Steemit Analysis - Blog vs. Reddit vs. Twitter vs. Facebook
When a startup begins with an idea, it has turbulence and turmoil to get started and adopted by a growing user base. If the idea is solid, it will usually succeed in time with effort, energy, determination, dedication and persistence. If the idea is not too good, it will probably fail.
Is the Steemit.com content creation platform a good idea, or is it poor and needs to radically change for it to succeed? Where is Steemit going to focus to develop it's uniqueness to attract others?
This is by no means an in-depth exhaustive analysis. Please add you insights.
Blogs
How does Steemit align or diverge with blogs?
- On blogs you create content that people value, and they go read it to gain knowledge about the topic. Steemit matches up here.
- On blogs, your content is there forever. Steemit matches up.
- On blogs, if you have ads, you can generate revenue for your content o matter how old it is. Steemit doesn't match up here.
- Steemit doesn't have ads to do this, but if it did, this could generate extra revenue for content creators by viewers clicking on ads.
- without ads, the 30 day limit would need to be modified to make longer content provide revenue like regular blogs do for ad-clicks.
Steemit, overall, does live up to the blog platform, except for the life-long revenue stream possoiblity for each content piece. On blogs, content revenue can be timeless. On Steemit, currently it's 7 + 30 days.
How does Steemit align or diverge with Twitter?
- Twitter is a limited 140 char blurb, something you quickly say, without much content at all.
- Twitter is not geared towards higher attention spans.
- Twitter is not geared towards people who want to learn.
- Twitter is a newsfeed ticker style website.
I never understood that value for people. It's only to grab attention, so I guess that's why people use it: "look at me and the food I am eating." "Look at me, here I am shopping."
It's short attention span grabbing market.
Is that what Steemit is supposed to be? Just another market for short attention span people who can't be bothered to read, learn or create content of their own? Why do we want to tap into this? Just to get more people to come to Steemit? The value of twitter doesn't come from the content, unlike the purpose of Steemit is in the Whitepaper. Twitter's value comes from the short time and attention in each post that attracts people short on time and attention.
Quality vs. quantity. An important issue that affects so much of our lives, and Steemit is not exempt. I choose quality, over quantity. Quantity comes with time, as the platform shows its' quality.
It comes down to what are the goals:
- To get a bunch of low quality low thinking people to more easily make Steemit popular in the short term (but with no real substance)?
- Or do we work hard to create meaningful, valuable substantive content that is unique and can only be found on Steemit?
- Maybe another option?
Does Steemit want to focus on news-ticker update-style content like Twitter?
How does Steemit align or diverge with reddit?
I don't use reddit. I don't have much insight. But from what I understand, it's short content.
You can post a link with no text, a picture with text, or just text. From what I see, reddit is mostly links to other sites, and few content of its own.
Reddit then, is not a content creation hub. Reddit is a sharing links hub. The only interaction is based on a centralized hub marketplace for people to comment. That's why people use it, to connect and discussion/comment/rant/complain about things in one place, rather than go to each site, and comment on their pages if they even have comments.
Facebook does similar. I don't really see the point of reddit other than a link-databse for buzz-topics of the day that people are interested inthe short-term to reward eachother with karma for the link, or the comments on links. Reddit is not a content creation hub, like the potential Steemit can be to do something better.
How does Steemit align or diverge with Facebook?
I see Facebook as the most deserving of merit to copy features and bring to Steemit, as it already integrates int he direction of a content creation platform which Steemit was created to be.
- Facebook has posts or any size. Steemit matches up.
- Facebook has PMs, Steemit is developing this.
- Facebook has a personal page, about, etc. Steemit will be developing this going forward.
- Facebook allows sharing to friends, chats, groups, pages. Steemit doesn't match up yet, but this is going to come as development goes forward. Sharing can now be done, and you don't have to take rewards from acatual content creators.
Out of all the popular social media platforms that I see people trying to get Steemit to emulate, there is only one that has merit to me: Facebook. Reddit, twitter, instagram, have never attracted me to their platforms. I have no use for them in my life. Facebook I did, but now Steemit has taken over that importance. Facebook is only useful as a marketplace for networking as I originally used it, however it's appeal as a place to create content, is nill. Steemit is my home for creating content now. Even my own blog is not important compared to Steemit.
