Steem has an image problem and we need to fix it!

in steem •  6 years ago  (edited)


Just found this thread on reddit: Can you name all those coins?

The thread features the image above with a simple question, if someone can name all the coins displayed.

And the most upvoted answer pretty much shows what I've been saying all along:



How sad is that? One of the greatest blockchains in existence and it's being associated with the earliest and most basic project on Steem.

My explanation for this is pretty much the following:

Most people, who are not familiar with Steem, have no clue what Steem actually is and how many amazing projects it holds. They still think Steem simply equals Steemit.com.

But it's not their fault.

The only way to find out what Steem really is about, is by looking into it. Since there is no direct way to see all available projects.

Don't get me wrong, there is this site: https://steemprojects.com/ which displays most of the projects on Steem, but more like a wikipedia, not as an advertisement for Steem.

And that's actually what we need.

Making people hot for Steem, bringing more amazing investors like @theycallmedan to us.

And I guess the first step would be to make sure people know that Steem is not Steemit.com - it's much, much more..

Especially since Steemit.com is in maintenance mode right now, which means it will not be improved, unless it's from the community.


So, if someone has an idea for a project (and has the skills to develop it) to tackle this problem, then let me know, so I can help you get the project going!

I would love to develop something myself, but I've already got my hands full with too many other projects.

@therealwolf


If you believe that I'm of value for Steem, then please vote for me as witness. You can also set me as a proxy and I'll vote on great witnesses for you. You can learn more about me and my witness infrastructure on therealwolf.me.

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I am going to see about having a high-quality commercial made for Steem that will clearly show the difference between Steemit.com and Steem the blockchain while highlighting the massive potential for Steem. Then, blast the ad everywhere.

can this do some help. gonetcoins used that to explain steem. it was in pdf format.

Screenshot_2018-11-05-13-01-16.png

That's an amazing idea! Would be very much in favour of it.

Suggestion for the commercial: More reality, less hype. 'Hype' is for those blockchains that can only talk the talk. STEEM can actually walk the walk and I'd personally prefer us to stand out instead of simply blending in with the rest of the hype train that is the cryptosphere these days.

Thanks so much for that, we just finished a steemit conference in Nigeria and am charged up too to bring more onboard when I reach my state, am focusing on breaking into a federal university of technology. I believe steem still needs more geniuses and smart guys to take it to the next level.
Nice meeting you.

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Thank you for this – it's precisely the kind of initiative we so desperately need. There's so much here that is overlooked/misunderstood; we've just got to find ways to make its allure match its potential.

We need a community funded marketing arm. As investors we should be willing to delegate to a project that will hire marketing professionals! It's time to get serious. When the market turns around, how will steem rise above the noise for investment?

Good idea, except that delegation is a broken model for this. Investors/stakeholders should be willing to pitch in to pay for this sort of marketing, or should upvote content that supports it. I know I would.

Steem should have a budget for serious marketing for sure!

Happy to make my branding and marketing manager available to steem. We will need a way to fund it though as they will unlikely work pro-bono.

Check out
https://www.theaandthez.com

They have already worked on three different projects for me.

That's what Dash and Zencash got right. Steem didn't. An investor can vote for say the browswr extension wallet or he and she can simply self vote or se!l votes. It is the tragedy of the commons problem if you dont self vote. Non linear rewards make this worse for those with a larger investment.

It is a small miracle that there isn't one for Dash... yet.

Thanks for sharing this important issue.

I'm glad that I am not the only one worried about this.

#Promo-Steem was set up to address this exact problem.

Over the last +18 months I have been banging my head against a brickwall about Marketing and Promoting the #Steem Blockchain.

Like you have quite rightly pointed out, most people still think that #Steemit and the #Steem Blockchain is all there is and totally oblivious to the fact that there are countless other amazing #Dapps.

Stephen

We need to get serious about fixing the rewards, curation, and treasury system. There is marketing, promotion, and public education that is sorely needed and Steem in theory has a funding mechanism to support that (and I'm quite confident that many investors/stakeholders would support rewards going to fund this) but in practice the funding mechanism has been corrupted into a bunch of useless nonsense.

