Campus Connect week 6 - how Steemit could be improved, ideas by @papi.mati

Steemit is a great platform, I'm sure everyone who writes here knows about it very well, but it also has its disadvantages. I remember that when I was starting my adventure with the portal, it looked very complicated to me and if I wouldn't have the help of some other users I would probably give up, not understanding it well. I believe some things may be simplified to make it more inclusive. As we all know, more inclusivity means more users and more users means more investors.

I will try to present 10 most important upgrades. I am aware all of them require a lot of work, but maybe someday it will be possible to make it work.

Chat/Messenger

I'm not the first one and probably not the last one who will be talking about it, but Chat on steemit is urgently needed. Contacting with the others on discord is problematic, requires looking for their nickname somewhere in the posts, which not always is easy to do. Improving the communication between the users may positively increase the initiative level and make us all feel more like a community. It also looks much more professional than when the users are forced to use external communicators.

Having the messenger on steemit opens other great opportunities - FAQ bot chat could be made to help newcomers make their first steps on the platform, maybe a few users could be also hired as the helpers who will be answering more complicated questions, another chat box could be dedicated to the team of @endingplagiarism and that would simplify reporting the spam.

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Better group searcher

Let's be honest, the group searcher which is on the website right now doesn't work. Many groups are invisible, others listed are not active for a long time. Sometimes some users are preparing the list of active groups, but steemit is a living organism, it changes very quickly so the list is not actually after few weeks.

I was publishing one on "promo-steem" a few days ago and I believe it's the most actualized one, you can find it here. It requires an urgent update, I'll work on it in the nearest few days, but it would be better if that work could be unnecessary someday, thanks to the new searcher. It takes a lot of time to prepare the list and when it's made by a single user, there is a risk some communities will be skipped.

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Selecting the articles by language

When I signed in, first what I have seen was the main page with the most profitable articles, as it's a default setting. Of course, 90% of that was in Korean or Chinese, so my first thought was "okay, I'm out of here, I won't understand a single word". Then I used the searcher to find some groups and again, promoted groups were described in Korean or Chinese what made me think that I definitely won't find the place for me here. I was wrong, but many people will probably think the same and give up before even trying to make their first steps on steemit.

Sure, I know the Korean community is growing very fast here, and because they use upvu a lot, their income goes up super fast. I'm fine with that but without some improvements on the website, it will be much more difficult to find new users from the countries which are already not strongly represented on steemit. What if the default main page would show the posts in English or in the language related to our IP - Korean in Korea, Spanish in Latin America, English in EU or US? Surely many new users would feel more encouraged to explore the platform and give it a try.

It would be also easier if the searcher would allow finding the posts in the language we speak in. Sure, everyone can use the translator, but first of all - not everyone does that, second of, not every text can be translated by google properly.

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Tutorial pinned to the main page

We have a Newcomers community which is a great place to start the adventure with steemit. It's perfect, but I miss something that would direct all the new users to that community - it could be a graphic element that redirects there after clicking on it, it can be the new window that opens right after the registering. Again, users who join the portal from the recommendation, who already knows someone on the platform, know where to start. If the users visit steemit without anyone who could help them to make the first steps here, it's kind of difficult to understand what the platform is, how does it work and what should they do at the beginning. Greeters help, Newcomers community help, but something that would gather all that stuff together is missing.

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Uploading profile picture

A very small, simple thing that can make a huge difference. The way how the profile photo should be uploaded is too difficult, it can be simplified. The comfort of the new users is very crucial - in the first week or two they shouldn't have any problems with the simple activities, because that first two week is the moment when they really decide if they want to stay on the platform or if it's not for them. We all are used to the simplicity which the main social media provide - upload and enjoy. I believe the way how the profile picture is uploaded may be simplified. If uploading the picture in this post may be done by "drag and drop" or selecting the photo from the computer, why not use the very same technique there?

