Why would we need or want advertising on Steemit? Why would the Steem blockchain need revenues?
Relying on the next buyer of your token isn’t a long-term strategy. It’s essentially a Ponzi scheme – without the accompanying lies about business profits from revenue generation. If revenues can be made and even distributed to holders of a token, then why not take the appropriate steps to make it happen? Diverting from the typical cryptocurrency concept of “buy now because it might be worth more later” is a welcomed move, in my opinion.
Having the ability to actually receive passive returns on investment (in the form of dividends), other than simply from price increases, can bring a lot more attention and attract more “smart” investment into a crypto token. So, how do we get there?
Advertisements, of course.
I know, I know...I’ve heard it all since I joined Steemit last summer.
Advertising is bad and will ruin Steemit. It will make the platform unattractive. It will lead to data collection and other terrible things.
I’m not convinced of any of that and there’s no reason why we can’t have advertising and a good user experience where control is retained by the individual user. There are many ways that advertising can play out in the Steem ecosystem, so let’s dive right in.
Account Creation and Investment
Any individual or company can make a one-time investment ($500,000, $1 million, $5 million) and use that to “promote” their own advertisements in the form of blog posts (Steemit), images (Steepshot), links and short messages (Zappl), and any other app built on the Steem blockchain.
Instead of a one-time advertising campaign where the funds are spent and gone, these individuals and companies can make continuous posts and use their own influence and following to not only be seen on the platform on various “hot” or “trending” pages, but they also have the potential to earn profits for doing so. The slogan that targets companies could be: Get paid to advertise!
This option would be a direct investment into their own brand’s/company’s presence/marketing. Imagine a company like Samsung investing in 10 million STEEM Power so that they can produce marketing/advertising content on their own blog, have their followers read, comment, and re-post it, and then actually earn profits from the rewards gained on that post. Then imagine dozens or hundreds of companies doing the same.
Auction Blocks for Premium Advertising
For exclusive advertising on Steemit, there can be a daily auction for a 24-hour block of premium ad space for the auction winner. Instead of a gaudy, flashing neon banner image, the pages would simply display the normal thumbnail and tagline for a post created by the auction winner for that ad block.
The 24-hour auction could begin at 0:00 UTC and conclude at 23:59 each day. It could be followed by a 72-hour period for post development, then the post would need to be submitted for the ad space.
The Steemit ad spaces would include a featured post on the welcome page and the top of the new, hot, trending, and promoted pages.
The revenue generated from the advertisement auctions could be distributed to all Steem accounts based on Mvests. There could also be an opt-in or opt-out setting for seeing those ads – with those who opt in receiving the distributions and those who opt out not receiving them. Visitors (non-users) would not have the option. They would need to sign up in order to opt out. This would create incentives for either option: Sign up to opt out of seeing the advertisements or sign up to earn from the distributions...and buy/power up STEEM to earn more.
Imagine a company like Pepsi purchasing ad blocks with STEEM or SBDs and then actually using those currencies to purchase premium ad spaces. The revenue is then collected via the daily auction and distributed to stakeholders every day. This creates demand for the Steem currencies, provides an on-chain use for them, provides more utility for STEEM Power, and provides an opportunity for passive return on investment for stakeholders.
Auction Blocks for Targeted Advertising
These would be tag-specific ads that could appear at the top of each page under specific tag searches, such as photography, food, or travel.
A company like Canon, Nikon, or Sony could bid on ad spaces in a similar fashion to the premium ads, but their posts would be displayed only under the tags on which they bid. If Canon were to win the auction block for photography, then their submitted post would be at the top of the new, hot, trending, and promoted pages only under “photography.”
In addition to the tag’s main pages, there could also be a link with thumbnail embedded in every post using the “photography” tag. The same opt-in and opt-out rules would apply for in-post ads. Users would have the option of not displaying or seeing those ads and would either receive or not receive the distributions from the auction, while non-users would not have the option.
Incentivizing the opt-in would very likely result in more people choosing that option, thus making advertising more attractive for the advertising individuals or businesses, which in turn could boost demand for the Steem currencies from companies and individual investors alike. Those users who do not wish to see ads on the platform would still have the option to not see them.
Buying Ad Space on Individual User Posts
This would be the most direct, traffic-based advertising strategy where the user essentially has full control over whether they want their readers to see ads or not. Many successful users on YouTube have had companies/advertisers come to them to either create videos to promote their product or to embed their ads on a specific user’s video/page. The same type of popularity/traffic-based advertising can occur on Steemit, with direct payments from companies to individual bloggers.
The details for this type of advertising would be worked out directly between the two parties and readers would likely not have the ability to opt out of seeing the ads displayed in the posts.
All of these options would also result in an entirely new set of data and analytics – more apps or businesses that can be built and monetized, such as premium analytical services for marketers and advertisers. And all of it would be non-intrusive.
Will Companies Invest and Advertise...and What Should We Do?
Whether or not companies will invest into a cryptocurrency-based social media platform and advertise on it remains to be seen, but I believe that – if the user base grows large enough – the potential audience reach would become harder and harder to pass up. If there are millions of active users and many more millions of visitors to the sites, there will surely be people wanting to capitalize on the audience and we as users would be crazy to continue to oppose monetization via advertising if revenues can be made and shared among stakeholders.
