What’s More Important For Steemit: SMT's or Hivemind?
This is Day Eleven of @ dragosroua’s #challenge30days writing challenge. For more info on the challenge, Click Here. Today’s prompt is “What’s More Important For Steemit Right Now: Smart Media Tokens or Hivemind?”
Steem, Steemit, or Steemit Inc
I think there’s a lot of confusion regarding what is what. Let’s take a look at that for a second.
- Steem: A blockchain that uses Steem tokens
- Steemit: A platform built on top of the Steem blockchain
- Steemit Inc: The company that started Steem and Steemit
I’m going to take today’s challenge at face value, that is "what is most important for Steemit (the platform) right now?"
What Steemit Needs
There’s a saying about “it’s the people that make a house a home.” We can use a similar phrase for an internet gathering place, aka social media. “It’s the users that make it social.” Ok, so that’s not as catchy as the first phrase, but still it’s rather silly to think that your social media is going to be very fulfilling if you take out the social part. Then it just becomes ____ media. “I’m going on ___ media to talk to ___.” I don’t know about you, but I have enough conversations with myself. If there aren’t people here to talk with, most folks are going to look elsewhere.
With all that in mind, we need innovations that are going to bring more users to the platform. We need people to have an easy time of enjoying themselves and even making a little money. Then they’ll want to stay. Remember, the value in Steem is the information and interactions that take place on its blockchain. Without people like you and me writing articles, there’s no attributable value. (Ok, maybe there's value in the technology, but you can get a heck of a lot more money for something that’s already working than you can for an idea.)
Source:Pexels
Story Time!!!
Imagine that you have just been given the job of Vice President of ABC Airways. Your company has a small fleet of passenger planes and is looking to expand. They are a startup company with a small fleet of planes, but the planes are incredibly fast. Your planes can get people to their destination 20 times as fast as the competition. That’s right, rather than taking 5 hours to get from LA to New York, it only takes 15 minutes! Here’s another great competitive advantage your company offers: the flights are free!!! Your customers get free flights and they can get anywhere in the world in 1/20th the time of any other airline, but you’re having trouble getting customers.
You make money by shipping packages in the hold, but the planes don’t fly unless there are passengers on the plane… and they just aren’t many customers. You begin to look into the matter and find that in order to “purchase” a ticket, there’s a labyrinth to overcome to sign up for an account. If the customer is willing to wait the 1-2 weeks, they are approved to buy a ticket.
However, once they’ve purchased the ticket, they’re not sure if the plane will actually take off. They show up at the airport and can’t find the plane. There aren’t any customer service agents to help answer any questions. If they find the plane, they discover that some of their fellow passengers are unruly and have taken all the sodas and peanuts for themselves. The entertainment offered is reruns of 1990s comedy and everyone is tired of it. Oh, and you can’t see out the windows.
Additionally, your public relations team hasn’t said much to anyone (and if they did it was in some dark, obscure corner, so no one heard them). This doesn’t even touch on the perception of the CEO when he makes public appearances, although he has reappeared from his extended vacation.
You know you’re in trouble if you can’t get customers on the planes, so what do you do? Start working on some of the user experience issues. There are things you can do to make your customers have a better, smoother, more enjoyable experience. When they do, they’ll come back, and they’ll tell their friends. In fact, you could even add a referral program. By tackling these issues one at a time and making the customer’s experience more pleasant, you’ll be able to get this airline off the ground in no time.
Source:Pexels
Hivemind/Communities
After that lengthy example, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I think we should work on our user experience first. I don’t know exactly how Hivemind is going to look, but its user interface is supposed to make it much easier for users to… interface. Surprise there, right?
By improving the user experience, it will decrease churn, increase signups, and get more value from existing users by way of more articles written. Long example, short conclusion.
Tl:dr Well, you missed a great example, but that’s your choice. SMTs will bring value to Steem, but I haven’t seen how they’ll bring more direct value to Steemit. Therefore, I’m going with Hivemind. User experience is king.
- Does anyone have Elon Musk’s phone # so I could start an airline like the one in the example?
Previous Writing Contest Entries
- Day Ten: My Favorite Morning Drink
- Day Nine: Where Do I See Steemit in 5 Years?
- Day Eight: My Most Consistent Hobby For The Last 5 Years
- Day Seven: 3 Things to Make Steemit Better Now
- Day Six: My Main Reason For Staying On Steemit
- Day Five: What Are The Top 5 Crypto Assets I'm Investing In Now?
- Day Four: What Are My Top 5 Most Relevant Witnesses On Steemit?
- Day Three: What’s The Best Thing That Happened To Me Because Of Steemit?
