What went wrong for Tsū - any lessons to be learnt for steemit?
Somehow tsū totally passed me by when it was in existence.
It was a social network that rewarded content creators for their content. Tsū paid its members a share of its ad revenue for posting and sharing content.
Tsū was launched in October 2014 and with the attraction of the rewards it had a meteoric rise. It had 3.5 million members within 6 months of launch, and 4.5 million users at its first anniversary.
By comparison, it took Facebook 10 months to reach 1 million users, and Twitter 24 months.
Tsū also attracted celebrity users like 50 Cent and Timbaland.
The honeymoon period for the site was short lived. Facebook blocked links to the site in September 2015 citing complaints that tsū members were spamming to recruit members. The ban was lifted 3 months later after a widespread backlash.
The initial rapid growth rate of the site did not last. After peaking at 5 million users membership began to decline rapidly.
The site was shut down on 2 August 2016. Tsū’s founder Sebastian Sobczak stated at the time :
"We have permanently taken the tsu product offline due to the cost associated with running it and our inability to complete the last funding round..."
The Wikipedia entry says :
"The likely reason is that too many members joined to make money rather than for the social network, and membership declined swiftly when earnings did not live up to expectations.
TechCrunch had a somewhat harsher appraisal of the rise and fall of tsū :
"Tsu users, meanwhile, didn’t come because they cared about connecting – they came for the money. That never ends well."
- TechCrunch, 16 August 2016 - Spammy social network Tsu shuts down
I came across tsu today after spotting a mention of it in the profile of @fitinfun. A quick search around suggests there are quite of number of tsu refugees here on steemit like @steevc and @haphazard-hstead.
I would be most interested to hear comments from former tsuvians about what they thought about the platform, why it went wrong, how it compared with steemit...
And most importantly - are there any lessons steemit should learn from tsū ?
Of course this is old news but I am very interested to know more about tsū - particularly as steemit is reaching the same point in its timeline as when tsū started on its downward slide.
Over to you former tsuvians.
If you found this post useful or interesting please do upvote, resteem and follow. Thank you.
You might also be interested in some of my other posts :
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Coming soon to MSP Waves Radio : Pennsif's (Alternative) Lifestyle Show
Homesteaders & Preppers on steemit - new edition v9 coming soon - help wanted to reach 250
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Pennsif's Progress // Day 900 : The State of the Prep - 100 Day Review
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SteemTowns - connecting the virtual with the reality - would it be possible?
[graphic provided by @pennsif]
I was on tsu and regarding the reason why it shutdown, speaking for myself, I disagree. Yea, ppl were leaving but pay was steady.
My tipp to make it better if the network is about people and not just to make profit:
Keep it fair
dont censor opinions
be smart
dont plaster the front door with the same names all week
Are these tips for steemit? I wouldn't disagree with any of them.
There was nothing wrong with TSU. It was just not a sustainable project for them. And also I bet they might have struggled with some copyrights issues after a while. Because a lot of the content wasn't original and was being monitezed for the users and TSU itself. I miss it a lot to be honest. And it was the first Social Network that I have heard about that got somehow big and popular but had troubles and maybe opened doors for some other projects like Steemit with a use of a blockchain and cryptocurrency. I still Love TSU and miss it very much :D
Thank you for comment on this - helps me understand tsu a bit more.
You're welcome. Unfortunally it didn't evolve on the right path and they closed doors very abruptly and unexpectadly. But I think it was a good thing for the beginning of something new on Social Networks. Because I think before them a couple tried similar things but they never got the visibility that TSU got so none actually worked! While TSU worked for a while but it got to a point that was not sustainable anymore and unfortunately they haven't found a way to solve the problems and that's why to avoid for them and the People making money there to lose that. They decided to shut down.
yes Tsu was stepping stone to Steemit .. a great place to learn :)
I joined TSU and was quickly disalusuined with the spam. It was 90+% spam and affiliate link posts, not a hint of social interaction. There is a socialist network called FutureNet that's operating now which is the same, full of shit plagiarism and affiliate links but based around binary paid membership levels and a ad click program.
There was definitely heavy spam. Steemit is so much better on that side of it.
All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again!
I can't remember Tsu but this does not surprise me at all.
Similarly, there are projects in the works like Basic Attention Token or other advertisement-watching-rewarding projects - ... and these have been attempted before as well in the old early days of the internet (pre-2000). I remember having a program installed on my pc that paid me in (digitized) fiat for watching ads (or rather, run the program that showed ads). Those failed too.
What lessons we can learn from it? I'm not sure.. Maybe don't put too much faith in projects like this? If it sounds too good to be true, maybe it is? Or perhaps the idea is good, but the technology wasn't there yet in the past? Who knows.. This is why diversifying your funds is a smart idea.
Edit: Resteeming, this is a good topic
You went full BSG there
I know, I love that series :)
Yes, things come and things go. If we can learn a little more each time the bus comes round then we can progress.
And, as you say, always have more than one basket for your eggs.
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STOPI am old tsu guy too
Followed you - it's sharon from fitinfun :)
I got the impression that the team that ran Tsu were kind of elitist and in many ways thought in ways that are counter to the basic essence of social connection.
Describes me to a T lol! It did have a elitist faction but the little guys were there too. tsu was an awesome place and I'm glad I stumbled in for it's short existence.
Most social networks reflect society and since society has elitist groups it is no surprise that they are there too. What makes the difference though is the intent of the ones making the decisions about the network as a whole 'from the top'. The guys who run steemit, for example, appear to demonstrate an absence of elitism that I respect and that makes a huge difference to the potential of the platform.
Well, the money here is concentrated in the top .01% of steemers and the minnows are 98% of everyone, so I'm not sure of that. This is one of the challenges I feel needs to be addressed in some way.
i am referring to the actual creators of the technology as opposed to the whales that invested to make it possible economically. i agree that the system could be designed to support minnow more, but it is also important to consider that without the investment from the whales there would be no steemit at all. in that sense, any elitism can be said to originate in wider society and not from steemit per se.
tsu, on the other hand appeared to actively promote elitism - whereas the ethos behind steemit is allegedly anarchism (with a small a).
So you think the big guys should sit out as the little try to succeed? I think about 1/4 of them are actively reaching down and I appreciate this very much. I think if some are just laying off and pulling their money out - fine - I get that. If they are too busy with technical duties ok - we need that.
But if the others want the place to succeed? Then what? Hopefully they dump funds in places like minnowbooster if they can't be bothered with the riff raff :)
anarchists don't usually control the money supply. This is a new paradigm. It's starting off in a very interesting manner. I'm thrilled to be watching as an accountant. Before steemit I was not paying attention to crypto so this has been worth the whole adventure no matter what I make blogging here.
I don't think anyone should sit out, I am just saying that in an ideal world there would not be such financial inequality and so the power in steemit would be more balanced. Steemit does include some mechanisms in it's algorithms to facilitate wealth distribution but it isn't likely to achieve that on it's own in the world.
Technically, I don't accept that anarcho-capitalism is a valid idea since capitalism automatically creates hierarchy and thus in some senses also 'rulers' - but at least it's a step away from the types of heavily controlled capitalism that have a hand in so many of Earth's problems.
I loved Tsu and all the people I met there, many of whom have become dear friends. I didn't recruit, therefore never earned much, but I loved the connections with friends all around the world and was sad when it ended abruptly. It's so wonderful to reconnect with old Tsu friends on Steemit and I love making new friends here, as well.