When I first started blogging I took the most obvious channel known to me. I do love Google, so my first blogs went online with blogger. Being new in this blog adventure, blogger was a good platform for me to get started. Though my first objective is off course to put enjoyable content online I also started reading about how blogs can help bring some coin in one's pocket. Most articles however talked about advertising blogs or to write content for brands so they would pay an amount if a number of likes are reached. As my content doesn’t fit the commercial profile and I didn’t want to put my articles full with banners or other spam these options were not good for me. So I stayed blogging blogger.
Untill...
As a Google lover I am always looking out for information, new ideas, new possibilities and considerations. So it also was with blogging, always looking out for new ways to distribute my content online. I even tried fixing up a site once or twice, but that takes often more time than the writing itself. And then suddenly I found Yoors. Intrigued I was when I read this platform would pay out it’s members for all it’s contributions.
Yoors is a platform where all members can post their blog content and get payed by it’s popularity. The currency that is used goes by the name of Yoors points. Everytime a blog gets viewed the counter goes up and when it reaches certain milestones the writer is rewarded with this amount in YP.
There is also a support and upvoting system in which others can support your blog with their YP. Everytime a person invests in your blog you get rewarded with 10% of the invested amount. The investor on his turn can get his investment doubled if others invest in the blog after him. If you share a link to someone else’s blog on Yoors you get rewarded with support views. Here also a counter with milestones is applied.
In the beginning you would also get points for posting content and commenting, this is sadly no longer true. As the Yoors platform does require registration, getting people to join trough your blog is also something that is rewarded with YP.
Once you reach an amount of 10.000 YP you can start asking for pay out in Euro’s, which is the common currency is most European countries. Every 1000 YP equals 1 Euro, so when you reach 10.000, you will get payed 10 EURO.
As earning point on Yoors diminished I started wondering if there would be other platforms that use the same monetizing structure. Not that earning money out of blogs isn't the goal, but it sure keeps one motivated.
When it comes to social networking Minds is like the anti-Facebook. It gives you the power to speak totally free, or as they say: speak your mind. You can upload all kinds of content very easy and without getting troubled by censorships. And as the code is open and owned by a friendly community instead of a corporation it is more likely to be a people serving platform.
Minds rewards its users and contributors with tokens. These tokens can be given for all kinds of contributions on the platform. Everything has its own little score and all those little bits are put together at the end of the day.
This is then your contribution score which is used to calculate the percentage you have spend on the platform in comparison to everyone else that day. This percentage is then payed out in tokens.
What is also a really nice feature on Minds is that you can set conditions to who can read your blog. You can decide a blog to be open for the public or just for registered users. And if you feel you have really valuable or sensitive information you may even decide to put it behind a paywall so that others have to pay a fee in tokens to read it.
By now, Minds is also on the blockchain. This means that the Minds tokens are not only useable inside the platform but also could be transferred to the outside. At this point however this is not happening. So unlike Yoors you can not exchange your tokens (yet) into a local currency.
Steemit has the same idea as Minds, but is a somewhat more developped system. It also rewards in points, called STEEM tokens. These are just like the tokens in Minds rewarded by how much actual time you spend on the platform. The difference here is that the rewards are split between those who create the content, being the authors, and those who upvote the content, being the curators. Next to that there is also a system that measures the amount of influence a user has on the platform. This is called Steem Power and is somewhat like status people achieve on forums. The more Steem Power one has, the more his or her contribution is valued by others.
In the end STEEM is, unlike Minds token, transferable to other kinds of cryptocurrency and eventually to US Dollars or any other local currency. So in the end if your blogging goes well, I guess you might just get some real money from it.
For now, Yoors is the most interesting platform for me. It is easy to use, has a nice community and a straight forward pay out system. I have been on Minds for some time now as a passive member, but I don’t really get the vibe. It feels as if not much happens, or maybe I just don’t see it yet. Steemit is new to me, so I should still try that one out.
I shall place this blog on all three platforms and see how it get’s received and followed up. After that I will evaluate for myself and maybe come back to you with some other thoughts and results on the matter.
For those who are of the opinion that blogging shouldn’t be rewarded I must say I very disagree. The sharing of information is a privilege, but it is no different that an author writing a book or a columnist writing down their stories and opinions in different newspapers. These people get paid as well for it is their job. So why not reward a blogger for doing the same thing. As I said before, the content matters most, but the reward does help to keep one motivated.
