State of Steemit: Big changes in Steemit recently!
Hello Steemians!
May has been a HUGE month for Steem and Steemit.com, but June will be an even bigger one! So many things are finally coming together all at once. The Steemit marketing plan is going forward as hoped, with some great new developments.
First, Steem is finally breaking into the public consciousness. We’re experiencing explosive growth.
Second, after a great deal of work, onboarding is finally coming together. We get closer to a globally scalable solution every day.
Third, after a great deal of due diligence, we can confirm that the first crowdsourced project will be publicly backed this month.
Let’s Talk About Growth
We have been experiencing a massive increase in user growth with over 10,000 new accounts last week alone.
We’ve also been excited to welcome new influencers… LOTS of them. Here’s just a few new influencers we hope you will all welcome to the Steemit community:
@theywillkillyou (843k subscribers)
@rerez (124k subs)
@jerrybanfield (168k subs)
And this is just the beginning, more have been joining steemit.com in ever increasing numbers. Word is certainly getting out!
Another Steem Milestone: Most Transactions in the WORLD!
We’re also excited to announce that, due to this spectacular growth, the Steem Blockchain has now processed 450,000 transactions in the last 24 hours -- more transactions than any other blockchain on Earth!
We are officially number 1!
Onboarding Improvements: Becoming More Scalable
One of our biggest priorities for Steemit marketing has been making the onboarding scaleable. We are happy to share that the onboarding process has improved by leaps and bounds thanks to the unceasing and spectacular efforts of our industry-leading team of developers.
Thanks to their hard work we have been able to mitigate one of the bottlenecks in the sign up process: the initial Steem Power required for new users to post to the Steem Blockchain. Previously, Steemit Inc had to give Steem Power to all new users. This was getting really expensive. That system created an additional financial burden for developers that limited their ability to onboard new users and encouraged bad actors to attempt to game the system in order to receive free Steem Power.
Account Creation With Delegated Steem Power
To tackle this challenge, we’ve added the ability to create accounts using delegated Steem Power. Now any developer can effectively loan Steem Power to new users instead of giving it to them permanently. This lets all developers create new accounts on the Steem blockchain at a much lower cost, while cutting the incentives for people to make fake accounts. And this is just the beginning. We are currently working on improvements to further reduce the cost of onboarding new users and will be sharing those with you in the coming weeks.
These changes don’t just benefit Steemit Inc; they benefit all current and future Steem developers. Anyone with a product on the Steem blockchain will be able to handle and scale their own account creation. It’s a huge step forward for Steem scalability.
The 1st Crowdsourced Project
We’re keeping it quiet for now, but we can confirm that the first crowdsourced proposal will be backed and funded publicly this month. We spent a lot of time doing due diligence, so we’re happy to set the tone and launch support for this trailblazer of a proposal!
Conclusion
We are very happy with how the platform is progressing and have many more exciting announcements coming in the future, so stay tuned.
Team Steemit
I'm excited about The 1st Crowdsourced Project
I'm very pleased to read this great report.
This makes my confidence to this project even bigger. Very soon I may quit my present job, and devote my full time to blogging here.
In case someone wants to hear some time to time insights from an old (63) IT & crypto addicted man = it's easy. Just...follow me :)
Full time blogging over your job? Or just returning and then blogging ? :) Or will you actually be replacing you're income?
Sounds awesome!
i am intrigued :)
following you
I haven't been on a social network really. I joined Facebook about 10 yrs ago. Then closed my account 1 year later. I now have an Android phone with internet so I upgraded from a phone that had no internet package. I find I mostly spend time on Steemit when I search the web now. My daughter use to say to me you need to get on board . Now she is happy with me trying to be learning this Android. Plus she ask me what's Steemit? So I turned it around & said you better get on board & join
HAHA, awesome Chris! I love hearing that. I know exactly what you mean. I hated the other social networks until I found Steemit. It's a totally different thing. Welcome to our community!
I'm excited about where we've come and where we're going. You know I'm a huge fan, but maybe we could tone down the "We're number 1!" language a bit? The last thing the blockchain space needs right now is more tribalism and competition over cooperation. Sounds like the steem blockchain was number one over the past 24 hours, which is certainly something to celebrate, but it also means we have no need for grandiose claims about the being the best on the planet since the data speaks for itself.
