RE: One of my favorite aspects of Steemit.com...
The greatest thing for me is that this represents a return to "social blogging," which was very popular around 2001-08... unfortunately, Facebook tore that down by stripping the "social" aspect... while blogging took a turn more towards "serious desktop publishing" with most of the "social" parts gone.
I was never very happy with that development... nor were a few million of my peers. Sure, Facebook was "just OK" but a useless place for creative expression and writing. Sure, I never stopped blogging (and have several successful niche blogs), but I missed the active interaction of 30-50 comments carrying on a conversation.
So, for me, that's the best thing about Steemit... and I am starting to contact "old friends" and selling them on the idea of Steemit though precisely that angle.
That's fantastic! Maybe there are others out there besides your group of friends who are feeling exactly they way you are... perhaps that can be a selling point?
It does seem hard to attract new users without them being almost entirely interested in the money making aspect of steemit... which creates disappoint for them if they don't start earning decent money right away...
I could share more on the attraction of new users of the "right" kind than could possibly fit here... but I strongly feel the approach has to be "community" and "content creation" rather than "money." You can bring people in with the money angle, but it creates no lasting value...
Xanga was the most popular social blogging site, and it peaked around 27 million users before there was MySpace and Facebook. Diary-X was smaller, but also had a dedicated following. It's a pretty good bet that 10% of those would at least look here, because they are sick to death of memes and pictures of people's dinner, and "tailored" content that limits what you get to see.
Only... right now, we need some more "social features" on Steemit (messaging, photo albums, video, maybe a crowdfunding utility, a Steem based peer-to-peer marketplace, communities, better sorting/presentation of content) in order to make the platform "stickier" to newcomers. If we HAVE those, the rewards can become more "coincidental."
Somebody send this to steemit.inc ;)
I have been considering turning this into post and "tag spamming" Ned, sneak and a few others... ;-)