Everyone that “blogs” always goes on and on about how you need to have a niche
Uhm-hmmm.... yeah, been down that road and back.
I've probably bored you with how I ended up here; the super abbreviated version being that Steemit represents a return to the earliest days of social content: "Social Blogging."
Remember Xanga? Diary-X? MDD? Circa 1999-2005-ish, pre MySpace, pre Facebook. We wrote blogs about "this and that" but mostly LIFE and socialized across our passions and interests. Facebook sort of destroyed that by making the "social" about photos and one-liners; suddenly "someone" decreed that in order to blog properly, you needed a topic, a niche. A lot of people bought into that. It's basically bullshit.
The most noteworthy blogs in 2000 were not "focused;" they were about ALL of life.
That's why I love what Terry ( @surpassinggoogle ) is doing with the Ulog movement... whether he realizes, or not, taking us BACK to "the Internet of PEOPLE" rather than "The Internet of Information." The information end is already overstocked... we need the people factor back... and that's what we're doing here!
Meanwhile, I am still debating whether to "fork" my blog into keeping what I have, adding a "shorter random" version and an "art" version (which would be very different from my current content).
@denmarkguy I could not agree more!!!
I love that and it is so true! I have also been somewhat conflicted about splitting my content and eventually I did. I love messing around with photography... I am no expert or professional but I do have fun with it and so I eventually created a completely separate profile for that... but now I am somewhat questioning whether I should have or not... ooooh well! haha
I reckon splitting works if you have a long-term time frame and the content is distinct enough... AND if the likely followers would be quite different. I know several people have "serious" and "casual" accounts; or "business" or "art" accounts.
I would choose to make a separate "art" account because I don't want to "congest" this account with SteemBay sales listings and sales pitches when most of my followers expect "deep shit about life" from me.
hahahaha yes I think that would be a very good call :)
very interesting sir @denmarkguy..I'd never heard of any of the pre-facebook sites, how long have you been doing this anyway, since those first sites?
I've never done any social media and this is the first blogging I've ever attempted..but I learned alot just from your comment!
A while, I guess... I started building simple web pages around 1996; my earliest attempts at "blogging" was a site with dynamic journal pages around 1998; about the time the term "blog" was coined, I came across a now defunct platform called "Open Diary" which was the first (as far as I know) "social" multi-user generated content venue... because you could dynamically COMMENT.
Not sure who really had the first "mass user" blog site... LiveJournal, Xanga, Diary-X, Blogger, MDD (short for MyDearDiary), DiaryLand? I had presences on all of them... which also testing the waters on the very first "get paid for your content" site, called epinions — that was in 1999.
My oldest "still living" blog started in 2002. I'm still loosely affiliated with dozens of blogs and web sites; I've been part of 100's; I've also been part of at least 50 projects that revolved around the basic idea of rewarding contributors for their content. Other than Steemit, only ONE has not gone the way of the dodo... and always for the same reasons: Human GREED; the greed of a minority conspiring to drain every last cent of reward... to the detriment of everyone.
So I pray — pretty much daily — for Steemit's survival... because there's a LOT of history saying "this can't work." I'm hopeful this is FINALLY the exception to the rule...
@denmarkguy..you're overqualified for this platform! lol. I mean holy moly! that is an amazing Bio involving the social media site world. Well, you are still here in Steemit, is it based on hope or faith?
and you said that one other content reward site was still out there, what is that one?
thank you sir for your excellent explanation!
The distinguishing factor here is that there's no "company" that only has so much "cash" and then they are bankrupt. We get rewarded in tokens, the value of which is set by the open market. Sure, we can turn those tokens into fiat cash... but when we do so, there's no "company" footing the bill... an investor is buying my tokens.
And so, if I want my tokens to become worth more, then there's incentive for me to add whatever "value" I can, so as to maximize the value of Steem, in the long run.
The common argument seems to be "Yeah, but how will everyone get rewards, when there are 10 or 20 million users and only so much Steem?"
The hope/assumption there is that the token might increase in value to $20 or $50, rather than its current $1.25 or whatever. Same number of tokens, spread thinner, but each token worth 20x more. If you want to think really BIG, Facebook stock has a market cap of $600bn... so why couldn't Steem have a market cap of $600bn if true "mass adoption" happened? Sure, that requires $2000 Steem... but if the platform has 2bn users, that's not an outrageous idea.
I am also here because Steemit is sort of a prototype venue exploring a particular approach to UBI (Universal Basic Income), which may become important as robotics increasingly replace humans in the job market.
HubPages.com; started in 2006... it has reinvented itself a few times, but I still have articles there, and I still get occasional royalty payments. But it's very much an "article" site, rather than a blog site... and it's based around the traditional ad-revenue share model. On one hand, it doesn't pay much... on the other, I am still getting royalties on articles written ten years ago.
articles written ten years ago! lol. that's amazing but not my kind of site that's for sure.
Wow, this was a great response and I can see why you are doing so well here. I love the way you are being open-minded about Steemit and it's possibilities, it's amazing to contemplate on that!
So one of the keys to that kind of growth is to get ALOT more people to join and if investors see millions of active members then they'll see Steemit as a safer investment. And the more investment, the more the price will hopefully rise and then even more people will join.
I will be very interesting to see what happens in the future.
Thank you sir for your thoughts, expertise and opinions!