The Steem community is growing, and with it - so is the value of our attention. Already, many are paying hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars to bid-bots in order to be featured as one of the top trending articles.
Advertising = More Money into the Steem Economy
Online advertising is a billion dollar industry. Bringing that industry to Steem has the potential to dramatically increase the amount of capital flowing into our ecosystem. More money in the Steem ecosystem translates into more money for users, more money for investors, and higher STEEM prices.
Users: The Life-Blood of the Steem Economy
Many content creators on Steem struggle to earn sufficient income due to the lack of attention from large stakeholders, as well as the inability to monetize content after the seven day payout period.
What if content creators were able to further monetize their content through the use of ads? This is nothing new. Platforms like YouTube already offer this. Typically though, these platforms take a majority cut of the money. The content producer only earns a small percentage of the overall revenue taken in from the advertisements.
I am a firm believer in the mission statement that was written in the Steem whitepaper: Rewarding the users for the contributions they make to the platform.
If a user is generating content that is worth thousands of dollars to advertisers, why shouldn't they keep 100% of the ad revenue?
100% of the Ad Revenue - How is that Possible?
There are two parts to this:
- A standardized protocol for the advertising system to run on the Steem blockchain.
- UI changes to websites (like steemit.com, SteemPeak, Busy.org, etc.) to display the ads.
Part 1: Standardized Protocol
In order for the advertising system to work across multiple UIs, the data stored in the blockchain would need to follow a consistent format, so that all UIs would know how to render the data.
This is something that will need to be discussed with the various developers in the community (especially the ones running their own UIs), so this proposal is by no means 'final', but let me offer a simple prototype to illustrate how the system would work:
Prototype Protocol:
- Advertisements will be based on a time-based, payment weighted bidding system.
- Time increments can be purchased in one hour increments, up to a maximum of 7 days.
- To purchase ad space, the advertiser sends STEEM to the user whose content they want to advertise on, using a specially formatted memo.
- Advertisers can purchase space on a user's entire blog (i.e. all of their posts) or on a specific post. To advertise on an entire blog, the memo should contain a
*in place of a specific link to advertise on, and the payment will be divided equally among all of the posts that are active during the purchased time period. - Advertisers will only be able to advertise links to other Steem blockchain posts.
Here is an example of how the memo could be formatted:
ADVERTISEMENT:<num_hours>|<link_of_post_to_advertise_on>|<link_of_advertisement>
Some additional variations that could be integrated into the protocol include:
- Allow users to refuse advertisements via their settings.
- Allow users to specify a minimum payment amount via their settings (i.e. ads will only be displayed if they are at least 0.1 STEEM/hour).
- Allow users to specify whether they will allow NSFW advertisements on their posts. A global black-list would be needed for advertisers not complying with the rule.
- Allow users to set a threshold to only allow ads from advertisers who have a history of completed ads above a certain STEEM amount (i.e. only allow ads from advertisers that have already purchased over 300 STEEM in previous ads).
Part 2: UI Advertisement Rendering
Each individual UI will choose whether or not to display the advertisements, and how to render them if they do. UIs that decide to display the advertisements will be giving the content creators on their platform additional incentive to produce high quality content.
To determine which advertisement gets displayed at a particular point in time:
- Collect a list of all advertisements that are active for the current time, and enforce all of the soft-consensus rules for the protocol.
- Sum up the total amount of payments that are active for the current point in time.
- Take the percentage of total payment for each advertisement to determine it's chance of being displayed.
- Randomly pick one of the ads to display based on the weighted percentage.
To illustrate, let's say that a particular article has three advertisement bids:
- Advertiser A has bid 5 STEEM for their ad.
- Advertiser B has bid 3 STEEM for their ad.
- Advertiser C has bid 2 STEEM for their ad.
For simplicity sake, all three adds were placed at the exact same time, and are each for 24 hours worth of time.
Each time that a post is rendered on the UI, the UI picks one of the ads to display. Ad A has a 50% chance of being chosen; ad B has a 30% chance, and ad C has a 20% chance.
Discussion Encouraged
This would obviously be a major change for the platform, and would require significant effort across the developer community to get off the ground. At the same time, it has potential to dramatically increase the utility/value of the platform. I'm interested to hear what everyone thinks.
Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
I feel like it is a good take on how ad revenue could be added. Internal promotion is one way but personally I feel like we need the ability for advertisers to utilize external fiat money to advertise as well. It is simply too complicated right now for large companies to try to set up Crypto exchange accounts at Coinbase, Kraken....etc and then buy BTC, or ETH and then send that to Bittrex or Binance and then send it to a STEEM account and go through the steps to advertise. It is just too complicated and for them to get the OK to do it is unlikely. I feel like there needs to be the ability to pay with credit cards through a custom ad engine for banner ads on pages like Trending....etc as well.
I like your concept and think that could work as well but I feel like most of the promotion that way would all be internal promotion of projects and other's blogs who are trying to get viability which is cool too.
In all I think it is a good concept but I don't think we will see it on Steemit. I could see one of the 3rd party sites doing a concept like this if they felt they had enough of the traffic.
Ultimately I think we will see this type of concept implemented on a future platform on a different chain. ;-)
The fiat -> STEEM problem is definitely something that needs to be addressed. Unfortunately the regulations in the US are a nightmare. It would be interesting though if there were a front-end website that could charge for ads (under this new system) and handle the fiat->STEEM conversion in the background. I'm not a lawyer, but it seems like it might not be regulated the same way since the person paying in fiat is not really buying cryptocurrency - they are just paying for ads.
