I'd classify myself as a real content maker/social blogger, and I've already been active on a platform terribly similar to Steem about 15 years ago - blogging and socializing and making friends - just no 'rewards' involved. But I stayed over there for years and years, and looking back on that period now and seeing what I do here: I just love the 'game', with or without the rewards. I'm playing the same game here as I did back then, although the opportunity to get something valuable from this system plus the investment opportunities it hands to me does ofcourse make it way more exciting.
Anyway.
I personally doubt if we ever were a content platform - or if we're a social platform. When I arrived on this place that I got to know as 'Steemit' back then I did a lot of photography/travel posts but most of all played to social game as I had learned years ago. Going to meet-ups with digital 'friends': been there, done that, years before Steem. So I recognized this place quickly for what I'd already experienced: a game of networking and gathering your own group of people to follow and have conversations with throughout the day and week.
I honestly believe Steem will be cared for by 'outsiders' once it has content apps as we know and love them: a real Instagram (Appics might go a long way!), a Medium (long-form content for quality writers!), a Twitter... all apps with their own stakeholders, all upvoting within their own ecosystem.
Yes, that might mean that all those using 'generic' apps like steemit.com will have to ignore the fact that one tweet gets more 'rewards' than that long-form 'Medium' post... As it was never about comparing the quality of one sentence against a long article, but about comparing that one tweet with another tweet...
(For simplicity I won't mention that sometimes one tweet is more genius than a well-written article anyway :D)
It's why I see the current 'fights' about what content should get upvoted and which not as a risk for our future success - who is to judge once we have dozens of apps all having their own ideas about quality and all having their own stakeholders/investors/curators/content makers/social humans? The upvotes/value will come from within these systems, and if one whale wants to buy a million STEEM to curate memes... Well, than that's their right. People from the outside won't care for steemit.com/steempeak.com with generic and messy trending pages, but if the whale has good taste then this meme website with carefully curated memes might be worth a daily visit for a smile on your face.
I'll quit here as I'm sort of freewriting my comment, and will probably think about it more the next few days. Great article and important topic - I'm not specifically agreeing/disagreeing, just sharing some thoughts I've had on my mind regarding inside/outside content making and what will bring 'outsiders' on Steem.
There is a lot to what you say. Steem has the potential to be a real community driven platform where even the little guy can gain value from contributing just by commenting intelligently on other posts.
Question is what moving parts need to be put in place to make it realise it's socially inclusive potential ? App are a part of that for sure but also a sort to Steamiquette needs to be in place where we can have a standard we can adhere too.
Oh and something else that is a personal bugbear of mine. Steemit search SUCKS. It is extremely hard to narrow down on communities and find common interests the way it is set up now. Tag alone are not good enough and we need a way of searching by content and not just titles.
Just my fourpenny worth.
@veritanuda @steevc have you guys tried steemlookup.com? it's @curie's post discovery tool and in my opinion one of the best ways to "search" steem.
I hadn't seen that. Looks very comprehensive. I have used the eSteem search to find some of my old posts. Good search is vital. The Steem tags can be a bit hit or miss.
Thanks for that but seriously, a third party site is the best was to search steem kinda says it all. Don't get me wrong, it is better than nothing but it rather misses the point, no?
hey @veritanuda, tell that to @steemit, @ned, @elipowell and everyone else
The naked truth is that Steem is a blockchain and there are myriads of front ends to access it. All of them are "third party" in one way or another.
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Hehe.. props for the name call. And yeah I get they are relying on 3rd party developers to expose the blockchain as it is but really their needs to be at least some guidelines.
I have already talked about trying to work on the copy of a blockchain myself to see if I can run some heuristic filters through it to pull the gems from the dross.
At least it can be done which is more than say you can with Facebook so...
Have you seen the eSteem search? I find it much better than the Steemit one.
thanks for the tip @steevc, now this is really useful.
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This post started actually as a comment, and I said, "fuck it, I'll make a post about it" because it was getting too long.
Thanks a lot for sharing your views on the matter, I appreciate it greatly.
To be honest this post wasn't targeted at authors like you. It seems you know how this "game" works, and you play it well. Your content is not 100% based on tasks and dapp shilling. You are indeed one of the few real content creators here.
Kudos to you
I am only trying to express what I see could be better here.
Once again, thanks very much @soyrosa for stopping by. I believe this is the first post of mine that has gotten REAL engagement beyond the "nice post" typical leech reply lol.
Cheers!
@greencross
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Hehe - it's often when Steemians open up they get a lot of respons - good stuff :D Glad you got a lot of interaction from a post that started as a comment!
And indeed, I never felt you spoke to 'my kind of content maker' - I just started freewriting as well :-) It's just an interesting topic and I love these kinds of posts to reflect on Steem and where we have been and where we are going :-)
Thanks for the reply!