CAPTALISM #1: Will Steemit Become a Platform for 100,000 Micro Magazines?
Since July 23, the day I became a Steemer, I'm thinking all the time about the the present and future of Steemit. What is it and how will it evolve?
The Steemit Whitepaper is very clear in this point:
„Steem is an experiment designed to address challenges in the cryptocurrency and social media industries by combining the best aspects from both. Steem presents earning opportunities to content creators and internet readers in ways that have not existed within the social media industry.“ (p. 44.)
The reference in social media for Steemit is obviously Reddit. It is mentioned several times in the Whitepaper. Also Ned Scott, the CEO of Steemit.com, said in an interview with forklog that Steemit should become the better Reddit. He mentioned censorship problems at Facebook and Reddit and told, that they can be solved with blockchain. For the media it seems also clear, that Steemit is a „Reddit-like social network“.
Maybe it is, but maybe it could become something different.
Seth Godin about the Future of Media: Micro Magazines
One of the blogs I’m constantly reading for a very long time is written by Seth Godin, a marketing guru. In 2010 he wrote a post about „Micro magazines and the future of media“ where he stated, that classical magazines like Newsweek are too slow and too general, whereas the world is fast and specific. His solution: „micro magazines“:
„There’s room in the market for 100,000 profitable micro-magazines. Why not have one about Aruba, for example? If all the people who vacation in Aruba could read about the island in detail every month, read about restaurants, resorts and politics, for free, in an easy to share format… Multiply this by every destination, every interest group, every type of profession (how about a micro-magazine for ethnobiologists?)“
Godin gave some thoughts about the details of such micro magazines. The most important were: they are digital and enabling the audience (he called it 'tribe') to connect and share ideas in the magazine.
Let’s take a look at Steemit.com now.
Steemit as a Platform for Micro Magazines
Is Steemit to become the next Reddit? That’s possible, but there are alternatives as well. A look at the web design of Steemit and Reddit shows to me some very obvious differences:
- Reddit has a better designed comment section. It’s made for huge conversations. Single branches in the tree structure can be closed to get a better overview.
- Steemit on the other hand has a smarter comment system. It weights the comments by votes and reputation. And the more Steempower someone has, the more weight has his vote.
- Reddit has a very oldschool design. It’s not optimised for online reading of long texts and looks a little bit overcrowded.
- Steemit on the other hand has lots of white space and is optimized for online reading of long texts. The web design reminds more of Medium than of Reddit.
Medium.com: Looks like Steemit. But is without the Steem.
In other words: Steemit is much better fitted for longer articles than Reddit. It could be something like Medium, but with all the features of a social news platform. And powered by Steem, of course. This brings us back to the six year old idea of Seth Godin:
Could Steemit become a platform of several thousand micro magazines?
That’s possible. Because Steemit is optimized for article reading and could provide a very unique way for financing such niche magazines. Think of Facebook as plattform for the personal network, Reddit as platform for discussions of any kind and Steemit as platform for high quality niche articles. So maybe Steemit will become something that not yet exists: a social micro magazine platform.
There are already Micro Magazines on Steemit
The idea of branding my Steemit account @capitalism starting with this post as a micro magazine was inspired by some users that I'm following. They are already providing a kind of micro magazines. It’s @piedpiper, @bravenewcoin, @infovore (SteemMag) and @darknet (Steemit Crypto Mag). Their topic is mostly Steem and cryptocurrencies, because we Steemers are mostly still a bunch of nerdy early adopters. But with thousands of new Steemers new interests will come and more topics will be covered.
The SteemMag by @infovore: The first micro magazine on Steemit.
The BNC. Magazine by @bravenewcoin: Niche Content and branded thumbnails.
The Steemit Whitepaper compares Steemit with the free market. Sticking to this analogy we can spot now the appearance of the first professional corporations. Like the SteemMag and BNC. they use branding, provide quality goods and are improving themself continously. It's like in the 18th century. @Ned and @Dan just invented the Steem Engine and the Steemers are starting to use it for their content production.
Now it's time for you to start your own Steem powered micro magazine.
