While I was pondering why this sudden color change on the Steemit frontend today, and while I was trying to reject all the Tsu instances remotely resembling it (kinda of difficult, since it's almost the same color), it just hit me: it's Medium!
The site that Steemit is after (in terms of competition) is not Facebook. And it never was.
The entire ecosystem of activities you can perform on Facebook (befriending people, sharing photos, posting updates, live streaming and so on) is just not fit for this type of storage. It makes a lot more sense to niche the entire site on something more simple, easy to identify and to build on it.
So a site which is, let's say, like Medium, which may be seen as the "hipster's Reddit" would be way, way more likely to attract an audience of authors and readers that will appreciate the inner economics of Steemit.
Have a look at two screenshots from Medium:
On the new Steemit version the contrast is much higher than on Medium, I admit it, but still, the accent color is the same: a light green.
I think in terms of social media the actual meaning of blue and green is:
- blue - talkative, superficial Facebooker
- green - intelligent, opinionated hipsterish Medium fan
(I'm not using the term "hipster" in a derogatory way, more like "fashionable", than "ridiculous"),
Thoughts?
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
If you're new to Steemit, you may find these articles relevant (that's also part of my witness activity to support new members of the platform):
It's not good to imitate. People will confuse the two and you end up losing your identity.
This is a very ill advised move demonstrating a lack of self-understanding and individual personality.
@cryptographic I definitely agree with you. Steemit is something different, a disruption. Needs something new, different. upvoted your commenr. @gold84
What do you all think about this?
1
Look a little less like a stingray turning around and more like two overlapping conversation bubbles?
How about this one?
2
Or this one?
3
Or maybe even this one?
4
Let's take an informal vote. Which do you like best?
Dark blue for me. Third
So they got this frankly annoying color from Medium?
I think your analysis is spot on, but I think they could have skipped adopting the exact same ugly color. (yep, this color really bugs me :P)
It looks a bit similar, but personally i don't like this new color, neither the new logo. Maybe I'm on a Stand-Alone-Position with this, but the old style was way cooler, even if it had the ,facebook-blue'
cheers
It's not like Facebook is unique in its using blue. Blue has almost become a best practice standard and that's not for nothing. In my opinion, this green thing must be reconsidered.
In so far as the logo goes, I'm going to bump a couple of comments below with upvotes to give you an idea of what I agree with, and later today I'll post another comment with a reworked version that I think is what they might be after.
Welcome to generic
Nice - but you left out the "swirling down the drain feature" of the new steemit logo. All it needs to do is rotate :)
As a tsuser who went through that sad ride - I feel nothing but worry over this change. It tells me that colors and branding are more important than making the platform easier to work with for noobs. The two I brought on left in the tech disaster of the last couple of weeks. Several others who I used to communicate with are no longer posting. And why they used the color of tsu is a complete mystery.
I hope steemit does not meet the same fate as tsu - but tsu had 3M users at that time - not 30K. I hope some of this will be discussed and addressed at steemfest, but since it is a meeting of the big fish, I do not think the minnows will come up in conversation. Just because we are 98% of the platform, does not make us important.
I'm pretty worried about the future here and wondering if I should redirect my own steemit time into one of my other endeavors.
I am surely not recruiting for steemit and I recruit for just about anything that comes my way. This speak volumes that after almost 5 months I still do not tell my friends to try steemit.
Medium? I have no idea. Never used it and never seen it in my search results. I'm shocked by that alexa ranking for a place I do not encounter in my daily research.
Welcome to generic socialize site.
I think steemit needs to find it's own identity first. Too many people pushing it as the site to take down Facebook and as you stated this site is nothing like Facebook.
If lining up there site to look like someone else's helps them find their identity then I'm all for it.
fb is not run by bots, so there's that. I'm still getting way more engagement in my fb groups. Here a comment from a real person is a miracle.
I get what you're saying, but I have been getting more and more engagement on my posts and now that steemit is working again hope that it will continue to go up.
I was doing better for engagement and then fell off a cliff again. The two people I brought in left during the tech crash here and will not be back anytime soon. I am surely not recruiting for the place. That is a good way to get the haterade flowing on my other platforms. Many have tried - few succeed - and they certainly like to talk about what a waste of time is was while they were here.
I hope I will not be one of them. I like it here, I'm getting good traffic to my other work, and I'm making some income. I'm still in it for now, but very worried.
Well part of why people stay in because they're hopin the value of steem goes up. If the value of steem goes up to 10$ next year all your posts will be worth 10x what they are today.
I think that's a good part of peoples drive on this platform currently. It's not a get rich quick scheme. It takes time and effort to build a following on here and most people don't want to hear that.
