The Spectacular Rise of Steemit Alt-Interfaces Partiko and SteemPeak

in #steem6 years ago (edited)

Not that long ago I compared the popularity of apps on the Steem blockchain to Ethereum dApps popularity. In that post, the focus was mostly on SteemApps with a content or media specific focus, like @dlive, @steepshot, and @steemhunt.

In the fourteen days since, two so-called “everything bucket apps” or Steemit alternative interfaces have continued to make further inroads and now represent more than 5% of all content contributed to the Steem blockchain. At the same time Steemit.com dropped below 50% of all content contributed over the last 7 days at the time of writing.

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SteemPeak dashboard - screenshot by/“borrowed from” @chronocrypto

Popular alt-interfaces @busy.org and @esteem still rank high but have also dropped in popularity while @Partiko and @SteemPeak continued their rise despite an overall drop in content submitted to the Steem blockchain in that period.

According to the Sincerity API, the mobile Partiko app is now the 5th most popular app to interact with the Steem blockchain up 2 positions in userbase and 1.3% in marketshare. @Partiko is used for more than 5% of all content posted to the Steem blockchain, making it currently the 2nd most popular SteemApp in volume.

While most interfaces registered a drop in amount of contributions submitted, as is often seen in the Steem ecosphere when market values are lower, Partiko continued its growth with almost 40% more posts and slightly more than 20% more comments submitted through its app, while registering 15% more users over the same period.

At the same time, the recently launched desktop/browser based SteemPeak interface grew to 1.3% of all content contributed, up from 0.6, and saw 20% more users over the last 7 days compared to the 14 days ago.

Both “everything bucket” interfaces are the only alternative apps which grew in userbase in the last 14 days, while Busy.org and eSteem lost combined 1.3% marketshare in content submitted to the blockchain.

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STEEM market’s performance in last 30 days

Yet, the drop in popularity due to STEEM’s value is reflected even more in volume posted through the top 3 apps than in their respective marketshare, with Steemit down more than 50,000 submissions, busy.org almost 7,000 submissions, and eSteem down almost 5,000 submission. In that same period Partiko and Steempeak grew respectively almost 5,000 and 3,500 submissions.

All this points at Steemians actively continuing to look for alternatives to Steemit.com, and even to the popular @busy.org with its “loyalty upvote” bot.

Considering that both Busy and eSteem reward users for posting through their apps, the growth of both Partiko and SteemPeak is evidence that Steemians are willing to sacrifice a nominal upvote in exchange for a better experience.

Further of note is that WordPress crossposting plugin @SteemPress continued its growth and consolidation above 10%, now contributing 11.4% of all posts submitted to the Steem blockchain despite a minimal drop in actual volume. Activity tracker @actifit also continued its growth and saw more than 30% new contributors posting their actifit report to the Steem blockchain compared to two weeks ago. Lastly, photo sharing platform @dlike registered excellent growth in userbase as well, that most likely thanks to its recently announced Airdrop.
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Most Popular SteemApps, Sept. 18 2018

While Steemit Inc. still hasn’t delivered on its mobile app promise, it is clear a need exists as Partiko’s continued stellar growth shows. At the same time we see that in a world where nobody has brought Steemians brilliant or bold typography, excellent whitespacing, let alone pull quotes yet, it is clear users expect more from their interfaces than just the ability to post as evidenced by the positive response to SteemPeak’s graphical dashboard and its continued, relentless development.

The meteoric rise of both apps shows that users are willing to forego an upvote for a better user experience.

There is no doubt that if Steemit Inc. were to extend the same favor to Partiko and SteemPeak as it does to @busy.org with its ~500k SP delegation to the @busy.pay account, through @misterdelegation, both @Partiko and @SteemPeak would rise the charts even faster.


This post was first published on theSteemObserver and crossposted to the Steem blockchain.

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Everything bucket feels so clumsy why not call it a multipurpose interface , nifty right?

It’s a reference to Evernote, which was IIRC first coined as “everything bucket” by Gruber (DaringFireball).
Correction: It was Alex Payne, not Jon Gruber.

