I believe that since this blockchain was born, the question of what is worth curating on hive was always one of the most important and controversial questions on the hive blockchain.
We have a reward pool that is distributing the hive inflation partially to content creators. The fact is that according to the amount of stake (hive power) we own, we can proportionaly define to which content the reward pool is distributed. Stake gives us power but also responsibility. The way we vote on content will define whose stakes are growing and whose not.
What does bring value to hive?
I'm a stakeholder with quite a big bag of hive power and of course I would like to vote and reward things that in my opinion bring more value to hive in the long term. But the question here is: what does bring value to hive?
I believe that what profits hive most is traffic and users. Traffic can be monetized and it's the best marketing tool. The more people come to hive, the more eyes it gets and in a way the more chances there are to attract new users. New users might need hive power to get a working account and the more people need hive, the better it is for the token and for the chain. More traffic means also better rankings in search engines and this could become a positive circle. So the question is really how do we bring more traffic and people to hive?
By creating quality content?
We have heard it over and over that we should support quality content on hive with our upvotes. However, it's pretty difficult to define what is and what is not quality content. Is a great post with 5000 words and 10 images better than a 500 word post with one single image? Does a long post bring more traffic to hive?
I think that initially the idea was that long posts with quality content would attract more users. The reality is that SEO on Hive isn't that good and the visibility of the posts is rather bad on google. In addition, people who write posts on hive, don't really have an incentive to place the posts well in search engines due to the fact that indexing will probably happening after the 7 day payout window is closed already. So search engine optimization is not really a priority.
So if a post is long or short but both can't be found on google, which one does attract more viewers? That's a question that I let you think about...
What can we learn from web 2.0?
There are plenty of social media platforms in the web 2.0 world and it's interesting to try to learn something from what they are doing. Maybe we can learn some things that would be useful to hive.
Where is long form content on web 2.0?
When I look at all the social media platforms on web 2.0, I see Instagram, X, Tiktok, Snapchat, Youtube, Whatsapp. However, none of them do put their focus on long form content. Are there any popular platforms that are centered around long form content? I don't know any and the reason for that is that long form isn't that popular in general.
What is the objective of web 2.0 platforms?
For business reasons, I had to create a tiktok account recently and one thing that I found interesting is that it's almost impossible to include an outside link into tiktok. You will find it quite restricted for other platforms as well, except X. The idea behind it is that these platforms want you to stay as long as possible. They want you to interact, engage and do plenty of things but above all they want you to stay on the platform
What I deduct from that
I believe that short form content, shorts, tweets are what people are looking for and we should try to keep people on the platform by encouraging engagement and interaction.
My experience from noise cash
Some years ago, there was a platform called noise cash that was very similar to inleo threads or ecency waves or peakd snaps. The interesting part of this platform was that you could earn quite nicely for making tweets and engaging with others. At the time, it attracted a lot of hivians and we were probably one of the most active communities on noise cash.
The number of users grew very fast on noise cash because people knew that they could earn well. However, after a time there was no more BCH to be distributed and the platform kind of died quickly. What made the success of noise.cash was the reward incentives.
In my opinion, the big advantage that we have on hive is the reward pool that distributes Hive to the content creators. This reward pools is battle proved and it works pretty well. It has some flaws but compared to all other similar platforms, hive is really good in that.
Should we rethink curation?
The problem that I see is still that people think that the more work you invest in a post, the more rewards it should get. This is a bias that unfortunately is not really accurate and actually never really was. We should think in another way and reward what gives the most benefit to hive.
Since the reward pool is defined in it's size, we could simply redirect some of it towards the short form platforms. If somebody creates a thread, a wave or a snaps that attracts tons of interaction, he does contribute as much or even more to the success of hive than somebody who writes a post with 2000 words. If you could earn several dollars with such a short post, I believe it would work as a magnet and attract a lot of people.