Yeah personally I think there are a couple different ways that portion of it could be handled. Let's pretend a company like Steemit INC utilized some system like that and did a 50/50 revenue split on those kinds of ads. They could take 50% of it and buy STEEM and do distributions in STEEM Power to accounts that qualify under certain criteria utilizing some sort of engagement metrics....etc. That way it would create buy support for STEEM. Or just not have to dump as much of it which would have the same effect on the market. Then if everyone is getting SP distributions the money would be vested to begin with.
Yeah I don't think there would be any issue with US regulations if part of the money was used to buy STEEM and then distributed to users but then again it also could get interpreted as paying users commissions....etc and then suddenly the same laws could apply where if the person goes over like $500 they would possibly have to issue 1099's like affiliate commission sites or adsense does. That is a headache for sure. It seems to make it a lot less of a headache if there is a way to distribute out of the reward pool or give people more of an influence over the reward pool with delegations.
That could be one way around it. Have the "Ad fund account" and when people meet certain criteria they could get delegations which will give them more power for a period of time. I don't like that idea as much but it could reduce a lot of headaches.
Well one of the differences between the ideas you propose and mine is that mine is really 100% decentralized. Nothing would require a centralized party in order to use / make it work. Individual websites would offer front-end services on top of the protocol, but they would not be doing anything special that could not be replicated if they were to disappear.
Yeah that is a cool feature for sure. With Advertising I'm not entirely sure that a totally decentralized mechanism for doing it wouldn't get out of control . You addressed the NSFW stuff but I fear that ICO scams and ponzi schemers could go out of control. Kind of like on CoinMarketCap there was Bitconnect and LaserOnline ads all over the place.
I don't know what the right answer is on that stuff because I'm sure a lot of people got sucked into that stuff through the ads but how much did it really hurt the reputation of CoinMarketCap by allowing those? Ultimately I still go to CoinMarketCap so I can't say it destroyed their rep and they made a lot of money as a byproduct of those systems
i wonder if someone could work with coss- i think they plan on bringing fiat pairs to all crypto in the exchange
I'll pass the info on to Steemit's exchange team.
I can't hand on heart say I'm against ads given that my ad revenue from WP.com helped me quit my job this year!
However I don't think ads would do anything for smaller users... ie 99% of steemians... their audience is so small there would be no demand for advertising on their blogs... ad revenue doesn't even kick in on WP.com until you get over 20K views a month.
Also, to create a viable market we'd need to switch the page views display back on or give potential ad space buyers some way of telling how many human views they are getting!
I have used FB ads to drive traffic to my WP blog.... on that basis I'd need to know exposure and click through rate to make a value for money assessment.
Ironically if we could get ads to work it might reduce the influence of bots - advertisers want actual human users not bot votes!
It would also probably need communities to be sorted so as to.allow for targetted ads.
Do 17 of the top 20 witnesses want ads...?
Posted using Partiko Android
This is not a hardfork proposal, and therefore would not be dependent on witness votes. It would really be up to individual website UIs to decide.
Thanks for the clarification. It's getting hard to keep up with all devs on here, let alone the potential ones!
Posted using Partiko Android
I am only a part supporter of this idea. I will get the negative out of the way first.
I hate ads and I love steem being ad free. I also think we would be monitizing in this way far to early in the life cycle of the steem ecosystem.
That being said, ads have the ability of generating substantial revenue for content creators. Top bloggers online could be more attracted to the platform if it offered the ability to generate revenue from ads.
I agree that it would be premature at this stage
Posted using Partiko iOS
@paulag,
Advertisements don't have to be odious (although most are). Could you live with this one being run on your blog?
https://steemit.com/poetry/@quillfire/would-this-make-a-good-nike-ad-the-power-of-poetic-advertising
A quick, dirty way to monetize Steemit is AdSense the whole of @Steemit.
Steemit’s Google Custom Search already renders Google ads on the SERP.
I'm pretty sure this would be an issue with their policy about having NSFW content on the same domain.
I like this idea. Ad revenue and author sponsorship's should be facilitated by the platform. Some random thoughts/ideas:
The big problem with this is that it is impossible to measure across all the different platforms. For example, what happens when a user posts an article via steemit.com, only gets 5 views from the users there, but they get 10,000 views from SteemPeak.com?
Well, advertisers would really be choosing which users/articles they want to advertise on. There would likely be a large need for ways to collect and present data to potential advertisers so they could make good decisions.
It would probably work similar to how thumbnail previews are done today.
Interesting idea. I remember when I had it over a year ago...
https://steemit.com/steemit/@ats-david/advertising-revenue-and-distributions-on-the-steem-blockchain
Problem is - Ned already shot that idea down, so don’t expect it to be supported by their dev team or added to their UI.
Well, a lot has changed in two years. Maybe we'll have better luck. I doubt they would jump on board right away, but if we can get a standardized protocol agreed to by the developer community and a few sites (like maybe SteemPeak.com) to start the integration - they may be willing to accept and merge a pull request if a community dev does the work.
(It will be an up-hill battle, but there is a good chance we can make it work.)
I think getting Steem Dapps to use it would be a better/easier idea. That way they get more funds to reward there users/take less money out of posts this letting users earn more.