Sharing Content
Sharing any content was an issue, because Steemit is for people to create content, not plagiarize and make money off of other people's work (not cool). Sharing can now be done with the "Decline Payout" option. If people could simply make money from sharing links, yes that would be more popular than reddit, and more people would come, probably. But the market place hub still has the popularity with time. Reddit, twitter, facebook, have created a market place for people to network into. Steemit will have to take time to establish itself, and if it wants to simply copy what other "lame" sites (as far as I'm concerned) are doing, then you have to compete with all those markets simultaneously.
But what would that do to the existing model of rewarding content creators who don't simply take someone's work, share it, and make money from it? There is a disparity in time, effort, energy, and work put into the platform. One type actually creates something of value that is on the platform for others to gain from. The other type just takes what other people have made, shares it, and then reaps the rewards for simply sharing something found on some other site. never actually creating something unique on Steemit to actually make Steemit itself valuable as a place for content to be found.
Out of all the "social media" sites, I only have used Facebook, and that was to share and connect important information about our world and to try to get people to wake up to what is going on. All the other sites don't have that value for me to do.
More Questions to Think About
Here are some people supporting the attempt at a "new" direction for Steemit, when I objected to this new model to get more popularity/money into Steemit (wrong goals as I see it).
fav: problem is bloggers don't give a single fuck about steem
fav: and discouraging reddit style will drive even more users away
"Because if you reward link posting then many people will come and post links. Not many people will ever write blogs, compose music, or create paintings." - @smooth
So... because we aren't popular and making enough money to start off, we need to radically change the platform model to be popular and make money?
The arguments are that no one cares for blogging, they want X, Y, Z, whatever, we need to cater to the X, Y, Z attention-span audience and reward them for simply sharing links and other people's work like they do on those other sites... What about people like me, who don't want X, Y, Z, or whatever, and want blogging? We came to Steemit for the blogging and content creation, not for a new twitter, reddit or instagram site... If Steemit turns into reddit, instagram or twitter, what do you think that new platform will do to the existing, functional, loyal userbase that actually stuck around and didn't leave? Maybe they will leave because what Steemit was supposed to be for, content creators, will no longer be the case.
Let me ask:
Is Facebook doing reddit? Is Facebook doing Twitter? Is Facebook doing what Facebook does? Is Facebook trying to not be like Facebook, and more like Twitter or reddit, in order to attract new users and make money?
Is Twitter doing reddit? Is Twitter doing Facebook? Is Twitter doing what Twitter does? Is Twitter trying to not be like Twitter, and more like Facebook or reddit, in order to attract new users and make money?
Is reddit doing Facebook? Is reddit doing Twitter? Is reddit doing what reddit does? Is reddit trying to not be like reddit, and more like Twitter or Facebook, in order to attract new users and make money?
Why, when we are Steemit, are we saying that we need to be like reddit, or Twitter, or someone else to get users, when that's not even how Steemit was developed?
Steemit.com was not developed as a reddit link referral system. Steemit.com was not developed as a Twitter 140 char snapchat system. Steemit.com was modeled after a blog to create unique content and make Steemit a hub for unique content, which would give it higher value than repeating content like all the other platforms do.
Maybe... let's not focus on making this platform a copy of all the other platforms into one, and have it fail because it tries to cater to all the markets that each site taps into. Maybe try to get one thing working properly before we try to expand and change the platform before it even gets out of BETA phase... maybe focus on quality instead of quantity... I believe that's a truism that has stood the test of centuries in terms of a valid higher goal. Seeking quantity over quality is a lower minded goal based on ego, attention and popularity.
This is a fallacy I see being done. Focusing on quantity instead of quality, all in the desperate attempt to gain popularity, to gain attention. Patience. Create something actually valuable, and people will recognize it as such. The reason twitter, facebook, instagram, and reddit are popular without paying people, is because they all tie into the basic low consciousness aspect of desiring attention, getting people to notice and recognize us, being popular, and being liked.
