Why Steem defies the incentives that rule social media
Earlier this week a news story started circulating about Twitter creating some kind of Snapchat Stories clone, and that got me thinking--why is this happening?
My hypothesis is that vertical user-generated is a great vehicle for video advertising. For users, vertical videos from your friends, on mobile, is a very compelling media form. We know this because of the rapid user growth seen in Snapchat's first few years and Instagram Stories' incredible user growth as well.
But we also know that video commands the highest CPMs, a term used in the advertising industry to gauge the price of an ad. And if you have users in an environment where they're consuming vertical video linearly, there's an opportunity to insert a full-screen video ad without significant user drop-off.
This synergy between users and advertisers is right where mainstream social media services want to be. They sell advertising, and right now that advertising (in the feeds of Twitter and Facebook) is great for conversion--getting someone to buy something--but not really great for brand advertising (think Nike or Coke).
Steem is so fascinating to me because it creates an environment a whole new set of incentives. If you create something that a lot of people find useful or generates a big discussion, you and your audience will be rewarded. A good example of a media form being devalued by the internet is photography. There are so few ways to make money doing photography, and yet it's everywhere. Even people who enjoy photography don't have effective ways to support good photographers. On Steemit, a community of photo enthusiasts can have a community that rewards high quality work and discussion.
So while the rest of social media is collapsing in on vertical video, Steemit is expanding outward into new niches and more defined products. This will in turn reward users for contributing to narrow content categories they actually like instead of trying compete with the platform at large, which is what we've seen on YouTube. For example, on YouTube there's no real reward for fostering a New York City vlogging community. On Steem that could totally work.
Camera: Panasonic G7
Microphone: Rode VideoMicro
Wide-Angle Adapter: Sony VCL-HG0758
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interesting video. i've been watching engadget for awhile now but never heard any insight like this from someone who's working there.
i never liked cpm driven platforms. it's a murky pathway that will always lead you to an ad. it's a lose/lose situation for everybody, except the greedy platform owners themselves. every content is built around ads so nothing feels genuine. but i'm guessing steemit will eventually be in a similar position once it gets big enough.
one thing i love about steem is that it supports blogs and videos AND all sorts of other things. one of my favorites is utopian-io which is built on top of steem that rewards open-source development. it's not a household name, but developers now have a reward system for sharing code. so it's neither writings nor videos. photography you mentioned is another great example too.
i don't understand where the steem reward pool is really coming from, but for now i'm finding joy in learning about steem and other forms of crypto. being rewarded directly, on a daily basis, with all the transparency, it's so exciting to watch steemit at this point.
It is! And while I do think that steem / steemit will encounter long-term design issues just like facebook is right now, I don't think they'll be the same (which, thank goodness haha)
great video evan, super detailed and insightful
Very insightful and informative. You're videos are really coherent, so keep em coming!
(p.s "I just said 'like' :S" lol, I wouldn't worry - it's Steemit's fault for making them thumbs!)
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