Welcome to the Metaphone?
What's Happening?
It’s a week since I found the time to return to Steemit after two months away, and things have changed since the last hardfork. On the one hand, the platform seems to be much more open to developers to take it in new directions - a good thing, surely - and on the other, a lot more voting bots, dribbling out 1 per cent votes across the ecosystem.
Bots or Not?
I know people have different ideas on the value and ethics of bots. It seems to me that they’re an attempt to address one problem of Steemit’s attention economy - none of us can read everything in time to make our votes count - but that they lead to other problems in their turn.So why the Metaphone?
The Metaphone? Is my small attempt to offer my own work, and that of others, a second shot at your attention. I’m not setting myself up as a one-man curation guild, just sharing some stuff there’s a chance you missed first time. And it’s an experiment, we’ll see how it develops. It’d be great if you could follow, and if there’s still time, cast a vote for some of the featured articles below.Ancient Ireland
I started the week with a trip to ancient Newgrange, and less-ancient Monasterboice and Mellifont. Readers seemed to like the first, less so the second.In between I hiked the Dungonnell Way nearer home in County Antrim. Again, the article didn't have much of an impact on readers and voters - but onwards and upwards!
Garden Adventures
Later in the week, I introduced my vegetable garden. It’s early, but I thought you might be interested in the first stirrings of spring. The piece didn’t have much of an impact payout-wise, but it introduced me to the new world of SteemTrails and in particular the Gardening trail, where the next piece was picked up. This article, a throwaway thing on surprise winter crops attracted the biggest vote any piece of mine has yet achieve on Steemit!
And what has caught my eye?
@herverisson’s series on the enemies of Rome came to the grim conclusion of the story of Sertorius. Well worth a read and a vote!Meanwhile, @gavvet has been producing great work on the geology and landscape of Augrabies Falls National Park in South Africa. The most recent examples are here and here but check out (and upvote) the rest if you can.
Bela and Curie
@thecryptofiend resteemed some good stuff as always, in particular a great tribute to Bela Lugosi by @richq11. And obviously, for curation, I’ll always be grateful to the Daily Curie. Thanks guys!
Thanks to @shortcut’s article for giving me a start in thinking about a more interesting layout for the Metaphone? - hopefully I’ll learn more and develop in future issues.
And what have I learned?
Well, posting time seems to be important. Getting your tags right seems to matter as well. Post-promotion on Steemit Chat has some impact. The trails look like a promising way forward. But if the bots and guilds are doling out micro-votes, most of us will fall under the radar...Maybe the Metaphone? will help, in a small way. So if you’ve enjoyed this first issue, please follow and reSteem!
Nice it reminds me a bit of Readers Digest when I was a kid:)
Exactly!!
Thanks for the mention. The layout looks very nice :-)
No, thank you! I would've been struggling with that for ages. It really helps you focus on what the reader will see, and on managing your content for that as much as anything else. Common sense, but sometimes...
Yeah, you're more than welcome. It really helps to have some layout opportunities. That way the posts even look more professional. Keep it up!