Can you believe it's been over 3 years since I first came here? To be 100% honest I don't even remember how I exactly found Publish0x.
Back in the day I used to be on Steem and DTube and was quite hyped about this whole blockchain decentralized way of media and content. Well, that didn't last long. I'm still not sure why it all never worked the way it was intended but in the meantime Theta and Odysee came along and pretty much rendered DTube irrelevant.
As for Steemit, more and more people started to turn their back on it and moved on to whatever it was that peaked their interest, for me it was Publish0x which is why it's so sad to see some of the OGs from the early days not be around so often anymore to frequently post stuff.
This is how it started on Steemit you know. First we lost a few OGs due to personal reasons or platform disputes, then others thought that the quality of the content went downhill so they started to check in less and before you knew it, it was like you graduated from high school and were in college where you had to make friends all over again.
Innovation and neutrality is the key here I think, if a platform can win all its users' trust and make everyone feel both safe and equal, most will find their way back. Even if they stray and go looking for alternatives, at one point they will realize that what they had was already better than what most others have to offer. Take that whole Twitter/X verification debacle for instance. How you think people who left Facebook because of the censorship on pro-Palestinian voices felt when they came and/or verified themselves on X because Musk promised equality, only to find out all their IDs and photos were sent straight to Israel?
"Why you being racist bro? That's just normal people doing honest work at a normal company."
Yeah I would totally want a government that covertly uses face-recondition to also have my picture, ID and online profile at their disposal.
But that is just the neutrality/equality question, what about innovation? What has Twitter done recently that can be labeled as ground breaking or at least new and creative? Spoiler, changing the name to a letter doesn't count. What they did do right tho was treating everyone equally and removing ridiculous labels such as ''Chinese state affiliated media'' from certain accounts while never enforcing such a label on e.g. Japanese media. But again, this falls under equality.
Last year they started with the community note system, an idea that actually started off great but which is almost on it's death bed now as you can almost see as many suggested notes on a post as there are comments. I even saw a few where there were literal discussions going on in the community note between users.😂
The pay-to-verify option is new, where one can pay and ID themselves in order to get a blue tick and actually receive payments based on impressions and interactions on their posts. But remember that whole ID to Israel thing? Yeah, no thanks.
The ''grok'' AI thing is new. Where they casually without consent took all your activity on the platform to further train their AI. Maybe some would like that I guess, but for me it's another pass.
Anyways enough about X, what was even the point I was trying to make? Right, innovation. Staying ahead of the rest whilst simultaneously staying true to your morals and respecting your users' needs so that they will always feel some sort of connection with you. Here are a few based on first hand experience:
A Publish0x wallet:
Steemit had its own wallet which I really wanted to like but it was just too chaotic. You had the Steem coin in your wallet, which you then had to partially delegate to another wallet so you had more 'power' or whatever. But then you also had the Steem dollars and a separate savings wallet, all in all too much irrelevant 🐎💩. A simple wallet or two (for different coins) which you could use to tip others would have been great already. Downside of the tipping option was that you'd get endless spam DMs where they'd send you 0.001 Steem to try to scam you or get you to invest in the 'next great crypto opportunity'.
Advertisers:
We all hate them but if done with reasonable limitations, advertisements can put some needed money in the bank which can then pay for further development all without you losing any of your principles. Recently advertisers have left X amass because they claim the platform is ''toxic'' or whatever.
Even though Publish0x is mainly crypto focused, that does not mean it can't try and catch some of that non-crypto ad money that is looking for a new home because believe it or not, users here on Publish0x also drink, eat and wear clothes.
Tools:
I remember how in the past, some of the 'share your news' sites had tools which could help users better their content. Like how many impression you had on the page, how many users clicked on your post i.e. conversions, how long the average user spent on your post (was in enough to read the whole thing) etc.
Homepage:
What the before mentioned news sites also had was a section on the side of the front page (homepage) reserved for the most commented articles where all the 'heated discussions' were taking place. Here you could also view on which posts the latest comments were made. An interesting way to keep people interacted and the clicks alive.
Coin ranking:
I know there are a gazillion different and reliable sites already, but you know how news sites also have a mini-window that also displays the daily weather? How they have a similar window or scrolling subtext that displays the most popular stock trends? Why not tap into that and reserve a section on the homepage to show the top 10 (or whatever) chart and the biggest daily gainers? Maybe even a collaboration with whatever existing site where upon clicking on the homepage displayed top 10 ranking, it links to their site where one can then view the entire thing.
Anyways those are just a few tactics to keep users involved and interacting, what are your suggestions and ideas? Ever feel that something was missing here or could be better?
