Steemit.com Blasts Through 100K Unique Visitors in July But Is There Trouble Ahead For August?
Compete.com has updated their free public stats and it shows steemit.com has achieved a lovely hockey stick on their chart with unique visitors for the site blasting through the 100K barrier in the month of July to land at 172,982 which is up 355% from 37,982 visitors the month before in June.
But will this growth hold into August?
I doubt it. While I haven't been tracking the numbers with as much detail as I should I have been keeping my eye on https://steemd.com/distribution. From my anecdotal recollection the 24 hours active accounts was around 6.4K when I first arrived to Steemit in late July. That number has been sitting around 5.4K for much of August. The 7 days number of 15.4K seems to have been holding steady for most of August but the total users number has been steadily increasing.
So what does that mean? It would appear Steemit is still getting people's attention and people are still signing up accounts but they just aren't sticking around to use them. I have a hypothesis that the source of this issue is two fold.
I think we are in the midst of a summer slump that many websites experience. People are outside on vacation soaking up the sun while they still can. Hopefully in September many of those people will return to the site and we can see the daily usage grow again.
The other source could be a much more troubling one of people just not enjoying the product. We may be starting to see some evidence that Steemit may have some usability issues that are turning people away. What are those issues? I wouldn't even begin to guess without much more added information regarding usage metrics and cohorts but if we don't see a return to growth in September it may be time for Steemit to take a good long look in the mirror and see if it can figure it out.
Could any of this be linked to the recent price decline in Steem?
Please feel free to share any ideas you have about what could be behind Steemit's stalling usage in the comments below.
I feel like once more people are able to become full time at Steemit it will have the YouTube effect. A lot of people know people are making money off of YouTube and it is a popular news item to talk about some of these top YouTubers making millions. That entices more and more people to want to learn about the system.
I think things will pick up.
Plateaus are usually followed by bursts of growth...
Or it could be due to excessive powering down? Who knows :)
You might also have people who see the potential in STEEM by starting an account and then Powering-Up, so as to be invested in the next few years, as a "hedge", just in case they get left behind. ^_^
I don't think August will blow those numbers away but I think they will get real close.
I'm predicting a plateau or maybe modest growth. The unique visitors number measures more than just active user accounts so the content itself may help continue the growth of that metric through anonymous surfers just stopping by for an article.