I’m not too happy with it but I decided to go with it because the landscape is changing and not always will dApps try to also optimize their submission for ‘general interfaces’ display. Currently dApps like Steemhunt and Actifit still do that but the feed may soon change. And the feed will not be nifty then, at which point I think the reference to “Evernote the everything bucket” applies. Calling it “nifty” feels so talking to a Millennial audience. It will be horror unless the “multipurpose interfaces” come up with app based filters.

That does make sense. It would be on the bucket to optimize the display though, but seing as they all still try reinvent how to parse markdown i doubt they will even attempt it.

Posted using Partiko Android

Given that app [posted with] is data in the Steem blockchain for every post, I’m rather sure that especially the @SteemPeak team will be on the ball and offer filters soon(ish).

PS: updated initial reply with correct “coiner” for the term.
PPS: Github markdown is poor for content interfaces. Markdown Extra would have been the right option. Even more so if it included also pull quotes and alignments. But the divs for columns even don’t resize (cascade?) on mobile devices. 🤦‍♂️

I've tried SteemPeak a few times and kind of like it. I do keep on forgetting on what it is and go to google "Steemit alternatives.. hummh... wait, now I remember. It's SteemPress! No wait it isn't.."

Partiko is partially annoying because all the comments include the partiko promotion which personally attracts me to flag the comments. I'm a good person and don't flag them though.

I couldn’t agree more about Partiko. It’s the main reason why I don’t use their app.

Yet, I would be open to pay a (minimal) fee not to have that link. I do understand the growth hack it is, it’s part of every Growthhacking 101 post or book.

Well Partiko gave a reply related to that too, and hopefully they'll add the feature to remove it by default. Currently I can understand it's a way to get more attention and to grow, but also a feature to push some people further away from using Partiko.

Posted by new anal vibrator.

EE43C390-5580-40F9-B26D-8A1FC12E0D7F.gif

Thank you for bringing this up! Partiko users current have the option to remove that, and they can do that by editing their comments.

We do have a plan to provide the option to remove the signature by default, and that needs to be executed well because many users still love it for two reasons:

  • It easily shows that the comment is from a real person.
  • It makes it easy for users to identify the Partiko community.

We will keep you updated on this via @partiko, and thank you again for your attention!

Posted using Partiko Android

Thanks for the reply. I'm hoping there will be an option to remove the signature by default, as that's the only way I would personally even consider using Partiko Android.

Please take in consideration also that if Partiko Android will become popular, the "Posted using Partiko Android" will be used also by bots and maybe for tricking people. You do not have the power to affect this of course, but just a note.

Again thanks for the advice. We will keep you updated as soon as we have the option.

Posted using Partiko Android

Yes this is what I thought and it’s really interesting to see that despite the Steem price going down these two are gaining popularity....

I removed the “posted via Partiko “ because I know it grinds you.

I don’t care that much about seeing the link itself. It’s more about a decent UX allowing users not to constantly have the link. And the team has always been vocal in reply that they will soon(ish) offer an option to do without that link. That’s good enough for me.

Addendum: I didn’t care too much about the link but the more I think about the “It makes it easy for users to identify the Partiko community” argument the less I like it.

Looks like dual citizenship promotion. While we are on an open blockchain with central accounts. I’m not sure how I feel about that psychology, tbh.

It’s interesting to notice that your post has a “posted from Steemobserver” link at the bottom...

Posted using Partiko iOS

That’s to avoid duplicate content penalty in Google and other search engines.

Normally the link even contains rel="canonical". Yet, the post wasn’t posted from theSteemObserver. The post was crossposted and posted through Busy as can be seen in the app data for the post.

No double standards. Only justified disclosure. Some posts on theSteemObserver were first posted to the Steem blockchain and that is correctly disclosed and set as canonical link in those cases too. If you tweet any of those posts from SO, they will redirect to the Steemit version of the post.

