The Trending Page is 100% Well-Established Users
If you go to the trending page, you can currently scroll quite a way down without ever seeing a user who doesn't already have a large following and a history of successful posts.
This is more an observation than a complaint. It may be a problem and it may not. It is to be expected that to some degree, established users will usually do better than new users. People who are doing well, get more attention and followers and do better, it's a feedback loop or a virtuous cycle. On Youtube this is typical, the trending page is generally full of established Youtubers. Even on Reddit you have people like /u/gallowboob who seem to always be on the front page.
On the other hand it may be symptomatic of a problem. Some statistical posts by @eroche in recent months showed that prior to the whale experiment in mid March, new users were finding it virtually impossible to gain traction. This was likely the cause of the continuous downtrend, new users would find and join Steemit, but after making an attempt to participate, they were inevitably met with failure. And so users were leaving more quickly than they were joining, we had high churn. After the experiment, suddenly new users were finding some success and were more easily able to transition into established users, in other words we had 'social mobility' in Steem for the first time in many months.
If the trending page is always established users, that may be a symptom of the same problem. Stakeholders will need to be mindful of this possibility, lest we return to the perpetual downtrend and have a fate similar to digg.com.
Edit: A counterpoint to my post is that if you observe the New tab at the moment, once you're past a few minutes, virtually none of the posts have $0.00 rewards. That is very different to early March and before, where the vast majority of posts went entirely unrewarded. Yet it is still something to keep an eye on.
For what it's worth, GallowBoob doesn't have any real "following" that gets him on the front page of Reddit, he's just stupidly good at finding or repackaging interesting content and intuitively knows how to write great clickbait. He did a couple YouTube interviews showing his method, and it's incredibly effective.
Agreed that the high barrier to entry on Steemit may discourage new users after their first few posts fail to gain traction, though.
Interesting. I guess the real test would be if he achieves similar success with an unknown account.
It seems like it's less of a problem with Reddit than other platforms regardless. It's even worse on Twitter, but that's arguably by design.
Here's the video - it's worth a watch if you're interested in content promotion:
He also tells a story about a company that wanted to pay him to post an ad of their product, and he had to explain that reddit doesn't really work that way - he doesn't really get clicks just for being GallowBoob.
I find it silly how a lot of Reddit moderators refuse money though.. and that's why I prefer Steemit. People don't really care about money here (at least not the majority) and yet it's just enough of a motivating force for people to try and get great content out there on the daily.
I am not trending because I don't have many followers because I am not trending because I don't have many followers.....the cycle goes on.
If you've got enough free cash lying around at least you can cut through that cycle almost instantly by becoming a whale. That may be out of reach for most people though...
Exactly. I don't have the money to buy steem.
How much does it take to get a $100 upvote now? I'm curious to see how much SP you need exactly and all those conversions. I'm excited to get to a point where my upvotes can be worth like $.10 :)
With the whale experiment, it's both easier than before and impossible to do a $100 upvote. Blocktrades did a 100% upvote and brought a post to several hundred dollars on his own. But he had to take it back and lower the vote, or it would have gotten countered.
My guess is that anyone with a billion Vests can do a $100 upvote now but would get countered.
And what do the vests mean? I keep seeing that on steemd, but I'm not sure what that actually translates to
Steem Power basically doesn't exist, it is only a way of presenting Vests. Vests are the real unit of stakeholding behind the scenes. Every new block, the amount of Steem Power which a Vest represents increases very slightly.
Vests are also how we measure if you're a minnow, dolphin, orca or whale. Minnows are below 10 million Vests. Dolphins are above that and below 100 million Vests. Anyone with at least a billion Vests is a whale.
Thank you for that. And you mean anyone with 100M+ is a whale, or is there some secret level in between? x)
>100MV = Orca.
>1000MV = Whale
<3 so glad to see this change starting to happen!
same same same names .....steemvoters tells me lol. is it a problem ? oh well....
And a good chunk of the trending page is taken up by the former guild.
so what you're saying is this:
We give them a few crumbs and maybe they'll stay despite the same fucking problems we had before but..hey..marketing, different package!! NEW TASTE! try now!!!
One thing steemit must learn is that people are not DUMB.
The trending page is dominated by bullshit, come on man, what would you click on if you see those titles in your facebook feed? Honest.
BULLSHIT.
I'm not even mad
If @Sandstorm can jump on this platform and within weeks grow a good following and make something I believe anyone can. People expect manna from heaven but some folks put in the work. I wrote about his arrival. https://steemit.com/steemit/@hilarski/how-a-social-media-pro-joins-a-new-platform-and-9-tips-for-success
I work my arse off since June 2016 !!!
Having lots of fun being stuck on my 66 reputation due to experimental flags. I don't give all those issues too much attention anymore. Just keep on going , expressing my message showing up also on google.
If new users are putting the work in but none or almost none of them are able to get traction, it's a problem. We're building a network, that means we have to ensure new users stick around and don't simply leave. If only social media experts can get a foothold and benefit from this network, with the rest of the rewards going to early adopters, then it isn't really what we're selling it as. It also won't succeed.