In a recent blog post it was brought to my attention that some people define "quality content" as being the content which is more serious in nature. The sort of content which was ruled out as being serious was content which the reader thought did not require as much effort, such as listed below:
- Irrelevant things about life (such as pictures of food)
- Paraphrasing articles appearing in high quality magazines or regurgitating info with a reference link
As a person who is guilty of sometimes posting short relevant articles with a reference link, I decided to determine if the market really does prefer "serious content" and to find out if the market actually rewards effort (labor theory of value).
The A/B test
Below are two example articles which I'll label article A and article B
Article A:
Article B:
Analysis of Article A
Now for an analysis with my perspective as the writer of both. Article A took months if not years of contemplation to reach that conclusion. Article A took a lot of specialized knowledge in AI, in cryptography, in computer science, the sort of knowledge which very few people in the community have. Article A required reading not just the references which are from academic journals, but also understanding and digesting many of the top whitepapers in the cryptospace. Projects like Iota, Golem, Enigma, Tauchain, Ethereum, Tezos, SingularityNET, and some that most probably have not heard of (or that I cannot discuss in public), had to be studied just to arrive at that conclusion that trends are leading there.
Yet because the article required a lot of prerequisite knowledge, because it was on the topic of AI, it received $34 (I'll only see maybe $15-17 or so realistically). It did achieve 92 votes which I was happy with but for the effort it definitely did not achieve anywhere near the amount of reward to signal that serious posts are the most valued.
Analysis of Article B
Article B did not take months of research, did not require much pre-requisite knowledge, only required at a maximum of 45 minutes to post and 20 minutes of research, so really not more than an hour of effort. It was not a lot of sentences but the sentences were concise, to the point, and easy for readers to read. It included a picture to illustrate so readers can see proper form of movement.
Overall this post achieved $29 in rewards and 79 votes. I'll probably see between $12 and $14 give or take. So in that example we can see that as a blogger I'm not rewarded based on the time and effort of individual blog posts.
How about another A/B example?
Article A:
- https://steemit.com/health/@dana-edwards/autophagy-the-health-benefit-behind-fasting-not-weight-loss
Article B:
Analysis of Article A:
The goal of my writing the result from Article A was to provide value to the reader by showing them the anti-aging value of fasting is not from "weight loss" but from the effects of autophagy. The background knowledge to write this article did take some time to study autophagy, watch a few videos, study what I could grasp of the Nobel prize winning research, and then relay the results. All around it took maybe 30-35 minutes to write and maybe an hour of research time. The quality of the post if judged by explanatory power in my opinion is high, but there are not many sentences that I had to write.
Overall this article achieved $30 in rewards and 80 upvotes. Overall I will see maybe $15 from that article. For the amount of effort, that is maybe $15 for the 30 minutes writing it and whatever time it took to digest what autophagy is. Because my best estimate is that it took no more than an hour to an hour and thirty minutes max, I would say it wasn't a huge time investment.
Analysis of Article B
Article B was one of the most intense and deep articles I wrote for the week. Total research time to reach these conclusions were measured in months (exact amount of months unknown). The prerequisite knowledge I had to draw from included deep philosophical understanding of ethics, understanding of individualist anarchism, and digestion of some of the concepts put forth by Max Stirner. This article achieved only $28 in rewards (less than the Autophagy article), and only 75 votes.
Conclusion
Based on the result of these A/B test examples it would at least appear that the market does not favor "hard work" or "effort" and rewards entirely subjectively. The articles I worked hard on, researched the longest, wrote the most words in, applied the most thinking toward, did not do much better than the brief yet very useful articles. It appears the reader just wants useful information no matter how many words it takes and if anything having more words to read might discourage a lot of readers from being able to digest the post.
For the record this article took over 30 minutes to write..