Even if you are vehemently opposed to any and all advertising, you can still have the option to not view the ads. But even if you choose to not view the direct advertisements, you’re still going to see some form of marketing and advertising within posts over time. It’s inevitable. It’s unavoidable.
If there is an opportunity to create a revenue model via the blockchain and if there is an opportunity to share that revenue with investors/stakeholders via the blockchain, then that opportunity ought to be seized. The Steem blockchain is a zero-fee transaction network. There are no built-in revenue mechanisms. The currency is only guaranteed to flow out of the system. That’s not sustainable without new buyers constantly flooding in. Rather than rely on the Ponzi-like concept, we should find ways to monetize what can be relatively easily monetized, as many social media platforms have already demonstrated.
Notwithstanding everything mentioned above, a larger audience will likely require a much better flagship interface and complementary apps. But we can save that conversation for another time.
What are your thoughts on this? Are these advertising and distribution options feasible via the blockchain and interfaces? Should advertising revenues and distributions be part of Steem/Steemit? Should stakeholders benefit from monetization of the platforms?
Follow me: @ats-david
External revenue like advertising will be the best option however it has to be done right in order not to destroy the concept of steemit. Moreover , companies will have interest to advertise in our platform when we reach 1M + active users which is achievable if there is investment in promoting steemit around the world and elimination of sign up waiting time.
@ats-david this is an amzing post hence you earned 100% upvote and a solid follow from me. I agree 100% that we should think strategically on how to add revenue options to steemit in order not to depend on new sign ups AKA Pyramid or Ponzi scheme. Very good idea @ats-david which should be done with design thinking startegy and implemented .
100% agree. For Steem to succeed in the long run, there has to be a revenue stream from somewhere.
Great, I agree. Win Win for all.
And, if we really want to keep comparing ourselves to facebook.. well.. facebook has ads.. facebook makes money... facebook distributes value to stakeholders...
Steemit needs ads.
Yes.
No it's not. Facebook has investors and businesses/advertisers that all make money. So far, we have basically heard that revenue generation around here isn't a good idea or isn't necessary.
This place won't even kill Medium, 4chan, or Reddit, let alone Facebook.
Exactly... plus if Steemit were to implement this, we would truly be the first - that I know of - decentralized revenue producing organization on the planet.
until then... we're a neat toy, admittedly really cool toy. But as such, it will only be toy money compared to facebook.
I have nothing against ads but hopefully this will still be avoided
if ads come in here the other social media shall die
IMHO
It definitely will lead to that !
This is a blockchain. The data is readily available.
Agreed
Adds can be added smartly as indicated by @ats-david in this post ...I wonder if those responsible will see this post and at least start the discussion
We second that this post was very informative. It discusses some very good ideas in terms of Advertising on Steemit and ALL Steem Powered Applications. We just followed and upvoted with 100% Steem Power.
I agree, good point.
If the whole project is NOT a Ponzi scheme, then there has to be long-term plan to monetize via advertising.
Need to make sure we keep enough minnows around and growth going, to make the platform interesting to the big league advertisers.
By the way, we already have a major advertiser on the platform, grabbing trending spots, etc. Vacation Rentals from bookingtime is clearly a corporate account.
Upvoted and followed
Something like this setup is HIGHLY preferable to Google Adsense and pop-unders.
Being proactive and adding value before its needed is smart.
Well...after speaking with Ned tonight, it won't be happening. So, disregard the ideas...at least for the Steemit interface.
This is a shame to hear, the idea seems really great in a long-term perspective. I read through your whole post and, even though I generally dislike ads, I find this concept to be wonderful. It's logical and creates synergy between all parties.
Are you able to share why Ned shot it down? Was it a "not now" or a "definitely never going to happen" kind of response?
It was more like, "Gold doesn't have revenue," "Speculation is better than revenues," and, "Why would we do that for our users?"
There was also a bit of "this idea may be ahead of its time." And to that I say:
That's innovation!
Hello @ats-david, I hope you will read this comment. I completely agree with the fact that Steem is designed to only let money out of the system. And this will become unsustainable as soon as the system stops growing.
Ads are of course THE solution to this problem, and I must insist, the only solution. This is why I loved your post because it really forsees what will happen in the future.
However, I would like to add a twist. If we follow your model, then every stakeholder in steem will be exactly like a shareholder in Youtube, and we will fall in the exact same pitfalls with monetization that Youtube has. This is already better than the current system on steem, but I think we could do better.
I see two options in front of us:
1- We follow your model where people can choose whether they see ads or not. Obviously people need to be incentivized to watch ads. Now my proposition is that 50% of the total ad revenue generated by the Steem ecosystem will be split between the users that opt to watch ads. Only 50%. Here comes the twist: The other 50% will constitute the rewards pool on steem! Instead of creating new steem with every upvote and taking money out of the system through inflation, let's create the newly distributed steem tokens by paying for it with add revenues.
Now this brings me to the second option we have:
2- Let's just make adds mandatory to watch for everyone! This will obviously maximise add revenues for steem, and we won't need to pay back dividends to stake holders for watching ads.
