The first graph below shows the development of content categories on reddit over time, in the beginning, much like steemit, reddit only had one front page so it may be useful to compare how reddit evolved into what we know now.
2005 - In the beginning, Reddit's creators help seed Reddit with numerous fake accounts
2006 - Apart from "reddit.com", "NSFW" is the most popular subreddit at the beginning of 2006. "Programming" becomes the second most popular subreddit for most of the year. Then by the end of the year, "science" gets launched and soon becomes the third most popular subreddit.
2007 - For most of the year, "science" and "programming" are the most popular subreddits (apart from "reddit.com"). They then get displaced by "politics" as the most popular non-"reddit.com" subreddit towards the end of the year.
2008 - This year is dominated by the launch of numerous new subreddits. By the end of the year (except for a short-lived blimp following the 2008 Presidential election), no one subreddit (not even "reddit.com") would capture more than 50% of Reddit's attention. From the beginning of 2008 (to at least the end of 2012), there is a continual exponential increase in the number of unique subreddits people submitted to each week.
mid-2010 - Reddit overtakes Digg in search popularity.
2010–2012 - From the beginning to the end of 2010 (and following Reddit's move to Amazon AWS servers in November 2009), Reddit more than triples in page-views and bandwidth count. By February 2011, reddit reached 1 billion page-views per month. Within a year (by January 2012), Reddit again doubled in pageviews and reached 2 billion pageviews per month.
2010–2012 - Top-level content on Reddit transitions from majority text-based to majority image-based. On January 1, 2010 - 27/100 of the top posts were images. By January 1, 2012, 77/100 of the top posts were images.
2012–2014 - Reddit achieves 37 billion page-views in 2012, 56 billion page-views in 2013, and 71.25 billion page-views in
2014 - Yishan Wong serves as Reddit's CEO from March 2012 to November 2014. By September 2014, Reddit raises $50 million in funding in a Series B round, and makes its first app acquisition in October 2014.
Steemit
Graph showing the current data for popular categories for steemit, it shows that steemit related subjects are most popular followed by personal blogs and the introduceyourself category.
In comparison to reddit steemit has a more varied range of subjects than reddit did when it started. Reddit started with a large emphasis on programming, I think this can be compared to steemit related subjects on steemit, many of which are related to programming.
No doubt the economic aspect of steemit will influence which categories become popular, I believe it will create a faster and more efficient value discovery of what users find important
Steemit Popular Categories
Top Paying Categories (July 2016)
The next 10
Conclusion
We are only able to compare the first part of the reddit graph with steemit which shows a strong correlation in terms of amounts of popular categories, however the subjects of the categories are different. One of the main differences is that NSFW content was extremely popular at the start of reddit's evolution whereas it not a main category in the steemit results, I believe this is because the value proposition of steemit as opposed to reddit which placed no real-world value on content discovery, only imaginary.
Steemit differs due to the introduction of real price discovery for content, receiving a down-vote on steemit carries real-world economic consequences for the user, therefore it is not in a users interest to abuse or try to game the system but to participate constructively. Steemit is also decentralised which may account for the popularity of steemit and personal subjects as people place great value in the platform itself and therefore themselves.
Thanks to @calamus056 @steemrollin for steemit graphs
This is a very awesome article once more @bleepcoin! The graph and the 2 charts give a nice over view of Steemit from an angle we are rarely accustomed to. Thank you!
Thanks I am a big fan of charts and graphs!
Steem will evolve differently partly because it attracts a different audience, partly because it will take time for big established communities to move away from reddit and partly because there are no "substeemits" similar to subreddits. This is practically still one multiculture, while subreddits are somehow isolated from each other. People here will be more exposed to a variety of topics. At least that's the feeling I have. It will be interesting to compare the graphs after 5 years!
I think steemit can learn a lot from reddit. Steemits big idea is to pay people for content other people like, but reddit has the discussion down in a way steemit does not currently. If you like science you can geurentey that the top posts in the science subredit will be interesting, and the discussion will be informative and lively. One thing that I think will help steemit revolve is for steemians to remember to upvote replies.
So, steemit will become very funny eventually.
Great article!
The main takeaway that I have from the graphs is that, if the development of Steem is sufficiently analogous to that of reddit, we should soon see an uptick in the diversity of posts and topics, which I am very excited about, both as reader and publisher.
The whales have a big role to play as to what starts to get popular, because people tend to follow the money. I was heartened to see one whale yesterday say he'd stop voting for articles about steemit.
This right here, really shows you what the human race is interested in. In a way, this is a glimpse of humanity itself! Good data! Good read! Thank you! :)
Not sure about ffffffuuuuuuuuuu but I know what you mean!
Steemit will beat reddit someday and everyone knows this, and Steemit does have a more stable reach of popular categories than Reddit , and that's what put me off from reddit as I could not go to the home screen and see some sort of mixed up categories although r/Subject Did help.
Steemit has a BOT problem! Your Vote Counts... Maybe
Dear User known as @bleepcoin https://steemit.com/steemit/@weenis/bots-steemit-s-first-community-based-decision-on-bots-your-vote-counts-to-be-or-not-to-be-details-inside
Steemit has a BOT problem! Your Vote Counts... Maybe
Dear User known as @bleepcoin https://steemit.com/steemit/@weenis/bots-steemit-s-first-community-based-decision-on-bots-your-vote-counts-to-be-or-not-to-be-details-inside
Nice article, but I think you should credit the original creator of the Reddit graph. Upvoted.
Interesting, thought provoking article! Particularly the argument about the monetary incentive on steemit reducing the likelihood of abuse. I think there are pros and cons to having a genuine economic incentive attached to posts: we're probably all well-versed in the positives here, but the negatives (IMHO) include a potential "chilling" effect on posts, where people are less likely to vocalise controversial or challenging opinions here than on, for example, reddit. This might lead to an even greater echo-chamber effect than we've seen on other user-content-based websites.
You also state that you think it will reduce "gaming" of the system, but I can't see why you'd think that. The incentives to game this system over non-economically driven sites is clear, and I believe could actually increase the likelihood of this happening...
I can't wait to see how the site develops over the coming years. It will be interesting to do a similar comparison to the one you've made in your post in a year or two.
I agree people will fear being downvoted but I believe the chilling effects of social pressure on sites like facebook is worse. The fact that steemit is open source and decentralised makes for an even playing field because the blockchain doesn't lie and the rules are known to all, the only way to cheat on steemit is to know something that others don't.
Awesome analysis! I was there when Reddit was an awesome community of science, among other things, and now it is just a mess. I really do hope Steemit evolves into a diverse community.
Steemit could turn out completely different to reddit where more worthwhile and relevant subjects are popular
You must have put lots of time into it.
I found it very encouraging and it has given me even more confidence in steemit.Thank you @bleepcoin for the article!
Excellent Analytics! Charts and diagrams is always elegant and clear.
It is a pity that the Top Paying Categories limited to only 10.
I'm not very good that the top three stand out as much.
Keep doing.
Very useful information
Nice comparison and post!
Great post @bleepcoin very helpful and thank you for the love on our introduction, hopefully you like our next post. Feedback welcome. I look forward to reading more of your work. Following!
TY for the article! nice
"reddit evolved into what we know now" - reddit.com design : piled everything in a heap
Steemit.com perfect