RE: The Greatest Trick Steemit Ever Pulled Was Convincing The World It Didn't Exist
Hey Cg!
I'd never accuse you of spouting rubbish however I do still think it's still too early to predict Steem's demise. It's still less than a year old which is nothing in terms of startups or cryptos.
I think the July 2016 Steem price bubble, was in hindsight too much too soon. It no doubt caught everyone involved on the hop. The reality is the platform wasn't ready to absorb millions of users.
Remember the security hacks?
The crazy inflation?
The two year locked in Steem?
The unsophisticated voting practices/ reward disparity (which still exist)?
I wouldn't read too much into the price... it is neither the make or break of Steem long term... Cryptos get pumped everyday, Steem will be alright...
From what I've have seen, the lull in price, has allowed the focus to shift towards how to retain a critical mass of users. That will ultimately make or break Steemit. Remember thr July bubble brought disillusionment for a lot of new users who came on the hope of riches and got peanuts!
I agree marketing is key, however as important is a shit hot product that people can buy into once they get here.
Hey Nanzo, long time!
I think you're right about the fact that the platform may not have been ready to absorb millions of users. However there are two things I would say to that.
Firstly, I'd repeat what I said to @jrcornel above; is that Apple would not exist as a company, if they waited till they got stuff perfect before releasing it and marketing the hell out of it. They are able to do this, because they built up a dedicated following through "innovative" cough design and tech.
Steemit could easily have done the same, sure lots would have been disillusioned, however many more would (and have) ignored the glitches and sung Steemit's praises.
Secondly, I would say that hacks, and floods of new users should be in the plans, not preparing for success is as foolhardy as not preparing for failure.
We have a shit hot product, with a shit hot concept, it's time to tell everyone about it.
Cg
Facebook did not have millions of people leaving it in the early days. It only has that now with a userbase in the billions.
Whoops, replied to wrong comment..
The point is; with any new platform there will always be a flow of people coming and going, and I can guarantee you that without marketing, the going flow will always be bigger than the coming one.
Cg
The nature of a viral product is one which spreads based merely on the satisfaction of users and their desire to share it with others. Bitcoin did not have a marketing budget, and even Facebook did not either. Do you remember ads for Facebook? Probably not, we all joined because our friends were joining.
The difference there is that Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency and still took a couple of years before it could claim "viral" growth.
Facebook was the second mass-adopted social platform after Myspace which had millions of users. Facebook made the UI better and therefore it did not take long for those millions of users to switch to the new platform.
The difference now is, there are several mass-adopted social platforms, all fighting for attention. The new ones that gain attention, are the ones that use the "big 3" of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to the best of their advantage.
On top of that there is in-app advertising which was not around in the days of Facebook or Bitcoin. If it was, there can be little doubt that Facebook would have utilised the medium to spread its message.
Cg
Welcome :)