Ned has a bad track record. I wish he would step down, and let smarter people take over. We got to get people with a proven track record, to take over positions in the company. Investors should ask him to make room, or resign.
It's not hard to figure out when someones burnt out. The guy treats his account like his personal Instagram. There's very little content or insight coming from him lately.
The smartest thing for NED is to keep his Steempower, and find better executives and programmers to replace him, then sell his position, when Steem rises to an all time high.
I think bringing adverts to Steemit might help the steem economy but will destroy one of the best attractive things of steemit. No Ads! I love that about the blockchain and if possible I don't want that changed.
I agree with this, I have (kind of) friends in our steemit #gaming communities but most of them have the same SP as me. Less than a minnow, more than a toddler. Thinking on it though I rather not having a whale attention that making Steemit contain ads.
I wanted to contact you at https://steemeconomy.com/contact/ but decided to read comment & upvote one of your posts instead. I have a weekly shop on steemit and I accept STEEM/SBD (here's the current week) and recently crypto and #steembasicincome shares too, of course with conditions. Are posts like these are accepted in steemeconomy gaming section?
even though I'm not fully with you in it.
We are not taking about bringing ads to Steemit. We are taking about bringing ads to Steem. It will be up to individual UIs to decide whether to show ads. If you really don’t like ads, use a UI that doesn’t support them.
As far as SteemEconomy.com if you have a business that sells something (good, service, etc.) and there is a clear way to pay with STEEM/SBD then it should qualify. Just fill out the form with the necessary information.
Oooh, sorry I skimmed through your post and didn't read that part:
My shop is in form of weekly posts should I make my page, as the store page @ahmadmanga?
Hmm, there is a lot of non-store stuff there. Could you create a second account using SteemConnect for your shop and then resteem everything from there?
I liked your idea and made this account: @ahmadgameslist
Anyway, can I send it to steemeconomy gaming section now? should I contact you from the site itself? https://steemeconomy.com/contact/
Still thinking if I should write original posts for it or change to it completely though. Or let it as it is now.... Resteemer account!
Yes. :)
source
Wow, never thought of this, Thanks a lot for the idea... It's great enough to add you to the my contest!
I agree with Paula that doing advertising at this very vulnerable stage where 90% of users quit would be a disaster. Long term after retention has been solved and we have an actual Organic Trending Page, and the Promoted Page features the paid bidbot posts, and we have retention rates around 50% then we would have a site with a healthy ecosystem that could support advertising. Doing this before those core issues are solved would be a mistake
Posted using Partiko iOS
One of the core issues affecting retention is the lack of new users ability to earn rewards, even if they produce quality content. The system I am proposing is intended to help address that - which is really one of our key issues.
I went REALLY skeptical into reading this article, yet one line switched me almost 180º
This would solve for the most part the issue of ads being just obnoxious for most users, and really irelevant, however much effort may be put into targeting and profiling efforts.
Yes, I can see a scenario where adverstising, rather than being the classical relationship of a company shoving bogus product into user's mouth, would instead be more of a cross-promotion between various steem users.
Yes, companies can and will create bland steemit posts to which they will redirect through ads, but those posts tend to die naturally on this platform from what I saw.
And as long as the platform is not in a conflict of interest (i.e. having to ensure neutrality, but relying on advertisers for income) it shouldn't be much of a problem, any imbalance would sort itself out. And since blockchain is not a company, I expect to have this risk minimized.
Yes, I would find it interesting to see an ad system implemented, but only in the way described above, as a cross-posts, cross-author promotion, thus making the life better also for the reader, as he may get links to other relevant posts.
I am mixed on this. While I like the idea of moving more revenue into the Steem ecosystem, I'm pretty sure that the majority of our users would not appreciate seeing ads. But like you mentioned in another comment, this could be up to the different UIs and the users (showing ads on their channels).
My question is, what metrics would an advertiser use to decide which channels to display ads on? I imagine you would need some serious viewership in order to get noticed by advertisers, and that's something most people don't have unless they're promoting their posts with bid bots.
Allow me to Play Devil's Advocate
So I feel that what would happen is, people would be try to hit trending (even more than they do now) just to get noticed by advertisers (improve their views/metrics). But they likely won't improve on their actual content, which means that their content is likely to get flagged down. Then what happens to the relationship between the content creator and advertiser?
I think this could be done, but with some careful considerations. You would have to ensure that there's a healthy relationship between the content creator and advertiser, allow some type of refund to the advertisers in situations like I mentioned (perhaps an intermediary escrow), and decide what metrics you would provide to advertisers (and how true they are).
I agree with you on your concerns. I don't think we should let people keep ANY ad revenue. Instead, I would like to see all advertising money go towards boosting Steem, and increasing the rewards pool. Lets let the community decide who they want to support with their increased upvote power. This should be the only compensation.
Let the advertisers to pay directly into the rewards pool, so we can all have more powerful upvotes.
This way will get better content, because there will be more money coming into the system, but the only compensation writers should get, is from the increased upvote value. What do you think of my proposal?
Could you imagine a threefold increase in Steem, and a tenfold increase in upvote value? If first time users were getting a dollar per post, instead of 10 cents, it would make a huge difference. It would create a self-feedback loop, because many new users would want to join Steem.
We can also create some filters to turn ads off. Maybe by default, people get a flat rate of compensation, if they choose to view ads.