Why is this good? Because now, we can just create a rewards pool out of this ad revenue. Every upvote on steemit will give money to the content creator and curator, and instead of having this money created through inflation, this money will simply come from ad revenues.
I think both systems are awesome because they allow the steem ecosystem to stay as it is, by which I mean that the content is rewarded by people upvoting and not by the total number of views.
wow such a great idea. Ad revenue could help fund the reward pool, increasing reward for everyone
I fully agree that advertisement can be implemented in ways the user will actually 100% accept it, and I mean 100%, all the users!
You make some interesting proposals for advertisement, something we shall further think about what the best methods are. Without telling to much, I have a method that 1) gives 100% control on push messages to the user 2) higher value to the brands of each user it likes to target 3) none intrusive to the users 4) includes fiat currency revenues. I do believe in a model without any ads in our HOME channels, HOT or NEW channels. I do believe in no ads in post or comments, since the sender may want it, but the receiver not. Now, when it is receiver based, then in post ads may work, but the sender may not want to have some ad in its post (dynamic per reader) or may not want to have some brands associated with him/herself. But a solution could be created for that, bit complex to manage, but still, a solution can be created. My concept (yes, concept since I wrote a whitepaper for that already years ago for some particular service that I never took further due to getting side tracked and drawn into other things). I can tell you, the concept I've developed could fit Steemit perfectly. I need developers to create is, when I would have them, then I would already work on it. So, any time you or anybody who reads this and says: lets to business, get in touch with me and lets talk business.
an excellent post, @ats-david. I've often discussed this very idea of monetizing this site with my son who is a very successful internet marketer. His view is that companies are concerned with brand image - several companies defected from Facebook over this very issue. The very essence of steemit is free speech and the ability to express even highly controversial opinions - not to mention the pornographers that have come onto the site, muted or not. It's a concern for a corporation to have their brand image tarnished by being associated with activity that pushes some boundaries.
I think your suggestions are practical and do-able, but some elements of steemit might need to be re-engineered to make it attractive to a corporation that not only cares about profit, but their corporate image.
A thought-provoking post!
Yeah, that's true. But it's something that every platform has to deal with. We might not get companies like Disney or Gerber wanting to advertise on the sites, but there will be plenty of others who have no problem with it.
I think the bigger obstacle would be getting them to use a site that requires the purchase and sale of a cryptocurrency - because of the various tax laws. That's the single largest impediment to growth around here, in my opinion. Trying to figure out different laws and tax/regulatory compliance has slowed my own business plans for this platform, in addition to working with people internationally.
So many laws...and changing laws...so little time.
This is an excellent idea and needs to happen long term for sure if not earlier...
Thank you for an excellent post, I think this is a conversation we should be having.
I think we will get advertising whether we promote it or not. (I don't think promoting it would be a terrible idea though)
I wrote about how it could develop even without development.
"The more people who gather here the more an economy will naturally happen - Here is an imaginary situation
At some point, Coke or Pepsi or another large company may purchase some Steem and create an account. (we aren't there yet)
Based on other Internet business models, my guess is they would get people to interact with their account by giving away sweepstakes, free services or products.
Some people on SteemIt will be upset about large corporations joining and will try to flag those companies.
This may work for a while, but if current users keep flagging, and there are enough eyes here to motivate Coke, they will buy into the "Stake Based System". (They could even buy enough stake to vote for their own witnesses)
Many users may become angry and leave, so Coke has to be careful to retain the "eyes" if they want their purchase to provide returns in name recognition or sales.
It is all a balancing act
Whether you think it is a good thing or a bad thing, the more eyes we have on SteemIt, the more value and potential it will gain from creative, motivated people."
In my opinion, it is all about getting and keeping "Eyes" on the platform. If that happens the rest will follow.
I think there are many things we could do to improve and shorten the timeframe, and you mentioned some of them in your post. It will be interesting to see how the site develops.
In a sense there already is advertising, but it is built into the system and not really sustainable in my opinion. I see people use their steam dollars to advertise on the promotions tab, but it only cost like 50 bucks in sbd to have your post in the top 10 usually, and those posts make way more than that. There isn't enough sbd actually being used for these things to make it worth while, also it only really enriches the richer earlier steemians who were here first.
While you may put some money into the system itself to advertise, unless a ton of whales or dolphins upvote your post, only a few hundred people or a thousand will see it is the down side. To spend 50 dollars ona post only a few thousand see is pretty expensive if it does not getthe upvotes, which a lot of them also don't because it is new people with almost no following. Especially if the whole point is to get people to click into your site and buy a product. Steemit is not advertising friendly for getting views, for example on reddit it is quite literally 10 dollars for 50,000 views and you can get between 100 to 1,000 clicks yto your site(much better return)
We need more normal regular poeple here first for the views before the advertisers can come in, but i think we are all on our way. Isee a lot of new accounts lately.
The promotion was an attempt at that and many accounts are also using their "posts" to advertise". For example randowhale, booster, whaleshares. Many of the "Give-Aways" are also a form of advertising.
I keep watching for people who sell Mary Kay or some type of product to post, to see how it goes. :)
It is a challenging balance for the community to try to retain new users.