Then again, I'm not a marketer so maybe people need to see this stuff to realize the cool things going on here.
Any chance you could start putting out a developer blog? There are a lot here who would love to read regular updates from the devs. Also a status page for the steemit.com front end would be great as well.
Thanks!
Good suggestions! It's lovely that we're doing well, but let's try to keep our eye on the ball and continue with strong organic growth rather than too much over the top partying. Most of us know what comes after a huge party... a nasty hangover and cleanup.
Reminds me of something a friend in the marketing biz once told me: "When you are GREAT, you don't need to tell people. People tell YOU."
I think it needs to be said that sometimes the marketing language can be overly agressive, even as the actual spreading and onboarding is done largely by regular members. It doesn't always look that good, if I were to be honest.
I absolutely agree, already too many hallelujah posts here on Steemit, and it'll not help when also Steemit INC start doing that. Fact is that we have a basic service that runs quite ok. Other facts are that we miss many basic things like integrated HELP pages, HELP channel, Service Knowledge Base, Notice Board, Discussion Boards (like the developers blog you mentioned), Community Services, Tools for Users to help on making their post visible and so on. To my this are basic necessities to keep many of the (new) Steemians active.
Maybe also the value of Steem had to do something with the number of new signups, as well as the number of returning users. But we need to be careful, Cryptospace looks to be in a bubble on the exchanges IMHO. And what will happen when this bursts? We absolutely need a solid service with the right set of features as well as good support channels.
As one of the new users who have joined in the last month, I strongly support your position. Each of the basics you mention would be found helpful by me.
I have made several posts and devoted considerable time to learning how to post here, as well as researching the topics, and received relatively little financial reward, particularly in view of the fact that one author on Steemit has an average reward per post in excess of 170,000.
Another fact this particular datum suggests is that there may be systemic inequities in Steemit. I don't wish to appear to be bad-mouthing those that are achieving great results from their posts, but do want to point out that this amazing dichotomy in results does suggest that there are means of profiting from Steemit that do not derive from the actual value of posts.
I, as a new user, may simply not understand how certain posts deliver value, and it certainly is true that I lack such a nuanced understanding (also, I am not primarily motivated by remuneration, so do not post so as to maximize financial reward), but I don't feel it is unreasonable to find such a gigantic divergence in post rewards evidentiary of potential abuse of the reward system of Steemit.
Please understand I am not making an accusation, rather I am pointing to evidence that personally I do not have to requisite knowledge to dismiss, or otherwise explain, so am openly bringing up the topic so that I might attain that understanding, as well as giving those with that understanding an opportunity to fix any problem that might actually exist.
Thanks!
The extreme short tail of authors and articles that get a lot of the rewards has in my view to do with level follow the level above them and maybe their own, but not the levels below them. In the pyramid of SP holders, there are a few in the top of the pyramid with lot of value to their votes; The lower you get in the pyramid the lower the SP levels of the users. After being on Steemit for more than 5 months and more than 250 posts and 3.000 comments, I have some higher SP holders following me, but although I interact with a lot of different users, including the higher SP holders, I rarely get the higher SP holder to start following me. Sometimes I'm helped by one or more of my higher SP holders when they vote early what result in a higher ranking in the HOT channel which generally gives me a bit more votes. I also think that a lot of users vote for the posts with a high rewards on it, thinking it will bring them more rewards. The opposite is true though. Better not to vote for the high rewarded posts, since most of the curation rewards goes to the first couple of voters, not to the last, they get (almost) nothing. The voting curve is by far from linear.
It seems that this system may be easy to decry by less financially able, and far more numerous, users.
I personally recommend that Steemit admins and policy influencers closely and carefully examine the potential to disrupt the community that perceived unfairness and appearance of corruption, particularly from the point of view of users, desirous of remuneration, and discovering, as i have, the wide divergence between posts so advantaged and their own.
There is an obvious potential for unrest and dissatisfaction, and it may be that action now to avoid such unrest could benefit Steemit in the long run.
