The Changing Face Of The Trending Page

We all know the Trending Page gets a lot of attention on here in terms of discussion. Many are frustrated that it is nothing more than a platform for people to buy votes to send crappy articles to the front page. The original intention, from what I can gather, was to highlight "quality" content as determined by the community's upvotes.

Obviously, this has not happened.

Like so many other things, I think people are making a big deal about something that is slowly resolving itself. Is the Trending Page still filled with content that was paid for via voting bots? Yes it is. Is much on there what people would consider poor quality? Most certainly.

So how can I say that it is changing?

For much of my tenure on STEEM, I ignored the Trending Page. Personally, I did not care what votes people were buying and what was up there. Most of it was not of interest for me to read so I simply bypassed it. There are lots of pages on STEEM that I choose not to read out of a lack of interest, that was just one more.

In the last month, I started going through the Trending Page on a regular basis. My blog here focuses a great deal on what is taking place on the STEEM blockchain. I pride myself on trying to bring forth information that helps people to see what is happening and to get excited about STEEM. This requires research into many different places to try and find new information.

The Trending Page became a treasure trove for this. There is a shift that took place which really helped me and shows some of the evolution.

When I go through the Trending Page now, I find that roughly 25% of the content up there is about applications. In fact, many of the apps use the voting bots to upvote their content about major announcements. This is a technique used to help get their message out there.

To me, this is a great transformation. Some might say this belongs on the Promotion Page and that could be correct. Yet that is a different discussion. The fact is that valuable information is appearing on the front page now shows the difference. Is this the same as the original intent? Not exactly but there is a lot on the STEEM blockchain that is different from how it was envisioned. In fact, that is common for technologies. They rarely unfold how the innovators saw it.

I know there are a lot of STEEM "purists" who hold tightly to the idea of "quality content" and that this is a blogging platform. The challenge with this is two-fold.

First, quality content is subjective. Some believe something is of quality while others do not. Is a picture worth a high amount of upvotes? Most would think not but an expert photographer who realized how hard it is to capture a particular moment does. So when the masses say that picture is not worth $500 because it is only a pic, that is a debate in quality. What determines it? What if the photographer had to hang upside down on the bottom of an airplane? What if it caught the ghost of the headless horseman in the background?

The point is that we can debate for eternity what is quality content. Those who cannot stand poetry will never feel it is front page material. Depending upon your view, the same goes for opera, a story about the Red Sox, and erotic fiction.

Another challenge with this view is it creates conflict within oneself while also showing an unwillingness to accept change. Quality might be a goal when dealing with a blogging site. This all changes when you start to have applications that appeal to the masses.

YouTube.com

The conflict comes in when we realize that everyone on here wants STEEM to grow. That will not happen to the extent we discuss if STEEM is only for bloggers. To have mass adoption, applications have to appeal to the populous. When it comes to the Internet, much of it is not quality. Instead, it is goofy, childish, and full of stuff that the world would be no worse if it never was posted. Yet it is people expressing themselves how they want.

This is what is happening to STEEM. With applications coming online that focus upon things other than blogging, we are seeing a shift. This is going to alter the idea of quality. Instead, we are going to have a blockchain full of content that fits in all different kinds of categories.

We need to remember, much of what goes viral is far from quality. YouTube made its name based upon cat videos. Ethereum hit great success with CryptoKitties. Even Nintendo had a smash with the Pokemon AR game. Few would say these are anything close to works of art or even quality.

Personally, I am glad to see the Trending Page start to provide some valuable information. Even though the vast percentage is people buying exposure, the fact that it is now a resource is an improvement. Will we ever see it as a mecca for the "best quality" on STEEM? I doubt it.

Yet it is evolving.

And like all of STEEM, in another year, things will be a lot different than they are today. Sometimes the best solution is to sit back and wait. STEEM is a growing, changing ecosystem. In a couple years, we will not be having the same discussion about the Trending Page.

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