The promotion section is a nice idea, but having it separated in that tab just kind of prevents it from getting views. Better implementation of it could potentially be a nice revenue stream.
Yea but if they bought that much Steem it wouldn't really serve any purpose of further selling their product. People have millions of Steem, I don't see how it really helps Coca Cola to have more than ten thousand to 100,000 or so. It would primarily be used to keep themselves from being flagged because they upvote their own blog post and they would upvote other people and reward them for logo designs or contests or something.
Icould see a lot of people signing up for stuff like that. I guess.
I don't exactly see why almost any large corporation would put millions into Steem, but if they did I think the original creators still have a large portion of Steem between themselves to flag abusive stuff at least, +the community would like you say above.
you've thought this out well. I am generally against this site having advertising for the reasons you stated, but you make a lot of good points to the contrary.
Assuming it happens and everything keeps moving along as normal, it could drastically increase the value of steem. That alone could be worth it.
It seems to me not doing something like this is leaving huge value on the table for the network's users. And as far as data-mining, that can already happen on the blockchain, so I don't see it as a reason not to have advertising.
I like how this idea works similar to BAT-tokens where those who view the ads get paid to do so! We as community need to push for this idea until the importance of it is realized by @ned and Steemit inc.
Great post ats-david, truly. We need to make this happen.
Yes. This should totally happen. I can tell you with certainty that there are many companies that want to participate in this. The exposure and seo are potentially huge.
I don't know if there's a lot of demand for it now, but if the active user base can continue to grow and the site can be further developed, it will likely happen eventually. Companies advertise where the people are. If there are millions of users here, then business is likely to follow.
Of course, this also depends on how cryptocurrencies are treated by law, but big business has lawyers and accountants to sort out that stuff.
Yes its chicken and egg a bit, but with explosive growth (which I believe will happen) it will become a virtuous circle. Savvy marketers will see that early (which is now)
Yeah, I hope you're right. But we all know what happens when the STEEM price drops. The user base and activity shrinks. We might see that happen again as the price continues to slide like it is now.
Good point. I see this as weak hands leaving though. I want users committed to the long term success of Steemit here,because for sure we will encounter tons of volatility as we grow. We cant let a little price fluxuaction rattle our conviction :)
There's one thing I couldn't get past in order to completely agree with what you've laid out:
I'm pretty sure steemit.com is independant of the Steem blockchain - both on the legal level as well as the product level. Owning Steem couldn't give you any ownership rights (or whatever word fits best here) over the advertising that could happen on steemit.com, or any revenue they could generate from it.
Maybe the revenue sharing could be a user issued asset (specifically for steemit.com) that people could invest in with Steem?
I'm all for exploring this idea further. Being able to accomplish something like this would bring value and utility to Steem (as a token). I'd also be curious to know how the idea could expand even further to other sites running on the same platform :)
Yes, this is true. The ads would be on interfaces like Steemit.com the website, not the blockchain, just like all of the other posts on Steemit. But...this is also why the ads would actually be in the form of a blog post and not a banner image in a sidebar or header. The only thing Steemit would need to do is code the placement of those blog posts that would win the auction.
The auction itself could be done via the blockchain, could it not? I'm certainly not a coder, so this is something that would need to be worked out and tested to ensure that it's feasible.
Even if we were to give an interface owner X% of the auction as payment for creating/updating their interface for these ad blocks/posts, it could still be lucrative for users/investors. These would be details that need more fleshing out, but I would hope that interface owners would see the value of keeping as much of this on the blockchain as possible and the value of ROI for users/investors.
Wouldn't it be the easiest solution to let people buy the advertisement in steem and then simply burn the the earnings - would make the steem worth more and give everybody more value.
Theoretically, but that's not necessarily true. Burning doesn't create more demand and the supply is always increasing. Unless the burned STEEM is more than the amount of STEEM being created through inflation, then the overall supply will still rise. It all depends on whether or not demand can outpace the supply - and that demand depends on whether or not the Steem blockchain can grow its network for actual use, other than the STEEM token being bought and sold purely on speculation.
But even if a significant amount of STEEM is burned and it greatly outpaces supply, there are many other factors that go into crypto prices. Right now, it mostly just depends on how Steem/STEEM is viewed by the markets in general and how much new money is flowing into cryptocurrencies.
As far as advertising goes...
I think the best option overall would be companies buying stake and using it to upvote their own content as a form of advertising. There's no need for burning, there's no controversy about "having to see ads on my precious Steemit website," and the popularity/rewards of the advertiser would be open to community voting/consensus.
The second-best option would be to sell those highly-visible placements for blog posts on the various content pages. This would require an opt-in or opt-out for users if they don't want to see them, but it would also provide revenue via a marketplace for advertising, which could then be shared with the users of a given interface. (Each interface could have their own advertising/revenue model and split that revenue with those who use their interface.) This would provide an additional use case for the blockchain (if the auction could be implemented on it), it would create a more traditional marketplace for businesses and individuals (something that they could easily understand), and it would create a revenue and revenue-sharing model (which barely exists in the entire crypto space, especially at the potential scale).
Now that I've written that, I think the second option might be the better one. I guess it depends on what your goals are.
