Recently I was reading this article on medium and one particular line got me thinking.
"The only source of money that is coming into the system is the money that other content writers invested in. That means that by upvoting some post you redistribute OTHER’s money (writers, not readers)."
While most of the article was interesting and insightful I was not sure what to construe of this. If you think a little I think this is true. But I don't think we need to be alarmed. Whether it is SBD or STEEM or STEEM Power they are all tokens. A token means a share in the company/platform. Your share is worth something only when the platform makes money. The platform may not be making any money today but still the tokens are valued around 1USD because there are enough number of people who believe in the potential of the platform.
Steemit is a publishing platform
Steemit is a publishing platform. I would put TV channels, Radio stations, Newspapers, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, tumbler, medium steemit and all the the similar websites in the same bracket. If content is created(by a single individual, editorial team or masses) and is consumed by people, I would call it a publishing platform. By that definition Steemit is a publishing platform and publishing platforms have only two ways of making money.
How does publishing platforms make money
Any publishing platform in general and Steemit in particular can make money in two ways
- When advertisers pay them.
- When readers pay to consume the content.
TV channels and Newspapers are the examples of publishing platforms which make money using both these. In case of newspaper it is the revenue from advertisers that subsidises cost the end users pays for the newspaper. The same could be said for TV channels as well. Excluding these two every other platform makes money from advertisers. Especially on the web making users pay a fee for content is turning out to be a herculean task. Even the best and popular newspapers were not successful in this. The same holds good for the Web 2.0 companies as well. The publishing platforms that were abel to monetise have thrived and others have withered away or are on the verge of withering away. While Google and Facebook are examples of the companies that made it big using the Strategy 1, Apple and Netflix are examples of companies making it big using Strategy 2.
How does steemit make money
While Steemit may not be making money today going forward Steemit will find more ways of monetising user attention spans. In this Steemit might be more similar to Facebook as the two ways infront of Steemit are
- Promoted Posts
- Advertisements
Facebook has used both of them very effectively. For at least couple of years I think Steemit will stick to promoted posts. The maximum they might adventure to will be interlacing some promoted posts in the tabs like home and trending. Before looking at Advertisement Steemit should consider differentiating individual accounts and company accounts so that they can safely test the Advertisement concepts and also use it as a playing ground to prove to the advertisers that they will get their return on investments through promoted posts. When steemit really gains the momentum and steem tokens stabilise to the range of stability we see in the shares of the companies then Steemit might consider Advertisement. But the major differentiator will be in case of steemit it will be the platform making money and not the company. So the returns will also be redistributed to the users of the platform.
Should Steemit stick to only promoted posts
In my opinion yes. Ads in general are irritating and intrusive. Irrespective of whether it is an image, post or video an Ad is still content. The only way to make sure that this content doesn't become irritating and intrusive is by making it compete with other content. This way the quality of ads can also be improved. The business behind the ads will put more thought into it and make it targeted and tag it properly. A side benefit of this would be if the content of the Ad connects with the consumers they will upvote the content and the Ad maker can even recover the money invested in the ad. This will further trigger the cycle and lead to better ads.
Yes.
Steemit Devs should think and make advertisement platform for steemit.
I thought of the same. Advertising is a very lucrative business
Advertising needs to be non intrusive.
@Coincentral invites you to join 7 NEW SteemCentral Projects:
🐳MarketCredit Coins (ICO)
🐳FreeExchange
🐳FreeMall
🐳Marketing
🐳Security
🐳Developer &
🐳Mediation Centers!
Get our Whitepaper from the web link in our profile.
true
You make some great points, @gokulnk. I think if there were a clearer and easy to find FAQ on how the whole Promoted section works, more people might use it. Like for example, I still am not clear on whether or not Promoted posts only show up in the Promoted tab, or if they also show up in the New categories, or personal feeds, for that matter.
I am planning on writing a post of promotions. I would like to share my learnings from going for a promoted post.
Currently the promoted posts don't show up in New tab or personal feeds. They however do show up in the Promoted tab of the category that your post is in.
Thanks for sharing that. That is actually quite discouraging to hear that Promoted posts only show up in Promoted section. I would think if someone is paying, that their post should show up in more areas. I say this because frankly, I hardly ever think to check the Promoted section for anything.
You need to think about steemit as a group miner. When you up vote someone you pay them the fee that steem charges when it is used in the block chain. When we mine currencies we power the system and get a small payout for using our mining power. Same thing with steemit upvotes it acts as mining steem and you get paid out the fee you made off of helping power steem.
Agree that steemit upvotes act as mining steem. But steemit should make sure that only upvotes for good content or genuinely popular content will count as mining and that is why curation rewards sould be reworked. Recently I wrote a post about why resteems should be part of curation rewards.
