How the trending page looks to a newb... And how the trending page could look!
Blockchain... steemsports... steemit... mining centralisation... curie... eSteem... steemfest... $XMR/BTC ...
There is a recurring issue with the trending page. This is currently the landing page for non-steemit users who come across the site. You and I know there's good quality here. But for a lurker just looking around... This is like another language!
If you check alexa this is what you will see. Bounce rate is 41% and rising.
I'm not against the content on the trending page getting rewarded as much as it is. Though steemit related content may confuse non-steemers, I would like to see the work of witnesses for example highly rewarded, and encouraged to update the community on their work.
How do we organise the frontpage feed to show content which would attract new users while still rewarding valuable content that makes the frontpage look bad?
Here's how I think the trending page could look, if instead of arranging posts by payout alone, it showed a limited number of posts from each trending tag!
This layout would make it much more likely for a non-steemer to see content they might be interested in. Not only that, but it would also give a more realistic perspective of what kind of money people are making here! And most importantly, it shows that steemit is for everyone!
Not just the nerds ;)
jk love you guys :P
Beanz I think It should say WELCOME TO STEEMIT Most people could care less about the blockchain
I love your idea about the categories although they should start in alphabetical order and have say 3 top posts under each categories I think these changes would help a lot.
I think ordering them by payout has some merit and therefore the way the tags are currently arranged could easily be implemented as the algorithm to arrange the catagories. That way the catagories change as different topics are trending. Whereas if they were in alphabetic order you would always see art at the top...
I like the idea of re-arranging the front page... I really like your idea of having the top few posts from different categories.
It should be 'welcome to the Steemchain.' Yes it's a blockchain, yes blockchains are the mut's nuts but for new Steemers...the Steemchain is all that matters. And what is the Steemchain? It's a permanent, incorruptible, transparent, decentralised, free-to-use, free-to-publish, accountably adaptable network. This network pays you for your time, effort, creativity, ideas and allows you to award others for theirs. Our attention is valuable, our ability to form communities is valuable, our ability to generate value from those communities is unimaginably vast.
If we can display that message in the simplest, most digestible manor, I think that will help people when they get here...
buzz words nobody understand is a buzz kill. "What's in it for me?" is what it must answer.
I thought I just answered what's in it for them. Also, 'buzzword' is a touch patronising...blockchains and what they can do are important and can be explained although it is a challenge to frame it in the right way. Did everyone know what a google was?
Its a headline. If they have to look at what it mean on google, its a fail.
You're probably right...but I suspect that people had to be told what google was initially, 'a search engine,' and come to understand what it could do for them and how to use it. Either way, what Google was became self-evident quite quickly, whereas Steemit and steem are a hell of a lot more complex. I guess the learning process needs to be optimized and involves levels or steps.
Perhaps we should build a newbie learning graphic that censorship resistant blogging that pays you (or whatever) and try to build out the natural progression from there. That should then feature somewhere on steemit.
Welcome to blogging that pays? It's frustrating because that barely scratches the surface :)!
I've been trying to answer that question myself. The benefits a blogger gets from steemit is not that different from Hubpages.
Here is my best attempt:
Headline -> Welcome to Steemit
Sub-head -> Discover an open community of passionate content creators. Set up a blog in minutes, make friends and earn rewards based on community appreciation.
Sorry for my short snappy replies, I was on my phone and the website is terribly slow...taking forever to write anything.
Short but not snappy :)) I like your header and sub-header. My stab at a sub-header would be...
A place where one can publish anything, connect with anyone and enjoy the incredible content of a rapidly growing, diverse and global community. You're engagement will earn you money and reputation...have fun!
Something like that.....it's very similar to your effort and i'm still not entirely happy with mine either....it's dam tricky!!
it is tricky! I like what you've came up with. Anything but welcome to the blockchain is a major improvement in my opinion.
Hahaha! Agreed :) I'll keep thinking....I'm sure you will too!
Perhaps we should ask all those new to steemit and new to crypto what they would like to see. It might make for an interesting perspective.
Personally I prefer "blogchain". The message is only there for non-steemers who probably know nothing about steem or blockchains... At least blogchain sounds like something they could imagine... And then later they'll find out it's a play on words
That's a nice idea.
