Reach
Well, there is no point talking about actual numbers of active hive users. But if we really want to, there is matrix of publications by @dalz and @penguinpablo. As per pablo's latest post there are about 10,000 accounts daily transacting on hive on average. We all know many of them are alts, quite a few are gaming only, some are bots and holding accounts. If we take all that out, my wild guess of unique active human users will be perhaps 5000 to 6000, give or take.
Like I said, the actual number does not matter. If we are within the same order of magnitude, we are okay. Meaning, I think we can agree, that current active users on Hive is perhaps within 1,000 to 10,000 unique individuals (perhaps more closer to 10,000). We can also agree, that as a social media platform, these are dismal numbers. My daughter's school PTO (parent - teacher organization) has more members! Houston's Pokemon Go meet-up has more members (yes, present day, when the game is considered dead or dying).
So here is the fact. We don't have reach. And no, it doesn't take 4 years to build. Many social media companies have come, thived and gone in 4 years time. No we don't get extra credit just because we are decentralized or crypto. Mind you, I am not self-destructive, just self-critical. I have not sold a single hive I bought, and majority of my hive will remained powered up. But at the same time, we have to talk about the facts. Burying our head in the sand won't solve the problem of reach.
On-boarding
This is a true-story. Recently a friend expressed some interests in opening an account on hive. Yeah! Imagine the odds!! I explained that I write content regularly these days, and been active on this blockchain since early 2018. So I said naively to my friend, yeah, come on in, I will hook you up!!
Then he asks ... okay.. I am ready, how do I open an account? And immediately my limb went COLD! I froze for a few seconds, then typed hive.io ! And landed into this join link!
And again I froze!! Damn! There are 11 ways to sign up!!!
I still texted the link to my friend. He opened the link on a web browser, and closed the page in 2 seconds. That was the end of the conversation.
This is a FACT. I am not making up this story.
2nd Layer Tokens
There is a discussion that several dapps and second layer hive engine tokens are doing much better than hive. dapps like 3speak, Ecency etc; tokens and platforms like Leo and https://leofinance.io/ ; games like @splinterlands and game tokens like DEC comes to mind. They are all successful within the ecosystem. But what is their reach outside the ecosystem?
I understand several projects are starting, in-flight, or have reached certain level of maturity. But reach outside the hive ecosystem remains low.
I was discussing this with another friend and I quote without mentioning the name... this person is a prolific writer and blogger and been in hive for 5 months...this is what he says when I asked for his impressions of hive after 5 months..
I think it's a mixed bag like everything else. I like the clean, not distracting look of user profile and how neatly the posts appear. Reminds me of old community blogs. I like that unlike other social media, Hive is not addictive by itself. And of course, I like the rewards and hive being a gateway to crypto to me. I don't like the low reach of posts. I also don't like that despite its attempts, hive isn't doing a great job as a social platform. It's mostly reward farming. Which may sound ugly and I could be wrong. But that's my impression.
Remember, these are not my words, but I couldn't put it in a better way. Especially, the farming part. We all like the rewards, but what are we doing really? We like each others post, yeah sure! We comment to each other, we created a sense of community and we reward each other for it (from thin air!.... no from reward pool). But then, what? Except a few, majority sell the rewards in the open market. Guess what happens to the price, when we do that? Nah!... please don't answer that :)
Solutions
We must market, professionally. The one best thing we have, feeless fast transaction. In the world of slow and expensive BTC and gas powered ETH; we are light-weight and free
A simple sign up. Just one option..... please! Dapps can have their own (which they do)
More apps, and games on the platform
Curation. Yes, long curation window please!
Source: @theycallmedan 's poll result for curation window
There can be more. Please mention them in the comments and hopefully we will be able to discuss this during the hive fest. Maybe there is some breakout sessions planned by @roelandp?
Disclaimer: This is NOT professional advice, this is all just my own opinion and experience. I am NOT a Certified Financial Adviser. Consult professionals for any financial, accounting or legal related questions you have.