Yea, maybe, but burning would be completely neutral, and it would be a long term counter to the endless inflation. But let's see what people come up with.
I'm not contradictory to advertising. All the social ones have it. You can also talk about Steemit. The important thing is that it is discreet and you can choose whether or not to have it.
But then only the people who choose to have ads are actually rewarded.. :)
Yay! Down with supply-side thinking, the demand side of Steem needs marketing, and Steem Park will not do that. Aiming for more users assuming that the rest will take care of itself is very one-sided marketing, at best.
Current prices are set by speculation and some silly economic thinking that supposes that the supply, the creation rate, determines eventual value. I think it is more likely that a few currencies will win as currencies-for-real-world-use, and that their prices will be set by supply and demand.
Even without huge direct revenues, ads could be a good way of working on the demand side of Steem for real-world use, next to other initiatives.
Exactly. You can limit your creation as much as you want, but if there is little to no utility for your tokens and thus no demand for them, then it won't matter if you have 1 billion coins or 100 coins - they'll be worthless in the long-run.
And you're right - advertising revenue isn't the only potential source of revenue for the blockchain, but it is an important and proven one. And it can be implemented for the benefit of the user base and investors. Having a revenue and dividend model should not be underestimated or dismissed. It's what will differentiate successful blockchains from the unsuccessful ones...and the outright scams.
Real investors aren't stupid. And most of the crypto market today is not comprised of actual investors. If you want to attract the real money and make your blockchain and apps viable for the long-term, make your product appealing to those who know what they're doing and know what to look for when investing. Put some actual thought into the long-term success of the platform and its investors and you'll find that you're much more likely to achieve what you had hoped for.
Does the blockchain still need a revenue stream once the currency is being used in the real world and has value? What would have the most impact, the revenue stream itself or putting Steem out there as the Currency You Can Buy Stuff Withtm? Just wondering, let's do both.
If the companies that buy Steem for advertising will at some point also retail their products for Steem in some of their distrinution channels for their marketing purposes, we'll be golden.
I would argue that any blockchain that's issuing tokens needs a revenue stream for long-term viability/sustainability. What we're dealing with in crypto aren't really "currencies." They are more like issued stock and other assets that represent a share of value in the respective blockchain. Having no revenue for a crypto token would be like issuing stocks for a company that tries to tell you, "We don't need to make any money - you have that stock certificate! If other people believe that the certificate is worth $100, then it is!"
Of course, this falls apart as soon as people simply stop "believing" in the value and actually look for valuation metrics, only to discover that there are no fundamentals.
Network effect can have a huge impact on overall value, but having a revenue stream puts solid fundamentals behind asset value. Both are good to have, but as long as you have revenue, the network growth isn't as important.
Yep, that's the obvious goal here. Bring in individuals/companies that want to advertise, get them involved in the ecosystem, have them sell their products and accept the Steem currencies. Create that business ecosystem that everyone is always talking about. If we want businesses, we need to accept advertising. That's how it works.
Yet. Once they are, and some could be, I am not so sure they will still need an underlying anything to be useful and valuable. Anything I can buy stuff with I see as a currency, not a stock. But never mind, that is still some way away anyway and I may be wrong.
Great article. Money from outside is absolut no fault. I saw a Clif High interview ( he has an account on steemit ) and the only thing which he does not like is that there is no money coming in the system through paid ads. I agree on that.
100% Upvoted and resteemed.
I remember the last time you brought this up way back when, and I was in agreement with you then. I like that you've refined your idea since then, and I am 100% onboard with it now as well. Advertising can be done via the blockchain the way you described with minimal re-tooling and minimal additional programming, since it uses functions that already exist. It just requires some novel implementation.
Upvoted 100% and resteemed. I want to get this idea circulated some more. Hopefully the devs can see this and give it some thought.
I think that these are very feasible ideas. Haters of advertising might paud and consider the traffic that advertising would bring to the site. Google crawler bots rare sites and pages based on inbound and outbound traffic and rank accordingly. The increased traffic to and from would definitely boost the platform in general. You have stated several ways in which they would not be intrusive and frankly the dividends to users based on mvests would be a surefire winner in my book.
I always thought that when the posts were rejigged to include more white space on the margins that it was in preparation for this.
The investors or companies you've mentioned could eventually join Steemit for the money, but difficultly would stay for the community like we did. Yes, to bring them to invest on the blockchain they would need a revenue.
But aren't we already doing publicity for some of those companies!? Everytime I mention on my posts "Nikon..." or you mention "Canon 6D"? If the photo is good and your fellows like your work on the blog they will remind the camara brand you've used it. Indirect publicity! ;)
The way @ats-david describes the potential model is something we should use as basis for discussion, an intelligent blockchain with ad revs by huge brands, users can still decide whether they watch them or not makes perfectly sense in my point of view. Am speaking from a sales / marketing view having worked in a global business driven from outside US
Thanks we have people like this @ats-david - moving forward needs more than always shouting how awesome we all are now lol - good night from Germany
Great post, you explained it very well. What I like the most of this whole idea is that you suggest that there would be a kind of option to not see these commercials if you don't want to! That's a very important thing in my opinion! I would say, welcome advertisers! Great post, I did a resteem of it!
Ads on Steemit would definitely Ad value!