- Day Two: What Would I Do With A Gift of 1,000 Steem?
- Day One: How Did I Get On Steemit?
Top notch example. I loved how the allegory progressed and became clearer with every word.
One thing to note, users "interact", not "interface", through user interface.
I'm glad it worked for you. I'm not sure why I picked an airline as the example. It just came to me.
I'm a big fan of semantics, so I welcome the feedback. I think that interface can be used for any two objects that are communicating with each other, although interact would probably be a more traditional choice of word. I appreciate your attention to detail. If I ever write a book, I'll have to have you look it over for mistakes. ;)
Thanks. I always try to be very thorough when writing.
In this case, though, I've found out that the word interface can be used both as a noun and a verb. So you were right after all. source here
I don't know Elon Musk's number, but I want in on ABC airways. Free, 15 minute flights? Whoa to the whoa! I'd even pay $50 to be able to do that. As long as I could just get on the plane rather than walking through security. That would have to be a part of the package. Otherwise, I'm paying $30. :)
Nice story analogy and way to walk through the confusion. Since the confusion comes from the prompter, I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, but I didn't shy away from it in my post, either. We need to quit calling different things with the same terms around here.
Now that we've been talking about Hivemind and Communities, I just want them here. Now. And like hurry up already. And then work. Yeah. That last thing.
It's like waiting for Christmas Day as a kid, it never gets there fast enough.. lol
We want the upgrades now!!!
If I may, it's more like Christmas came and went, then your birthday, and still no gifts. So, it's not we want the upgrades now, we want the upgrades yesterday!
Yeah, like we're in a position to demand and dictate what will be. Ha. Well, they'll either show up or they won't, and we'll either be here or we won't if/when they show up. Something else might break on the scene and be so great we all just bail (in 13 weeks). Who knows. Five months ago I was just barely realizing I needed to do something different. Now, here I am. Five months from now, I may have come to the same conclusion and moved on. :)
Let me know if you're going to take off. I might come with. If it's not going to be entertaining and profitable enough for you, then what am I doing here?
Source
Wow. Talk about not knowing the context of that meme. Apparently it relates to your reply, which i do see, but the conversation being had in an office meeting setting alludes me. Must be tired, or I'd make something up.
I don't have any plans to leave yet, so we're all good. I will let you know if I start to feel that itch for greener pastures, though. That means there needs to be greener pastures to go to first. As far as I know, they're still in development, with EOS and Ono being the closest to launch.
If I were a betting man, and I'm not, I'd say we'll get Hivemind a few days before EOS launches, just to try to steal any thunder. We might be in the middle of some gamesmanship, unless I'm assigning too much savvy to this whole operation. I've been known to do that from time to time. :)
The point is that it doesn't really relate, but if he can't scuba then there's no point to anything for him. If I can't have fun and make a little money on this, then what am I doing here? Kinda. Not really, but kinda. I like the people, but if they're gone, I'm not hanging around.
Sola is a competitor. I've heard some of the guys here talk about it. https://sola.ai/
I haven't looked into it much, but it could be on to something. We'll see if Steemit actually starts fulfilling some of their promises.
Although that would be pretty funny if they waited until just before the launch, I do think you're assigning too much savvy. I'm not even sure there is a team here, so I can't say.
I could be the guy straddling multiple sites if I'm not careful. :)
Yeah, I've looked at sola a couple of times. They used the term revenue share, which I'm not sure I like. I've looked at two or three different places now, so I'm not sure which one is which, but there's one that has some kind of advertising revenue deal they use to pay users, too. Didn't like it.
So, anyway. We'll see. The concept of people rewarding content they value is a good one, and still the best concept as far as I'm concerned. Now, it just needs to be implemented.
LinkedIn seems to think there is a team. Maybe they haven't updated LinkedIn. :)
At this point I'm thinking that I might have to do that. If I don't see things improving, I might explore a bit to see if anything else jumps out. If not, that's ok. Something will come along. If nothing else, we're going to have the facebook blockchain, so look forward to that.
I don't know what the revenue share means. I think it's like you said, something like they sell ads, but give you a portion of it. One of the things that I really like about Steemit is there are no ads. It's great! I could see companies having accounts and using their posts as promotions, but offering discounts in the posts. That would be incentive to follow them. I don't think I would, but you never know until the deals start dropping.
I haven't even bothered to check LinkedIn. I shouldn't have to leave the company's webpage to go to a (probably soon to be competitor's webpage) just to see who works here. That should be in the "About Us" section. That's how business websites work. It's internet 101. Bah!
Nailed it!