Charts are created in Tradingview.com, which is a free service.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Thanks, I was expecting a blog on this!
I was reading the comments as well and wanted to complain some more (maybe the French has already rubbed itself on me!).
I really don't like the excuse when someone says hive is too new or common people don't know crypto yet, not because it isnt true. It is. But if we don't take the initiative to make crypto a household name, who'll? Can we sit and wait for some other chain to become 'viral' and then hope to follow suit? How long will that take and can hive survive that long?
I have seen a way smaller ventures bombarding me with ads on facebook, insta and other websites. I'm no expert on digital marketing, but I don't think its that hard that it would take ages to have an impressionable public face. ANY FACE for that matter.
Yes. I have been pushing the digital marketing for a while. I personally neither have the time nor experience. We need someone to write a proposal and hire some professionals and we will be able to fund it from the DAO easily. But such a proposal is yet to come out. Will you be willing?
I wish I could. I don't think I possess the necessary skills to head such a proposal. Not to mention I usually have my hands full most of the time. This might sound mike I'm evading, specially right after ranting about taking the initiative but the truth is, I'm simply not competent enough. 😞
Yes please, I'd like some more of those.
But, wait. We paid a person over $30,000 to market us for the last 6 months, She signed us up to an exchange. What more could you possibly want?
Marketing takes money and it's going to be really hard to convince people to support a proposal after that and the previous chain marketing expert.
I have friends that I could easily convince to at least come look around if it were a signup and done. I don't bother because they aren't into crypto and I really do not have time to shepherd them through the process.
One of the apps I'd like to see is a serious real time post/comment place. Yes, I'm looking at FB or Twitter when I say that.
Money is something we have! :) believe it or not!
What we don't have is users :)
It sort of sounds like I'm arguing with you, but far from it. I get it and I want it. I think we should have a marketing effort funded by the chain. Key word there is effort.
My point was more with procedure. It's going to be difficult to sell another proposal to the stake holders. It should be organized AND with specific goals and conditions that ensure that it is indeed doing what it promised.
For the record: I was not aware of the Leo Lite option and I'm going to check that carefully. It might be the first answer to the question we all want resolved.
And I agree Tom. And no you are not arguing :)
Yes, Leo is using it's free account creation tokens in the backend to generate an account. It's doing it like a simple sign on with any existing Twitter account. Which is quite cool.
I think having an integrated chat would go a long way in making Hive more engaging as well as helping new users find their place in the community. If there was anything that would make this place grow it's that.
I think the chat was tried and failed....
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
But it wasn't integrated like Facebook, you had to go to another site. You couldn't just start talking with those you follow or follow you while you posted on Hive.
The etherenal topic on Hive :)
How to reach and onboard?
By now it should be clear that this isn't easy. Crypto in general is still new to people. Every blockchain app is measuring their user base in few thousands. And these are the more successful ones. Bitcoin and ETH have a bit more.
Hive as it stands now is a blockchain for social applications. But then socials apps have a wide spectrum. Long form content, short form content, photos, videos, short videos....
The main social app on Hive that is running for more than four years is the closest to Medium. IMO. We have some apps for the other types of social, but none of them haven't exceled yet.
Onboarding communities is probably the fastest way to scale. But then we have the issue with no tokens for communities. Yes we have Hive Engine tokens, but those are still a temporary workaround. We need fast and easy way for communities to setup their tokens. A few clicks. The next issue I see is no benefits for views. If we like to bring a someone with big following he would like to monetize his followers, and usually this is done trough adds. So we need a fast and easy way for content creators to setup an ad program that will be linked with their token somehow.
This will be the three things I would emphasize:
As for the sign in options, yesterday a friend of a friend asked me how to create an Hive account and I pointed him to the twitter sign up option from LeoFinance. Also you can create an invite links with Hiveonboard. In general Hiveonboard is a nice option atm as well.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Only trouble is leofinance does not have hive on it (in the name I mean).
Same for peakD!
How do you explain that to a non-crypto person.... these numerous front-ends?
