The End Of The Daily Pick Of Hidden Gems (featuring @dragonslayer109 as author)
I'm posting this with @gavvet because that's where it all began... during the time when my account was hacked and I was waiting to get it recovered.
All good things must come to an end to allow the space for improvement or for something better.
When I stated the Daily Pick of Hidden Gems I had no Idea where it would go and its been a wild ride.
In some respects it led the way and set the example that some have followed and its great to see entire initiatives focused simply on identifying and curating new or unrecognized authors.
It was wonderful the last couple of weeks to find posts that I had selected had already been found by the time my Daily Picks went up. Kudos to the Curie team for their undercover efforts that we now know about. With Curie going strong its time for a change.
Change is a good thing. Many people are scared of change as it is the new and might be out of your comfort zone.
Statistics
I decided to have a look at all the posts and people I had featured and how things were going. Lets start with some positive. Some are doing really well posting great content everyday and the value of their posts are in the double digits.
Sadly this is not the case for everyone as some are still posting great content with nothing on it at all. This is not the worst thing that I had noticed. A lot of those which have been featured in my daily gems before are no longer active on this site.
My thoughts
Image credit
I believe in giving a person a fishing rod and looking back at my featuring of posts in gems I was giving them a fish. One featured post was simply not enough to help them stand on their own and be able to make something.
Just as a saying goes, you can give a person a fish to satisfy their hunger but tomorrow they will be hungry again and require another fish. Sadly I can't feature the same person everyday in my daily gems. It would be unfair to others.
Conclusion
This isn't so much the end of the daily gems, it is the start of something new, something better and I am hoping that this would be more of a fishing rod than the pick of hidden gems.
The hidden gems has made a bigger impact than what I originally thought it would make and has set a pace for others to follow.
Helping others helps you in the end, it is like teaching where the teacher learns more than the students.
You guys have provided a great service with this. I especially have admired how focused you have been on finding some good posts every day. Back when I started the Spotlight newsletter, before July 4, we weren't having these frequent payouts. What you have done, curating and scooping up good posts that need attention right away, has been much harder.
I appreciate your mention of Project Curie. I think curation efforts are adding new value to Steemit by directing rewards to where they are most needed and deserved. However, I do not think that Curie spelled the end of your series; both could continue, if you wanted. There are more good posts than we can find.
Being rewarded for finding these posts is another story. I have seen so many cycles already where certain kinds of posts are making money and then it slows down or stops as the interest moves elsewhere. Some things that used to be popular are not as successful anymore. Steemit evolves very quickly and we cannot really know where it will go next.
I invite you and anyone else who enjoys curating to submit worthy posts to our #curie channel on Steemit.chat. We will be glad to pay you finders fees for any posts that we are able to upvote. Our project's budget is fairly lean, but we want to make sure to reward anyone who contributes posts.
Thanks again for your Daily Picks, which have made Steemit better.
@donkeypong thank you for your reply. I love and support your project a lot. The daily pick has come under fire due to you guys finding the posts and upvoting them making the posts no longer "hidden" according to haters. I am starting a new project that will hopefully be better than the daily pick as I will be moving away from promoting individual posts but rather an author to allow them to get more followers and get them seen thus allowing for all their future posts to get more value on them. SO it isnt really a stop to the hidden gems but more of an update to help people out better. I will be posting about it to as some people would like to see and understand how it will work. Project Curie didn't end my hidden gems but has directed it to something that could help out much more.
As a minnow, I appreciate what you all do for invisible content. My attitude since finding Steemit has been that we can only control our own output. Who sees it, who values it, who upvotes it... that's beyond my control. But even if no value is added to the platform, my simply being here, motivated to write on a daily basis, that creates value for me, individually! That's huge, and something I didn't have before. I also believe that consistent effort, the daily human action of writing and reading others' work, will pay off. How much and when, again, beyond my control. But I know it will.
Hi @drogonslayer109
I am not a great writer and I am also not an academic, but I do enjoy reading the posts. Unfortunately I don't have enough time to read the many posts that are written. My wife already complains that she now plays 2nd fiddle!! to steemit.
m8 one suggestion to you . Happy wife happy life
I totally agree with you on that one and don't worry I do keep her happy.
Good thoughts.
The boost helps good authors, even if they don't maintain the momentum. I was blessed with getting some good attention with about my 6th article. The result was an almost instant jump over 100 followers. Since then my followers have grown and I tend to have more consistency in my payouts. They're still mostly small (with some nice ones the last couple of weeks), but more consistently getting attention.
This aspect alone probably makes it worth it. If they pick up more followers, then you've done them a great service and given them far more to work with.
my new "gems" will be focused of getting followers to the authors I feature
Hi @gavvet
Thank you for featuring people using your influence and following to help them out. It's a prime example of #DoGoodThings
@dragonslayer109 - I love your community focus and definitely will be checking on your posts from now on. I've seen too many people get frustrated and leave - not because they're not making gazillions of dollars but because they feel invisible.
I'd thought about 'adopting' a newbie for a month to help promote and highlight them. While I don't have a lot of influence, I'm pleased to say the growth I've had is very organic. My thought is longevity and success comes with building a rock solid foundation. Kudos to you both!
My next section I will be doing will be helping those who are invisible
@dragonslayer109 - Thank you ver much for your advice and support. You certainly are one of those adding value here!
@gavvet Thank you for your preliminary expression of interest to support the Italian-speaking community!
Thank you for good post which give us encouragement and motivation to do something good and better than the first. I appreciate it.
@dragonslayer109 thanks for all your effort helping authors, it's sad that some of those people did not stick it out. As the saying goes "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't force it to drink."
@gavet - shoutout for featuring this post to get more eyeballs on it.
I wish people had stayed and pushed through
Thank you for your advice, I enjoy your posts and will continue to try to find my niche on steem and utilise it to its full potential!!
thanks for supporting the community!
Is the reason you stopped because you aren't on the whale-bot list anymore?
Such dedication much years.
Amazing how trolls hunt in packs... you have done what exactly to build this community?
No need to get butthurt. Robin Hood Whale.
please have a look that it isnt stopping but becoming something else. something better. how about actually reading the post
Time will tell just how noble the RHW is.... true colors have been shown to those who are observant
How about concentrating on your South African ring :). RHW has been clean from the get go and will stay clean aslong as I manage it.
Also not a clue.... still "wet behind the ears" and still chasing your tails... round and round in circles you little trolls go... with little comprehension of anything but your own mistaken hasty, unresearched conclusions.... but I'm done feeding the trolls
Robinhood whale is a joke 😂 20-30$ for the authors is such wow
I guess getting $0 from hidden gems is better ;)
Conclusion
This isn't so much the end of the daily gems, it is the start of something new, something better and I am hoping that this would be more of a fishing rod than the pick of hidden gems.