Even at current depressed prices, millions of dollars per year could be going to help raise (correct!) awareness about Steem, support more dynamic development efforts, or a variety of other powerful uses. Instead we get nothing and Steem is spiraling the drain.

The thing is, we probably should have done this for quite some time - using the reward pool to incentivize effective and relevant work on Steem. On the one hand, we have utopian-io, but it can only do so much and it's very broad in the thing it supports.

Don't get me wrong, open source work, in general, is important, but work focused on Steem should be n°1. So maybe what we need right now is a more direct approach in the things we (stakeholders and investors) would like to see build on Steem/for Steem/with Steem.

But in any way - the curation and reward system needs an overhaul. While it does work somehow, it could be so much more. It might be counter-intuitive at first for the very basic users, but it can and probably will attract more skilled users, who might be more valuable for the platform. (I know, it sounds mean, but we can't have a system for everyone)

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

The thing is, we probably should have done this for quite some time - using the reward pool to incentivize effective and relevant work on Steem.

We did in the early days. I'm not going to claim it was the main or only use of rewards but there were very significant marketing initiatives, third party integration projects, etc. that were funded by rewards. There were a number of Steem apps proposed and received significant funding (although unfortunately some were scams or simply did not have credible roadmaps; the community needed to develop a bit more sophistication and skepticism).

Things went downhill from there.

but work focused on Steem should be n°1

Damn right. For the millionth time I've said this, investors are paying for rewards. This only makes sense one of two ways: 1) Investors see it as a way to generate personal ROI and siphon rewards back to themselves via self-enrichment, spamming the chain in the process and ultimately everyone chasing their tail and getting nowhere; or 2) rewards are allocated to purposes which add value back to Steem increasing the value of ones investment. Everything else is inefficient leakage which discourages (and should discourage) people from investing.

There is a lot of room within 'add value back to Steem'. That can include sponsoring pure content such as art, writing, etc., or even donating to charity, but only when calibrated to the level where it helps promote the Steem brand (and, here too, curation quality is so important because sponsoring generic crap content and/or scams hurts the Steem brand). It can also include a faucet type functionality where new users are able to earn some rewards as an incentive to join. It can include sponsoring app developers, but only to the extent that those apps are successful in bringing users, investors and growth back to Steem.

If we can't get any of this to actually work we should turn off rewards, pivot to a different model, and at least stop chasing investors away with useless inflation.

There were a number of Steem apps proposed and received significant funding (although unfortunately some were scams or simply did not have credible roadmaps; the community needed to develop a bit more sophistication and skepticism).

Things went downhill from there.

I think I saw 1 or 2 of them, but even if things went downhill from there, the community behind Steem has matured quite a bit, including the projects and we're getting more and more really great projects (skipping dlive ..)

investors are paying for rewards.

Exactly. Investors are paying for a growing investment. Supporting individuals is great, but from an investors point of view: what good is it if it doesn't increase the value/growth of the investment.

So yeah, honestly, for me there is actually no better way than putting the focus on individuals & projects that make Steem more valuable.

However, is this possible with the current distributed stake or should be a part of the reward pool be exclusively for it?

(For example: @steemtank is supporting exclusively Steemians who are known to bring value to Steem, but the amount of rewards being able to be given out is quite limited)

If we can't get any of this to actually work we should turn off rewards, pivot to a different model, and at least stop chasing investors away with useless inflation.

What would be another model? I'm quite intrigued by the idea, even if it is very radical and not something that should be taken lightly.

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

What would be another model?

From a blockchain perspective it would certainly all work if content/curation rewards were simply set to zero and nothing else changed. Even some bloggers would still post (due to censorship resistance, possibility of getting easy tips via transfer, etc.) I'm quite certain and comments would continue as most comments don't get or expect to get rewards anyway but people still do them. Apps such as steemmonsters which do not rely on blogging/rewards would work just fine, in fact they would get cheaper since more RC would be available (I'm assuming that blogging/spamming activity would dramatically reduce).