I personally definitely prefer your well-researched and thought out articles, that are based on the comprehensive understanding of the cryptosphere that you have, although I also do see value in the short ones (kind of a scientific digest of the day). I am voting all of them, because I see that your long articles are much undervalued, so voting on the other ones sort of restores the balance in my eyes.
I would be very sad to see you go or stop writing the long, in-depth ones, as not a lot of people are able to write them (or take the time to do it!). I feel that the short ones could be written by anyone (although they cover a broad range of topics, they don't require as much technical expertise and stimulate me a lot less)
Of course, there needs to be content for everyone, and in the end, as in all things in life, it comes down to a question of balance, and I hope you find it and can keep writing without feeling the need to justify yourself, because of accusations against your integrity.
Steem on!
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hi @Wackou,
It's kinda refreshing to hear another Steemian who enjoys the long mind tickling reads.....I was beginning to feel like I was part of only a handful. Heck I even write long replies to support the original Bloggers....my contribution back to their time and effort by giving back the same:
If you have not yet read @Stellebelle heated post (make that very heated.....few, I mean very few Steemfolks could go through the whole post and reply chain in this one), you can check out my reply, hope it tickles your mind and sparks new creative thoughts while making you smile:
https://steemit.com/deathspiral/@stellabelle/is-steemit-in-an-economic-and-social-suicide-death-spiral#@dj123/re-stellabelle-is-steemit-in-an-economic-and-social-suicide-death-spiral-20171106t234113550z
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I'm impressed on the quantitative analysis you take when curating articles on steem. I like the idea you put that much thought and energy into your curation.. It's nice to see!
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Short and help content, i prefer
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I am one of the rare bloggers who post all kinds of content. Hopefully you continue to read my posts.
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I'm one of your followers though i joined the community a bit late or lemme say last month i have found your articles and content always useful,, your power is Strong sire,
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For me, it depends on the topic of your articles. I have read many of your longer articles because they were of a topic that interested me. Similarly, I have skimmed many of your articles (short and long) that were not of a topic that interested me.
Either way, I believe I have always upvoted them. I recognize the amount of effort you have put in to these articles. and ... I might come back to read an article that I have skimmed at a later date.
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I see this with a lot of the websites that I write for. If the content gets too long people automatically assume the topic is too complex. I've also found that video works better entirely
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I do find this article interesting, and I have some thoughts on how you could enrich your understanding still further. Take a list of your followers and compare that against the list of upvotes from each of the articles (also check whether people became your followers after each article).
As some pointed out in the comments, some of your followers could be upvoting your other posts to give additional reward to the posts they like.
If you measure conversion ratios (new upvotes that also followed you) for each of the articles in your study and compare upvote samples from followers separately from non-followers, you may draw different conclusions.
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My rate of new followers has been increasing overall but over the past several weeks it has slowed down. It seems when the price of Steem is high everything moves faster.
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That is helpful to know. Now we just need some operator to orchestrate a bull run on Steem so we can all get more followers. (:
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@dana-edwards I believe that people feel that they don't have enough time to go in depth on the content. That being said the short and sweet does just fine.
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very nice post
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It looks like leaving shallow comments in response to posts has been damaging your reputation. When you comment on a post, you may want to put a little more thought into it and add something to the discussion or put specific reasons why you think it's a nice post.
You'd be surprised at the impact it will make on turning your reputation around!
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for vocabulary please visit
https://steemit.com/vocabulary/@xabi/6t2yta-word-of-the-day-vocabulary
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It depends on the type of personality. There are 4 communication styles, controller, promoter, suporter and analyzer. Controller and promoters want short and clear texts, analyzers and suporter want long text with details. It's the same in live communication - I'm a controller-promoter @dana-edwards
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Why you refer people as market? It's like you see it only thru perspective of money.
Why you care what people like? Are you writing articles because you want to make positive change on the planet or for money? If you want to make positive change, you shoudn't care what kind of article you write because form of article is not important. It is only important to make positive change.
