I've read posts that start off with a diligence disclaimer that they were two weeks in the making. This is a good thing, people want to read quality content that someone spent many hours pouring over, formulating, writing, and editing a great post or idea. This post is 6 years in the making. So I want to make sure I really convey the points I want get across, even if I'm not the best blog writer out there, which are summarized as follows:
- Why Steem changes online advertising forever
- Why I'm superbly pleased no traditional banner or block ads have shown up on this site
- If you are in online Marketing and Advertising, you are watching Steem right now
The Right Now: you don't get paid for your useful work!
In the end of 2010 I became interested in a certain aspect of online advertising that I thought the internet age obviated, but did not exist at the time: peer-to-peer. Put simply, FB, twitter and the like offer a free service (the ability to be a member and the use of their site) while they collect all the advertising revenue and data about you to make money. They keep all of this money. I was interested in what I thought was the inevitability of the internet ecosystem supporting peer-to-peer advertising transactions, which I called the "microfinancialization of the internet," where users pay each other. In May of 2011, I first heard about Bitcoin. I knew immediately this was the path forward. It was no longer an "if," but "when." After all, I would like to get a product recommendation from a peer anyways. When they make a recommendation they don't get paid, despite the fact the vendor wants nothing more than to pay someone to make that very recommendation. It's crazy this doesn't exist yet!
Why Steem changes online advertising forever
It has been some time but blockchain technologies are beginning to really shake out. Steem comes along and allows peers to upvote (pay) other peers for their content utilizing a blockchain technology. These posts can be about anything. Let's say you buy a beautiful dining room table from a local word-working shop. You're so happy with you're new table you take a wonderful pic and put it on FB/Instagram for the world to see; 1,000 likes later you have .... nothing (but hey, you may be winning the popularity contest with your friends). Let's see who benefits from this activity though. Certainly the store, who has now reached out to 1,000 potential new customers thanks solely to you, and the site (FB/instagram) which may reach out to the shop for advertising revenue, or the shop may choose to 'boost' your post (pay money to advertise). But here's the $64,000 brick on the pyramid: FB/instagram/twitter are just a the middlemen. From the perspective of the shop, they would rather pay you directly. The problem is, you don't run a content aggregator site. A shop would need to coordinate with hundreds, or thousands, of "you's" in order to have the same access that the Social Media giants already have. Steem provides a mechanism for this access.
Most importantly however, and this is the most important point of this whole piece, is Steem provides for a mechanism by which peers can advertise to each other in a for-profit manner.
Current internet sites do not promote user-based economic activity or compensation. My premise is that user-side financial incentives provide stronger means for participation and growth when compared to simply offering free services (such as search or social networking, as is the case with google and facebook).
When I say "stronger means," that is the understatement of the year. What I'm actually saying is "orders of magnitude." This is why I am a Steem investor and a Steem addict.
Why I'm superbly pleased no traditional banner or block ads have shown up on this site
The thing is, with Steemit, it
so new you really haven't really seen this type of mechanism kick in yet. I think you will. I'm pleased the founders have chosen to keep the Steemit.com platform ad free for this reason alone. There's been posts suggesting having ads paid for the traditional way. and then have the revenue split among users via the vests and all of that, but no, IMO that is the wrong approach. That's trying to apply the old method to a new mechanism instead of vice-versa. Instead, let the adds organically grow inside the content itself. This is unprecedented, Wild West territory. Like I said above, I've been interested in peer-to-peer advertising since before I learned about Bitcoin (2011) and I think this mechanism is The One. I didn't have the ability to start my own blockchain-as-an-advertising service though, but rather have been searching for it's appearance (that I think is inevitable) ever since. As Morpheus said to NEO on the Nebuchadnezzar:
I believe that search is over. Don't welcome Steem to the Internet, instead welcome the New Internet to Steem.
If you are in online Marketing and Advertising, you are watching Steem right now
FB/Instagram, Google, Twitter, and Reddit alone are worth a trillion dollars. That's over $1,000,000,000,000.00. US dollars, these are not Zimbabwe dollars. The size of a "win" is huge.
Many are watching this space already. I am so convinced we are already irreversibly already moving down this path that I'm dedicating part of my career to it. This is a very exciting time. The reason I mentioned a furniture company specifically as the example above is because a friend of mine runs a small outfit in south Seattle (Urban Reclamations). My brother and I are revamping their website and launching their online store and "SM strategy" THIS WEEK (my first real foray reinto web dev!). I will be posting the launch on Steemit.com as the hopefully flagship example of this new advertising paradigm, and following up over time as things progress.
We will of course be taking STEEM as payment, as well! I'm also going to formally #introducemyself at that time too (I was really just waiting for my custom STEEM T-shirt to arrive!)
A few other points
To tie this post off, I wanted to related a few more points:
- Steemit advertising is self-correcting. If you're content sucks, it disappears (no upvotes), which means it was a waste of the advertiser's time (no money) and the vendor (no eyeballs). The Steem concept makes sure content is interesting and relevant.
- Steem allows people to focus on what they are good at. The vendors can focus on great products and services. Advertisers can focus on great content. BOTH are necessary for success. If the Vendor ends up selling crappy products or offering bad service, the content posted will begin to fail to get upvotes. If the advertiser cannot adequately speak to the audience and provide good content, same thing, no upvotes (rewards) matriculate.
- The Steem environment self-regulates the amount of "advertising" content versus "regular" content. If the amount of ads are getting bothersome, the market forces of the community would begin to upvote them less, reducing their prevalence.
- Steem, like all blockchain tech, is instantly global. This rather simple fact has some remarkable consequences. Each user is responsible for the jurisdictional rules, regulations, and taxes of their own activity, but the central blockchain is simply just a software protocol. There's no offshoring of corporate profits or other shenanigans that encumber the software prototcol's central operation.
- There are no Board rooms or shareholders to please. Steem can do what it's good at: providing for a stable, financial mechanism to reward content. That's it. The concept is so simple I think people might start crying.
- I advocated for a #steem-merchant type of tag and on-going list in this post. I think this would be a good idea for members who want to spend hard-earned Steem dollars at community-approved vendors. I hope something like this goes forward.
I would love to hear you're feedback on this concept in the comments. I forgot to add a "girl" picture for the whales (lest I receive no upvotes!).
Edit: yep! no upvotes