Rewards are the best marketing tool to attract new people to hive
Under a comment @ecoinstant gave the following vision about curation on short form content that I found very interesting:
... The requirement for curation is to make the votes, so no curation is lost - its more like velocity of money - the same curation but some of the rewards are rewarding the community for actions.
"Comments" is one simple action, but comments with conditions (answer questions, fill out survey, share experience/screenshot), can "make the community" work for that value, and potentially bring even more value to the project/community.
If we tend to reward interaction, creativity and collaboration more with our votes, I believe that it would be very positive for hive in general.
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Greetings Achim!. Since as a community leader I have seen how many users, both new and some older ones have chosen to simplify the work. In music we used to demand good writing that complemented the video, but the real value is in that video and I have started to pay more attention to that. Some platforms like Liketu are looking to make it easier and more attractive to users and people have preferred that. Like you I think the most important thing is to encourage interaction and support quality content, whether it's long or short, but that the person feels it's worth continuing to create. I have noticed evolution in Hive and I think it will continue to change, but definitely making it simpler attracts people. I wish everyone was dedicated to growing their HP, especially on my side of the world they don't really understand what that means...
This is something that people tend to oversee. Earning a couple of dollars with content can be nice but it's when powering up and building your stake, you can actually earn much more. This awareness needs to be spread I believe.
@achim03, I think curation matters, but the question of "what has value" is almost impossible to answer.
But Web 2.0 does teach us something. Almost nobody is online simply "to be online," they are there in pursuit of something; usually something niche or interest/hobby related... whether it's as broad as gaming, or as narrow as stamp collecting.
Few people are "loyal to FACEBOOK" but many people are loyal to their niche interest group/page on Facebook.
Whether we label Hive as Web 3.0 or something else, I don't think the bones of what we do here is all that different. Which is to say, is asking "what's valuable to Hive?" even the right question? Or should we be asking what attracts people to a particular community?
I periodically run into discussions about Splinterlands, in the context of why so many Splinterlands players/stake holders are not active on Hive. And yet? Splinterlands is that rare Hive property that drew huge numbers of users externally. But not because they were interested in Hive, because they were interested in the game. Referring back up to what I said above, Splinterlands is a community; an interest. It's its own thing first, and a Hive thing second.
Part of Hive's problem/challenge is that it has this rather finite audience. Unlike a YouTube or a Tiktok or an IG post, you can't get 200,000 upvotes here because we have too many virtual "fences" between ourselves and Greater Cyberspace. If I see something I really like on virtually any other platform, it's about a 15-second process to have an account via "log in with Google/X/Facebook" and I can leave some form of thumbs up/engagement. Can't do that here. As such, there's little incentive to go in search of external readership... aka new Hive members.
I realize this is a little off-topic from your post, but but I feel it matters, in terms of answering the question of "what's good for Hive?"
Indeed, rewards may attract people and be a great incentive, but that doesn't really amount to anything unless Hive is placed in front of thousands or even millions of new eyeballs.
Sorry to write an entire blog on your post, but I feel this is an important discussion to be had... and without the usual heated finger-pointing.
=^..^=
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Thanks a lot for this great comment :-). I think the biggest problem for hive is still the issues related to account creation. Inleo and ecency offer a nice service but it's not always easy for new people to know that their accounts are actually hive accounts.
I believe that what is good for hivians will also be good for hive. Incentives are nothing else than a marketing tool to attract people to hive. Splinterlands showed very well that if there is some earning possibilities, people flock there and join the fun. I belive it's the first step towards more users and more engagement. This could create a positive evolution bringing even more people and more views to the blockchain.
I think it's hard because everyone will have a different opinion on what is good content. However, I do agree that short-form content tends to be the best draw for people. I don't know if there are that many people who would want to read a 10 minute long post and they would probably move on unless it really interests them.
This is exactly the problem. I, as a long time hivian, have difficulties to read very long posts. I belive that others just check the titles and curate accordingly. So the question is really what kind of value these long form content posts carry? Short for content allows much more interaction and engagement and everybody can do it.