About money... If you want to make positive change by writing few sentences + reference link about something you find important, that is great! Who woudn't love that? But that article is not worth 25$+ compared to many original and similar content in few bucks or pennies. Also if you write bunch of few sentences + reference link articles, that is clear indicator that you are pumping articles just for the money because you are on auto-voting list.
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Because I believe in science, and data. Markets are real and markets tell us signals. Markets tell us what people want (demand) and tell us what to create (supply) to meet the demand. I'm sorry if you didn't learn about markets in school but markets exist in life in general. Non-human animals like chimps have markets, and that is the nature of life.
If you were right, then all my articles would be well thought out researched articles, and those articles would make $100+. Because that doesn't happen, and the market doesn't reward those articles any more than the others, what do you expect in terms of supply and demand?
If you don't appreciate the content why blame the blogger? Blame the market which shapes the trends all bloggers follow. I'm sure other bloggers post long well thought out articles too but who will continue to do that daily or weekly if it gets $10? Why not actually research in academia, or write for a career, or write a book? Many options exist if you're willing to put in months or weeks of time beyond Steemit.
In an ideal situation the market would be able to support the highest quality well thought out researched articles. I would prefer to write those, and if I got the upvotes+rewards associated with the effort I would.
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I agree with each your word @dana-edwards! Besides, even your short articles are always high quality and informative, I get all the latest news reading them.
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If you like to write longer articles, you would do it. You are doing what bring you more money. Now you will ask what is wrong with that? Market bla bla...well that is reason you started pumping many articles per day...just for money. If longer in-depth brought you more money, you will write those types of article. So money dictates what you will write, not your desire to make some form of articles. "Blame the market" is just excuse.
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Right, I suppose if we were all chimps and chimps climb trees to get food, you would say as a chimp:
"You are doing what brings you more food climbing all those trees".
Yeah you're exactly right. And so do all animals which must eat to live. I'm sure you eat too so let's not pretend like you live off the air and water diet.
My advice to you is stop being jealous of the people who are willing to work harder (or smarter) than you. Instead why not earn money for yourself? You could be spending time doing that rather than complaining.
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LOL jealous! No Dana, you made million few sentence post for 25$+. That was draining reward pool. I could make any of your post for up to 20 min. That is not big research or knowledge to be honest.
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I also made long posts (1000 word+). I don't think you expect that I can make 1000+ word posts each time if you and others don't vote them up or read them. You have to understand that the shorter posts are the dominant posts that trend and get votes.
At the end of the day even if the post doesn't get any Steem Power+Steem Dollar reward it has to get me new followers, new votes, and provide value. If I only post on the same topic over and over, then how do I grow?
Yes there are a few bloggers who post 1000+ word posts each time but it's also a market. If I can post a 1000 word article on another platform and get $100 for it (rate of $100 per 1000 words) then I post on Steemit and get $10, sooner or later I will run out of money and have no choice but to post somewhere else.
And if you think you can make any of my posts in 20 minutes go do it. Who stops you? I challenge you to do exactly what I did and see. Because when I was getting $2-4 a post I was posting. I'll probably post when I'm making $2-4 a post but the point is if it's $2-4 a post the better more exclusive content will go to the higher bidder over time out of necessity.
For me it's about the long game. To win the long game you have to post frequently. At least 3 times a day is what I aim for but apparently my average is 6 posts a day. The goal is followers, as that is what bloggers want.
I'm aiming for the next milestone of 4000 followers and I post as often as necessary to grow. Some bloggers have 12,000 followers, some have 5000-6000, and I feel I need to catch up with them. It's not just about immediate money like you think.
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This is to help you out and give you insight into how I think. I track data (metrics) to determine if my blog is growing or not. My goal is to grow my blog. Growth tracks more metrics than just how much $ the author earns each week.
I see other authors who are earning less each week but who have way more followers and good for them. I'm not going to say they abused anything because they are winning. At the same time my strategy has to involve posting more frequently because it's not just about the reward pool but also gaining followers in competition with others who are posting frequently.
