My first impressions of Steemit
As I wrote in the previous, introductory, post, I am a complete newbie in the world of cryptocurrencies. I am also one can say a newbie in the area of online content publishing despite being online for more than 20 years now. And yes, I am also - OLD. I am no millennial and no digital native. I can still safely say that most of my life I lived without the internet connection. This changes though and obviously the older I get the less relative time I can count for the happy wireless days of my youth.
But what it means is that I do not consider the internet or in particular the social media my natural environment. I am a tourist here, a spectator of sorts. A flaneur as the French would have it. So let me delve into a few first impressions of Steemit after a couple of days of sightseeing.
It's really huge!
The first thing that struck me was how big the place actually is. I have been constantly exploring the site, clicking on many of the links and I was surprised at the depth of the site. Initially I thought these were just a bunch of people creating content here but now I see how huge the place is. Incidentally an estimation of the number of Steemit users has just been published here. Spoilers: Steemit has reached 1 mln users.
It's not all about content
True, you could just hit the keys on your keyboard and produce publishable content. But it seems Steemit is so much more than a personal blog. The learning curve is steep and I claim I am nowhere near the first 1/3 of knowledge yet. I am slowly learning about the upvotes and curating but having been hit with three different currencies (Steem, Steem Power and Steem Dollar) seems a bit cruel.
You need to find your niche
It seems to me that the best road to success is to find a niche and publish good quality content. But what I see a lot around here is that a lot of comments are quite perfunctory or from bots altogether. So I guess it's best to find a group of people with whom you have something in common and stick to them... otherwise the big fish will eat you in no time.
There are popular and unpopular topics
As everywhere else, Steemit has its own topical favourites and its own pariahs. I have found a few tags that are really not very popular and do not get upvoted much but are of interest to me (one such tag would be #haiku, another #esperanto or #philosophy, #literature, #poetry) and I would like to find or build a community around them.
The money is where...?
The whole idea of Steem as cryptocurrency is way above my head now. Despite reading upon it (e.g. here) I still find it hard to believe there is real (ain't that an oxymoron!) money behind the scenes here. I am treating this platform as an experiment now and definitely a challenge for myself to wrap my head around the cryptocurrencies.
What's in it for me?
Well, that I do not know yet. I feel this is an interesting place to be. I feel challenged to understand it and would like to know more about the whole economy of crypto money and how it connects with creative effort and spirit. I also wish to find content that is valuable and worth reading and be sure that it gets rewarded, even if it's in virtual money ;-).
P.S. If you know a way to follow tags - please let me know; I'd like to follow some topics alongside people and cannot for the world figure out how...
Welcome @nnnpr3! We were also completely enthralled by the depth of the community in the first days. What is perhaps even more encouraging are all of the developments that are leveraging the Steemit blockchain to further diversify and drive content and curation. Applications like Steepshot, DLive, Dtube, DSound and beyond. There is a lot to be excited about here.
Thanks for the encouragement! I am exploring and it all awes me a little!
Well understood! It is a remarkable platform with a mixed community. By the way, we have 90+ year old on board.
Ĝis nun mankis efektiva esperanto komunumo por vere ĝui la platformon kaj financan rekompencon. Mi jam proponis ĉe lernu kaj alie ĉi tiun platformon, vane.
So, all the best and don't get hooked! It is addictive!
Dankon! Mi creas ke pli kaj pli da Esperantistoj venos ĉi tien fine sed eble Esperantistoj ne estas interesataj pri financa gajno ;-) Kaj estas vere ke ĉi tiu platformo ne estas facila por komencantoj!
Cxiu vocxo por esperantisto pligrandigas SP de la esperantujo ;-) Tial vi havas mian ;-)
Dankon!
E_67
Have some manna:
https://www.mannabase.com/?ref=22370a5574
Hey there. Thanks for your vote on my post! Welcome to Steemit!
In response to your final question: you can't follow "tags" but if you go to steemit.com/created/InterestingTag you'll see all new posts in the interesting tag category.
Thanks a lot for the response! I will try your method - and I found that bookmarking a specific tag in my browser works as a workaround for the time being! Cheers!