Ah ok. I like seeing all the different ways people are posting actually since I have not tried everything and additionally I rely on trusted people first before I try something new

Posted using Partiko iOS

It’s a hack. Sometimes I post through @SteemPress, other times I do the footwork manually because SteemPress still requires some work to be done after publishing and its tag management is rather primitive (grabs first 5 WordPress tags for the post, WP sorts tags in alphabetical order so those aren’t always the tags you want on Steem).

At least the Steem blockchain now has canonical support. That will change the SEO game for apps massively. Soon we will see always more non-condenser interfaces rank in search engines.

I’ve already seen theSteemObserver outrank Steemit in DDG because of canonical. The landscape is changing and canonical was long overdue.

That “little” tweak will motivate lots of innovation on the Steem blockchain. Finally dApps can rank for content posted through their interface.

Yes I’m glad that canonical change was done.

Posted using Partiko iOS

I understand both sides of this. However since Partiko solves a lot of my problems and can solve many frustrated Steemians problems too, I feel that the link is not obtrusive. If it wasn’t as good as it is, I’d have removed the link a long time ago.

Posted using Partiko iOS

I totally get the link. It’s an absolutely valid growth hack, as I also said on Twitter. And Partiko is a great app, which I would use a lot more often if it weren’t for that link. Yes, I would even pay a monthly fee to do so.

But only if they take crypto. :D

Could the move away from busy be because it takes a percentage cut? I don't know if esteem does too. I gather steempeak doesn't, does partiko?
My issue with them taking a cut is that you're not necessarily guaranteed an upvote from them to counteract this.
I'm off to investigate partiko, now I know that I can remove the annoying link at the bottom. I would love to see a mobile version of steempeak someday.

Busy does not take beneficiary. They get curation rewards from all their upvotes.

This post was posted through busy and it has no beneficiary per Steemd.com.

It is difficult to prove that the move away is a move to both other options, but anybody who has ever contributed in a comment thread via Busy on mobile is definitely happy having more options now. And there is a visible marketshare drop for both busy and esteem. So I think we can safely connect those dots.

Partiko doesn’t take a beneficiary either.

I heard that it did take a beneficiary. That was a while ago though. Thank you for the correction. I did try them, but didn't take to them.

The only “Busy beneficiary” option I know is the busy referral for new signups through your personalized Busy link. It seems that’s still active.

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Although I wouldn’t want to take 10% of my friends’ earnings. But that’s jsut me, pretty sure others have less qualms with that.

Highly rEsteemed!

I’m not entirely sure why but this is to me always one of the most enjoyable comments I receive.

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Minimum beneficiaries is always the top priority for me. I'm sticking with Busy for the upvote. @steempeak has the best interface IMO. But I don't want to miss out on free STEEM. Maybe it's just me being moderately tech savvy. I won't use any interface that claim beneficiaries unless I have a very good reason. @steemhunt is my favorite SMT project and Dlike is super helpful when I want to share something interesting. So I happily use them.

I wonder how much innovation it would/could stimulate if both Partiko and SteemPeak would also benefit 500k SP delegation. @ned?

@SteemPeak may not yet have the userbase for it but adopting a similar rewards strategy as busy (FOSS FTW!) would definitely boost its adoption and lead to even more releases. @Partiko could work with its leaderboard and @Steem-UA to avoid it would become a total quantity game for rewards.

I'm not really interested in Partiko. But @SteemPeak canh become amazing with a loyalty vote system. Is there going to be a @steemhunt anytime soon? I almost never use my smartphone to interact with STEEM. But it would be interesting to see how an app would help adoption.

Nah, too much to do before a Steemhunt app would even become a consideration. Steemhunt will be much more than just the hunts and that will make developing a solid app even much more complicated.

Besides, research has shown that many people have a majority of apps they never use. So I doubt that it would truly lead to much increase in adoption, especially considering that many hunters check only once a day.

I wish there was a way to turn off the notifications in partiko app..

@fknmayhem Thanks for mention the growth of dlike!

Thank you so much for writing about us!