That would have immediate positive benefit in terms of investors not seeing scary 8+% inflation (with just witness rewards it would be more like 1%, some offset by vesting if you power up., a more reasonable price to maintain the security of the chain) and many feeling they need to milk the reward pool just to avoid losing money.

What would be lost:

  1. Attraction of rewards to join. No great loss if this isn't working to grow the community (it isn't).
  2. Loss of support for content creators. No great loss if this isn't working to grow community or otherwise add value to Steem (it isn't).
  3. Loss of support for apps that are reward-supported. No great loss if ... (see above).
  4. Etc.

If the model isn't working to grow the community and increase the value of Steem then there is no reason to continue it. That's the definition of insanity.

Personally I would rather leverage Steems head start and already positioned model in terms of curation-allocated inflation rewards by getting it working better and start becoming the rocket fuel for growth that it was supposed to be. But if we can't come up with something that works, we can't. Best to move on and just focus on being a solid, efficient, and scaleable blockchain with innovations elsewhere. Plodding along in this zombie-like state is nuts.

There are other models we could think about as well to try to be a direct replacement for the blog/voting/reward model such as something a bit more patreon- or twitch-like with automatic subscriber payments and such. Nothing I know of is well developed even at the idea stage but it isn't impossible we could make a big pivot like that. Again, if what you are doing isn't working, try something else.

Thanks smooth... I agree, will this fall on deaf ears?

And also kill SBD on external markets or totally get rid of SBD, let them trade it into steem on the internal market or convert it... we have no real price discovery, steem is a currency right... not an utility token.

When SMT's are paired to steem, it should also not be possible to move those SMT's to external markets. Let them first go to steem as currency and exit to fiat.

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

will this fall on deaf ears?

To be clear I am not advocating turning off rewards (though it wouldn't bother me really as I think they are mostly worthless in their present form) and I doubt there is much support for it right now. I would prefer to improve the curation system so it can channel rewards to more value adding activities.

At some point if we conclude that we can't make it work then it would be better to pivot. One way to do that may be to have STEEM decline from competing with SMTs in the reward-voting game and let SMTs experiment with their own solutions. STEEM can instead focus on being a native coin (including as reserve and bridge asset for SMTs) and access and governance token for the network with much lower inflation.

I don't agree with your view on SBD, I view it as a complementary asset. Regarding SMTs, I don't think it is possible to prevent external trading. No one needs permission to do it.

Well, I'm sure your head is harder than the wall. I hope this post can get some stones rolling.

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

I would disagree that there are countless other amazing apps/dapps. That is a bunch of cheerleading nonsense which does not hold up to scrutiny. None of them are lighting the world in fire in terms of adoption any better than Steemit is. Most of them only exist because they are milking the free steemit delegation and would fold like a cheap suit in about five minutes if that went away.

Steemmonsters is the most promising I know about, and the only one that I would say still has real hope of making a major difference, although it is too early to know whether it actually will. That is not countless. It is one.

Steem is a very powerful blockchain and has some good to great capabilities but we still need new blood coming in and coming up with creative ideas for using it because what we have so far has not found the magic formula at all.

This ultimately comes down to the same issue of awareness and marketing though.

What you’re looking for is what the Steem team currently lacks: a marketing department (and all related supporting services).

I agree it’s something that continues to be an obvious void on our platform. Any success Steem has achieved has been in spite of this void. Imagine what would happen if that void was filled?

Design. Communication. Conversion. Adoption.

I can create a big picture game plan of first steps and the resources necessary to make the first practical strides towards a community-driven marketing department.

Right now, we’re this huge, lumbering beast that is looking for direction. The Netcoins contest is a good example of what we can do when we put our collective minds on a specific goal.

I think that with a little effort, we can field a marketing squad that feeds the beast with prioritized objectives and the assets necessary to accomplish those goals.

The goals may be surgical strikes. Or they might be massive social media carpet bombings. Whatever they are, they will have a clear strategy and coherent purpose on both a small and large scale.

This goes well beyond knowing the proper name of the blockchain, but it addresses the core issue.

It’s time to rock n roll.

There are people who have been here for over a year that still can't separate Steem and Steemit and Steemit Inc.