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Live stream

If we could somehow live stream videos, many new ways to increase the activity would appear. Imagine live concerts, imagine debates, Steemit TedX, some lessons online, even some stream gamers which I am too old to understand but which obviously are very trendy nowadays.

it would be even better if it could be made in a way that allows watching the stream only to the people who pay few steem. Then paid lessons or TedX would be easier to manage and more profitable. I see the danger related to that idea though, some solution that would ban possible porn would be needed. I'm dreaming about TedX and concerts live, not Onlyfans...

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Marking the users who make investments

#welovepowerups - it makes the platform grow, has a positive influence on the steem value, and shows who is really dedicated to the platform. All the power-up contests and other activities around power-ups make it clear and probably every user who is over a month or two on the platform, already knows how important investing is. Some of them are still not motivated to do it. What if the nicknames of the people who are making regular power-ups would be marked on another color? It could be one mark for everyone, or few different marks related to the amount of money dedicated for power-ups.

That way curators, whales, and orcas would know without any extra research who takes their stay on steemit more seriously. It would also be the way to put soft pressure on the others. I can imagine that the user who is not making power-ups, after scrolling the wall and seeing that the majority of the authors are marked as the investors, will make the decision to power up at least some small amount of their savings.

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Internal marketplace with Tron

While changing SBD to STEEM or STEEM to SBD, using the internal marketplace is recommended. All the money doest leave the steem blockchain which is very healthy to our economy and keeps the price of STEEM higher. What if we have the very same mechanism for changing the STEEM/SBD to TRX and TRX to STEEM/SBD? I can imagine it would be a bit more difficult because even though those cryptocurrencies are connected, it's not the very same project, but if it would be possible to make, both cryptos could profit from it.

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Professional campaign

Right now the professional advertisement of Steemit doesn't exist. Sure, users are encouraged in many ways to talk with their friends and families about steemit, share the news on social media and do that kind of stuff, but the real power of that kind of promotion is very low. Every post on social media about earning on the Internet is considered spam and it's not surprising, because even though Steemit works well, there are hundreds of "earn on Internet" offers which are scams. I am trying to talk with my friends about steemit as much as I can but it happened few times that someone thought some hacker stole my account because it didn't sound true at all for them.

I believe the solution is conventional media. If some of the money directly from the blockchain would be spent on the TV or newspaper advertisement, it could bring more new users to the platform, and most importantly - much more investors. If we are focusing on presenting the platform to the friends and family members of the current users, we will have a lot of new users who will try to earn as much as possible and withdraw quickly the money while advertisement in some business newspapers or on TV before the programs about the economy allows us to find the users who are truly interested in investing some money here.

Money for the advertisement should be distributed equally, on every continent, maybe with the analysis where more investors may come from (popularity of cryptocurrencies, rates of investments in different countries). I believe, to make the project globally successful, it shouldn't be focused only on the markets where steemit is already well-known (Korea, Pakistan, Venezuela, Bangladesh, Nigeria, India) but also on the markets which can bring new investors and new users (US, Canada, Australia, EU, Russia, Japan, South Africa, Brazil)

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Marketplace

The power of crypto depends on how many people use it, not only to invest and keep as the savings but also to pay for the products and services. We already have few groups which are like the marketplace and we hear about some single shops here and there which declare they accept STEEM as the method of payment but what if a separate shop, similar to eBay would be created? Shop, which allows paying for the products and services in STEEM.

It's not impossible, I have made the research and there are some companies, even in Poland, which would be ready to make it and keep it up for some monthly payment and if they can do it, that means surely someone here is able to do it as well. That would drastically increase the value of the crypto and could make some positive noise in media around the world.

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That's just ten ideas from hundreds which I and many users surely have. The status quo is never the solution, the project which is not improved constantly becomes less attractive with time. I can see steemit growing and become more user-friendly, but still, many things could be changed.
I hope you all liked my ideas. I'm excited to hear your opinion and read about the things you would like to change on the platform.

Thank you for reading,
@papi.mati

CC:
@campusconnectng