Multi-blog Proposal for a Better Performing Attention Economy
[1]
Steemit force you owning only a single blog at the moment. However, the bloggers' requirements as persons don't meet this criterion, and it also affect the readers' experience badly. We have to resolve this contrary.
The Problem of the Single Feed
It is really rare when a person is interested in only in on subject. It virtually does not exist; we would like to have more information about a lot of thing in smaller or bigger extent.
As a blogger, our problem starts when we also want to write about different topics. Of course, we should not start the examination from the writers' side but rather from the readers' one.
The readers must be the first on our priority list.
[2]
Reader's Point of View – The Chaos Deters
Assume that we as readers follow a blogger who writes (only) 5 different topics. We are interested in only a part of his side of music, but he also publish articles about technology, politics, news, etc. The more he writes about more topics, the more we feel that although we like his good posts about music, we will not follow him.
The inconvenience overwrites the curiosity.
Writer's Point of View – More and more readers
In my humble opinion, writing always has its purpose. Even when the final text lands in the trash after all and nobody never sees that but us.
I myself did the same countless times after hours of writing...
But when we reach the point when we yet publish something for the world, one of our goals is that our thoughts have to reach more and more people.
When – as we have just discussed – we deter our readers, we just achieve the opposite.
The Problem of Writing Multi-Blog
As we unintentionally harm the readers and ourselves with a single-blog, we have to examine the parallel blogging. With that, we can achieve that we concentrate only at one topic in each single blog, thus our readers can enjoy the content they are really interested in without any noise and inconvenience.
User's Point of View
We need more interface, different by one by one; easy usage and managing; easy changing between blogs. I (as an assumed avg. user) do not interested in technical background but the convenience. Possibly be such a place what sums up all the information of blogs owned by me.
Service Provider's Point of View
Nothing is as simple as it seems. The users of Steem could own multiple blogs, however Steemit could not afford it, namely creating new accounts on the blockchain has its price. Beside that, Steemit provides a starting capital (of Steem Power), let your votes mean something. So endless accounts utterly cannot be given to an individual.
Because of these things they make it hard to open multiple blogs from the start (there are email and mobile phone verification now.)
The Proposal
After we have known the requirements and hardships, we need to come up with different solutions to choose from, or let the brainstorming just give the foundation for further thoughts.
[3]
Single Account with Multi-Blog
We could start more blogs while we hold and use our old credentials. Personally I consider this the most desirable solution.
I could bring up the Google Plus Collections for examples. I named them Personal Tags arbitrarily then (hereinafter: p.tags), and I consider it (the tag system) as G+'s best innovation.
The whole problem is solvable with the least compromise and the highest integration to Steemit's current state and its vision, if we modify the hashtag system so we can follow them (part 1) and we develop the p.tags then for blogs (pt. 2).
From developers' viewpoint this (choice) seems to be the hardest, but certainly not unsolvable. However, as things stand now, I am not sure that we can count on it in the near future.
Multiple Accounts, Multiple Blogs
This method has only one but huge advantage, that it can be applied immediately.
In turn, it has a lot of disadvantages. However, it is better solution than the single blog, despite its disadvantages.
- As we have already discussed, Steemit makes hard creating more accounts for an individual, for obvious reasons. Making that impossible is not an option, so who wants to bypass it, could do it.
- We are talking about different accounts here, and we do not manage all of them now with only one credential.
- Two units of voting power is stronger in one account than separately. We cannot unite our voting power immediately, as powering down the side accounts takes time.
- If we collect reputation points with separate accounts, we reach a good reputation later, than if we would write everything under a sole name.
- It would be uncomfortable, and achieving the easy account changing may involve as much work as it would be in the p.tags method.
Confession
I have tried that if an individual can make more accounts. For I registered this account before the mobile verification has been implemented, it was not hard for me making a new account with my number. I wanted to see that if it is possible and good solution making new accounts this way.
The answer: it is possible but not good.
It would harm Stemmit and the community with it, if that would be the only possibility in Steemit's offer to make multiple accounts (and blogs with them of course). Though, I am sure I am not the first and only one who have tried this, I state that account name here in the name of transparency: @muziko. I will not leave alone that account and I am going to publish every of my posts about music there in the future, until Steemit will develop a better solution.
Bypassing Steemit without Damage
Steem is an open-source, free software, and we have to have the opportunity for making new accounts on our own. This is true, and my last information about its price that it is 3 Steem.
For that, we have to know how to maintain the Steem software or we can entrust a 3rd party. One of such a service provider is AnonSteem. Note that the price of a new account there (at the time of writing) is 0.017 BTC, while 3 Steem only cost 0.00047826 BTC.
Involve Steemit in a Temporary Solution
According to my idea, Steemit would develop and allow buying new accounts for already registered users who have enough stakes in their own accounts.
Assuming that making a new account costs 3 Steem, I would define an account price at 4 Steem (or more if it has any incremental cost.) I would burn the +1 Steem to lower the amount of currency in circulation and raise the value of the outstanding currency (lowering the inflation).
We may not need more accounts only because it goes with more blogs, so we could develop it even if we solve the multi-blog problem otherwise.
A 3rd party could also make it (e.g. a Witness), if Steemit is not interested in the idea, or just do not want to do that. Steem's sustainability is a common goal.
Using Multiple Blogs
Like I have already written, that would be uncomfortable with the multi-account method. That would be relieve if we could stay signed-in with multiple accounts and we could change fast among them.
What is the same in the multi-account and p.tags method is that we can separate the thick topics to as little units as we need for a well-running blog.
I imagine the p.tags method that way, that we could add p.tags beside the already existing hashtags in a different text field. Thus we could specify in every new blog post that which blogs we want it to included in.
It would be harder to do with multi-accounts, where our only option is resteeming our post in every of our blogs where we want to show it.
With that way, by both methods, we could make new blogs by chaining our already existing blogs into new ones. (E.g. our new blog, named Music, resteeming the Rock, Classic and Electronic ... blog's contents.) With multi-accounts, we would not have as much advantages as disadvantages, so I would only recommend it with p.tags.
I see its meaning only in one case though: when an author makes it clear that he stands behind all of his blogs (or just specific blogs) and he resteems all of that contents in a main feed. He could easily share that feed's link when he is asked about his works.
This would not needed with p.tags. We would have the opportunity to follow all of the blogs of the writer (namely the writer), or just single blogs.
We choose either way, I would like, if we enjoy the improvement of the user experience at this area as soon as possible.
I am "little" alone. Start brainstorming. Think about that how we could make the multi-bloggers' life more easy. Give voice for your ideas, do not let them remain as lost thoughts!
We can achieve more together.
Image Credits
[1] Random Words image by Hldrmn is under CC BY-ND 2.0 Generic license.
[2] Control Chaos image by Phunk Studio is under CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported license.
[3] Vector Logo Circuit Board Tree image by mastermindsro is under CC BY 2.0 Generic license.
Translation and dissemination
See the terms here.
This post is a translation of my original one. / Ez a bejegyzés az eredeti posztom fordítása.
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The author has chosen the following rewards ratio to strengthen Steem's economy: 0% s.dollar, 100% s.power.
I've learned that the harm is not serious, because you need to earn 10 times as much SP than your account creation fee. While you earn that, you give value to the Steem ecosystem. It's a give to get, seems fair to me. Therefore I don't discourage anyone to make more accounts for multiblogs until there is a better option.