GROWTH IDEA: Short video showing the difference between mining crypto and mining steem...
Last week I started chatting in steemit.chat about some bite sized marketing ideas.
I went on to write a first draft of a script which I shared as a google doc. Here is a read only link if you would like to see that. I've received some good ideas in terms of feedback and was planning on writing a 2nd draft and then I caught the flu over the weekend and it became one of those LOST weekends.
PLEASE NOTE: This document is long because it shares a lot of reference material and notes. The resulting video should be kept short and too the point.
I wanted to share what my concept is for this video and take portions of that script and place them here with some sample images just to get the mind flowing.
What I would like to see us come up with is a nice simple ONE IDEA script for this video, and then I'd like to see us make it. Us as in the community... or as in YOU AND I.
How I am writing this post
I am writing this post based around the current draft from that document. I am also looking for some reference videos that might be useful to take clips from. So this will be that document mixed in with potential useful reference material.
What I would like from you
Provide feedback and ideas and share videos and reference material you think might be useful. If you are skilled at making videos and want to participate in making this video let me know as this is a crowd sourced marketing #growth-ideas for steemit.
CONCEPT
The idea here is to show that mining crypto-currency on steemit is done simply by using the platform. Voting, blogging, commenting, and replying all can lead to crypto currency rewards. This is how steem is mined. This is a good opportunity to spin this aspect as something truly ground breaking and attractive about steem vs other crypto currency projects. We can show the hardware, knowledge, electricity, and increasing difficulty for even success at mining other currencies. You have to be at the right place at the right time with other cryptos to have much success with mining, after awhile it will be dominated by big actors who have a lot of expensive equipment and possibly some deals for less expensive electricity. It is actually only fun for a certain small segment of our population. It is not necessarily easy. Yet steem on the other hand you will always be able to mine by using the platform. In fact the more you use it you should get followers and increase your potential earnings.
INTRO
brief clips from news showing people making millions on bitcoin due to early mining or perhaps for early investment of about the price of a pizza if they timed it right. With a voice and perhaps extra text representing a thought verbalized over the top saying…
(Reference Material: Become a Bitcoin Millionaire)
(Reference Material: How $7 Can Turn You In To a Bitcoin Millionaire)
(Reference Material: Clickable link to forbes article)
Scene Change
In a quick segment show a guy turning his computer into a mining device for a crypto and making some crypto. Flash forward and show him making very little crypto with the same device. He buys some more machines and he’s making crypto again. Then flash forward and he is not making as much. Eventually he has a room full of machines and on a table there is a graph with his crypto earnings versus his electrical and equipment expenses and those earnings are in decline.
(Reference Material: What is Bitcoin Mining?)
(Reference Material: A Look Inside America's Largest Bitcoin Mining Operation - look at around 2:20, then at around 3:15 you see a big one...)
(Reference Material: Mining Rig Bitcoin Mining Farm) - NOTE: This stuff quickly goes into the realm MOST people are not interested in and that is what we should take advantage of as steemit does not mine this way
That scene should be relatively short and mostly show it is a lot of work with decreasing returns and not particularly entertaining.
End showing clip about the entire buildings in china being filled with servers just to mine Bitcoin. Shows just how difficult and expensive it is.
Scene Change
The guy walks into a coffee shop. He looks deep in thought and not particularly happy. He walks past a person sitting at a table with a laptop using the coffee shops wifi. The person is cheerful and smiling and typing furiously. There is occasional stopping and chuckles and general signs of excitement and engagement.
The guy orders his coffee and sits at a nearby table and keeps glancing over at the other person. Until amidst all of the typing and laughing and perhaps some “Oh yeah” type statements…
The guy sits up as this typing and laughter doesn’t really fit with the crypto currency mold. It doesn’t even fit with the mold for people just trading crypto. He leans to see if he can get a look at the screen.
STEEMIT.COM USER: Happens to glance up and see him looking, and rather than being secretive he smiles and looks at THE GUY.
THE GUY: Perks up a little bit.
THE GUY: Get’s a knowing look
Scene Fade Out and Fade In Screen
--END OF SCRIPT--
Beginning of Notes I added to end
These are the notes I added to the end of the first draft of the script.