Posted using Partiko Android

I find this interesting. SteemPeak does not even have 1% of users.

I am a developer for SteemPeak. I have created a nifty bookmarklet to allow you to easily switch between Steemit and SteemPeak.

https://selabie68.github.io/steempeak-bookmarklets/

Nice to read about this, hope Partiko community grows faster

Posted using Partiko iOS

It’s growing quite fast even now

Posted using Partiko iOS

Hi @fknmayhem!

Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 4.659 which ranks you at #1513 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 6 places in the last three days (old rank 1519).

In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 441 contributions, your post is ranked at #309.

Evaluation of your UA score:
  • Some people are already following you, keep going!
  • The readers appreciate your great work!
  • Try to work on user engagement: the more people that interact with you via the comments, the higher your UA score!

Feel free to join our @steem-ua Discord server

There is no doubt that if Steemit Inc. were to extend the same favor to Partiko and SteemPeak as it does to @busy.org with its ~500k SP delegation to the @busy.pay account, through @misterdelegation, both @Partiko and @SteemPeak would rise the charts even faster.

thank you for this ...been saying it for the longest...

Considering that both Busy and eSteem reward users for posting through their apps, the growth of both Partiko and SteemPeak is evidence that Steemians are willing to sacrifice a nominal upvote in exchange for a better experience.

You did that double.


I don't like the wordpres plugin in. It just puts a teaser there and you have to change the website.
Either way it's a waste of time.

Also many use it for some sort of automated distribution for their own website, they don't care a bit about Steem, for them it is just a free ad service.

You did that double

Thanks for that.

The WordPress plugin should post the complete post. I didn’t notice any option that it would post only an excerpt. That’s an interesting point though... there is no doubt that some large(r) scale media properties will publish their excerpts on Steem to get additional views.

I genuinely think that the WordPress plugin will vastly contribute to the growth of Steem but it will depend on the team’s biz decisions when they start marketing it. The selection of bloggers/publishers they will first invite will be of utmost importance because they will need to understand profile building. On yet another network.

As a former publisher of a medium-sized indie blog network I am not entirely convinced it will lead to investment though. And when, I would only invest because the investment could be used to offset a (small) part of wages.

While SteemPress still needs a lot of work, Steemians need to understand that the Steem blockchain an open internet of infrastructure is and that at some point... well this ain’t 2005 blogging anymore. The scope needs to be broader than the internal scope and writing most is now. If given the opportunity I bet ‘blogring ribbons’ would be absolutely popular and all over Steem. Some footers definitely validated that.

But we will only attract if we actually write as if it weren’t for Steem. SteemPress is working at opening that up. Keep an eye on them. ;)

Yeah... Partiko is awesome... fast and larger font means I can read stuff on my smartphone without going completely blind.

Posted using Partiko iOS

It would be really nice if partiko stop forcing us include their promotion in comment section. This applicable for ulogs too. I hope that steempeak will make mobile version too.

To be honest... expect always more platforms doing that. It is a valid growthhack to draw attention to their platform.

And ona decentralized blockchain, which aims to power hundreds, thousands of dApps everyone will vie to attract users from that same “common userbase” which is one of the main assets the Steem blockchain has for appbuilders.

The smartest platforms will listen to their own communities and decide on whether they strip those “billboards” out or not. But end of the day the goal of all will be to grow their userbase and that requires first attracting attention to it.

I only wish the Partiko reasoning would be more honest and less fake in it. Both reasons provided are wrong.

I loved using Partiko . My only request is that it allows us to schedule my post.

Posted using Partiko Android

I would use Steempeak but with no list view the feed is bollocks. I hear it only has 1000 active users.

Busy - same problem, but it sucks anyway.

Partiko - for mobile use. People who use Steemit on mobile are a different species.

Interesting read, I've started to use @partiko more, but @busy.org is still the main platform I use to browse on mobile.

@steempeak is great on desktop and the graphical dashboard is a nice touch.

@esteem is great if you need to manage multiple accounts.