The main purpose of advertising, would be to get money into the system, without having to rely on exchange speculation. All ad revenue should go towards boosting Steem, increasing the rewards pool, and minnow support, so we can reduce the income inequality, and attract new users and investors.
Just don't make one mistake. Don't divert money from the rewards pool, but allowing elite users to keep ad revenue. That will do less to boost the price of Steem.
@brandonfrye,
This is why you have to kill all vote-gaming mechanisms (bidbots, multiple-account-self-upvoting) and channel "upvoting capital" into manual curation. If Hot and Trending really were "the best quality content," (like they're supposed to be), advertisers wouldn't care about Follower counts. They want "quality content" and "honestly engaged audiences" and placement in Hot or Trending would be evidence enough and many would pay a premium for it.
Each author interested in attracting advertising would fill out a Certification Checklist prior to posting: Subject Matter; Profanity; Graphic Images; Political Controversy; etc. Advertisers could then tailor their desired audiences accordingly.
BTW: Some advertisers WANT profanity and/or political controversy: Nike and the "Colin Kaepernick Ad" ... that was a deliberate attempt by Nike to "create a controversy" (and thereby generate a ton of FREE advertising via news coverage and social media warfare).
Besides advertising on legit Hot/Trending posts, some advertisers may decide to regularly advertise on all of certain authors' posts, perhaps seeking a long-term advertising relationship with guaranteed placement and a fixed cost. Others may seek to advertise solely within certain categories (tags).
The controversy at YouTube respecting demonetization was about YouTube demonetizing certain videos for "ALL advertisers" (because of the sensibilities of a few of the largest ones). Why didn't YouTube just insist that each video be accurately tagged according to its content, and then let each individual advertiser apply their own criteria?
"Speech Suppression" now comes into play ... many (myself included) believe that YouTube (Google) is deliberately trying to silence certain kinds of speech, by bankrupting the speakers, and using "advertiser objection" as the excuse for yielding the cudgel.
Quill
Did this get your attention? Some ads are interesting, and entertaining. We could embrace user-friendly advertising.
@TimCliff. You have giving me a lot of hope! I'm 100% behind this. We can have a debate over the advertising structure, but deciding weather or not to go with advertising should be a no brainer.
Right now, the main thing backing Steem price, is speculative trading. Do we want to remain at the mercy of private investors, or shall we take control of our own destiny? Personally I don't find ads annoying, especially if they secure the platform. I rather "suffer" through ads than worry about the price declining.
Steem NEEDS to evolve and become less dependent on speculation. Once we get advertising set up, WE need to create a market to buy and sell goods to other users over STEEM.
We have Steempower right? What if we provided discounts to people who power up? What if we create a new way of locking STEEM, like a subscription service, so members can get constant discounts, when they prove they are committed to the platform?
I hope you will brainstorm ideas for a market. One person can't think of all the ideas, so it's better to put 1000 brains together, and ask for on great idea from everybody. As I said before, let's create a curation trail, for people who submit good proposals! Let's brainstorm the concept first, and then will worry about the programming later.
You won't be able to do everything Tim. Make sure to branch out and find great partners. If you try and do everything on your own, you will burn yourself out. Get dozens of people to collaborate with you.
By the way. You can purchase that 3D printer for $180, but I won't tell you where to get it. If it were a real ad, how tempted would you be to click, and find out more information? This could be the STEEM experience.
First when I read the tittle, I was thinking, no way! No ads on Steemit.
Just yesterday I wrote couple of words about how Steemit changed my perception on ads, and that I'm finding them more irritating now on other sites.
But reading your proposition about the possibility of settings, and does the user want ads, and putting threshold limits, than maybe is OK.
Users can still chose do they want ads or not. If this option is available for FREE, than having the option is a plus and addition to the system.
Hey Tim,
Your post brought to mind a project called Image Protect. whitepaper link - they are actually working with photographers and stock photo agencies; taking millions of pictures and converting them.
The embed codes work much like YouTube in that you paste a code and the image appears (no need to use precious storage space). These links protect the images for proper attribution but also creates opportunities for monetization. The more the embedded images are shared the more it can potentially make.
I need to test on Steemit to see if the embed codes work on Steemit but I wonder, if these two platforms were partnered up somehow, the images could potentially have long term residual income for bloggers well beyond the 7 day limit.
Just a thought.
Hey steemit might work with them if they were a SMT :P
My only issue here is the 100%. Who is going be spending the time making sure within reason the ads being delivered will both be safe and legit. If they are filled with a bunch of scammers trying get peoples private keys, other information, or infected with malware does not sound like a cheap thing to deal with.
Otherwise while the big “mainstream” stuff turns it back on the cryptocurrency world and there advertisement funds I say why not embrace it.
With people having the option to turn off running ads on their own page. Not to mention all other stuff going on in this site might as well at this point have thing going as well.
It would be nice to one day have googles style metrics on our blogs. I think that is the big thing missing here in bringing in advertisement dollars.
I personally hope one day to get some review gaming codes for a community I’m very active by reaching out to companies and information them we have a large amount of game reviews who would be willing to review the game at the cost of only a free key and being able to say what they want about the game. Hard to do so one day when there are no numbers of influence or other metrics to give out.
The short answer is the protocol itself would address it. There are a few ideas in the post (blacklists, and thresholds) that could be used. The time spent would primarily be everyone in the community agreeing on the protocol, and then the individual websites integrating it to show the ads if they decide to use it.