The people I am connected to are bloggers, authors, and content creators in health, weight loss and va work. No one is looking for anything more than a place to get our message out. We have followings already and want to bring them here if it is a good place to post. Currently, that is not working out well.
This will not be the first platform to fail while I am on it - if it does fail. But it is surely the most frustrating, the hardest to learn and the most clique-ish.
Check the current steem price in the market through your wallet. Not sure what's up with that, but it is definitely dropping like a stone as I type now.
It'd be a really hard thing to do if steemit started out by competing with Facebook, it's easier to focus on the smaller fishes and after they must have been gobbled up, move on to the bigger meal, that way risk of survival is brought to a minimum. Maybe in the future when steemit has grown stronger they can give Facebook a run for their money but at the moment I think they are still focused on growing and establishing themselves in a micro niche.
medium is a great contender in terms of quality and its good that steemit is after that :)
Very good insight. Left me wondering about "audience of Authors and Readers that will appreciate the inner economics of Steemit". I have been using Steemit as a Publishing Platform, so your mentioning of Medium and Tsu, point to me that I am in the right direction. Although I am interested in the Economics I use Steemit as a Vehicle to run my business for free. I am not a heavy ad spender like @JerryBanfield (72) but I do spent hundreds of dollars doing my marketing in the range of 5,000 to 10,000 people. So far I have reach about 50,000 hoping to bring some user in, and with them new content, some followers and of course, some Steem.
That's interesting. I had zero advertising budget since I joined Steemit, mainly because I am used to grow audiences organically. On my blog at http://dragosroua.com I still have 1000 unique users per day, without a dime spent and without writing for more than a year. It's all google organic traffic.
Steemit, because of its inner economics (7 days payout window, dead links potential because of data not being edited after 30 days, etc) is a completely different beast, but I chose not to spend on advertising and use my technical skills to grow my audience, hence the witness node.
I hate both steemit and busy new interface. I don't know which one I hate the most.
I really don't like having a lot of notifications and suggestions and other things around my page.
I want to be left in peace so that I can focus on one and only one thing at a time!
i know what you mean i got it with them resteembots !! pffft what a nonsens... sometimes you see something passing where you think of maybe... But most of the time it is s...t . <That the people i follow resteem, interests me, still looking at each others look on life in what context ever. But them resteembots my god
I've found Steemit has also introduced a Night Mode. I found it by clicking on my profile in the drop down menu. It makes this whole change a bit easier on the eyes.
I truly liked the old logo better than this one. This one looks more like a Chat Box logo. (maybe that was their intention) The old logo helped direct me in some way to Steem On! Sort of made a statement for me. But this one, not so much :(
i totally agree ! the other one looked like steem :-) this ? a bit of talking behind each others back hahaha and that the point goes down is not good !
I personally think the green symbolizes green markets/value/money/economic value etc... Since the motto is "Money Talks". Think about it. Put the new logo on top and put the motto below and what do you see? Money talks as in the conversations of people on this platform are economically valuable. Just a thought
I am trying to get use to the new colors on Steemit. I do like the night setting, easier on the eyes. Although sometimes highlighted text become impossible to read.
Steemit definitely not facebook. Although it would not hurt Steemit to have some features similar to facebok to lure more users.
Man, that's too bad. I would love to see another site replace FB. The steem community is so laid back compared to what you see on FB. I cringe almost every time I go on there.
Nice point, it is indeed a good obaervation, it has almost the same colors, I guess, but never heard of Medium before.
OMG!
Please, I hope they didn't use this throwaway WordPress theme to attract hipsters! Nooooooo!!!
lol)
Hey @dragosroua nice observation. Keep up the good work.
If steemit will be the hipster's reddit then that begs the question if a similar site to facebook can be built and have success on the steem block chain.
I don't think SteemIt has competition just yet.
Facebook is its own little world.
SteemIt is more universal.
Fortunately, I like aliens better than humans. Much more fun to be around :0)
As for colors, I could do without the green text but I'll survive.
its because we are used to the blue color, but i think I am gonna love the color and style realy quick. Probably because all my good memorys on steemit now get linked to that color;)
Google translate
I would say that it does not matter much in color. More important is the content and I am here on the steemit much closer than elsewhere
Thanks, i'm not familiar with Medium. How long has this been around?
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STOPI was once member of Tsu , may be 2 years earlier. Is that still alive?
No need declaration of challenge to other established social site. Just need to keep going and one day, all will be superseded.
i do not like the weak color, it has nothing powerful, like the drawing it self ?
two text balloons ? One with the point going down, the whole impression that it gives ! private chitchat... not to be taken serious. The dark blue would be better and more business like. Or a telephone compagny. :-) But we will get used to it.