How about you @themarkymark and @therealwolf use say 50% of the profits you earn running witness nodes as a start for a marketing budget. You know, put your money where both your big mouths are :) I am sure a lot of us who don't even agree with you on most things would give you our witness vote and push to get you both into the top 20. I know I would.

  ·  6 years ago Reveal Comment

Yes except more like two and a half years.

:(

Yes, this always bugs me. I think most people are set in the "centralized" mindset and see that Steemit is an alternative the Reddit and it must be the only site that serves the content.

I feel more posts like this in Trending will help break this trend.

I don't think that the Steemit site does much justice for the Steem platform either. Its "Welcome" page is a solid example: https://steemit.com/welcome

I think that Steemit Inc. is undermining the platform they have built on and causing a "Tunnel Vision" for Steemit.com in consistently referencing "Steem" as "Steemit" in all of their documentation.

There is @sugarsteem project that never got off the ground. It started by @theuxyeti as an effort to add improvements to Steemit but that fell of def ears from Steemit Inc. It then changed directions and was going to be a new Dapp as an alternate to Steemit but way better user interface designed by an experienced UX guy. The problem is that it didn't get the dev support to get off the ground so it never happened.

If the Dev and the UX folks can come together, then you have something, but it seems like the devs like to have their interface boring and sterile.

If you are looking to make a difference, then get the right people together to host and launch @sugarsteem project.

I fully support your proposal! We should create a project just for promoting the image and the use of the Steem Blockchain.
I would be the first for delegating SP in favor of such initiative.

I wish some other website would take steemit's place as the main steem frontend site (coung-steeve-coung) - this would help people to understand that steemit is just a "viewer" or steem blockchain. @steemmonsters is probably doing good job at showing people, that steem is not just for content creators.

I know what you mean and I like the idea, but I believe it's somewhat Steemit's responsibility to redirect attention from Steemit to other dApps. Since Steemit is pretty much what most users see when they google about Steem.

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

Definitely! It's sad that Steem seems to be associated with Steemit ONLY.(above)

Agree 100% - it is time to work on the image of Steem!
We have a world, a Steemiverse, full of most amazing projects to offer!!!!

Been thinking about this for a while. Not just with the branding issue, but with on-boarding issue as well.

So far, I've brought 3 people on to Steem over the last month or two. I was careful to temper their expectations in regards to payouts and upvotes, etc. I focused more on the neat tech side, and awesome community aspect.

But, and maybe this is just me being a bad explainer, it takes a little while for things to "click" with new users. That "ah-ha!" moment where they finally feel comfortable & confident enough to embrace Steem like they do with other sites. It takes a while.

This is to be somewhat expected, for sure, since we're dealing with new & innovative technology, but still...

I've been thinking quite hard about the psychology that goes into making people feel proud to be on specific sites & applications. Using the proper wording to describe the complex terminology that Steem uses [ why is this site so obsessed with fish 🐋 ], things like that.

I hope to be able to showcase what I've been working on by December. A true Christmas miracle == at least 100 new Steemians, eager to engage with the rest of us.

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An infographic similar to the picture up top but with Steem on the center and all the main projects surrounding it for starters like dtube, musing, Steem Monsters and others. Mostly to easily show all the projects running on steem.

Just add a homepage for steemit.com and introduce STEEM
I just noticed finally, they changed steem.io
Is it a difficult job?

Makes sense a lot.

There’s bad information out there from reputable sources that we should be effectively lobbying to correct as well. I’m not at all happy with the description found on Coinbase currently!


C82F6139-890F-4C55-A11E-B1447A41F935.jpeg

I am here on Steemit for a year and a half and I can't still find my way in it.

To illustrate that I going to propose something that may already exist somewhere in the "steem-o-sphere":

What I lack is a forum-like part of Steemit where you can easily navigate through the different threads, with a classic moderation, with easy to understand subdivisions and categories.
Like:

  • Steemit: latest improvements
  • Steemit: suggestions
  • Steemit: report abuse
  • Steemit: Steemit for Dummies
  • Steemit: witnesses
  • ...