The real challenge is tracking the interaction across all the different Steem interfaces.
I wrote a post a while back with a similar spirit but different angle. It discusses partnering with an existing ad management network like Anonymous Ads.
It would take the ad system “off chain” but on the plus side it would allow access to a robust ad management system right out of the box. Simple lightweight embeddable ad code also solves the problem of tracking metrics across multiple front ends.
I feel like something like this could be accomplished possibly with a few keystrokes, by just “whitelisting” the A-Ads embed code on Steemit and any other front ends that agree implement it.
It's worth looking into for sure
@timcliff,
Infinite Blessings!
It would probably not get there right away, but that is the general direction to be heading.
It would be 100% up to each UI to decide how to integrate the ads into their platform.
The ability to turn on/off adds is unlikely something users will be toggling on a regular basis. They will for the most part either be on or off. As an advertiser you would only want to purchase ads from users who have ads turned on.
Services like this are things that would likely get built as the need for them arises (after the system for advertisements is actually implemented and in place).
This is pretty advanced, but it could be done. Probably not going to happen in 'version 1' :)
Under the current proposal, ads are also posts, so you can always resteem them.
I feel that it would harm Steemit to allow major brands that ad power. They are not community focused and would serve only to attract harmful attention.
I would be adamantine in my opposition to that sort of influence. I would hope that the commjnity would support itself throuhh ads and not have to sell its integrity to nonsense.
Much appreciation for your responses. They were helpful.
Infinite Blessings!
I am definitely looking towards an influx of corporate attention and capital to the STEEM blockchain. I suppose it would be harder to get the early majority of businesses to decide that the STEEM audience is worth spending money upon attracting than it would be to code for it.
As it is right now, I can't see any but the innovators (in the adoption curve) in business to see the value. Once the early adopter flood comes in, it would have been nice to have the coding in place so that they could work on the exploits/difficulties/issues that come from increased transactions of that nature. Then 1.1 or 2.0 released and ready for early majority.
Neat thinking and I DO think that 100% payout is an intended function of STEEM though I think a percentage delegated back into the community (minnow projects? STEEMit developers?) would be good as well.
It's actually pretty cheap for an advertiser to just buy some Steem and do a post here that they buy votes for. That would get it on trending and they would be pumping money into this platform. It's probably cheaper than a lot of other places and they may actually make something overall.
I won't be surprised if people are working on ways to get ads onto Steemit. If you have enough followers then you have an audience they want and it could be fairly targeted. I see Steemkr has ads, but I assume they use conventional means and pay for running the site.
All of the revenue for that is going to the bid-bot owners though and the stakeholders who are funding the bots. Is this really incentivizing the type of activity we want people to be offering?
I know and I am not a supporter of vote selling, but maybe ads are a better use of trending than the junk posts you tend to find there. I think we need more whales investing delegation and general voting in supporting good content makers even if they don't pay. That will make the platform more attractive. We need to build the userbase to millions and many will be put off if they just see low quality.
I'm investing my time and using my few dollars of votes each day to support people as well as helping deal with some of the abuse. I still have confidence that Steem can succeed.
I think @zappl is doing it based on this post:
https://steemit.com/zappl/@zappl/big-updates-coming-soon
I've not seen much from them lately. I expect their service to be more popular.
Hmm very interesting. I personally think most people that have come to Steemit dislike advertising. I agree that it could be huge for steemit to include advertisement, but I think it could be done in a different way than this. The people looking at the blog will be forced to watch the ads, I don't like that idea.
Being able to choose ads or no ads, and then focus type of ads tou see, and when you see them. It leaves it all in the users hands. Its a perfect model to invite investment and usership while avoiding imposition upon people.
I would allow ads that brought to my attention things i am interested in, and that i could disengage anytime.
Copied my reply to tim.
It would be entirely up to the individual UIs to decide whether they wanted to display the ads. I’m sure there would be “ad free” UIs that would spring up.
I just don't see people bothering to switch from advertisement UI and be bothered much about choosing their advert preferences. Is there any incentive for the viewers to turn them on or off?
If users don't care much about ads, then they will continue on. If they care enough, they will migrate to where there are no ads. Basically if "disliking advertising" is a big enough thing for an end-user, they will find a solution.
I think we should have professional ad approval. We can't support junk ads. If a company wants to sell motorcycle helmets, many people would find that cool. They shouldn't approve misleading ads like "Find out how this model became a millionaire".
We also can be very supportive. If a stay at home mom, want to sell homemade jewelry. We should not only run her ads on here. We can go one steep further, and create a market, so she can directly sell goods to other Steem users.
Maybe Steem can partner with another company to design an advanced marketplace. Steemit needs to run contests to recruit the best and the brightness talent on this platform.
Who is going to do the approval? How will it be integrated across all the websites that use the Steem blockchain?
As far as programming goes. I'm not an expert, but I think using memos to exchange ads is stupid.
Steemit doesn't have experience with ads, so they should partner with a large firm that knows what their are doing.
You will need trained staff, that can tell the difference between a McDonald's promotion, and some Ebook author running a scam.
The Steem community won't have the professional training to handle the approval of advertising, so we should outsource this responsibility to another company that has professionals.
I'm a stock photographer, so when I submit photos to istockphotos.com, one of their employees takes the time to look at it, to make sure they aren't blurry, overexposed, etc. Some of my photos only make a dollar, yet they have an efficient approval process, so they can still make a profit.