I see what you did there!
Ads would destroy this platform 100%
TL;DR
(it all)
I read it enough to say this
Advertising is like the camel in the tent door.
if you let it start
my experience with advertising
(I'm 66 years old)
is that it's
STUPID.
One of the reasons I'm on Steemit rather than FaceBook
(and I despise TV)
is
You can hide the ads, simple.
Yeah...I'm not sure why that's so hard to grasp.
ooooh...I suppose you've not been to those site where they detect your adblockiing software and have a hissy fit? Do you want Steemit to be that way?
nag, nag, nag....do this do that.
oh....are you guys in marketing?
Just read the post you're commenting on and you'll understand what I mean. The whole ad system would be designed as optional from the drawing board. I don't like ads any more than you do, trust me.
just think about the camel and the tent.
(cough)
you're in sales or marketing
and you ask me to
Trust you?
I'm not in sales or marketing. I'm saying I don't like ads anymore than you do, yet I see the value of the proposition here. I've seen how Reddit has done their advertising and could welcome the same here as it isn't in your face, like you're so afraid of. It can be done the right way but you think it'll just lead to worse.
We have witnesses that can reject bad hardforks, no? Have trust in them.
I just can't help but worry more of the situation that we are in right now (no revenue) rather than of a situation we somehow could end up with (witnesses and community approving in your face marketing).
Ooooh...I suppose you didn't actually read the post and what was actually proposed for advertising on the blockchain?
You didn't read enough to say anything relevant. Maybe try reading the post first, then you won't be arguing against things that weren't proposed.
I'd like to hear @ned 's opinion on this. You should try to make sure this idea of yours is heard by the right people. How do you feel about community tokens by the way?
I told @ned about it. He said he has been busy.
I'm not a fan of UIAs for Steem. I think there are better things to focus on for this blockchain. It cannot be all things for all people. Better to excel at the job it was designed to do, in my opinion.
I share the same feeling for now. Hopefully we are both proven wrong as more information comes. I'd rather see this implemented first.
It's the same issue that Reddit has. Most just read the header, not the actual content linked/written, yet comment with lacking information. It will just get more common here with time.
@bookingteam.com is a great example of how much money companies can make simply by advertising their own products.... lol.
please noooooooo, I have been enjoying the absence of advertising immensely, will need to look for a different platform when that happens...
Of course sooner or later it will come... I agree interesting models will be possible. And the capital injections can be important to keep the model afloat. But also expect full on war by google, Facebook and the likes and the search results to tank for anything Steem related, they are not going to sit back and relax when their livelihood is being threatened.
I'd wish that marketing would come up with more inventive models than current ads though...
Direct payment to viewer for watching or repeating their drivel...
Payment for reviews (that can go sideways quick)
What would be interesting to see if they start to understand Steem economics.
What if, say Canon or Nikon, sees an opportunity: they buy 2 Million Steem (pocket change for them) and make a Canon Whale profile.
Then hire a social media manager or bot and start up-voting positive articles about their product.
Would start to create perverse incentives real quick...
They say Steem can't be censored:
But what it some organisation with real money, Google, Facebook coal lobby, Trumpers, Clintoners or who ever is next in the election circus, buys up
10 million Steem, powers up and starts to flag any negative article about them on Steem. Wouldn't that be censorship effectively?
I really hope Steemit stays under the radar long enough to be resilient enough for serious big money players to come in and start messing about...
At the point when millions of users are on the interfaces using the Steem blockchain and businesses/advertisers are integrating with the ecosystem, there won't be a lot that Google or Facebook can do about it. They can attempt to fight it or censor content in their browsers, but it will only make them look petty and their efforts would likely be futile anyway.
I'd say that there would be a lot of happy users and investors. If certain people start writing fluff pieces for Canon or Nikon and expecting upvotes from them, how would it be any different than the crap that we see on the trending page now, where people write Steemit fluff pieces for whale votes? If you don't like what could possibly come from companies being on the interface/blockchain, then you obviously don't like what you see now, correct?
Besides - the obvious way to deal with that is to downvote the posts. If enough people agree with you that the posts are overvalued, then you can counter the fluff. This is how the stake-weighted voting system works.
There are probably a few people who agree and it's unfortunate that some people think that way. But it's unavoidable. If you don't like business and advertising (it's a package-deal), then you can always find a social media site where they don't exist. That's certainly your choice and you're free to make it.
"But also expect full on war by google, Facebook and the likes and the search results to tank for anything Steem related, they are not going to sit back and relax when their livelihood is being threatened"
Let the bullies in our domain because they feel threatened? The masses are ready for steemit. and Yes there is a learning curve for the revolutionary "Gift Economy." It will take time to enlightened Old School Matrix with in us all. It's a free world and whoever doesn't want learn can go back to the old social media platforms where the only thing of value is big profits for the few.
Corporations don't seem to like diversity and Steemers are a diversified inspirational community and we're still able to engage and encourage one another.
Why would a community of innovators want corporations to have value and the community be devalued. We have the numbers to back us critical mass is alive and well so WHY should we lower our expectations because something is hard and takes time to flourish?
Enough with the gifs, or multiple gifs, in every comment.