So if some other person posts 10 times day and you see it, you can either choose to try to keep up with that or pull back. If you pull back you have to figure out how to get more followers in fewer posts (which isn't so easy but not impossible).
For example I could take the Craig Grant approach and buy Youtube advertisements, or similar, to promote my blog and then I don't have to post frequently but that costs money rather than time. Craig Grant has the money to promote himself.
So in your blog if you post 10 posts a day you will quickly gain followers, so you probably should do this even though it's not necessarily something in my best interest.
If you look at my blog one statistic should stand out. I'm one of the few bloggers who has more followers than posts. So this could tell you that in the past I didn't post frequently and fell behind because others posted frequently. At the same time that ratio is a strong indicator of the quality of my posts because no one with low quality posts has more followers than they do posts.
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No one has problem with ammount or content of your posts. Problem is that most of your posts are not worth ammount of money you get for them. Dana, few sentences and reference link can't be worth 25$ or 10$. For most of them you should receive at the most few bucks. If one of that posts get 25$ that woud be ok because someone upvote it for some reason, but all of them is bs.
No hard feelings. You are not stupid to not understand that few sentences and reference link are not worth more than few dollars. You can post 20 of those articles per day if you want. If all of those articles receieve 25$+ that is insulting to other content creators and it is draining reward pool.
You obviously deserved to be on someone's auto-voting list, but that doesn't mean that now you can post few sentences + reference link, get 25$+ for them and think other content creators in pennies and few dollars to be ok with it.
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I tend to not appreciate posts that just regurgitate the info from articles elsewhere on the net. But from seeing your success with it I am tempted to switch to this format since I usually don't have the time required to write my longer articles.
Although maybe I just need practice getting my message down and getting used to markdown formatting.
I have to admit to sometimes voting for your content @dana-edwards purely because I knew I was getting just ahead of some of the auto-votes that you usually receive while I was online. The vast majority of the Steem earned on your articles occur within the first 30 minutes.
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Are the any posters who don't get the vast majority of their rewards in the first 30 minutes? I don't see why you would vote for me when there are much bigger bloggers out there.
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I only follow the health category and only manual vote. You post often in there. Also still haven't been on the platform too long.
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I do post in health a lot because who doesn't want good health? It's a topic which needs more attention. Others post blogposts there too but not necessarily any better or worse than mine. I suppose if doctor or person trained in medicine starts posting on these topics we can have some more expertise. A lot of these topics in my opinion exist to be filled with content.
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I fully intend to increase the bar of the health section with my posts when I have time.
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And I chose that niche because I realized doctors have some of the most time constraints. If I'm able to lessen the load by doing the research and sharing the wealth (knowledge) why not? Join me in my effort.
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Hi Dana, it's me Shuhag.....I need to discuss with you about something very important topic which will be very benefited for you & me both......my instagram username @cshuhag02
Knock me there. I'll be waiting for you
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Connect with me on Twitter.
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i think it depend on the readers and the topic at hand. let me start with the readers , their are two type of readers those who are lazy to read long article and want get over it so they will peruse for highlights on the article and then their are those who like hard facts and will go in depth to read and analyse the article. most are in group 1 that dont like long hard thinking article and you can see it in steemit, the memes get more votes than research article
then their is the topic at hand , deepmental topics like AI are not read cause it cause people to engage the mind and think about what you are saying, when guys write about block chain or hard forks or psychological issue they dont get much attention or comments but easy topics and pictures get all the attention and upvotes. Human like easy things but when it come to things that provoke the mind to think , well .... you are on your own
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I noticed that most users prefer light content, short articles, which you do not need to think about. But I also see that users with a higher rating prefer serious thoughtful content with analyzes and a large amount of the material presented. The question is, who is your content focused on? Personally, I get the same fee for both simple content and for large articles.
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