Exciting news from @steemitblog

@roadscape has announced ... Communities for Steem ... [i]s nearing completion...

Hivemind (or “hive”) is the backend (software)

Hive focuses on posts, relationships, social actions, custom operations, and derived states.

Hive can be extended or leveraged to create:
reactions, bookmarks, comment on reblogs, indexing custom profile data, reorganize old posts (categorize, filter, hide/show), voting/polls (democratic or burn/send to vote), modlists: (e.g. spammy, abuse, badtaste), crowdsourced metadata, mentions indexing, full-text search, follow lists, bot tracking, mini-games, community bots

This is a huge step forward for Steemit

• on it's march to become the de facto social networking platform.
  • It is the piece of the puzzle to give those who cannot make money on the platform a reason to continue to use Steemit.
    • It will allow entrepreneurs to develop sites that will attract people who don't want to spend the time learning how to earn money on Steemit. Those who are just looking for the next great social media platform. (97% of the people out there...)
  • This could very well be the piece of the puzzle some of the big players have been waiting on.
    • HGTV, FoxNews, Drudge, Avon, Bonnie Plants, Red Lobster, Blue Cross, Salvation Army, Bass Pro, Libertarian Party, Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, ... ...
    • Who do you see on Facebook? Pinterest? Instagram? ...?
      This could add Steemit to the must have online presence marketing mix of every major corporation.
• Then again, maybe not yet...
  We will see...

Let's get ready for communities!

vir·tu·al com·mun·i·ty

• noun
• a community of people sharing common interests, ideas, and feelings over the Internet.

Wikipedia says...

A virtual community is a social network of individuals
who interact through specific social media,
potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries
in order to pursue mutual interests or goals.

Popularity of Virtual Communities come and go.

• MySpace lost out to Facebook
  • Facebook will be replaced
    • A LOT of people are Fed Up With Facebook

Off site

In preparation for the coming communities,
I recommend reading this book.

• It's available online for FREE!
  • That way you will be ready to hit the ground running...

The Virtual Community

• by Howard Rheingold
  • A book
  • Introduction
  • Chapter One: The Heart of the WELL
  • Chapter Two: Daily Life in Cyberspace: How the Computerized Counterculture Built a New Kind of Place
  • Chapter Three: Visionaries and Convergences: The Accidental History of the Net
  • Chapter Four: Grassroots Groupminds
  • Chapter Five: Multi-user Dungeons and Alternate Identities
  • Chapter Six: Real-time Tribes
  • Chapter Seven: Japan and the Net
  • Chapter Eight: Telematique and Messageries Rose: A Tale of Two Virtual Communities
  • Chapter Nine: Electronic Frontiers and Online Activists
  • Chapter Ten: Disinformocracy
  • Bibliography

Fair warning about communities

It sounds like anyone will be able to create a Steemit Community.

• If all you do is copy Facebook, you will fail.
  • Facebook groups suck!!!
• If you let the title admin or moderator go to your head
  • and put your foot down saying it's "my way or the highway"
    • cya later alligator... you gonna fail bubba!

Random thoughts about Steemit Communities

• Communities can be public or private.
  Posts can be either community owned or private owned.
  • This may actually provide some protection from certain whales who randomly or not downvote and steal rewards from posts they don't agree with, or for no reason at all.
    • If the admin can control who is in the group, and someone does something dorky like that, they can be kicked out of the group and have no say over the posts in the group.
  • I think that is going to be possible.
    • If so, that will be great!

Competition is a good thing.

• I hate Facebook for having 1,297 gardening groups
  • Yet, competition is a good thing.
    • Only the strong will survive.

User rights

I believe now is the time for a 'Bill of User Rights' to be considered.

• If I have a choice of 2 groups and only 1 lays out what they consider to be user rights, I will join that community.
  • I probably will NOT ever join a group with a dictator for an admin.
    • A prime example is I was a member of a political group on Facebook. Without warning the admin totally changed the name and focus of the group. You see, they thought it was their community.
    • They did not realize, it was not their community, it was the community member's community.
      Do you see the difference?
• If you decide to be a community leader and you do not make a few basic promises to me, I will not support and grow your group.
  • Good competition will be non-profit vs for profit groups.
    • Given a choice between 2 similar groups, where 1 group returns all profits to the group less a certain known percentage to be taken as a wage, vs another dictator type group, I will likely choose the first.

Discussion required

You should comment below what you think of the whole idea of communities.

• Both their very obvious positives and their possible negatives.
  • What groups would you like to see?
    • Are you interested in being an admin or moderator of a group?
• What do you think would be a fair percentage of cash flow to be given to the admin and moderators?
  • Is it possible non-profit communities will flourish here on steemit?
    • What if companies throw some big bucks at Steemit Communities?
      How do you see that affecting your use of Steemit?
• A big company could sponsor a community with SBD to be used as curation rewards.
  Would that make you become more involved by posting more and commenting more?
  Why?
  • I'm just tossing out some ideas to get you thinking.
    • What's your gut response about Communities?

Who I am @WizarDave	The KEY to Life!