I think writing being an art can be quite subjective. Some people might like a piece of writing, but some people might not. I think we all have the right to vote on what we like (and ignore what we don't like) and that's fine. That said, I think it's more important to enjoy the process of writing than just thinking about curation because it's an unhealthy expectation.
!LUV
That's definitely true. If you write for money you probably won't be motivated further than the second post :-)
@achim03, @relf87(4/5) sent you LUV. | tools | discord | community | HiveWiki | <>< daily
I have a negative view of users who are on Hive and convert all their income out of the ecosystem. As I am the curator of the Brazilian micro community @hive-br, I have tried to also take into account the historical relationship between users and Hive, in a positive way for those who continue to grow their HP, and for now without penalizing the leeches.
The way forward is to be able to exchange Hive for products and services. Soon we will have a payment system for Brazilians where you will use Hive for instant payment in local fiat currency. The revolution is coming!
I think that people who cash out their earnings are in the way of their own success. Because Hive really becomes interesting when you have stake in the game. So when you power up, you can pass from earning cents to earning dollars...
I don't think we need a special rewards pool for short-form content. HP holders can decide for themselves where to direct their Votes and thus influence value distribution for the existing pool.
My understanding is that 3-speak up votes content based on its popularity/views, so that might be more in line with your thinking.
When I look at snaps or threads, I always have the feeling that people are holding back their upvotes. It's mostly somewhere between 1 and 10%. I believe that a nice short form post that enhances a lot of interaction could be worth a 20% or 50% upvote as well :-). I agree that there is no need to add additional reward pools for it but I wouldn't mind if the voting power is slightly distributed differently :-). Thanks for stopping by!
I agree that more focus should be laid on the value a post/snap brings. The snaps are an easy way for new users and people who are reluctant to write longer posts to engage and get some quick rewards. Once they see the results, there is a chance they get used to it and stay.
Therefore e.g. I upvote the snap container posts as well as they are used to further incentivize snapping.
Btw noise cash is not a good example. Those tips were only funded from a kind of marketing budget. As soon as this ran out, the platform was gone. Not very sustainable :)
Thanks for your comment! I think the relationship between time investment and reward is totally different from short term to long term content. If somebody writes a snap and gets 10 cents for it, he will be quite happy. If he gets 20 cents for a 500 word post, I don't think it would be the case. Supporting the snap container is a good way to go and I believe spending some voting power on the snaps directly is also a good idea :-)
Totally agree on that. What was nice was the interaction and it was definitely encouraged by the tips. I believe that on hive we have a much better system. If some value goes into these snaps I think we have a very sustainable solution that offers quite nice rewards for people using it.
It is a good perspective change to look at value to Hive more. I still think there is value in long form content though for example a comparison with web2 would be Medium. However, their articles are better indexed for SEO and more easy to find content than Hive. I would say we are also a comparison to wordpress and more customability on the homepage/landing page is needed.
What is great on hive is that you can have short form and long form. However 95% of the reward pool (dedicated to author rewards) goes into long form. Meaning that the incentive is mainly to do long posts which is not bad per se but I would like to see maybe 5% more going into short form.
Greast post - this is the kind of conversation we need more of on Hive !
Pulliing together ideas related to good points others have made;
@bitcoinflood raised the issue of advertising. I agree. In order for Hive to grow, we need increased genuine market cap and the cashflow to pay for external advertising. So we should find ways to get advertisers spending money here, in ways that don't clutter th eplace up or get creepy. The only other way to increase market cap is when people invest cold hard cash to buy HIVE.
A couple of people have mentioned that curating people who earn and then cash out drains liquidity from Hive an dcommitted Hivers. Perhaps a simple (but controversial) answer is to persuade front ends to code in an icon or colour change in the user's name when they've got a power-down going on. After all, it shows up in the wallet screens, so the data is there !
