">We’re working on ideas for this, but nothing has really come together yet. A running list works, but can be viewed on our blog page anyway. Perhaps just weekly updates of promoted content and where we are in regard to our goals? If you have any ideas of what would be helpful, let us know.</span>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">Website</span></h2>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">One of our goals is to get a website dialed in that will promote all the STEEMNEWS.ONLINE curated content. This is proving easier said than done.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">@krnel has been striving to help us with some of the technical issues we’re facing, mainly in regard to formatting. We can import the articles just fine. And the headings and most content code is converting nicely. But images! Ugh, the images just aren’t working out.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">If an author uses html, they seem to work great. But if they use nothing (which is what most do) or the ‘&lt;div’ or ‘&lt;center’ commands, our tools just don’t get it. The images won’t display at all.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">We have a lot more functionality we want to bring to the site, but until the images are displaying correctly, we can’t even begin to promote it. So, for the moment, that’s our biggest challenge.</span>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">Tech Skills</span></h2>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">There are a couple of challenges here. The first, of course, is that our current team doesn’t really have the tech skills to pull off everything we’d like to do. We have @KrNel striving to get some of the bugs worked out and make the site function better. The hard working @instructor2121 is promoting the site and continues to help with its development as he’s able. And @anotherjoe works on content and basic layout, as well as curation and networking.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">The second is that we’re all juggling a lot of responsibility with TRAIL and SteemTrail. We just can’t take the time to learn to do all that we’d like to do with the site.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">If you are good at backend work, and especially if you have some understanding of the blockchain, we’d love to talk to you about getting involved. You can look us up on the [<a href="https://discord.gg/w4sdqkS" target="_blank">SteemTrail Discord server</a>](https://discord.gg/w4sdqkS). We’d also like to get some front-end design expertise involved. We can basically make things work, but a good FE guru would really help push this project, as well as others we’re planning to launch.</span>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">Other Challenges</span></h2>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Articles… There are many good tech and science news articles being posted each day. In fact, if someone is interested, a science/tech trail could use some curation. We promote a lot of these, but are striving to keep from becoming a tech site.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">While there is some worldnews promoted on Steemit, it’s usually just a newslink or opinion piece, rarely really being journalistic. There’s nothing wrong with those, but they’re not the type of content we’re looking for.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">That being said, there are some bright spots. And a few folks have risen up to the task to provide some excellent insights.</span>
<h1><span style="font-weight: 400;">Bright Spots!</span></h1>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Among the bright spots we’ve been encouraged by:</span>
<ul>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">We’ve seen an increase in the use of the #steemnews tag. Of course, using it doesn’t mean that your article will get promoted. But, it does put your article ahead of others for consideration. And we’ve had a couple of outstanding pieces come through that tag in the last couple of days.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Of course, the logo! And the launch of our social pages has helped us move along.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Encouragement from many in the community as we’ve become more visible in promoting articles. For a while, we just did so quietly, upvoting and sharing. With the launch of the logo and the ability to brand more clearly, we’ve become more visible.</span></li>
</ul>
<h1><span style="font-weight: 400;">What You Can Do</span></h1>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">For those that want to become more involved, or just want to help promote excellent journalism on Steemit, there are several things you can do to help.</span>
<ul>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Of course, follow @STEEMNEWS.ONLINE on Steemit.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Also follow us on </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">[<a href="https://www.facebook.com/STEEMNEWSONLINE-1602795696695851" target="_blank">Facebook</a>](https://www.facebook.com/STEEMNEWSONLINE-1602795696695851) &amp; [<a href="https://twitter.com/STEEMNEWSONLINE" target="_blank">Twitter</a>](https://twitter.com/STEEMNEWSONLINE)</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Resteem our promoted content here, as well as share on Facebook and Twitter (and any other site you’re a part of ).</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Write excellent journalistic articles. When you do, include the #steemnews tag.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">We can use more help in curation. Along with several other trails in SteemTrail, the #news-trail can use more involvement. There is also room for someone to take on more oversight of STEEMNEWS.ONLINE, if they’re interested. This would provide for the other team members to turn more of their focus to other SteemTrail projects.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Follow the steemnews.online curation trail on Streemian. Following the SteemTrail operator on Streemian will help us as well.</span></li>
 	<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Contact us and tell us what you think would help provide a better online news source, promoting Steemit authors.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Your editors,</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">STEEMNEWS.ONLINE</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Look, our new logo!!</span>

<img class="size-full wp-image-6207 alignleft" src="http://steemnews.online/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/lettering_with_text_500_black_trans.png" alt="" width="500" height="500" />