That's how the attention economy makes money, by monetizing people's desire to connect with others, and using their desire to find things that capture their attention so that they click on the ads. People hope the same happens to them, that oehrs will go to their 140 chars, or their reddit, based on the short attention grabbing title or intro text. THey aren;t interested in reading a long post about that topic though... quality isn't in their mindset. It's all short atttention instant stimulous. Over 140 chars is too much to keep some people interested and paying attention.
Is this the mindset and consciousness we awnt to cater to and bring towards Steemit, just to make it more "popualr", and to make more "money"? Psshhh.... sad....
Is that what reddit, Facebook or Twitter did when they started off? Users weren't coming in fast enough when they started, so they decided to copy what others were doing and do the same thing? No... they stuck to the unique platform they brought to the internet... and eventually it worked out for those who adopted that platform. I have not adopted reddit or twitter, ever. I have no use for them.
I will not support twitter or reddit style posts of rehashing links, pictures, or short paragraph/content other people make. I don't like twitter or reddit, and have never joined those platforms. I don't understand why people like those platforms.
Ask yourself:
Do I want Steemit to be the next big thing by trying to do what some other site already does? Do I want quantity and popularity over quality?
Or do I want Steemit to do something better, and not focus on quantity and popularity at the start, but let that develop organically as Steemit develops to offer something of HIGHER QUALITY that is better than simply getting paid to rehash links, pictures, texts, or make my own 140 char text blurb...?
Do I want steemit to be providing something new and useful to further the progress of humanity as a whole with a better platform? Or do I just want Steemit to be popular and make money doing what the other sites do by catering to the short attention spans and lack of quality substantive information that changes our world?
Do I want Steemit to just do what the others do, and create more of the same shit online that reddit, twitter, instagram and facebook already contribute to? Do I want Steemit to be another part of this fodder of Internet gossip and entertainment for the new millennium and millennials who can't be bothered to think about deeper issues and learn about them?
What do we want? We the community will reward and ecnourage the platform that develops.
Do you really want Steemit to be catering to more of this millennial fodder, simply to be popular? Simply to make money?
Do you know that Twitter is dying? They couldn't sell their company. The only value they have is as a news-ticker feeder attention grabbing site in the future. After the daily buzz around a topic, no one is interested. Why try to cash in on a dying market by rewarding the type of posts twitter postsers make?
Why try to emulate a blip of 15-minute fame in the millennial short-attention-span life-cycle?
Is that what you want Steemit to become, catered after the tastes and desires of the millennials? Get the new buzz ticker posts, and keep up with the new info stimulation that keeps your limited attention span entertained?
If millennials aren't interested in blogging, then it's not a valuable platform to use?
Personally, I don't want to cater to any millennial predilections or desires. of low attention spans and disinterst in anything significant or meaningful in their lives apart from being entertained, having fun, sports, games, gossip, and whatever else they like to blurb and selfie about.
Changing minds takes time, effort, and energy of explaining things. That's what a blog is for, to explain things. Audio and video can do the same. What can't explain things in detail? 140 chars (twitter), or link rehashing (reddit). Twitter and reddit, and all the other social media platforms, except Facebook, are not changing anything in people's live apart from having them want to get more attention by sharing blurbs about their silly lives, what they eat, where they go, etc.
I did not come to Steemit for the sites I avoid being part of: reddit, twitter, instagram. I came to Steemit for what Steemit is: a content creation platform that rewards people for making content. Not for simply sharing content and getting paid to share, but to actually create something that will make Steemit stand out on the map of the internet as a place to get things you can't get elsewhere.
What are your thoughts?
Peace.
2016-11-12, 9:12am EST
Good thoughts!
For blogs, you generally put up your own ads. You can do this in your Steemit articles too, so I don't really see it as much different. The main difference is that there isn't a way to standardize them. It's all up to the user.
Zactly!!
I am a long time Redditor. Reddit is quite similar to Steemit in many ways - content at the top, comments at the bottom. People upvote and downvote, which ultimately exposes content. Steemit has tags, Reddit has subreddits.
This structure allows for all kinds of content. It can be sharing a picture without a single line of text. Sharing a cool link. Adding thoughts to said link.
Or completely original, long-form content. Op-eds, fiction, academic reports.
Or engage the comments section, ignite discussion - ask a question, host interviews/AMAs, etc.