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Tell them FB doesn't have Zuckerdollars and the code they run on is proprietary so it doesn't need Hive in the name. How do you explain Chevrolet and Ford and Dodge and Tesla...all without Automobile in their names.
Good point..
But all those brand names have millions of dollars of marketing behind it.
@azircon - the goal of Hive should be that end users barely know what Hive is.
With LeoFinance, there are various places they see Hive once they dig deeper. i.e. they can see Hive on their wallet UI or by clicking on the blockchain confirmation for their posts/transactions to see the Hive block explorer.
The part of Hive that is confusing is trying to explain Hive.
Instead, market it like the internet markets itself... you don't. You market the apps - gmail, twitter, facebook.
Posted Using LeoFinance
This makes sense and I agree. Only thing is not everyone in interested in financial stuff. I am clearly.... but that doesn’t mean all my friends are.
It's not only ads that pay. To be honest, for a lot of people that's a business model on its way out the door. Sure, ads pay, but they also add restrictions to what kind of content can earn, plus the platforms that pay in ad revenue keep majority of the generated revenue to themselves. Generic G-rated nonsense. Cancel culture is in full effect these days and only getting worse. It's hitting the arts pretty hard, especially comedy. Creativity is often stunted and even some basic opinions are not allowed. One slip and people can lose their entire revenue stream. Ad revenue also fluctuates even when one follows all the 'rules'.
Content creators accept ad revenue, if they qualify. In the meantime they sell merch, fire up special memberships, receive direct payments from fans/followers, they set up their own sponsorship deals, probably throw in a few affiliate marketing links as well. Even with all that setup they're still often walking on eggshells. Their platform can still give them the boot and when that happens they lose that valuable market of followers. Moving anywhere else means starting from scratch but still having to work under strict guidelines.
I could begin talking about the benefits of this place again. I could mention how the paying content consumers get the best deal around if they support creators on Hive. I could mention the job security here. The problem with that though is I've been doing it for years and sometimes I feel like I'm talking to a wall.
Hive perks aren't hard to explain at all to someone who knows the business but when its someone who doesn't know the business doing the explaining, we run into problems.
Social media, content production, content distribution, games. These are all different things. Social media is what consumers of content typically use to distribute content at not cost to the creator, for instance. Yet for some reason here people think writing an article or creating a video is social media. What happens under this content in the comment section has elements of social media but we don't call comments under a news article on a mainstream site 'social media'. We do see several large buttons above the comment section and the line, "Share on social media," though. Those link sharing consumers who distribute content to their outside followings are something this platform has always been missing. Who's onboarding consumers? Most of the time people lure others here with the lame, "Get paid to produce content," spiel and those who arrive give up within weeks because they realize it's actually hard. They thought they could show up and get paid for social media posts and we're not even distributing social media here.
Sure we could add in some social media elements on top of all this. Some are even trying with other apps. And that's turning into a problem. I wrote about it here. We're attracting folks who are more suited to be consumers, placing them in a role they're not good at, showing them a front end like hive.blog or PeakD, and those frontends don't even include easy access to the rest of the features Hive offers. One could be here for three months and not even know about the games, the attempt at emulating twitter, the video streaming platform or threespeak, and some don't even realize they can get a return for supporting content if they pay a fee of their choosing. A great deal. They do it everywhere else for free with no chance of ever earning anything, plus get nickel and dimed to death by middlemen when it comes time to pay. None of this is presented to them in a streamlined fashion. Everyone wants to go in their own direction instead of tying it all together and allowing potential consumers to spill over onto everything else the chain has to offer.
It's one thing to be concerned about getting people here. Not being interested in what they'll do once they get here is a problem in itself.
Apologies for this longwinded rambly comment.
Not at all long :) I appreciate the detailed comment.
I think where we are struggling is explaining what hive is and what it offers to people outside of hive. People here are already sold, so just like the post of mine... this one that we are commenting on is fairly useless. Don't get me wrong. It's great for discussion amongst ourselves and we should do that. But it's reach is less than 50 people. Zero outside hive. There lies our problem.