I am trying very hard to ensure it is clear I am not making such complaints, and do actually mean the words I am using, such as 'appearance'. This may be an issue that provokes defensive responses, and I am not attacking any person. I intend to elicit consideration and thought about potential problems for Steemit, I hope that is clear.
Thanks for you informative response!
I wrote many times similar things you mention. Things like "appearance of corruption" cannot be true since everyone is allowed to do whatever the users likes to do. However, when regarding fairness that is required to grow Steemit whilst keeping the small SP holders onboard, that is a different topic. I do worry about that as well. Now the Steem price is up (in a bubble I think, but still) more users are getting some 10s cents to some dollars on a post, but compared to that there are some posts around now getting 5k-10k$. It seems to be the imbalance we have in the real world, only a few getting the most of the available rewards. But who's "fault" it is, that is the question. Only thorough analyses of the data can reveal maybe a little bit, but again, everyone is allowed to do whatever they want and when high SP holders do not like to follow users lower in the pyramid, and when low SP holders are all over the high SP holders to try to get there votes, and high SP holders getting quite a bit of votes from high SP holders, that is all very legit. But this all maybe unfair indeed. We have to see over time what will happen. In the next software upgrade the distribution of some of the rewards will be less focussed to the high SP holders benefiting the lower SP holders
I believe such imbalance as is presently observed on Steemit will either be fixed, or drive people to another platform. That this will soon be addressed is a very good thing for Steemit.
Thanks for your substantive reply!
Some of it will be addressed, but that does not change the fact that high SP holders are in the follow list of high SP holders and they vote for each other, like being on the same level in the pyramid. I never analysed things, but most of the high SP holders are day one users, so logically they form their community and the larger the community gets the more difficult will it get to become part of their community. It is like with you and your friends, the more you have to less change for someone else to become part of your friends group. The new high SP holders I think also get direct attention by the existing large SP holders, they have something in common, namely high SP. Somehow I think like in real life kind stick to kind in terms of value and money. That can never be solved by Steemit Inc or the community, that will be like it is, like in real life, when we do not want government to control eg size of company, income of C-level or something, than they go out of hand like in the USA, 1 person earning 2 Billion a year, and millions who cannot buy their groceries.
What this imbalance will do for Steemit, that is the question. I have my doom scenarios as well, but it may also be little less doom. I think being on Steemit should not be about money to start with, since when that is the only reason to be here, then you will quickly leave the platform. Look at my posts and rewards, some are ok for the time spend, but most of them gives me rewards I could not even pay a quarter cup of coffee from. And then I'm not talking about the time I spend on Steemit.
Time will tell what will happen with Steemit. Recently a lot of new users came to the platform, also some old users started becoming active again. I think that is because of the potential rewards due to Steem price being far up by now. How ling this will take, and how many will drop the ball, only time will tell.
Positive affirmations?
Great reminder, Luke. I agree basically. If this is only inside the community, then that's fine. But we have to consider how this is perceived outside the community. After all, all posts are open to the public.
I've been trying to invite people since I joined 3-4 days ago.
We all deserve a:
Absolutely. None of this growth would have been possible without our amazing users. 1000%
How can I resteem BRAVOCADO ?
Me like !
He does have his own post here although I wrote a few things there too.
nice thanks
You're welcome!
That's amazing. Great News. I'm glad to see this place taking off!
@steemitblog :) thank you for sharing this awesome News . I also sent a few people our way :) def worth spreading the word in my opinion .
GO STEEMIT !!!!!! :))
We're seeing incredible growth. We just broke into the top 3,000 sites in the US and top 2,000 in South Korea!
China is dragging down our global rank, but considering we've moved up 20,000 spots in China in the last 5 days, we have got to be one of the fastest-growing websites there.
Let's drop those zeros soon!! :D
The recent upmove is definitely benefiting so many people who are committed. I join the party a little bit late but i am very confident this will eventually work for me and the others as well. #stay positive.
Steemit is a great and powerful platform, it is expected price will keep rising.. I am a newbie here and I am happy to see how steemit is progressing, everyone makes contribution to make steelit better :)