Different sub-reddits have different focus.
Reddit, is undoubtedly the most vibrant, the most diverse, the most insightful social network on the planet. It's not the most popular, but with 250 million Redditors it remains very popular.
There's no reason why Steemit cannot host a similar diversity of content. Of course, the challenge with monetary rewards is reconciling the value of each type of content.
I agree there are many things to learn and use about sites, upvote vs. likes, types of content. Thanks for the insights into reddit. I would say that's pretty popular though.
But I'm more talking about why people came to Steemit to start with as the platform it is, and how that compares to others, and where we want to go into the future based on that. The experiment can have many aspects to it, but this one I don't support in the end. I came here because of the platform it was, and it wasn't like the others I avoided. I would like to keep Steemit within that original vision.
Still trying things out from anywhere, but still keeping that original content creation platform at the core and adopting things that align with that goal, rather than diverging from it and making into something else. I believe that's why other projects are being made, to make other aspects into a reality on the steem blockchain, but not Steemit. Right? SteemQ isn't on steemit, but uses steem blockchain. Twitter services, reddit services, can be made into separate apps on the steem blockchain, and not on Steemit. Thanks. Peace.
The original vision was closer to reddit than anything else. If you look into the white paper there is even a section titled "The value is in the links". In the earliest days of Steemit there were many link posts, memes, news posts prompting comments. For a while the top ranked post was a sentence or two conversation starter about the upcoming US Presidential election!
The excessive focus on original content and long-form blogging came about as a reaction to high rewards on content that was seen as not deserving. As I commented on the other post, the observation that "light" content isn't generally deserving of large rewards is correct, but the response was incorrect.
I agree with @liberosist. Many types of content can coexist. The initiative to support shorter-form content does not mean nor should it mean that long-form content is excluded. It is about opening doors, not closing them.
Given this information I must conclude that Steemit is a superior platform.
The question above encapsulates most of this post and I applaud your asking it. My hope is that it will stimulate readers to pause and reflect on what attracted them to steemit in the first place.
I think you did a good job of framing the key questions related to steemit's evolution. I also believe we need to be more systematic in how we manage that evolution, and in order to do that some important criteria needs to be defined up front. A person should be able to understand the platform and judge its alignment with personal preferences to determine if Steemit will be useful (now or anytime along the roadmap) to them.
Its been awhile since I read the steem whitepaper, but I know some of this criteria is expressed there. One thing I believe is lacking however is a description of "the experiment". There are actually several going on simultaneously in steemit: social (what attracts people here, how do people use the platform or "find their tribe", how to incentivize [content quality/curation/comments] or adoption), economic (token circulation, capital retention, short and long term incentives, how to maintain liquidity and a tight peg for bit assets like SBD), governance (how to assess community consensus, voting policies for witnesses, policies for changing the roadmap or platform goals, identity, reputation).
The whitepaper is written with a focus in 2 primary areas:
1) Technical Information (lessons learned in previous crypto projects and rationale for steem approach)
2) Marketing / Features / Functionality
But very little on the experiment itself, which would describe specific metrics, required instrumentation, conditions for a valid metrics (for example it may not be valid to assume the number of steemit users is equal to the number of steemit accounts if bots can create accounts).
When it comes to the issue of quantity vs. quality, these "up front" definitions play a crucial role in helping to stay focused and on track. They also serve as a way to know when goals are completed or need to be revised, or if the project is drifting and departing from the plan.
If this project were being run by a bunch of scientists as opposed to computer geeks there would be a thorough design and analysis done before any experiment was proposed, and the proposal would include a great deal of information to state:
I think a lot of uncertainty and doubt could be eliminated if more up front design or spec work were done first.
Thanks for the great feedback.
I would just like to metion one thing, that an experiment for a classical scientist, is supposed to be conducted in a controlled environment . This was indeed less so, and more free in direction. There were some general goals, but moreso a figure things out as we go approach, since this is a new field no on has done.
You suggest "The question(s) to be answered by an experiment".
What can you see now in hindsight, giving you better vision? What do you think you could have asked before now, before it all started, in their position?