Aesthetics can certainly be subjective, but what we know for certain is that the internet is flush with social media sites.
If you look at the picture above, in one short sentence, Google told their audience exactly why they're important. They didn't have endless lists of blogs scrolling down the page. Any website can do that. Heck, you can build a Wordpress site in a few hours that does that. They knew that people are being bombarded with information everywhere online, and that less is better.
Steemit has a highly differentiated product from not only other social media platforms, but from other cryptocurrencies. That's the Steemit advantage, and they must make that message clearer, and keep clutter to a minimum.
People are bouncing because the main advantage(s) of the site are not spelled out. We already know what the advantages are. The 1st question people will ask if they land on the site is, "why should I join?"
Make the main advantage to joining Steem simple and compelling, and sell it. My observation, is that it's primarily a marketing issue.
(Let's not get into noobs trying to understand Steem currency)
@steemike
We always come back to the same questions: what product, what customers? And there are two visions: the techno-crypto developers and the marketing of a social media. One day, can the two visions work together?
Well, I can speak to your 1st point.
Steemit, as a platform (social media product) has to compete with every other social media website for eyeballs and attention. Why should people join, and why should people stay? (rhetorical) The internet, esp. social media, is an attention market, in the sense that we're speaking about here.
Customers are the eyeballs that Steemit has to attract to its platform in order to provide value to its currency. Obviously, no user content, no value.
Perspective is important as well. As Ned mentions in his online interviews, Steemit is also a new experiment. It's also in Beta. Personally, I think Steemit has a lot of potential for use, but it will need time to grow.
The main consideration of this thread is user-adoption. It's one thing for people interested in the digital currency niche to slide over to this project, but it's quite another to lure 'mainstream' people away from their social media spaces, where all their friends reside. In that sense, Steemit very much is a product competing for users, or customers.
If Steemit desires to go 'mainstream,' it will have to solve one big problem. Is the value proposition of joining Steemit worth enough to people that they would leave their social media space, and friends, behind?
If the Steemit team can tackle that question once they've had time to develop their platform, they'll be well on their way to achieving large-scale adoption.
This.
"Steemit has a highly differentiated product from not only other social media platforms, but from other cryptocurrencies. That's the Steemit advantage, and they must make that message clearer, and keep clutter to a minimum."
Absolutely. I hope we can get this advice to the dev team.
I think they seem to be getting all the tech stuff done first before the look is more finalized. I like the rate people are joining and using rather than a flood of users.
Definitely hits the nail on the head. A simple extension of the idea would be a small section heading between each group with the name of he category and a ..more like this.. at the end of the section
That's a damn good idea. I'm sharing Steemit posts on gab.ai that I think my fellow Gabbers will like. Some of them might well be bouncing away because of what you spelled out.
Top-by-category would be a really good idea.
Does anyone know if the front-end Website code is also open-source?
Hey this is a really good idea. Nice job!
I look at the trending page maybe once per week for this very reason - the content just doesn't do it for me. I would love to see it revamped because it used to be how I discovered new Steemians to follow. Now I just use retweets to discover new users.
Hope this gets added to the wish list.
i totally agree with this. we need to show the diverse categories and topics that people post about here. else it might just look like another crypto/tech related site.
Agreed. The tags on the right don't stand out at all and I often forget that they're even there!
precisely! well, i guess we have to give it some time for the platform to be more established.
It is a great idea to present 3 posts per tag in the trending; Should the order be:
I would say the first 5 or 6 could be by payout only, but then after that, using the same algorithm that sorts the trending tags on the right you could have each category with the three top posts from that tag.
There are only 2 issues I see with implementing this.
There would need to be a way to ensure that posts don't appear on the trending page twice under 2 different categories.
I actually chose not to order the categories exactly as the tags are in order because it would have looked so wrong. The top things in art and photography are not art or photography. And for this the whales would have to clamp down more on tag abuse as it will be more obvious when it happens. But this could also be a good thing because that will discourage tag abuse.
The important thing is that there is a diversity in the presentation of trending, that the trending does not always present the same subjects and the same authors.
No kidding. Something has to be done to/for the front page. This is a great Idea!