Should STEEM be Steam? or Self-Esteem?
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@dragosroua asked an interesting question about the STEEM currency in a recent blog post:
What Should Be The Name Of The Smallest Steem Denomination?
Which he has followed up with this post:
STEEM Denominations - Are You Ready For Steemtoshi?
Seeing that none of the choices available had anything to do with what I thought was the underlying theme of the site, "steam", I made the suggestion the names should have to do with various states of water.
So the smaller units of STEEM could be things like vapors, drops, mists, and bubbles. Maybe there are a few other steam / water related words that will work as well.
Then I was told the site was about "self-esteem" and not about "steam".
What?!
I have to say that from a marketing point of view, this is a huge red flag for me.
With all due respect, I absolutely feel the site has a very natural and strong "built-in" branding that leans towards the site being about steam and not about self-esteem, and that to fight that branding instead of embracing it is a big mistake.
As @fyrstikken said in his recent post speaking out about the Whaleshares program, this is not personal, but business. I am investing in the STEEM currency and will be investing more by the end of the month, and if I see something I think will hurt our efforts, I too feel I'm obligated to speak out about it.
OK, so let's take this point by point:
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1.) Steam is the first thing people think of when they hear STEEM
You can test this yourself. Tell anyone the site's name is Steemit and ask them what they think the meaning is. No one is going to hear the word Steemit and think the real meaning is self-esteem. Everyone immediately thinks of "steam" as in "steam powered". Go ahead and test this out on your friends and let me know how many people say "self-esteen" before they say "steam".
2.) Steam is in the logo
The logo looks like steam rising. Maybe it's from a coffee cup, or from your account, but it's definitely steam.
3.) Steam is in the name
The name of the site is "Steemit". Saying that you are "Self-esteeming" "it" makes no sense. It's an incongruity that fights the idea that STEEM implies self-esteem.
But take it as an action verb, as in 'you are applying steam power to something', and a whole world of interesting references becomes available.
"I'm adding steam to my account",
"I'm steaming it".
"Got an idea for a blog post? Steam it into your account!"
"Got enough steam?"
"Steam up your account balance."
The idea of steam is even built into the term "Steem Power", used in the wallet section of your account.
No one in the world is going to think to themselves "Steem power? Oh, they must mean my power of self-esteem."
No. Everyone instantly thinks of steam powering something when they hear steem power.
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4.) Steam, as an action word, is a marketing gift
If I say you should Google something what do you think? If I say you should Xerox something, what comes to mind?
These brands were lucky enough to have what they do be associate with an action, even though their company name had nothing to do with the any type of action.
Here, with Steem, we've got a gift from the marketing Gods of an action built into the name.
Take a cool photo? Why not steem it?
Want more influence in the network? Why not "power up" (once again steam power) your account with more steem?
Having your brand name be associated with an action is a dream that most companies can only hope to wish for. It's a huge mistake to throw that away.
Self-esteem is not an action. You cannot self-esteem something. It doesn't make sense.
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5.) Dolphins and Orcas and Whales, Oh My!
The different levels of the accounts are all named after sea-creatures, making you think of the ocean and so of course, steam powered boats!
Certainly I do not think of my self-esteem when I think about orcas, or dolphins or minnows.
The idea that those animals are associated with self-esteem makes zero sense (once again) and trying to say these things are about self-esteem is another incongruity, but when you try to think about the site being related to steam, then the ocean and steam powered boats come to mind and everything lines up and works together again.
6.) It's already happening!
Try doing an image search for "Steemit" and take a look at the types of images that come up.
Two steam trains:
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a "hot air" balloon:
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Steam gears:
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A Steemit promo with steam powered things:
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Why, there's even a steaming crack pipe for those that are into that sort of thing:) :
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There are zero images indicating the site is about self-esteem. It's simply not what "Steemit" means to people.
7.) Just think of the merchandising!
Perhaps the largest indicator of where the site should go lies in the merchandising "test".
When you think of the site being related to "Steam" you can immediately think of many products that could be associated.
There is the whole steampunk direction that could include steamships and steam powered trains, cars and more! You could even make a steampunk whale or dolphin. You could sell steampunk alarm clocks with the steem logo built into them. The list truly goes on and on!
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Can you imagine an internal Esty-style marketplace full of artists making cool steem related Steampunk pieces of art?
And on top of the Steampunk stuff you can also sell the sea creatures as stuffed animals.
Can you really sell a "self-esteem minnow" to someone?
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Steem me up, Captain!
So. there you have it. that's my argument for keeping the site aligned with it's natural branding of steam and steam power.
I hope I've helped to make it painfully obvious that going with steam is the right choice, but if anyone can explain why this isn't the case I'm all ears and open to other opinions on the subject.
Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts and I hope they are considered helpful and a contribution to our community, even if we don't go in this direction. :)
@ned I don't know if you'll see this if I tag you, and I'm sorry to bother you, but I feel this is an extremely important topic that I hope these points can offer guidance on.
More of my posts:
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A "Game of Thrones" Coin?A custom token turns every business into a crypto dealer. [Read more] |
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STEEM = Steam? or Self-Esteem?Which of these two should STEEM be associated with? [Read more] |
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My Incoming Links PostI'm donating SEO link juice to Steemit and you can too! :) [Read more] |
|
STEEM Growth Outpaces Bitcoin!During the past 60 days STEEM has largely outpaced BTC! [Read more] |
It definitely should not be STEAM. There is already something very large known by that. Valve's Steam platform is perhaps one of the largest video game markets on the planet right now.
So yeah, you don't want to be calling it that.
As far as I know STEEM came from ESTEEM as in Self-esteem as you indicated.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts @dwinblood. To be clear, I'm not saying to call the site or anything Steam, the site is STEEMit. I'm saying the association of the site is steam and should be steam, which is already happening anyway.
Yes... I think they should have called it something different to avoid confusion with the Steam platform which I believe has 11+ million people actively using it at any given time.
I use Steam a lot so I see people get confused when I talk about one or the other. They will get confused about which one I am talking about.
If I say STEEMIT they are not confused, but if I talk about the STEEM currency and blockchain they often are.
If it was inspired by ESTEEM as in Self-Esteem then it's kind of too bad in hindsight they just didn't call the currency esteem.
Whatever the origins of a thing, it can mean whatever the community comes to believe it to mean. You make solid arguments as to why that's Steam, not Esteem. I find myself persuaded.
Look, Amazon is a river in South America. Then it meant "bookstore" and now it means "store". No one cares where it came from, or what the name used to mean. It means whatever Bezos and the community (mostly the latter) decide it means. WalMart used to mean something really exciting. Now, not so much.
I'm not even sure it's something we have to decide. Your units of subdivision are ingenious, and I like the vision you project. That's all it's going to take, really. Leading out in that direction will drag the community that way, as long as your vision--and that of others like you--is compelling.
Thanks for your feedback cristof! I appreciate it. :)