Great post! I'm excited to see where this goes.
I've been trying to finalize my own thoughts about this stuff, but haven't put anything down yet. I do think clarifying who we are and what our unique business proposition is matters. Network effect and platform loyalty are really important hurdles for us to overcome in the attention economy. Many people use Facebook, for example, to stay connected with friends and family. Until those friends and family are on Steemit, they will continue to use Facebook because it currently enjoys a natural monopoly on that attention due to their massive network effect and the quality of the service they offer.
How can Steemit compete with that? Many who I've introduced to Steemit still post on Facebook for those reasons. The rewards aren't enough for them to post here instead because they don't post things for rewards, they post to stay connected. I came here and built new relationships and new connections. Many are unwilling to do invest more time and attention to do that because they are already spread thin. If Steemit isn't comparing itself to Facebook, then is it more like Reddit? Or maybe Medium? Understanding ourselves is the first step towards a clear vision to what we will become and how we will get there.
I think your exact point is addressed by the focus on developing countries. If you've ever read Innovator's Dilemma or Blue Ocean Strategy, you will recognize that the existing mostly Western attention market is a red ocean, one which is well served already. And disruptive innovations focus on the undeserved market, ones which are more trouble than they're worth for the incumbents. I would certainly recommend both books if you haven't read them.
I don't think I've read Blue Ocean Strategy, but it's really familiar, so maybe I read a larger summary of it. I'm familiar with the concept, anyway. You make a great point, but I think the incumbents understand this also and what used to be too much trouble for them will quickly become their primary focus. That's why companies like Google are investing in things like Loon to get internet to areas which don't have it. I've read about Facebook doing similar things. They are thinking long term and have huge reserves for marketing to push their platform into those areas. Can we beat them to it? Maybe. I think it will involve highlighting aspects of our identity which can create a natural monopoly for us (rewards for attention, decentralized control, no censorship, etc).
Interesting point, Luke. However, I think steemit doesn´t need to address the "classic" FB user profile at the moment. These users may come when influencers start conquering the platform as an additional channel to monetize their content. But at the moment I don´t think we should try to compete with services that are rather focussing on quantity than quality. The level of interaction is considerably higher on steemit. People that can´t stand the "I like it" superficiality anymore, will find their way to steemit or similar platforms that provide deeper messages.
Maybe I'm just sad about all those on Facebook I've brought over who did create Steemit accounts, posted a few times, and then didn't come back. I'd love to just have conversations with them here. :) Many of them were anarcho-capitalist bitcoin fans as well so they weren't really the classic profile. I've been planning on doing a video for a while to analyze that and figure out why the staying power just wasn't there for them. When I see them in person, they often say things like, "Oh, I'll be back to post soon" or worse, they lost their private keys (!!!) which is just really sad. Thankfully @gandalf (@gtg) was able to help me get one of them reconnected recently. :)
Oh that´s really frustrating :-/ Now I understand...
It would be really interesting to know why the left. I´ve just touched the very same issue in another comment down here. Retaining people is key!
Before thinking about onboarding we might have a retention strategy.
Why would anybody ever stay more than one month on the platform?
Maybe it´s about entertainment, special curation programs, trainings (how-to blog),... Maybe we have to comprehend steemit more as a "place to spend time" instead of a pure content platform. Like building a city, a shopping mall, a theme park or whatever place that is fascinating and engaging. --> SteemWorld :)
There might be infinite ideas how to make steemit even more attractive for new users. It can´t be rewards only since it takes time to build up a brand and really monetize it. We wouldn´t be able to meet strictly economical expectations here.
I do think they will come if there is a way to 'allocate' , say rewards, to non-users of the platform ( those who haven't signed up yet ) . So grandma has a reason to post on steemit if she knows her rewards are being allocated to Johnny her grandson who hasn't signed up yet. Johnny signs up to say hi to Grandma and Grandma knows she is support Johnny's college fund by giving him updates. It doesn't have to show anything about payments at that point as that is between Grandma and Johnny only thus giving the platform a look of just 'connecting' all the time and not 'rewards' all the time.
There are numerous ways this can be used. A sort of 'path' re-direction use cases for SteemIt.
Upvoting your own comments is SO tacky.
I'm sorry you feel that way. In conversations like this, I do upvote my own posts because that's my justification for owning Steem Power. I get to influence the default order of the conversation and promote my ideas over others due to my investment of time and money. I'm not a whale, so my own vote is only a couple pennies. I'm not draining the reward pool, I'm using my Steem Power influence to highlight ideas I believe are valuable (in this case, my own).
