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RE: Steemit is BOTH a Social Media & Blogging Platform - IMO
Hi Beeyou,
It could be both but I do see a look a differences. I like to compare Steemit more with a blogging platform than with facebook. While d.tube could become a competitor of youtube and maybe zapl with twitter, I'm seeing in the close future steemit to become a facebook competitor.
Lots of reasons why but the most important ones are:
- most friends on facebook do know each other in real life. Here on Steemit, I have never seen one of the Steemians I'm following in real life.
This makes that people search for people on facebook and maybe find some information.
Here on steemit people do look for information, guides or content an do find people!
I have never read an article on facebook which made me think about my future! Here on Steem this almost happens daily.
So, I do see steem more as a blogging platform, which some kind of facebook features, but both couldn't be more different. Not only based on the technology but for sure how people do use it!
I'm going to sound like a FB advocate in the next sentence, so let me make it abundantly clear—I'm not.
However, I have found some thought provoking articles and posts on FB. I have learned something and I have thought about my future. I've even found things I would be interested in purchasing or learning more about.
That said, it's one thing to be a social site, and another to be a social site with the express and primary purpose of collecting life data of the participants, without having really told anyone that's what you're doing. It might be tucked away in the user agreement couched in legalese, but there's no banner announcement pinned anywhere saying, "We're a life data collection site. That's what we care about."
And all the existing social 2.0 sites do it to some degree or another. So, while they facilitate socialization, that's not their primary reason for existing. It can't be, because in that particular business model, free socialization doesn't make money.
So, in the truest of senses, I'm going to say we've yet to discover what a social site is, and maybe, just maybe, Steemit et al becomes that site.
To be honest, I don think that collecting data was part of the first business plans of Facebook. In the beginning it wasn't so clear that data gathering would be a gold mine. It was, according to me, a natural process :)
I suppose. It is kind of hard to believe that college student Zuckerberg and pals weren't so insanely smart and forward thinking that they didn't actually come up with the life data collecting idea until someone came to them and said, "How much for the data?"
That, though, makes them sound like sellouts rather than diabolical masterminds bent on world domination or destruction of civilization as we know it. Take your pick :)
I still will go for the fact that is was a natural process. Okay maybe a little naive of me.
Still facebook was a great invention and change the world a little bit. A change for the better and the worse!
I agree. Facebook has done quite a bit of good in connecting people, particularly friends and family that don't live close to one another. And outside of some kind of subscription service, or somehow selling a product, there wasn't much of a way to monetize it or make money off of it without selling advertising to companies who wanted access to so many potential paying customers.
If it had all ended there, without data being collected and then handed over to businesses and other organizations, then it may have been okay. Unfortunately, that's not where it stopped.
But we can blame the same to Google.
Which once started as a great algorithm, which opened the internet for as all. Did change in some kind of dictator- and censorship!
They are probably the biggest culprit of them all. Absolutely. It's sad that there has to be such good and bad associated with any of this tech. It just proves that it can be used for the betterment of mankind or its detriment, and it will take more than a relative handful being vigilant and pointing out the pitfalls for there to be a course correction.
We keep moving ahead without asking whether or not we should, or finding ways to mitigate the risks or dangers. I'm not saying turn our back on advancements—not by a longshot. But we need to stop finding things we could do only and start asking if we should. And then deal with the consequences before we move ahead.
In the case of these internet companies, I suppose it was inevitable. There is just too much revenue to be had, for Google, FB and everyone else benefiting from their data collecting not to do it. If we lived in a society built on privacy and trust, this wouldn't probably happen, first of all, but if it did, then we could be safe and secure with the vast stores of knowledge and information about each one of us being handed around. People would act ethically, and find socially acceptable ways to actually help us.
It would be great to have everything we ever wanted and needed available for perusing at our finger tips. It would actually be a service to us. Especially if price and quality were factored in so we're getting something worthwhile with our limited resources.
But, unfortunately, it's far less about improving our lives than it is enriching their own coffers. I very much believe in capitalism, but I also believe in the honest exchange of goods and services. If FB and Google were honest in their dealings with their users, they'd be paying every last one of us for what we just give them.
Thanks for the comment @fullcoverbetting. While the feature of Steemit is as a blogging platform, but the behavior on here is not. People come on here to read articles but there are also community involvement and engagement. It is these community support that keeps people engaged, entertained and motivated. I think blogging platform alone would be very boring without a social media aspect.
Now, if Steemit teamed up with Discord and we have our very own friends list on the side, now that there would definitely define Steemit as both. I think that would be a great idea if Steemit Inc chooses that path. Then Steemit would be a true competitor to FB.
Hi @fullcoverbetting. I replied to some of your other comments. Now replying to the main one. :)
I like how you said you see steemit as a blogging platform with some kind of facebook features. Exactly! We can't have one without the other, at least I don't think so. You have to have the 'relationship' that is prevalent on social media sites incorporated into aspects of steemit, or else people would just leave this blogging platform when they get penny earnings.
Edit--I just realized you are one of the ones I've already replied back to on the main comment. That's what I get for being days behind. Oh well, you got a double reply from me. :)