I see all the last points as too unknown in the experiment. They call it an experiment to reference the unknown nature of what they are doing and the outcome. It's not been done, it's a test. The time frame is as long as it lasts. For Steemit internal SP redistribution to level out more, that's a few years. They can't envision all time frames... Maybe I don't get it... lol. How would you answer that one as well?
Peace.
As for experiments being conducted in a controlled environment, I agree Identifying the controls (constants or knowns) is important. Just the process of identification can be an extremely useful design process, and may obviate the need for subsequent tests or experiments.
All important unknowns will need to be identified and characterized for the project to succeed. It's just a matter of the process used to do so and how efficient it is. If a particular unknown is "too big" then it should be decomposed into smaller, dependent questions and the process for that should be described in the whitepaper.
Overall I see early design and analysis taking a back seat to getting code into production. Clearly a balance between these is necessary. In engineering there is a direct tradeoff between project planing in the beginning and the cost of quality control testing in the end. The more that can be identified and pinned down up front the fewer bugs are discovered (or fewer behaviors are miss-characterized as bugs because definitions are less ambiguous).
I recognize steemit is new and that nobody has created a site exactly like it before. Experiments are useful for uncovering unknown information, and all experiments deal with unknowns. All I'm basically saying is that it would be more useful if the nature of the experiment were described better. "The Experiment" is actually composed of many elements, some of which may be determined by the results of other experiments. Often there is overlap or dependencies between elements and they should be identified as early as possible.
I'm sure I could think of a few examples. However, it's not about second guessing @dan & @ned, but rather it's about the project management process and how to eliminate unknowns. Part of eliminating unknowns is to identify knowns. When the knowns and unknowns are identified THEN an experiment can be designed to investigate the unknowns. It's about identifying and describing the context of the experiment well enough to minimize erroneous artifacts that could result.
Since we're not talking about a specific feature or design question, what you're asking is a bit unfair as I see it because it's too general, too open ended. It strikes me as "what concrete things can we do to improve steemit?" Doesn't that trigger followup questions, such as 1) What do you mean by improve? or 2) what parts of steemit do you feel need improvement? Think of the socratic method. The answers to questions stimulate additional questions. Gather data, analyze it, eliminate inconsistencies, design experiment(s) to gather more data, rinse & repeat.
The whitepaper should have included specific metrics to gauge things, including threshold criteria. A type of flow chart for what is to be measured and how to process the measurement (what actions to take). The answer to many questions is not simple and probably requires the question to be broken down into smaller elements, some of which may be their own experiments). Questions like:
are very high level and require considerable analysis to determine the knowns and unknowns in order to "spec out" the metrics, criteria, etc I am referring to. The more of that design and analysis work that is done up front the more effective the results will be.
This is perhaps a much easier concept to convey in the way user interfaces for software apps are designed. One of the most important "knowns" that must be defined as early as possible is who the target audience is. A commonly used technique to gather input is to put mockups in front of users and observing how the users interact with it. All that is "upfront work" done before any significant coding is done in an effort to optimize the UI / UX design. It is done to eliminate the unknowns in the design or unknowns about the users who will use it.
I have no clue about facebook, but I'm a bit into reddit, and by the looks of it, I find the steemit web site to look quite similar to reddit.
While reddit originally was just a link posting and voting thing, by today the comments and discussions are the most important. I wish we had more comments and discussions here.
@tobixen
You can choose to discuss and comment in the 'chat' room;)
Yes, I mention that as the purpose of reddit, as a network market hub for people to centrally connect and comment in one place, rather than each individual site they link to. Steemit is not that at its start and goal. It can incorporate things to some degree, like I said, with "Decline Payouts" is fine to share anything and not make money from other people's work. But we need to really think about the quality going forward, vs. simply adopting new mechanisms to draw in popularity and money.
My thought?
A free Steemit :)
Steemit is more like Twitter from social perspective. Everything that is published is open to all users. We have tags, but they are not useful to create real communities like subreddits or groups in Facebook. We can only follow users, not tags.
That's the thing I'm mostly missing from this platform currently. This is no too much "individualized chaos" where everybody is talking about everything. That doesn't encourage to create tight communities that are specialized to one topic.
My proposal to fix this is ownable tags.
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