Now al this information is spread around over a myriad of posts, you are supposed to join "discord channels" and "telegram groups" to create a "community" etc. while these damn things should all be incorporated here on Steemit in a easy to find way.

For the dinosaurs among us, remember good ole "Geocities"? Would be nice if we could create something like the updated version of this here on Steemit, Steem, Steam, or whatever the right name is.

Maybe we should get rid of "Steem" all together as there already is something like

@pagandance I myself as a new user that is new to blockchain in general, and not a tech person,i feel I represent what this place is seeking, in terms of mass appeal aka as a successful venture.

That is a steemian that is patient,
capable,and willing to be onboard for this innovative platform.Currently, that's a full-time job, and a big ask,like huge. It's going to be difficult to get your average human being to invest any heart and soul into into this place or even begin to navigate the sea of disconnected fragmented nearly impossible to digest lingo. That being said I appreciate your honesty and approach, and would add a lingo section to explain the terminology both germaine to steemian life as well as blockchain technology in general. Take the approach of being a nursery for plankton, not a perfect storm tpyphoon where new plankton don't even see themselves as Minnow food. The investors, devs, etc involved here are so enmeshed with their ecosystem they can't possibly remove themselves from it. Hence, the pervasive circle jerks or feel of a lonely gamer sitting in a dark basement that is the essence of the entire ecosystem, agree with me or not my opinion is guaranteed to be echoed by any current or future new users as things are.

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If you're not a techie, then this Steem(it) thingie has an incredible steep learning curve.

For a comparison, when I upload a video on Youtube that I shot handheld and thus has lots of shakiness and movements, I use the Youtube "stabiliser" function in stead of using a video editing program, because I find these to cumbersome to use.

A platform that wants to attract and retain people should make things easier and not more difficult, or all what you get left is a few mancave nerds chatting with each other tinkering on the latest improvement and discussing its possible drawbacks, while the big world outside moves on.

Precisely my sentiments. I comment on this often, as I am interested in being a part of this process, but my opinions generally, no strike that, always fall on deaf ears, because why would anyone that's looking to improve UX care about the opinion of a user, (sarcasm) I also realize full well it can come off a bit disrespectful to voice out about something I didn't develop,but that's exactly the nature of beta isn't it, sometimes I feel this is forgotten here, and people take shit way to personally.

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One idea I had is for producing some simple infographics and videos on the topic. But when talking about the STEEM blockchain, do NOT give SteemIt any special attention. Just mention it along with all of the other great STEEM projects, like D.Tube, Vimm. SteemPeak, Busy.org, etc. In fact, just treat it as something that is equal in base design as Busy or SteemPeak.

The other thing that would help is maybe have a very simple icon made that links back to some site about Steem, though I don't know which would be the best to link to. But the icon would have the STEEM logo and the words "Part Of The STEEM Network", or something like this:
STEEM LOGO.png

In this way, sites using and utilizing the STEEM blockchain can show that they are using it, while differentiating the fact that it's NOT SteemIt. This is especially important that SteemIt place this logo front and center on the site to make it clear that they use the STEEM blockchain, not that they are the STEEM blockchain.

There's other issues besides this though. The official Wikipedia entry for "STEEM" links to SteemIt, not Steem, and seems to offer that's there's no difference between the two.

The STEEM community can tackle this issue in multiple ways, and I honestly think we should all do our honest part to try and promote the STEEM blockchain proper, instead of just SteemIt. Heck, SteemIt isn't the top dog anymore for using the STEEM blockchain. I'd say that award goes to either @SteemPeak or Busy.org win that award! (SteemPeak is what I use and adore!) If developers and users of the STEEM blockchain take steps to always give credit to the STEEM Blockchain instead of SteemIt the blogging/social media site, then we could help to slowly clear up these confusions.

I like it ^

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

It's not much but at least it's something...
20181104_124015.jpg

Hey @therealwolf, I am desperately trying to make a Wikipedia page for the Steem blockchain and cryptocurrency, to help with the fact that any search for Steem on Wiki pulls up SteemIt instead. Is there any way you or some of the other devs, or just some people who are knowledgeable about Steem, could either help answer some questions, or suggest what you want in the Wiki article? Like, for example, is Steem Delegated Proof-of-Stake, like I understood it was, or "subjective proof-of-work" like the white paper states?