What I find tacky is you continuing to be involved in a community which is regularly frustrated by your actions. Time and time again you interact with people in a negative manner both here and in chat which has caused numerous people to leave who were previously providing content others valued (even if you did not). You use your Steem Power however you like and justify it with "I can use it however I like" but then criticize others for how they use their own Steem Power. It seems to me you don't even recognize your own hypocrisy. True to form, you bring your negativity to this conversation as well. I hope someday you get bored with Steem and power down completely. Until then, I'll continue to highlight your inconsistent behavior and try to help new users understand why you act as you do.
I won't repeat the names you've called me and others. If you don't like me personally or my actions and want to flag my posts, that's your option. Thankfully, there are no dictators here, and we can each act as we please and let the community decide what is and is not valuable.
You should repeat the names I've called you, daily, while you stand in front of a mirror. Maybe you'll then realize just how pretentious you really are.
Dang man, go get some sunshine or something.
My god, do you ever listen to yourself? You're like a 9 year old. And I'm being generous.
Agree influence great but what is bring value into this system. Come and go bloggers just powering down and decreasing our SP over and over again. The reason I think Steem will most likely fail is one simple fact. Every social media company (even adwords) makes there entire earnings off of ad revenue. Where Steem is going wrong here is the fact no one is getting a return on there investment longterm. What they need to do is get advertisers to start buying Steem and burning it to run ads. That's one way how we end the vicious cycle of Steem leakage.
Steem is a blockchain platform. Steemit.com is a social media app on the platform. I'd call it the flagship app. Implementing ads right now would be a waste of time. It's too early. Need to be able to retain users before you start putting ads up (shudders).
Excellent comment @drunk.
What you see as a "vicious cycle of Steem leakage" I see as redistribution from the hands of few to the hands of many and the market deciding on a base price, given the current value offered. That said, as I've been reporting every week in my Exchange Transfer report, the number of people caching out has always exceeded the number of people depositing. Until that changes (IMO), the price will continue to fall until an equilibrium is reached. I'm surprised the price has stayed as stable as it has. My hunch is coin speculators are keeping it up.
I agree, advertisers promoting posts here could be great for Steemit. I could even imagine seeing highly promoted posts showing up in our feeds some day (just Twitter does). Better yet, maybe even let people opt in to that and gain a portion of the promotional costs. That would be a neat idea. Ultimately though it depends on mass adoption before those ads have any value. The fact that steemit does not have ads is valuable to the users and may become even more so as privacy goes down and ad sales on other networks become more and more intrusive and personal.
I agree with you this has a lot potential and that's why I invested but right now we wanted to see developments and new releases, not just vague rambling. If, when, later, however........ There's no excuse. They had plenty of time to get this out a beta by now. People are losing big money here with their science project.
I empathize with that, I really do. I've talked about it weekly in my reports.
That said, they should not invest what they are not willing to lose, especially in an early stage, highly speculative platform like this. That's my opinion after bootstrapping my own software as a service for the last ten years. This stuff is hard. It's easy to throw stones and judge what they should have done and what priorities they should have focused on, but I remember when the site was crashing hard constantly because the technology could not handle the load and that was the primary complaint. That took time to fix. Now we're on to the next thing. It seems logical to me, but again, that's just my opinion.
Well the inflation rate is about 9% now which is in line with most other crypto tokens at this stage. I do agree strongly with you. Its just a matter of time once that balance is struck b/t the whales powering down and the growth of the platform. If we can just get the growth going again this thing will turn around. IMO at least back to the ATH market cap at 400 million. If we longterm growth the sky is the limit. The advertisers will be beginning Steem team for space and Steem to burn.
Flagging should be eliminated. It provides no benefit and does a LOT of harm.
I can see some benefits of it, specifically for preventing abuse and hiding content many consider abusive or offensive. Without them people spam the system with junk and that has a negative impact on user growth. Prior to @anyx's bots, things were pretty nasty around here (you may remember some women were getting abused pretty badly).
Many argue it's just a downvote, no different than an upvote. A way to express preference about payout. If it was just a downvote, I wouldn't mind so much, but the steemit web interface treats it like an abuse flag and hides comments/posts which can be frustrating (as well impacts reputation if the person flagging has a higher reputation). It bothers a lot of people, but I try not to lose sleep over it. What annoys me more is when it's personally vindictive and the "justifications" for it are inconsistent. The neat thing for me is to see community members show their support for posts and comments which get unfairly flagged. There can always be a counter balance.