That's ok, I figured getting Elon's number was a long shot. Unfortunately, there would still be security. It's 2018, so it's ubiquitous. Well, not quite, but we're getting there. Looks like we're only getting $30 from you. :)
I wasn't worried by the perceived ambiguity, I just went with it how I wanted to. This was the thing that made the most sense, so maybe he didn't feel the need to clarify.
Wouldn't all that be nice? To be honest, I'm not sure they're actually being worked on. People have been talking about Steemit being a Ponzi scheme, and I can't say I blame them. There's so much more I want to say there because I have some great zingers, but I don't want them on the blockchain! Arg! Ha ah.
Yes, it would be nice to have that up and running. If Steemit doesn't come out with it, I'm going to leave coding and release it in 2025, so look for that. At least you know within 7 years you'll have hivemind. ;)
Still a $30 well worth it for a 15 minute five hour flight. I mean that's close to Star Trek teleporter times, and as far as I know, we're not anywhere near matter transfers. I would just wonder about the Gs I would be pulling, and how that might affect my anatomy. Like push it into spots it wan't meant to go.
I've heard the term Ponzi a couple of times now. I'm not sure if it actually applies, but I understand what people are trying to say. Regardless, it's got to be the slowest Ponzi scheme ever for most of us.
Probably should hold onto the zingers or find something else less everlasting to zing them on. Caution is prudence.
So, does your employer, @themanwithnoname, not share the time travel ability with you? It seems to me that you could take however long to code, and still release it this year, by simply coming back from whatever part of time you end up in.
I'm not really looking to get matter transferred. From what I understand the farthest we've gotten is a theory that can create a copy of an object in another location, but it can't actually move it. Therefore, if you "transported" an apple, the one you got out would be different than the one you put in. The original would be destroyed. I don't know how you feel about yourself, but I like the original Me. I don't want to die so that a clone of me can be somewhere else. That sounds like a terrible plan. Maybe they'll get it figured out soon.
It really would be a very slow Ponzi scheme. Still, I've read some compelling pieces that if I wasn't already on Steemit, I might not get on as a result. I need to stop talking/writing/thinking about it because I want to be more positive and because I don't want to talk myself into leaving Steemit. I've already seen a few people have at least minor meltdowns about this place in the last few weeks.
"I don't often keep my mouth shut, but when I do, I catch fewer flies." ;)
He does not share it with me. I just got the Active Key and Posting key to this account. The money shows up for me to write replies and such. That's about all I know. I'm supposed to stay in character right now though because no one is supposed to know he's gone again already. I don't want to get in trouble.
He doesn't use time travel like that. It would seem to make sense, but I think he's more clever than that. I'm sure he has his reasons.
Not a big fan of cloning, and yes, me and me go way back, so I'm rather fond of myself. I would not want to be destroyed just so a doppelganger me could pick up elsewhere, only to be destroyed again when it came back. That sounds awfully wasteful, too.
Yeah. I got through all of that the first two and half months, so I'm kind of at the point now where I'm looking for ways to add value. I still keep tabs on the major flag war going on because I think it has far reaching implications for Steemit, and I do occasionally read the back and forth in the comments between the adversaries from time to time to see if there's any budging from either side going on. That's about as negative as I want to get right now because I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself. I follow people I believe to be positive in their realistic approach to Steemit, if that makes sense. They don't sugar coat the bad, but they don't overlook or downplay the good. It is what it is, and the only way it's going to get better is if we recognize the warts and apply copious amounts of nitro.
I think it's nitro for warts. Maybe that's hydrogen peroxide. Something! :)
I'm assuming there's some way of capturing the molecules so you can reuse the materials to build something else, but I don't want to be a potato or something. That sounds boring. And then you get eaten. I want to be me!
I think it's interesting that the flagging is still going. As a non-participant in that, I'm not really going to say more.
We'll see. More details may come out later, but for now, his ambitions are unknown.
I'm actually surprised it's been going on for as long as it has. They've brought in a few bigger guns than they had before after the STEEM price went up, so they're back to knocking payouts to zero. They're not all that coordinated at it, though, because they still let quite a few payouts through since Wednesday, which may be a part of the plan. I think if the most vocal individual had their way, the one receiving the flags would be obliterated off the face of the earth, not just Steemit. Of course, that's probably just his online persona. He's probably all sweetness and light in real life.
Interesting. It's sad we can't all find ways of making it work for everyone. I'd like to think there was a solution that could benefit everyone, but I'm not a professional moderator, so I don't think I'd be able to help too much other than to say that I'd rather we could be at peace and work together to build something awesome!
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