Bloomberg's interview with Ned Scott, the CEO of Steemit, from Tokyo has definitely made some splashes not only all around the world, but on Steemit and for Steemit also. I'm sure you have already read about it around here or seen it on DTube so I'm not gonna resume what Ned said. I will only express my opinion regarding these splashes that this interview has made and what is going to change on the platform in the near future. IMAO.
First of all you may remember that about a month ago he had another interview for CNN I guess or also Bloomberg where he pictured a bit what Steemit and DTube are and how they differentiate from Facebook an Youtube. It was more like a general view of the blockchain based apps. Now he really got into details as how the platform works with the curation rewards, trending page and how the Steem tokens work and can be cashed out into FIAT.
From my perspective his interview is first of all a great advertisement for Steemit as the first social media platform based on blockchain technology, Steem and SBD as valuable tokens that for sure will increase in price in the near future. Most of us know what cryptocurrencies are, have already invested in them or traded them, but some of the general public might not have heard until now and that's some great advertising they got. Not only the Steem tokens benefit from such advertising through his interview, but the blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies in general.
One of the first questions addressed by the interviewer was about spam and low quality content posted on the platform comparing it with Instagram and twitter(not Facebook as it also has problems with spam and low content). That's a cold one if the media is already aware about this problem and asking Steemit'S CEO about it. The more users join the Steem platform the more such spam content increases and some solution has to be found about it. Otherwise the waters of Steemit won't be that clear and attractive to new swimmers and some opponents might get them in time.
Ned in his answer didn't detailed too much the situation, but pointed that the good quality content that has the most rewards is shown in the trending page presenting it as a standard for quality. I can only disagree on that as it is not 100% true. Yes you can find good quality content in there, but also some low boosted with the help of bid bots that can't represent the cream of Steemit's articles. I see though this situation as a step forward for Steemit and an opportunity for Ned to reconsider the way articles hit the trending page. Some filter has to be added in order for the platform to become more mature and attractive for newcomers that create good content and are dissapointed that they never get there although their work shows the contrary.
In the interview he also made an invitation to billions of people around the world to join the Steem ecosystem and become a part of it. Great initiative I have to say and I expect it to really happen in the years to come as he mentioned, but at the same time it calls for other changes for the platform in order to make them stay over time and contribute to its growth. One of them could be the rewards pool that might need to be refilled and better managed.
He talked a bit about how the tokens are generated and distributed and mentioned also about the reward pool, but I have to admit that even if I have almost three months on Steemit I couldn't understand what he was saying. I don't think my English is that bad but his explanation was a bit complicated especially when being addressed to potential new users that have nothing to do with cryptocurrencies and never heard about such a blogging platform. Mentioning about the rewards pool I would suggest him to do something about the rapping of it by some users as it has already started wars around here and that's not good for the platforms image and nhore a sign of quality for the users experience. I'm confident though that in the year to come some measures will be taken forward.
For now, only the spam content issue has got to the ears of the public media, but when they will dig dipper probably they will find this side of the coin also that doesn't shine that much and that will hurt. Maybe a limit of daily posts per day might come in hand to balance the situation and bring peace on Steemit. Just saying, but what do I know. I'm plankton.
Over all I have to admit that Steemit is a road opener to other platforms and apps that will use tokens to reward their contributing users. I am confident in the future of such apps and I am expecting to earn tokens in a few years even from walking or buying stuff online.
I'm confident in the future of the blockchain technology and the evolution of the Steem ecosystem and believe at the same time that we are just at sunrise with such tech.
The whole interview with Ned Scott from Bloomberg you can watch in here. I'm waiting for opinions and critiques in the comment section as I have a sunny day to waste on Steemit doing that.
I agree they need to make a lot of changes if they want to attract new users. I hope switching from reputation-weighted voting will make a big difference. I wish I could subscribe to certain steemit channels (like subreddits) so that my feed could be better customized. I also wish you could downvote content instead of reporting it.
The flag is a downvote.
People are encouraged to use downvotes sparsely, and that's a good thing.
I would also like to choose a list of tags and see the new/trending/hot/active for that list of tags. Maybe it's possible at busy?
I am using busy more and more lately, but I don't know anything about that option. It's not hard though to scroll through the trending page as not too many articles get there, but your idea would filter even more the results.
I have to admit that I'm not reading too much from the trending page so not that interested in whatever happens there.
I'm mostly following the stream of new articles, but I would like to narrow it down to a list of tags that I'm particularly interested in.
The platform is still maturing even after two years. I consider that some changes will be made to improve the user experience.