Yeah, internal memos and platform politics stand no chance of getting passed around outside. No 'Hive is awesome' post will attract anyone unless it's created by a marketing genius. You already mentioned how the alternative apps, games, etc. here haven't gone far outside of this realm and I mentioned how many go unnoticed even by active members. That endless stream of twitter spam seems to be doing very little since I assume most using twitter have a near identical following as they would on this platform, along with a few on the outside who've become annoyed with the spam.
Actual content though, when produced with an audience/viewership/readership in mind; that stuff has a fancy way of attracting outside eyes. Arts and entertainment is often a hit. I see game reviews here but honestly, people can read thousands of those on the Steam platform. Yet when a game streamer goes into character, they attract thousands and sometimes millions of eyes and even dollars. Recently a group of gamers signed on to Hive. Majority of their posts ask consumers here to leave this space and view content elsewhere, rather than the other way around.
Many content creators on the outside are already established on their platforms. Joe Rogan's case is a fine example of what happens when someone moves to a different platform. Many of his millions of Youtube subscribers are not too happy about moving to Spotify. Consumers are loyal to their favorite platforms. You'd have to sweeten the deal to get them to move. Hive comes with those perks but most established types with a large outside following never bring up the fact even content consumers can earn on this platform. We Are Change, Press for Truth. Those groups are here, they have thousands of followers on the outside, no comments under their posts here. That's a clear sign they haven't even tried to attract one consumer. Their consumers don't need to come here to view that content and won't if they can see it elsewhere, especially if they don't know their tip/donations and engagement goes a lot further here in the form of rewards. Maybe they'll add a Hive link in their signature somewhere but that doesn't mean people will click without a genuine explanation.
So I ask, "Who's onboarding consumers?" Nobody. And every one of these crypto meets content platforms makes the same mistake. They want to fill their platforms up with content. The inside crowd supports it even if it's not exclusive and can be found everywhere else. Creators see no need to bring in their own outside following. These crypto payments just become bonus money to them, as they focus on building more on the mainstream platforms.
Creators will go where the largest group of people is. Remember a few months back when genuine content produced by artists, photographers, entertainers and the like was being heavily downvoted? Annoying internal memos and 'Hive is awesome' content was the in thing. What attracts outside eyes was being pushed away. Just recently someone made over half a million in five minutes with NFT art. Here they were pouting if an artist managed to earn $50. That half a million comes from consumers. Chase content away, that chases potential consumers away, which means the platform doesn't see any of that consumer money roll in. That consumer money has been ignored on Hive since day one. People sit around wondering how to attract investors while waiting for that magical crypto lottery to just suddenly happen outta nowhere. They say, "This content stuff isn't working." It works everywhere else because those platforms focused on attracting consumers, not just content.
I'm certain I could sit and ramble for days.
Just to let you know I read the comment a few times, but not sure what to answer :)
I agree with all what you are stating above. Content creators earing in more ways than ads. Platform cutting them off.... Hive not being just a social media ... I agree with this and at this point I would say Hive is Hive and maybe just stop compering it with exciting concepts ... And at the end I 100% agree we need to attract consumers not just content creators ... I have seen you mentioning this a "few" times :)
I believe it's a mistake to attempt to emulate. Even the idea of an entire community depending on a third party source for ads is sketchy. Becoming highly dependent on a middleman is dangerous. One could put all that work into establishing a business model that could suddenly vanish because of one individual decision.
More and more I'm seeing the removal of middlemen; creators earning directly from their consumers. But even a platform like Patreon could suddenly stop providing services, or change direction, or demand higher fees. Hive removes so much of that uncertainty. There's far more potential in disconnecting from the classic crypto scene and tapping into consumer buying power. Sure it's good to have connections to both at all times, but there's no reason our token value should follow market trends and drop when the rest drop, all while we're providing a product or business model that extends beyond the crypto sphere. Content, games, apps people actually use; those are only successful when consumers and consumer money comes into play. These upcoming tokenized communities will struggle without a consumer base to tap into as well.
