Networks and Search Engines

A network is only valuable if a person is able to traverse from one node to any destination node in a way such that the cost that one undertakes to perform such a traversal is less than the value that the destination node provides. If any network wishes to succeed they need to realize this point and modes of transport across the network must be provided for the network to be of any real use.

A key component of a network's value is ease of use

The internet in the mid 1990's was a big wild mess. Today, many of us struggle to conceive of a world without it. Almost all skepticism of the internet is dead as today is it easier to use and more integral to daily life than ever before. The internet was once a confusing network of interconnected nodes and today it is even a more confusing and complex network. But surfing the web has never been easier.

The big step towards adoption was decreasing the barrier to entry. Giving people the ability to access information they wanted to see without requiring any large amount of effort on their end. There was only one problem. With the internet, there was now access to unlimited amounts of information and a lot of it was of little relevance to the end user. How did we connect the user with their information amidst a giant unorganized tangle of hyperlinks?

We built search engines. We essentially designed filters that reduced the amount of manual searching that any one individual needed to do to get to the content they wanted to be served. At first very simple, we now have huge complex, customizable algorithms that allow the efficient transportation of users from one node to another in a matter of seconds with little brainpower or willpower expended in search related activities.

The most successful platforms succeed based on how they filter information in their networks to make the network space more manageable to users. Through recommendation engines and other learning techniques, they are able to in some instances eliminate the process of searching completely. By facilitating traversal of these massive networks, they have been able to undergo massive adoption as they are able to serve people the information they desire with relative ease.

Any network that relies on serving information to individuals needs to have an effective way of getting those individuals the information they want. On most blockchains, it is the transfer of value through encryption. A search engine on such a network is relatively trivial. On a content blockchain, the challenge preventing any chain from gaining any significant adoption is connecting individuals with content that they want to consume.

With regards to the Steemit blockchain, all interfaces serve as some basic type of engine on the network. But most still utilize the rudimentary system build into the Steemit condenser. One that doesn't really work to promote easy traversal. There have been times where I have wanted to find quality content to reward to discover that such discovery is in fact really hard.

The cost of traversal across the network is too hard for most folks and that is why there is such a high user abandonment rate. What Steemit is lacking is not a killer application or some magic formula to more evenly distribute Steem. It's missing an elegant search engine to transport users across the epic network.

Very few people traverse city to city by walking. They utilize some form of transportation to get from Point A to Point B. The issue here is not a matter of the content not existing. The matter here is that we're still walking when most people are only used to flying over the bad stuff and getting to their destination with relative ease.

Building new applications doesn't matter if you can't effectively move people across them.