I agree about SEO. Google has to be pushed hard to index Web3 content; I suspect they recognise a competitor when they see one. Post tags are useful internally, but don't really help expternally, and most users (quite rightly !) aren't SEO experts. But Hive has some genius-level developers; I wonder if AI couldn't be put to work looking at posts and creating the SEO for them based on content, then we'd just need to code in ways to feed that data through to Web2.
Although I mostly make long-form content, I think short form content needs to be rewarded as well. A big barrier to getting upvotes is seeing a thread or snap with no votes and thinking it's a wasted vote if I don't commit enough to get it over the 2 cent dust threshold. So perhaps the answer is that tiny upvotes for short form content could be consolidated daily (similar to the way they go into containers) and the dust cap for short form content applied to the daily aggregate.
Sorry, I wrote an essay ! :D
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First thanks a lot for your essay.. You should write a post about it :-)
These are all great points. I think that hive needs to sell itself better. It needs more traffic, better SEO, external monetization and a growing user base. I believe we can get there by having a short message platform that actually rewards people for engaging and interacting. Few people are capable of writing 500 words posts but almost everybody can write short form content. When I write a snap, I check whether I get comments and upvotes almost on an hourly basis. I do the same for posts but I tend to make more snaps than posts. That just makes me come to the platform more often and stay longer. The more interaction we have, the more traffic and the more the mouth to mouth marketing could emerge. In addition with the hive reward pool, we have a great tool to incentivise all that :-)
I like the idea of rewarding interaction and participation, rather than only short-form posts. The long-form content should also be rewarded, but really it's comments and interactions (like games and contests) that really make HIVE interesting. !BBH
I think it would be wrong to give too much value to all the short posts out there. Some are really not bringing much added value. However, there are some snaps, waves or threads that really trigger a lot of interaction and engagement and I think it would be great if such content was rewarded more.
I think this was tried on Threads at first and some downvotes followed for the Hive rewards. Threads has the advantage it has its own token, and with it, holders who have enough LEO staked can use whatever weight they want, without a risk of being downvoted. That's especially true if they don't have much HP in their accounts.
I'm not surprised by that and I believe that it's not too bad that some people think about protecting the reward pool because it could really lead to abuse, like 50$ for a blurred image lol. However, we shouldn't consider all short content as garbage. I see some nice snaps or threads that generate a lot of interaction and I think it should be acceptable that such posts generate some income.
I agree things should be more nuanced. We should avoid black & white categorizations (as in valuable or garbage), there's a lot of room in between.
I hope these ideas grow like seeds!pimp
I think it's never a problem to put some questions in the room and hope that people start a thinking process :-)
Curation is very complicated indeed. I do believe that HIVE curation inadvertently brings about people/farmers who are here purely for the monetary aspect. I have no problem with that, except in cases where it's a repeated extraction and sale of HIVE. So I basically never ever curate a new user whom I notice is powering down nonstop.
I'm maybe a bit less restrictive in this aspect. I think that new users need to understand that it's by growing their stake that they can actually scale their income. On hive, learning things takes usually a bit longer so maybe these users just need some examples how things can be done :-)
The biggest primary flaw of hive is that it doesn't bring revenue in to support the token like every other traditional web2 platform does. Ad revenue is critical for any type of real payout from a "social" platform like hive. That's really what all of this comes down to. Is the core business fundamental of revenue generation.
There are only two ways for a social platform on a blockchain to grow in value. One is to generate a real income that is used to push the token and the second is to grow the user base so much that it generates new demand from the growing user base. If neither is achieved, it's almost impossible to increase the value of the token. Hive at the moment isn't that strong in both directions unfortunately.
Things need to change. Here we see a lot of people who vote for each other and people who are younger users and have been working for a long time to create good content. Not so much supported.
Well, networking and building relationships is a key to success on hive. Just creating content isn't enough I believe.
@achim03! @ironshield likes your content! so I just sent 1 BBH to your account on behalf of @ironshield. (13/100)
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