NOTE: It might be worth considering having the Steemit User be a female. This also adds to the concept that it is not male dominated. Tech typically seems to be more attractive to the males and thus most crypto seems to be male heavy. Steemit I think can break that perception as it approaches mining in a very personal and different way.
FOLLOW UP: We may want to do a followup script/video of some talking about master nodes for Dash and things like that. Sure they made spending dash easy. Earning dash though seems to be very tied to master nodes, and other things. I’m still not sure on that one… but dash focuses on making spending the currency easy, which is good…. could we do one that shows the difference between ease of getting the currency. Steemit still beats it for the average person in that regard. Perhaps someday spending it will be as easy too, but we can focus
on the difference is how you actually get the currency....
My thoughts are that we have a series of different videos that ech only focus on ONE aspect of what makes steemit/steem interesting. This particular script focuses on the difference in mining.
If we have a lot of different positive videos that show the difference then we have different potential entry points for people that can attract them to steemit.
We’ll need non-marketing videos and tutorials to greet them when they show up, but that should be a separate avenue of attack in terms of projects. These videos like this one are here to get them to visit steemit. The second set of projects should be designed to help them feel comfortable and decide to stay on steemit (aka user retention).
There were also some good comments
Steemit.chat community members have already provided some good feedback too that should go into shaping future iterations of this idea. I want to include those here so they are preserved for historical accuracy.
Steem On!
I have had trouble explaining steem to friends. In all honesty people do not care about how things work and just want them to work. Personally I love all the tech and puzzles behind the scenes but the average user does not. Good idea to create something palatable for people to digest to get an idea of what is going on but your average person will check out when you say "bitcoin". For now I stick to the immutable blog aspect and treat everything else as a bonus. Thanks for the post!
First of all the idea is good but you need to really focus on the core here. In my mind I see glances of people doing various stuff like dancing, singing, playing instrument etc. and showing that they all are earning money by sharing their passion using steem. And then saying "Do what you love and earn money of the future." And then right after cue sounds of hashing rising, then "The old days" - some brief footage of gpu's and mining farms shown "are gone". And that's it. What do you think?
I'm on my mobile so sorry for bad structure and typos.
That isn't the goal of the new Crowd Sourcing movement. The idea is to have MANY different small videos each focusing on ONE IDEA.
The Core is NOT where to focus if our goal is to attract everyone. If you read the @steemitblog post on crowd sourced marketing it explains this.
Anyone who thinks they KNOW what will work is generally WRONG even me. Otherwise they'd be a billionaire due to their marketing genius.
So instead many people are going to come up with many different ideas and cast them out there. As long as they are simple and focus on ONE IDEA then perhaps they'll attract different people.
There will also be people working on tutorials and other things to help people when they get here. So it is a two pronged plan. Some videos are about trying to get people curious enough to come visit. Others will be focused on retention and trying to keep people here.
As to your idea... it doesn't SOUND like a bad idea to me. It sounds like potentially an idea for ANOTHER VIDEO. Which IS part of this movement...
Script something up and crowd source edit it. For this particular script I want to keep it with how I am designing it. (not dramatically changed... but some change could be good... like the splitscreen idea @lovejoy recommended that I included in the post)
Your idea though I don't see as being a bad idea for another video. It might work better. It might not. That's the problem, no one can say what is going to SING to people and get them here, so the more short but focused on a single idea videos we can get out there the better.
I also am not really aiming for the crypto core with mine. My intention here is more to get those people who have their eyes glaze over and have no interest in the tech side. While I have a lot of video and a lot of references I intend to try to keep the actual tech side short or show someone being bored while the video is playing...
Basically the idea is... "This is mining anyone can do".
It was just a vision for a video I personally think would gather interest from people outside the cryptospace. Of course it is good to have all bases covered and multiple approaches to target variety of audiences . So I wish good luck to your project!
I think your vision could be a good one. You should consider pursuing it.
Maybe I'll work on it a bit more if no one else takes the idea and runs with it which I hope as I lack the experience on this area. I'll keep following your progress on this one for sure so keep us posted.
I might be aiming too high here, heh. But done well and I could see this having a big impact.
You could upload your presentation on slideshare, there is nothing on slideshare explaining steemit yet.
I've been wanting to comment on this all day.