We need to rewrite Steem code, so we can embed ads into posts, and there can be a view counter, and statistics collected for advertisers. I guess you call it a hardfork.
We might need a separate blockchain to handle ads, and be embed in Steem posts, but I want that money going towards boosting the Steem price. The main thing i'm bullish on, is getting large corporations to run ads on here. If we have to partner with an ad company, and share profits, it's better than doing nothing, and seeing growth stall.
Do what you got to do, and try and bring proposals to Steem Inc. If we actually pull this off, and Steem goes to $10, you're going to be a millionaire.
Lets get the whales to fund an ad proposal contest, and create a buzz, so Steem Inc, knows the platform is ready for ads. Lets create an incentive so people write detailed proposals.
I would ban videos, and only have banner ads. They only distract you for 3 seconds, and if you don't like the ad, you continue reading the content. If they ad looks interesting, you click on it, and see what the product is all about. We don't need popup ads or annoying videos, just small banner ads.
I appreciate the intent; to allow advertisers. That would be a way to get content creators to be rewarded a bit more...
1 - a big part of the appeal of the platform is the lack of advertisement (beyond self-promotion)
2 - People will abuse the advertising system to maximize their own potential
3 - would not mitigate some of the issues of influence and rewards
Anyway, point is; should think carefully before starting down this path, it might solve issues but has a solid potential to create new problems.
I think it would be a huge mistake letting authors keep 100% of the ad money. I think at least 50% should go towards boosting the Steem price, and increasing upvote power and the rewards pool.
I like to see the community retain a lot of influence, and not give too much power to advertisers to buy out certain people.
If there was movement towards an advertising model, definitely would be best to have a split between what goes to the author and what is retained for the platform.
I don't trust the whales here. Who's going to design the system? I'm worried the elite will rig the advertising so their the only ones getting paid, while the minnows get compliantly ignored by advertisers.
The Steem platform needs less income inequality, and more disposable income at the grassroots. Minnows must be directly supported by advertising.
I agree; now, I'm fine with a reward inequality. There are people that put money, time and energy to build what they have.
It does get disconcerting to realize that best case most people will have a vote that is worth 2cents or less, while others have a 20% vote worth 50cents. When you see that bots are the primary source of income...
That's also why I am hesitant about an advertising model, ads get paid typically on views and clicks, when my average post might get 5-10 readers, that's not going to add much, but someone who can pay a bot to make it appear as though there are thousands more views, they will get the benefit of a larger chunk of ad revenue... it won't help in the way that is stated as intent.
That's the key for a new movement i mean the advertising move a lot of money and if you combine blockchain and ads i think we will have the perfect cocktail. Regards
I like this idea 😀
However who will get the money?
I think another alternative is that all ad money gets burnt thus lowering supply and making demand grow on a more limited supply.
so an ad based system burning sbd/steem like the promoted tab
just my thought could be a bad idea
The content creators would get 100% of the money.
Yes. As you pointed out, this system is already in place today.
Coin burn would be unattractive because it's invisible. Fund the rewards pool, so investors don't have to take a loss, everytime someone upvotes. If ads pay to increase our upvote power, it takes the weight off investors.
Funding the reward pool sounds cool but it would need massive consensus bc it need to be put in the blockchain. Burning is a way for a UI to add an ad network more fairly.
We can't have a two tiered system that ignores minnows. Everyone, except spammers should get direct ad funding, or we should fund the rewards pool.
The only tweek for me to suggest would be to have the steem involved in ad purchases sent to NULL. This would keep pressure on the steem price which will be needed over time in my opinion. It does not address continuing rewards for the content creator yet we should be careful not to wring the cloth too dry. 😎
That system is already in place with promoted posts, although it uses SBD instead of STEEM.
Good point!
Great proposal. Advertising is exactly what we need. And opt in opt out system would mean people can have the choice whether to display ads on their posts or not. And also perhaps integrating the ad system with the trending page would give advertisers more incentive to pay higher advertising fees.
I just want ad revenue funding the reward pool, instead of directly to the users. With the increase upvote power, users can have greater control over who they want to support.
A large chunk of the rewards pool is going to people who are exploiting the system in various ways. If more of it was actually going to reward the people who were contributing the most, I'd agree with you.
UPDATE. There is a major flaw in your memo proposal. Steemit only has 1 million users, and only a few hundred draw in the kind of views advertisers would be interested in.
I don't see large corporations, taking the time to send memo's to multiple users. Sending multiple memos would take too many man hours. They would have to pay their employees more to send memos, then they would get back from advertising.
This is why I say ONLY have widescale advertising across the entire platform. Advertiser don't have the time to Cherrypick certain users over another. We're not Facebook with over 2 billion users. Have the advertisers pay directly into the rewards pool. This way we can attract corporate investment, instead of a few niche advertisers, only interested in a few users.
The memo payment might be targeted, but it would significantly reduce the number of potential advertisers. I feel like what your suggesting would be very exclusive and very limiting. It wouldn't do much to boost the price of Steem.
Like it or not, the rewards pool, is the bedrock of the STEEM platform. I know it has abuse, but this is what we all signed up for, so lets increase the rewards, instead of getting caught up about who abuses it.
Maybe we can have separate debate on rewards abuse, but lets use advertising to boost the price of Steem, and increase the rewards pool.