This is a part of the way I communicate but no problem will not use anything that reveals a thousand words in a picture.
I am getting the impression that the advertisements for steemit is already a done deal.
So there is no more to say.
Adverisements will be the greatest thing to hit steemit.""gift economy"
Advertisement is Beautiful and we all want more. I don't understand why @dan and @ned didn't think of it in the beginning. But let's not go there and burn all their interviews to change Steemit's history and the reasons for their revolutionary
Not for me. Freedom from advertising was a big draw to Steemit for me. Im not just here to make the quick $$
Be nice to retain a plstform where i dont feel overtly that I am the product
None of the suggestions in this post would put advertisements in your face. And you'd have the option to not see them unless they are directly in a user's post, placed there by them. There's nothing that you can do to stop that anyway.
The potential monetization is enormous and it's not about the quick money. It's about utility of the blockchain and its three tokens...and long-term sustainability through actual revenue generation and dividends to stakeholders.
Big Money Advertisers have a lot of strings attached and now that they are throwing their politics in people's faces by pulling their Big Money value out from platforms to devalue prices we become untrusting. It is the BIG $$$ that will have the voice not the creators. The outcome will always be the same > Killers of innovators > instigators and oddballs .
The community will always be suspicious when investors only spout big money to be the answer and forgetting the the genius of Steemers at finding better solutions. I see the writing on the wall already and who has the voice of value even before the marketers come to steem. It speaks volumes to an aware community who is sick and tired of the old ways.
Please read the post again, re: Opting out of ads.
@ats-david BTW - I spent 1.266 SBD promoting this post. Not much, but it's all the steem dollars I had. Very much believe steem needs ad revenue.
I certainly agree that Ad revenues could lead to good passive income, provided that due care is taken while introducing the concept. The 4 way suggested by you - One time investment and registration/ Premium block advertising auction/ Targeted block advertising auction and buying blog space on individual user blogs - would enable the Ad revenue to be channeled in without being too intrusive to the basic philosophy of Steemit platform. Thanks for this interesting blog. Will see how this gets introduced with interest. Upvoted@ats-david -
I went on am early morning photography and bird outing today to shake off my Monday blues.Have written a blog with collages of some nice birds (made with my original photos). I also wrote a blog over the weekend with my musings about 'Sting like a butterfly and float/fly like a bee' philosophy for life. I request you to take a look when you have time and let me know your views. Your comments will be eagerly awaited. Thanks
Ad Free is one of the things that has set Steem apart from all the other platforms. We need to think of other ways to create continuous revenue. If we have advertisement it should be on Steemit products that raises revenue for Steem. The community could have contests to create theses products for a Steem Store.
Buying Ad Space on Individual User Posts < Yes ...we've seen how good that worked out for the social media members. Do we want Advertisers to control the community? Thanks to the adverisers wanting to ban/censor social media creaters on Youtube, FB, and Twitter > Steemit is reaping the benefits > driving 100s of thousand to Steemit. I find this hilarious to hear talk of wanting to fall into the same fiasco.
Account Creation and Investment Of all the advertising options I like this one the best. This sounds great until the advertisers decide to Power Down because Steemit doen't censor certain speach or ban members for topics.
Because of the advertisers bad history I would hate for them to repeat that history here.
I hope the community gets to vote on this and if people forget why we are being flooded with new members and Steem turns into the same old same old crappy social media we all escaped from > We Steemians can look forward to find another genius like Dan and Ned to replace our need for the greatest social media platform. We Steemers have been spoiled and know there is something better than what we came from. THANK YOU STEEMIT!.
Yes, it is the one thing that we don't have here: revenue. And that's the one thing that will continue to allow only downward pressure on demand and prices.
How can advertisers ban or censor users on Steemit? Please tell me how they can accomplish this, other than by the users themselves selling out to the money...which can happen with or without advertisers...and already happens now.
Why is this a bad thing? Do you want advertisers to stick around who are trying (and failing) to pressure people into doing what they want? I don't understand the argument here.
It seems to me that you're claiming that Steem/Steemit is different but you believe that the simple act of advertising will somehow make it just the same as the other platforms you mentioned. Either it's different and genius, or it's the same and just as stupid/bad as the others. If you understand that Steem/Steemit is "censorship-resistant" and that users would retain full control over what they publish/see, then how is any of this detrimental to growth or user/platform integrity?
Everything you've written feels like nothing but fear-mongering to me. We will see marketing and advertising on this blockchain or its interfaces if the social media platforms succeed. There's no getting around that. So, we can either figure out ways to benefit from it and control it via blockchain protocols, or we can continue to have no revenue generation where it can be easily implemented.
You're doing great work here. I feel that maybe not everyone here would like to see Steemit succeed - as we do have competition. But we all agree that the current model lacks revenue streams and that should be priority for every company to fix. Steemit Inc is no different.
How can they censor? Being flagged by a 10 million Steem Power profile seems like an pretty easy way to suppress anything you don't agree with. Seems like censorship to me...
Sure. But as we have seen, accounts of that size that flag catch a lot of heat for it. Are you sure that a company like Samsung or Canon would want to flag users like that...for the explicit purpose of trying to censor them? What do you think that would do for their image? And do you think that other users would not aid in upvoting such posts? How about their competitors, who would love to take advantage of the situation?
