So, if you were on facebook yesterday afternoon, or evening you may have seen this post pop up on your facebook feed.
For those of you who are less than newbies to steemit (I mean I’m a steemit newbie) I’m here to tell you why you need to get on the gravy boat!
The short answer is because you are my friends and I love (or at least kinda like) you.
Here's the long answer
If you haven't heard of steemit already then you're probably not a nerd! Congratulations!
If everybody was more familiar with Reddit it would be easier to compare it to that, but since the one thing everybody is familiar with is facebook we'll go with that. Facebook is a networking site as you know. Well so is steemit. Or at least it will be.
By now everybody’s been aboard facebook for a while and despite the fact that the ship is sinking we all still use it and scroll through our feeds trying to shut off our brains to whatever it is facebook is feeding you on your feed.
I want you to close your eyes for a second and try to remember something for me. Unless you joined facebook in more recent years (I joined back in 2009) you might remember facebook being a little different to what it is now. Seriously close your eyes and try to remember!!
Here’s how I remember it:
I was in university when I joined. At that time people were moving from Bebo (remember bebo awwww nostalgia!!) and it was regarded as a great new way to stay in touch with friends old and new. And it can still be used that way. But do you use it that way?! Do you really?
I challenge you right now to go to your facebook page (not the homepage - your page), scroll down a little and when you see the “Recent” button appear at the top (next to your name and “Timeline”) I want you to click on Recent and change it to around 5 years ago (try to go as early as you remember joining).
Now take a look at the stuff on your facebook page. Apart from the photos of you and your friends which has remained a consistent part of facebook what else do you see that you haven’t seen in a while?
Here’s what I see:
This look familiar? We used to talk to each other through facebook. Oh but of course we still do with the messenger… But when was the last time you texted your old school friends you’ve been “facebook friends” with for years? I mean it’s great to have the private messenger but what was good about public messages was that they invited mutual friends into the conversation.
I remember when facebook was a great way to keep up with class mates in college!
21 comments … but now we have groups right? So that’s inclusive isn’t it?...
Remember when you could ask a question on facebook and somebody would answer?
Ok so maybe you do still use facebook this way and maybe I’m wrong. This is what I’m seeing. This is how I used to use it on a regular basis. So why don't many of us use it this way anymore?
Well when I first joined facebook I was quite excited by the connection everybody seemed to be feeling when everybody got on board. I even wrote my thesis on Privacy, Democracy and Social Networking in Contemporary Digital Media.
So why are we not feeling connected anymore?
Well here’s what’s showing at the top of my facebook feed today.
Now I’m not trying to say there’s anything wrong with liking or sharing these posts. And I’m not going to lie I only had to scroll a little farther to find some pictures of friends and even a status asking a question (which hasn’t yet been answered).
My point is that the posts above belong to pages not people. This is what fills my feed and makes me feel disconnected and what makes it worse is other users who must feel the same no longer bother posting a status and just use facebook for scrolling and resharing page content.
Face it! Facebook has lost what we had thought was its purpose.
Now I’m not saying that steemit is going to be amazing and it’s resolving all the problems we now have with facebook. Though that's what a lot of people on steemit are saying I have no idea what steemit will be like because steemit is still really really new.
You could wait, like you did with facebook, until everybody else around you seems to be on it and then join up and see what all the hype is about.
OR
You could get in early while the site is still developing and isn’t very user friendly and doesn’t network you with your friends the way it should and has all sorts of other problems.
I didn’t sell that second option very well… Let me try that again…
There’s a concept known to most people who have joined steemit already.
It’s about the whales, dolphins and minnows. I will probably go into further detail on this concept in another post. For now all you need to know is as a newbie you are a minnow (or a tadpole in other words). You’re just a tiny fish that is going unnoticed and that’s ok because everybody else you interact with is most likely as little as you. And while you can't make waves on your own, with the help of all the other minnows you can have an impact.
Well, the dolphins have been around for a while now. The dolphins were just like you once. They started out as a minnow but with time and lots of interaction with the networking platform they have built up what’s known as steem. Again this is a concept too complicated to go into on this post. But trust me when I say it is good to build steem. So these dolphins are already way ahead of us minnows.
Well this is where it gets interesting.
That money I made from my introduction post?
Where do you think it came from?
First of all my post was a little bit popular. I mean just under 200 people have voted it up so far. But most of those people were minnows who donate less than a cent! Which I’m still grateful for because this is building steem and making my post more visible to others on steemit.
In short…
A whale has a lot of steem power. They have likely been around since the beginning of the website and invested a lot of money in its development if they are not a developer themselves. A vote from a whale is big. While a dolphin can give you a generous 5c or $10 maybe, a whale can sometimes give you a thousand dollars with their vote! I was lucky to get noticed by 
So what am I getting at here?
Well, if you’re going to join steemit - which judging by how fast the community is growing, eventually YOU ARE - it’s better to get in early. Remember those lucky dolphins were once minnows.
Although I can’t explain why in this post, people who join late are going to feel like they arrived at the party after everybody had already eaten the icing off the birthday cake!
If you arrive early though you can grab a taste of that icing and then leave! You don't have to hang around and play with the website. Your steem will grow even if you do NOTHING !! (but faster if you interact)
> Well it costs $10…
> WHAT? YOU EXPECT US TO PAY?
> Actually no, they pay you! You get $10 worth of steem when you join!
> Does this then go towards the things you vote on?
> Nope!
Now this is where the “where does the money come from” question comes in which if you haven’t heard of cryptocurrency is going to take a while to explain, so that will be in another post this week! Not tomorrow though! Tomorrow I will be posting about how to actually use steemit to write a post and hopefully if you’re lucky (and it’s a lotto so don’t be discouraged if it takes some time) catch a whale!
Oh and here’s the all important link for signing up!
http://steemit.com/?r=beanz
Do what they say when they tell you to mind your new password!
That password is key to your free $10 which you will notice gradually growing in your steemit wallet!!