It is not expected that large corporations will just flock in right away. Most of the ad revenue initially will be from people who are already members of the platform.
The expectation is that someone would build a website to make this easy, and then all they would have to do is sign the transaction using SteemConnect.
I'm against this idea. I've already explained why multiple times. We will just keep going around in circles.
I don't mean to give you a hard time. I respect what you're doing. Going around in circles is how complicated decision making happens.
I would support 100% going to the author, but I want new members to feel motivated at the beginning. I want new members to get a slice of the ad revenue. Even if it's just 0.001 Steem for their early posts.
Maybe we can install a view counter, that pay's people in proportion to their views.
Steemconnect might make it easier, but I don't want 90% of the playform ignored, because advertisers don't want to spend time on them.
I feel like what you're proposing, doesn't kickstart early content. I think it will create a two tiers system, where the elite get direct income off ads, and the only thing minnows have, are upvotes, which are barely going to them.
For bad content, maybe create a system where, minnows only get paid, if 10% of the viewers hit an approval button.
This assumes that adding money back into the rewards pool will actually go to new authors.
This doesn't work, given that users are viewing content across a huge variety of platforms (SteemPeak.com, Busy.org, steemit.com, partiko, eSteem, etc.).
No matter what system is implemented, the reality is going to be that minnows have to work their way in. Nobody can come to the platform and expect to start earning a ton of money right off the bat. If users want to earn, they need to actually add value to the platform, which includes producing good content, and building a network of followers.
There is no perfect solution. There will always be abuse. Perhaps 50% of the ad revenue goes towards authors and the other 50% goes towards supporting the Steem price, and increasing voting power as a whole.
The most important thing to me, is making sure Steem price stabilizes. If the price continues to fall, will all become bag holders.
I'm willing to tolerate some level of intrinsic ads, if I can sleep at night, know my investment in Steem, is secure. We have to become less defendant on exchanges. Everytime there is a pump and dump, Steem goes up slightly, but falls even more.
I hear alot of naysaying in the comments. Well I'm glad you're taking action.
Desperate times, come for desperate measure. If we become too idealistic, we might bankrupt ourselves. Lets try and figure out an ethical compromise, but at the end of the day, we need to save the Steem platform from collapse.
We got to stop procrastinating. Lets have a debate for a month, and then TAKE action on our best ideas. We can compromise with all sides, but pretty soon we need to take bold action.
Sponsored links its a start. Let's have small banner adds. 1 Banner ad per post, no popups, nothing irritating. Let people disable the type of ads they don't like, and flag any ad they find offensive. If an ad is flagged a certain number of times, it gets removed.
Pass all this information onto the Steem employees, because there will be some programming involved. We don't need some minimal cookie cutter tweek, such as memo exchanges for ads. We don't need to be cutting corners. We need to redesign some parts of the platform. They will have to roleup their sleeves and do some work.
Wow! This would be an amazing feature for the steemitians. Every producer can advertise their goods with a payment of steem. But, I did'nt understand how I get a commision by advertising their goods. If you don'nt mind plz clear it for me.
As a content producer, anybody who wanted to place an advertisement on your post could send you STEEM. You would receive the funds that were sent to you. By producing good content and generating a large audience, your 'ad space' would become more valuable to advertisers.
Hmmmmmm!
Its also depend on my creativity! because the important thing is, How I represent advertisement beautifully among the people. May be He will check my all blog before choosing me as an advertiser.
Hi @timcliff,
Apologies for derailing this comment thread, but didn't know how else to get in touch. I was referred to you by Julián González who said you'd probably be the right person to talk to about this.
I'm José Macedo, senior analyst at AmaZix (https://www.amazix.com/ // https://www.linkedin.com/in/ze-macedo-15b1b175/). In case you haven't heard of us, we're one the largest community management, consulting and advisory companies in the crypto space, partnered with Bancor, HDAC, Bankex and many others. We've worked with over 100 projects and now have over 100 employees.
We're now working on a forum project with a token to incentivise quality content/curation. We really like the STEEM distribution algorithm for this and are very interested in building on top of STEEM. Our ideal scenario would be to use the SMT protocol, but we realise launch is scheduled for January and we simply cannot wait that long to launch.
We’re curious if we’d be able to chat to someone from the SMT team to discuss our options in the meanwhile. Currently, we’re leaning towards issuing an ERC-20 and then switching to SMT’s once they launch, but we’d love to find a way to build on STEEM from the get-go.
Let us know if you have some time to talk and discuss our use case. Thanks in advance for your time,
José
The people to talk to are [email protected] and [email protected] :)
Thanks very much for the quick response :) Will e-mail them now!
@timcliff. Were you able to read my reply to
@brandonfrye? What do you think about ad money going towards the rewards pool, instead of letting users keep their own ad revenue?
Personally, I would rather see stronger upvotes, than a few people get rich through ad connections. I think that would be a really good compromise, that would benefit the community as whole, instead of a few whales, who might abuse the platform.
When authors keep all the ad revenue, the commentators get turned off. The commentators help support the posts. If they see a bunch of ads, and only see the authors getting paid, they will resent the Steem platform.
I think all ad revenue should go towards supporting the Steem Price, and help increase upvotes and rewards, and nothing else.
For those who are against advertising, thanks to another bitcoin panic, Steem has dropped 20% over the last 24 hours. All the more reason to diversify, and find alternative ways to bring money into the system. We tried the investor only method, and look where it got us. It's time to innovate!