There are always remedies for bad actors. You need to trust this system a little more.
maybe. overall I agree advertising is probably one of the experiments that must be done.
But I'd wish the revenue problem could be solved a bit more creatively than this.
Ads seem like such a huge step backwards.
As long as we're talking shares:
what about a crowdfunding branch that puts up STEEM funding, effectively buying shares in the startups.
When profitable, these shares should pay a dividend the shares themselves that go into a blind escrow account or something and the dividends must be converted to STEEM.
By taking real sales and converting them to illiquid steem, it would have the same effect of injecting capital, although through the markets and not the reward pool directly.
As long as i have control of advertising like banning them from ever being on my feed i do not care. I just hate advertising and manipulation. I cannot wait for budweiser bot to randowhale my post and it leaves a message BUY BUY BUY!!!!
ww all profit from bigger revenue fund
As someone who studied Steemit a bit, I can tell you categorically that Steemit is NOT a Ponzi scheme. The concept is pure economic genius coupled with pure technological genius.
If Steemit had advertising like Youtube, eventually the advertisers would control the content, not the people or community.
Nobody can control the content here except the user. If they want to be controlled, then they can be controlled. It's not really any different than people writing posts that they think will receive votes from whales.
In any case, the direct-to-user ads are only one of several options and it is an option that is 1) out of anyone else's control and 2) not part of any potential blockchain protocol.
Hi , I see you have been upvoting some of my post and I thank you .
I would like to know :
I see you are on @crowdfundedwhale and I would like to join. However , I don't have much money so it is important for me to choose what is working. Since you a member you are the best person to ask . It will be nice if you could tell me how much on average a upvote from crowdfundedwhale is. If you have any other suggestions please sent them to me .Thanks
Very well written and thought out. I as well don't see why we couldn't have ads. You have amazing ideas for ads to be less annoying and controlled on steemit than most other places on the internet :)
Steem it has a promoted section, I guess Steem sells ad space.
The Promoted tab is not ad space. It was essentially a gimmick to burn SBDs...and a poorly implemented one at that.
I would say "I am with you. That's a brilliant Idea. It could boost demand for the steem...
@ats-david Steemit should also allow AdSense. They are the advertising giant and unavoidable.
That's precisely the type of advertising that most people don't want, including myself.
If a large company has an account and advertise in steemit then this will change the way advertisers work toward better to be productive .... very genius.
If the advertising method is to visit a listing area of various advertising programmes I would not have a problem with Steemit having such a business on steem/steemit. Many of us steemians will appreciate not having to visit the advertising page if they don't wish to nor to pay an advertising subscription fee if they are not interested in advertisement. One may not be interested in beauty, parenting or other platforms on steemit to read, upvote or write a blog on a certain topic.
Confining posts to a certain area where they are listed as "advertisements" defeats the entire purpose of purchasing premium ad spaces. If you want to see how effective your idea would be, visit the "promoted" tab.
(Hint: It doesn't work.)
With every add Alittle piece of steem dies with it
Such drama!
We just need one thing : Carry on Steemit :)
Please no ads please 🙏
The ads will be optional, if you choose to view them, you get paid.
Not so bad if that's the MO
That's what was written in the post.
Great read not totally sure about the advertising I don't really know how it would effect Steemit. Cheers mike
Yes thank you for saying this. Steem is a ponzi scheme if in the end there is no way of monetizing it, and the current promoted posts really don't have much exposure, since they are confined to the "promoted" area.
Personally, I appreciate the two first ideas (premium and tag specific). Visually reddit promoted posts work like that and they aren't intrusive or disturbing at all.
I'm not so sure about ads on individual user posts. This could lead to pressures from the advertisers on the user to use a certain langage, to restrain from commenting on some subjects. On Youtube there was this huge outrage when channels talking (neutrally) about politics or war where demonetized because advertisers didn't want to advertise on such subjects. I feel like this is a subtle yet very dangerous form of censorship, and to me it is not welcome on steem.
Advertisers and users can use whatever language or rules that they want for their acceptance or non-acceptance of terms. I don't consider this to be an issue. Many companies and brands do not wish to be involved in controversial topics and that is their right. If a user finds their requests to be unbearable, then they can simply refuse to agree to the terms and find another advertiser.
I agree that this is the advertisers right to use the non-acceptantce terms they want. However it is still a pressure on the user. The user might need the money and become a complete sellout, or they would abstain from talking about matters they wanted to talk about, which would overall decrease the value of STEEM. The simple possibility of that happening on steem is unacceptable to me. I don't want to see users being bought out by companies, and the steem blockchain supporting it.
If advertisers are going directly to users, then that's not part of the blockchain protocol. And if a user decides to sell out to pressure from an advertiser, then that's on them and there's nothing that we can do about it. It's really a non-issue regarding the other forms of advertising via the auction and distribution model.
Steemit definitely needs a better advertising platform, and develop a great User Interface accordingly.
It was a great read. Thank you!
Nice thoughts.. when we have manys users automatically we can see advertisement in steemit also like in facebook and tweeter and at same time we should divert it from the core concept that's first blockchain social media...