Im new to steemit but iv been looking into how it works because as we all know nothing in life is free, nothing. A rework is a great idea because as of now iv noticed that people will post anything just to post. I havent looked into your post but ill be checking it out shortly. Very nice community on steemit glad to hear from smart individuals. upvoted
Agreed. If curation was more transparent and less annoying (the 30 minute rule could use reworking), that would be great. Preferably, it would be more rewarding than self-voting spam comments, which seems to be one of the primary forms of current abuse (that and reposting spam into trending ala BookingTeam.)
Excellent description of how Steemit works. Well done.
makes sense. thanks for the insight...
As long as they're not as obnoxious with their ads as Facebook!
Just imagine if steemit had the size of Facebook, or at the very least Twitter... it would be madness! Hopefully someday it will surpass them.
Thanks for posting!
I see all of Steem's value as from investors into this platform; whether that's writers or people that believe this is a magnificent future innovation; us early adopters are being rewarded for accelerating the growth of very useful software!
Once the value of steem rises these rewards are going to be higher. What I don't really understand is when there is a good working site and a proven model why is Steem not taking off. I don't worry too much as it gives us an opportunity to buy when it is still low :)
right; appreciation to counteract the dilution; exactly how bitcoin works; demand overreaches inflation by huge degrees.
EDIT: Maybe because not a mainstream celebrity has jumped on yet right? that would be BIG
Upvoted because, yes, steemit is a form of media and as such has two revenue streams which you listed (advertising, consumer $). I think we may be missing something a little more obscure though. Steemit is a marketing tool for steem. It gives the platform a 'viability', some substance in very competitive and new field (cryptocurrency). Where bitcoin was a pioneer and relied on it's initial 'catch all' versatility, we are now seeing product launches for this currency which specializes in niches like NLC2 targeting the fantasy sports market. Steem has made a very good play here with steemit, steepshot, zappl and chainBB (probably getting some of these wrong) in digging their heels into the booming social media market. Their 'branding' cost is covered by volunteers who choose to use their product and promote it for both their gain and the gain of Steem (content creators like you and me). It really is some nicely done business. It sets the chess board for social giants like Twitter and Facebook to answer in kind for content, not play a shell game with their users, adjust the rules and then demand a portion of income these user make....
Are they going to overtake Instagram or Twitter? Probably not, but they put themselves in a strong position to be the currency of choice when these giants finally concede to rewarding their content providers in the future. Hold onto your Steem. even if steemit doesn't become the next big platform, the currency model is forcing acknowledgement for the powers that be, and this marketing plan has put this crypto in the forefront to be the currency of choice for the next generation of social media trends.
Just a thought... where do most entrepreneurs live? In the social media hemisphere. How many of them are looking at low cost, high impact, high involvement for their next project? How do you bring on a million highly involved employees who will promote your product and not pay dime in healthcare or social security or whatever? Very attractive for new product and service launches...
With the rollout of steemit (and dapps), looks like Steem has made a very good move.
Peace
If Steemit becomes the currency of choice for rewarding social engagement on internet we have a giant in making :)
This post was in the promoted section hahaha
My second attempt at trying promoted posts. I have a couple of learnings and will share it in the next post.
Steem should focus a bit more in promoted posts, maybe add a few more sections and give more visibility to it, imagine some day Apple or Coca-Cola advertising in a promoted post, who knows.... hahaha
But right now promoted posts are not very visible, unless we open the "promoted" section.... Which few people do...
For the first time I have come across your article and believe me you have turned the tables! Very nice concept bro @gokulnk I agree with your opinion that u have provided in the concluding paragraph of your article. Yes Steemit should substantiate a better platform such as quality ads for the betterment of most of the users and for the maintenance of quality as well.
Steem needs to bring in ad revenue the platform would blow up.
Agree. Once the big guns start spending their ad budgets on steemit there is no looking back.
Vehemently disagree - Ads are an intrusive invasion of privacy. They are manipulative and try to reach deep into your subconscious. I am on Steemit because there are no Ads and they do not hover up my personal details.
I could see steem worth over $1000 dollars if that really happened. Content = $ Think about the amount of content added per day on steemit.
well sharing
I think the idea of promoting your post as an investment into the plataform itself more than an investment for my post. Great article, I've been reading a lot about this non readers, and the self boted votes, Im kinda lost there, I have only 44 days here, and it appears to be a big wave of posts dying with only a couple of views, or real readers.
If I may have my piece of the good idea, I really think the best way to grow here in STEEM is to grow up first in each of our individual selves. A good post is a good post no matter if rewarded or not. I have no FB account whatsoever, but I can clearly observe that people are just enjoying their time there. SO why not we do it here as well?
Let us all enjoy our time here together, post blogs to tell others of what is good and Godly inside and around, encourage people, share things you receive as gifts from God, be it monetary or ability. In the end, I can really see this platform take off and fly high.
Hmmm, did I already mention this is the reason why I signed up here as my first social media involvement? If we just keep on being unselfish, one day, selfish people will really catch up with us.
Be encouraged all.
Nice post!