Blah blah blah enough talking about it LOL!
I dont even bother telling people about hive. need the right people / channels to do it as you said.
i.e i have been in crypto before the last bull run and talk about it every now and then to my wife.
5 days ago she was watching the local news and now as of yesterday, owns some of her own btc, eth, and xrp.
All i did (after she was sold) was help her in a few right directions and then let her make her own choices. She willingly figured out all the nitty gritty stuff i.e onramp, exchanges, wallets, etc
Smart lady! :)
Bought all the right crypto!
Boy can I empathise with your onboarding friends story. Hive itself looks such a mess, I don't even bother.
The new Twitter signup feature on LeoFinance should be a bit of a game changer. I know it doesn't say Hive, but it's currently the best way to onboard non-crypto people.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Sounds good. Let's see how many we can onboard that way and even more importantly how many "keep" their Leo or hive for the long term.
About Sing up it think to its to much options. Every where there much simple. If it was 9ne option how to register, open account i think to it will lore much more users to HIVE.
For the daps there are lot of places where is one place to sing up first and with that account you go to daps.
We are losing very much of members ho want to register bo it is to long to think with i will like for sing up.
We need to tailor hive look and interaction system. It is like the robotic way, most of things are very technical which a normal person cannot absorb. We need it to make more user friendly, have chat/direct message system in a social media.
When people come and see we don't even have a chat system to discuss something with friends or people, we use discord for that.
We need a single socual media app covering all major aspects of hive so a new user can have most of things in there.
Regards
All of your solution make perfect sense, except I would put marketing as #4. There's no point marketing when there are still 11 signup options. Let's fix that first.
True. I agree.
Signup on 3Speak should be pretty straight forward:
Fill out the form. Click the link in the email. Done.
then what happens to the keys? How an user get those? Are they stored somewhere?
The accounts we create don't have any keys and therefore they are not stored anywhere. Once I have the time I will add an option to generate keys for these accounts.
The "Easy onboarding solution" is a must, yes.
I recently was directed to WAX because a NFT related thing, and the cloud wallet feature of WAX is AWESOME. You are onboarded in 5 seconds. We need that!!
You could have created the account for him, and then spent weeks talking to him.. how to do this and that, I have in the past... it's hard fucking work. It's little wonder there's no new blood here.
you know its crypto.... it gets hacked.... I must explain keys... as opposed to password...
WHY?
Why I have to open an account for someone else?
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
A simple sign up. Just one option..... please! Dapps can have their own (which they do)@slobberchops @azircon have you guys seen LeoFinance's new Lite accounts feature?
Now, users can sign up to Hive with only a Twitter account or Metamask wallet in less than 20 seconds. They don't even need to download the Hive blockchain keys right away (they're encrypted in a database and the user can choose to download them later on from their wallet page).
This is the future of onboarding, in our opinion.
Posted Using LeoFinance
At the time I did all this, the twitter option you now provide did not exist (Feb 2020). Can you integrate Facebook into this?..., that would be good!
Good job! Do you check for verified emails? And what prevents someone from draining your account tokens with fake Twitter accounts? I guess the same question is even more valid for metamask, as eth addresses have no costs attached to them.
Yes, that's the issue we have seen before with free account option. Perhaps it's now a bit lower than previously as our prices are down. I expect spam account opening ramps up if/as soon as we start rallying.
I have heard that, but didn't check. This guy is not interested in "finance" so asking him to sign up to a financial site is difficult.
You don't have to, it's an option we have as we can create accounts for others. In the case of my guy.., he's not savvy enough to work out this shit for himself, but now is used to it all and is a decent writer. I'm glad I persevered.., but to do it all again.., I probably wouldn't.
Yes he could have, but that does not solve the problem. Someone that's going to this site by himself will be lost if he has no friend to help him.
"Yes. I have been pushing the digital marketing for a while"
LOL
Yes, mostly agree. I also waited 2 weeks back in Jan 2018 for my account. Personally I don't like others to "open" accounts for an user. No where in the modern web that works.