What I can also do is just get a framework for the wiki page done, then post a link here so others in the community can also contribute to developing the page. Cause once the main Steem page is done, the page for SteemIt will need to be redone, as it's a jumbled mess of stuff about Steem and SteemIt, offering effectively no differentiation between the two. The bottom template where other cryptocurrencies are listed will also need to be fixed, as it: incorrectly links to SteemIt when clinking on the "Steem" link, it has Steem under proof-of-work instead of Proof-of-Stake (unless this is correct and I'm wrong), and it has Steem under SHA-256 hashing along with BTC which I'm not sure is correct either.

Screen Shot 20181106 at 2.42.26 AM.png

In any case, feedback (and knowledge contributions too!) from some developers and from the community at large would be a huge help! Creating and updating a wiki page specifically for Steem, instead of the current system where only SteemIt is mentioned, would be greatly beneficial for helping to solve the Steem image problem. #SteemWiki

we're not quite at the point where we want to market, but in a few months we'll start marketing and trying to pull in others to Steem Monsters.

There's always little things that pop up in my head but nothing that I think would be the "fix" to improve steemit further. What steemit needs is an external marketing system to get people into the system. I also think there are some ways to stimulate activity through a better rewards system.

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Noted the difference between steemit and steem 2 months after I joined here a d started to quote "Steem" as much as I could. But folks around me just associated the very project to "Steemit" for its prominent existence. We need more time.

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Steemit has more than enough resources to promote both.
It just looks like that there's no interest in doing that.
Or there are some other plans we don't know about.

this looks good:

Screenshot_2018-11-05-13-01-16.png

I feel like it's time steemit.com DID become a directory of all the ecosystem sites, a site with platform wide site directory, a wallet access at most, in terms of chain connection, and marketing stuff. maybe the market and wallet can stay there, behind login, the rest, is a public search directory of steem sites. that's my vision for it

You are right @therealwolf. Honestly speaking that's not even the official logo of Steem Blockchain now! It has been changed to this without any official announcement from Steemit Inc.

As harsh it may sound but current marketing sucks. They have gone very active on Twitter in the recent past but that's just not enough. They need an army of people who can promote our beloved blockchain on various social media websites with different angles.

We can create posts and post them on the most popular sites out there.

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Actually I used to use the words STEEM and Steemit interchangeably when talking about it casually, I think I should fix that. I know the difference.

Hello and on first sorry for my bad english, i think the reason because steem is not identify for all people Is because they dont see it on traditional social media (Facebook, Twitter, instagram) o not enogth , i feel if all steemians with influense or not share in thats tradicional social media our works or posts we can get more impact to the people that dont know the steem or the plataform.

We can use steemshares Is a good dapp for this objetive.


Finally i voted you for witness, for proxy not beacuse i dont know whats Is that, see you good luck!!!

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I think we all agree, but the solution isn't obvious. I find myself trying to explain the difference more often than not – but people have a hard time wrapping their heads around it – especially newbies. Curious to see what ideas might come up in response to this post. I'll be watching with passive curiosity.

drops-90(crop).jpg

hi sorry for my english i use the translator the problem of @steemprojects is also he is not up to date,
@steemsnake for example in new and more active for a long time

"They still think Steem simply equals Steemit.com."

You nailed it !!!!!

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  ·  6 years ago (edited)

its true.. steem is hard to grasp!
I have just written my first post to try to help others understand it all!
https://steemit.com/steem/@eco-alex/steem-it-for-dummies-a-non-technical-guide

ill be writing more as there is WAY too much to say in just one post but this is a nice start!

I have... a crazy good idea (or more) that everyone who knows agrees is amazing, butttt it's so hard to get the devs to make it happen. We (steemSTEM) are teaming up with other groups but we may need some more help for such expansive stuff.

If all goes well, it can guarantee a traffic increase around the world, if nothing else (though more would come from it, I suspect). As you can tell, I'm fairly excited about it