Replied there.
There is nothing saying it needs to turn into a super intrusive ad system. Maybe just a "sponsored link" at the end of a post.
I don't want to see authors keeping over 50%. Lots of people are against this, so we got to compromise with them.
I've purchased $300 in Steem power. As an investor, if I'm going to put up with ads, I want to make sure some of that money is supporting Steem tokens, and increasing voting power. I didn't invest, so the elite can throw ads at us, and take all the money.
If we hold Steempower, Than we're all investors, so where's our cut from that Ad revenue? If 50% doesn't go towards increasing voting power, how are we going to motivate minnows to produce good content? Our upvotes will remain low, and few people will want to join the platform.
Without a good food supply, the whole platform declines, as it has already. Go to the created page, and sell many authors are only getting 1 cent per post.
The only way the minnows will put up with the flaws of the Steem platform, is if they actually get paid something. That's why 50% of the ad money, should to go towards increasing voting power.
Think of it as economics, based upon disposable income. When they spend their upvoting power on us, we get paid more.
It is likely that many of the users earning STEEM via their ads will power up their STEEM to increase their stake.
Increasing voting power is more of a benefit to the larger stakeholders. Paying the content creators 100% is more of a benefit to the smaller users.
This assumes the larger stakeholders will actually upvote minnows. They are not really doing that today. do you think that will all of a sudden change?
maybe a CPC (Cost Per Click) model works better. e.g. A click can be broadcasted to the steem blockchain.
That would cost someone bandwidth for each click. It is also something that can be easily gamed/abused.
I as actually talking about this on another post lately just from a more business perspective than a development one.
Part of that for me would be allowing an account to switch off advertisements like you said and then not to receive any add tokens or whatever system was put in place.
I know that your idea was to allow posters to advertise on there own content which is a different path to what i was thinking. i was thinking more of having advertising across the whole blockchain with steem holders all receiving a share of the revenue. Now I haven't a clue about coding or development so i can answer on the logistics of doing any of this but I had been thinking along these lines myself.
This is along the lines of what we have in place today with promoted posts. All of the revenue from those is burned, which is essentially a form of payment to stakeholders.
The main difference with mine is that the revenue would be going to the content creators themselves.
Interesting thoughts. I don't relish the idea f ads being shown on the platform as that's one of its draws, but if the revenue was going to the content creators, then it could compensate for the invasion of ads. It would be another way of monetizing the content.
I'm curious to see what any advertisers would say about buying placement on Steemit or Steem apps. Do you have any contacts that have been driving this?
Nothing specific, but I know there is interest.
If you added content-based advertising on the whole platform, regardless of any relationship between advertiser and user, the platform could then distribute the total advertising:
That is along the lines of what we have today with the “promoted” posts.
Here are my thoughts on the subject @timcliff:
https://steemit.com/advertising/@humanheart/humanhearts-opinion-on-timcliffs-advertising-proposa
Hi! I drew your portrait(^^)v
https://steemit.com/japanese/@skyleap/i-drew-portrait-for-steemian-timcliff
hehe, nice! :)
Thank you! Yeah! :))
This could definitely Boost steem market cap if everything goes well perfect idea everyone has shared great thoughts :)
I don't know people already block normal ads, maybe if they are contextual and easy to buy could work
Is there no place that advertising will not foul?
I am very interested in what you propose, but nevertheless, always the small ones will have difficulty, against those who already have a good money supply and are very visited even though some of us have small and good content.
Friend only if you allow me I can make the translation of your publication, this information should reach more people who speak Spanish.
I hope you can afford that opportunity.
Greetings from Venezuela a people oppressed by their communist rulers ..
Yes, go for it
Ok, thank you very much, I will try to make that publication tonight. I hope the government does not cut me the electric power.
@timcliff This could potentially be huge!
I think Steemit was created especially to avoid sponsored and advertised content. My opinion we should not have ads on steemit!
Always watch your news timcliff .❤
truth and real streemit news! good news for steem😉 👏 Great post as always!
Spektakuler
For me is a great idea!
Hardfork 21 with it! 😀
It would not require a hardfork.
Just a DApp implementation?
Yes
👍
Ads are the logical path forward, but I'd like to see revenues get funneled into a voting account that rewards new content creators on the site. (Perhaps we would tolerate the ads more this way if it was linked to some social impact or cause)
And I'm sure there will be plenty of upcoming ICO's, post-SMT's that'll need another advertising outlet other than just the trending page.
Thanks for opening up the discussion.
Brave is my top contender when it comes to monetizing the traditional ad industry. Maybe steem can get a small piece of the pie but that's a long way coming.
Great post, so much to learn. Keep writing...I'll keep reading, commenting and writing. thanks for what you do
Excellent important information that everyone with Stimit was needed. . There are many things to learn from these post-teaching posts. And they can tell people who know and know from very deep. . You have a good experience on this which follows you who are good for them. I'll tell you this way. Our love is with you and will be there.
Congratulations @timcliff!
Your post was mentioned in the Steemit Hit Parade in the following category:
Greetings @timcliff! We are seeking excellent content creators to be part of our resteem circle and enjoy free resteems from us!
Shareables - We resteem anything we find shareable. Always strive for quality content. Go on express and harness your blogging potential!
God bless from us @Shareables!