Wow, this is an amazing post. I agree with you, Steemit has enormous potential. I am following you since you wrote your first post, as i had the feeling you are destined for great things on Steemit, and you are nailing it.
Since i joined Steemit, i am so excited everyday to read new interesting articles. I have learned so much, in 30 days of Steemit, i have learned more than reading newspapers in the last 2 years. So Steemit is an incubator of great ideas, stories, people, pictures everything you could imagine.
The one thing facebook or other platforms are missing is the rewarding system. Of course every platform offers you a like button, but thats about it.
Great content has to be rewarded, like your article, which will give you a big payout i would assume (Your article is one of the best written articles i have read this week, how long did you need to write this one? )
So lets grow this baby with @Ned @Dan together and see where the journey will take us. I am so convinced that i powered up again yesterday. I am considering more powerups.
This time, i have the chance to participate truly with all other Steemians.
I used Skype when it only was Chat only, everybody asked me?? Why dont you use ICQ, and i told everybody ICQ is dead. I started using Google in their beta, i hated google from the beginning but i knew they will kill yahoo and Altavista i was using before google...
In 2007 the iphone was released. soon after the SimLock was introduced, the same day i booked a ticket and flew to the US and bought 39 Iphones, started unlocking them on the return flight.
So this time, i am proud to be a front runner, and to shape the future of Steemit with all of you. Has it been a risk to invest Cash into Steemit? maybe, but had i invested in Apple, Google or Skype, i would already be retired, so this time, maybe this time its our turn !!!
Lets go Steemit, lets go fellow Steemians, lets do this !
Thanks knozaki2015. After days of thinking about Steemit I am beginning to believe, that it will become something unique. Let's call it a social magazine or better a social magazine plattform. I'm sure, soon we will see on Steemit some well know authors (fiction and non-fiction), journalists, photographers. Everyone will have his own channel and his own tribe of followers. It's like the cutting out of the former middleman. A good journalist does not need a newspaper. He only needs Steemit for posting his article and Twitter so make it public. The same for authors. They can promote their new projects here, provide previews of there next books on Steemit. The possibilities are huge, if you think in this direction. - And your sooo right: Being an early adopter is awesome.
yes, i totally agree, but its not limited to magazines. everything could be hosted on Steemit.
The beauty is, its not limited to videos, or tweets or pictures. you are able to post anything you want on steemit.
If we can pay authors for their articles, well i am sure they could earn 10x the amount they would earning at an newspaper. lets say an author has something with the magnitude of Snowden etc. than you can be sure that will be huge payout.
You could use Steemit as a whistle blower platform, you could use it for webinars the options are unlimited.
I think your right, I also wrote about it that steem still hasn't found it's final form and it could be many things. It can be the next "blogger", "quora", "reddit" and "kickstrater".
I myself am finding it very easy just to blog every day and establish some sort of a following.
Now I'm following your posts. Your "Steecky Thoughts" are having the perfect 3 minute reading time. You maybe should brand your thumbnails. And now I'm numbering my posts as well. :-)
your right could be a good idea.
Good thoughts! You have just earned your 6th follower! :)
Thanks. Actually I thought I already have more followers. But anybody has to start small. :-) I follow you as well.
Media is constantly in flux and I think Steemit is a very interesting experiment. The great thing is we can have very content rich posts with embedded videos and leverage all the other services out there like YouTube.
Right. It's an experiment. That's what the Steemit Whitepaper says about Steemit. The cool thing about the cryptocurrency STEEM is, that it has a huge build-in think tank of Steemers. In several articles they suggest new features and business strategies for Steemit. And of course we at the same time evangelists for Steemit and Steem.
Great post! These are the kinds of possibilities we need to get people thinking about.
hey donkeypong!
great to see you here ;) i think you are one of the candidates, where a branding as a micromagazine makes total sense!
Thanks for the Steemit 101 ebook. Soon there will be much more bestselling authors on Steemit. I'm really sure about.
Nice, I'm gone read the part 2. Would be nice too bring together the writer with the visual artist (I'm the visual artist) to create a nice magazine. I don't have very good writing skills but I like to draw, illustrated, 3d or create images.
Excellent post!