I feel similar to@codydeeds. While I think you're making a good proposal, I can also envision a separate add/video without any dialogue, just a slowly moving camera moving through a city and showing people on their phones, on their computers, using Steem apps and whatnot at home, on the go, at work. The video could tell a story, for example writing a post to posting, checking on a post, reading a comment, looking at your wallet, receiving a payout. Or, it could be more vague, just showing people using Steem developed apps in their daily life with a catchphrase at the end. This could go for businesses as well.
If comparing Steem to Bitcoin is necessary, a similar video could be done that shows what using Bitcoin looks like as opposed to Steem.
I think the visual aspects accompanied with a good selection of music will be more approachable.
For some people they might be more approachable. You should do it. My response is the same. This is not about doing things ONE way. It is about focusing on ONE idea per video, but it doesn't mean you only have to make ONE video.
I understand. I just wanted to contribute the vision that your post brought to me. Sorry I didn't respond more to your idea. That would have been more constructive for you.
That's okay... we need a lot of ideas. I have my own vision on THIS single ONE, but that doesn't mean there do not need to be many more if possible.
Me likes...
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I don't get it, where do I plug in the miner. On that note, where do I get a miner? Well you all probably figured out I'm a noob now so let's seal the deal, what's a miner?
Hehe there are reference videos in there that answer EXACTLY what a miner is.
For every other crypto currency it is HOW more of that currency is released into the world. Computers solve complex equations and verify blocks, and it releases new currency based upon who solves the most blocks.
So as you might have determined the more powerful a computer you dedicate to it the more crypto currency you get because you solve more blocks, until another person builds a better machine, and then they are solving more than you and the blocks come out at a finite rate. So your odds of solving blocks decrease if the other miners are faster than you. So people would dedicate many computers to it, then rooms, and today data centers. It is technical, expensive, and it is mostly dominated by the big data center miners now. You can join a pool which means you dedicate your machine(s) to a pool of miners and you'll get a % of the crypto from that based upon how well the pool does. This ends up being very involving and technical.
If you mine a new crypto you can do pretty well, until all the big actors kick in.
The third video listed above is "What is bitcoin mining?" and it explains it pretty well and simply I think. That will likely explain better than I did.
:( Now I feel bad, I honestly thought it would be obvious I was joking.
Heh, I thought you were serious. You had no /s or anything there. :)
Ya I forget sometimes that sarcasm and dry humor don't translate well through text.
I think you are confusing things...
Steem is a token "mined" out of thin air. It is similar to stock which is created by a corporation.
After Steem has been "mined", a separate algorithm tallies the votes and distributes the mined Steem to Steemit's posters, witnesses and curators. The Steem has already been mined. Content providers simply divvy up the already mined Steem according to an algorithm.
A better explanation of the Steemit model would be to compare content providers to employees of a corporation who are paid in stock. The corporation issues the stock. The corporate objective is to create social media by posting, curating and socializing. The pay for doing so for advancing the corporate objective is shares of stock (Steem).
Another simple explanation of Steemit is that joining Steemit makes you a freelance writer who gets paid according to how well you can titillate the Steemit community into voting for your content.
No I am not confusing it. They have eliminated actual mining for steem. It did exist, and they removed it. They made several posts about it.
Just as new blocks are solved at a fixed rate and distributed to miners based upon solving problems on the other cryptos. Here steem is released at a fixed rate and is distributed based upon a portion to witnesses, and the rest to curation and posting rewards.
So the new currency enters the steem ecosystem via blogging, commenting, voting, and witnesses.
I intentionally kept this SIMPLE as the goal of these videos is not to try to educate the audience on how mining works in detail. It is to try to show the difference between mining on steem/steemit/busy.org/eSteem as opposed to the traditional method.
The goal again is targeted at different audiences. If we ONLY aim at people that view things the way you do and understand things the way you do we will limit our reach. Our crowd sourcing initiatives now are to try to present many different views, from many perspectives, as we don't know which ones will resonate with people the most. If we did then we'd already be very wealthy marketeers.
The mined out of thin air is closer to acting like a mining pool. Yet that also complicates it and is not really relevant to the purpose of this task.
That may be VERY relevant to a different audience, but most of that audience would not really be daunted by steemit in the first place. :)
"The idea here is to show that mining crypto-currency on steemit is done simply by using the platform. Voting, blogging, commenting, and replying all can lead to crypto currency rewards. This is how steem is mined." That just about says it all. Thanks!