One thing which always bothered me regarding the advertising possibility for monetization is the lack of retargeting, which makes facebook so useful to advertisers. On fb I can easily select the target audience for my posts (e.g. women between 18-34 who liked Victoria's Secret) - on steemit I do not see this happening, thus the platform becomes less attractive to advertisers.
That's a good point. I imagine in the future companies and brands would have their own Steemit pages that
Agree. But I think that in addition year or two Steemit will have. I am thinking long term with steemit. My only fear is @dan not giving enough time and preference to steemit after EOs
In fact, the steemit team can justmake some ads to get profit and make ads in different platform just like google / yahoo so that more and more people may know the steemit and attract more business to make ads in steemit platform ~
Using that Ads to run more ads on other sites. That sounds like a good idea ;)
Congratulations @gokulnk! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPReddit does a good job of putting like one ad on the page. I wouldn't mind that on steemit if it meant increase post payouts.
value time not money it will help you
Thanks. For this wonder full informative post regarding the steemit and it's working platform.
😊👍
I am not very tech savvy. Still trying to figure this stuff out. I might be too old for all of this, but trying.
You are never too old to learn something new.
Haha, I never really understood where is the money coming from in steemit.
to get free money in this world u need to be lucky :'(
That was the point of the article as well. You are getting rewarded for the engagement and the curation you do :)
You've written so well and I must say it's quite timely too.
At a time there seems to be quite a number of distractions over what's worth our time or not, Steemit came to the rescue. What you've done, I must acknowledge, is what a concerned user does. This gives hope to the decentralised nature of cryptocurrencies. Thus, we don't just enjoy the services provided, but can contribute towards enjoying a better product.
I look forward to seeing Steemit implementing these ideas and growing even beyond Facebook. While Facebook serves the general public and rather condensed world market, Steemit prepares the stage for a world that is run and controlled by cryptocurrencies. Does anyone else agree.
Growing beyond Facebook? I think there is a long way to go for that. But Steemit has the right targets and in a year it could be the only platform that will be next to Facebook and in a position to take on facebook.
Thanks for the breakdown, I was wondering how Steemit would make money down the line since it seems they want to avoid advertisements.
I agree, if Steemit makes advertising section - I will understand this and will try to convince my online marketing clients to advertise here (as I did in past for Reddit, not only because I dislike Facebook and Google Adwords, but because there was good traffic there).
Yes, great explanation. I always thought the rewards should circulate between content and curators and as the platform grows, the value of each contribution is shown?
Interesting input
I agree with you, i guess steemit should consider creating new platform for ads
agree completely, it is not the time for advertisements. I am still learning about steem. Would certainly appreciate ease of using and FAQ easy to find
great post. it's a tricky question; there's only so long the community will last until there is indeed some value to the work that goes into content creators, curators, developers, etc....
thanks for sharing.
I mean at the end of the day publishing platforms will always be changing for the better or worst. Its good to have advertisements and what not, but then again sometimes it will also keep people away from the site, either way I'm just HAPPY to be here.
I am new in this steemit program me or so, but now am getting the right idea in this article thanks
This makes a lot of sense. I'm not very smart about advertising and business, and I'm very new to Steemit. That being said, I am quite familiar with Facebook and Pinterest and I'm seeing more and more intrusive advertising posts on both of these. I have been loving Steemit more and more because of the lack of ads and the lack of "friends". I don't mean that I don't like community, I do! I like knowing I can "follow" someone's posts without having to give the impression of friendship; likewise I like knowing I'm not hurting someone's feelings if I appreciate a post or not. Not sure if this makes sense, or if it sounds like I'm rambling (hope not). Thanks for making Steemit such a cool platform!
Advertisement with numbers; money making secret
Yeah I was guessing it !!!! thanks for sharing it !!!!
Great Post, but i don´t agree with the conclusion.
I think steem really should copy it from Facebook somehow.
Money has to come in somewhere to be redistributed, and at Facebook for example. people like sites like coca cola and mcdonald´s because they are willing to see the stuff. and if you don´t follow the originator already, an algorythm should choose (wisely) what you might like to see.
So in the home category should also be things like: the person you follow did upvoted that....
are acording to your... this might be interesting.
Steemit just have to make sure, that these things will happen in a free market with not a one party choosing everything like facebook.
I am new here, i think i didn´t understand some things, i can´t upvote the post, it seems like i am running out of ?
I thought each upvoted just reduces the shares of the other upvotes, but the message can´t increase the payout shows a differen´t thing.
People want to like things no matter how much they have been liking, strange thing.
Some research cleared the Air. :D
I think what you said about them interlacing the promoted posts in with the hot and trending is genius, and they should really consider it.
"Especially on the web making users pay a fee for content is turning out to be a herculean task. Even the best and popular newspapers were not successful in this."
In general, I agree with you, but I think some publications have had some success with paywalls and online subscriptions. Many publishers abandoned their paywalls only to resurrect them years later and find them more successful. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have both had some success with paywalls in the last few years, I believe.