Content Wars

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A war is coming. Some of you might claim it is already here, and honestly you wouldn't be half wrong about that. Skirmishes have been taking place here and there throughout the history of the blockchain.

Oh, you thought I was talking about something else?

No, this isn't some commentary on current regional or global politics. This is a train squarely barreling down the tracks of change and some people are going to have a really hard time with it.

I'm not sure if you listen to the weekly Leo Finance AMA, but you can check out @scaredycatguide's recap of it here.

Although most of the discussion this week was about the price of Bitcoin the crypto market in general, there were some really important nuggets of information that came to light.

Most specifically the idea of "threads" (or "threadz" if some people get their way) which is the front runner of the much anticipated "Project Blank".

During the show, @nealmcspadden was very astute when he touched on the topic of short form content versus long form content.

These are the trenches where the battles will be fought. Flags will be thrown, the old guard will hold the line against the new guard, the new guard will press forward, it will be messy.

Okay, maybe it won't be that dramatic, but given past observations, I think a paradigm shift is definitely on the horizon.

If you have no clue what I am talking about at this point, let me fill you in. "Project Blank" is a short form content creation tool that the Leo team has been working on. It is built on the Hive blockchain and it will be similar to Twitter but fully decentralized and "free of censorship". Users will own their content just like they do on the other Hive front ends.

As long as I have been on Hive (four + years), the idea that quality content has to be long form content has been the dogma. In many cases anything less than 500 words (or so) is considered a "shitpost" (by certain individuals) and will likely get downvoted by those same individuals.

As you can imagine, that way of thinking doesn't fit well with a platform like Twitter. Sure you occasionally have those long rants split up between multiple Tweets, but for the most part, it is short and sweet.

Ideally, what we might run into is so many new users being onboarded and using "Project Blank", that the old guard simply won't be able to keep up.

Then again, maybe I am totally wrong. Perhaps it won't be nearly as dramatic as I am leading you to believe.

I honestly sit on both sides of the fence on this one. I think the blockchain needs to be protected from the spam that has taken over "that old chain" and "some of those other forks".

"People will people" and they will try to abuse the system, a good community should hold them accountable. That's what communities do.

I also think that most people these days don't consume long form content like they used to. I didn't say all people, but the truth is most people don't. It's just the way our lives are. It's the way the world is, and it is the way the youth of the world consume content. Quick snaps, tweets, clips here and there. That is the reality we are living in.

That likely isn't going to change, so therefore, we must.

I'm not saying stop posting long form content. I'm just saying, we might need to start being more accepting of short form content. You might not be ready to take that leap yet. I get it. Just meditate on it for a bit...

It's going to be hard for some of us to make that shift. Even if we still keep posting long form content, mentally accepting short form content will be hard. I get that. It's okay to feel that way. It's part of the change process.

Change is coming. Are you ready for the war?


Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports


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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced

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61 comments
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I'm not against short posts, but as long as so many people automate their votes it may mean some get more rewards than people think is reasonable. The fact is that lots of people will neither read nor write long posts and Hive should be open to all.

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I think maybe it's time to make some tweaks to voting. Actually more about witness selection and projects than rewards voting, but I seriously believe that if you haven't logged in for a month your voting privileges should be suspended until you DO log in. It would eliminate some of the 'auto votes' including for my stuff. It would also promote responsible Hive citizenship.

Just sayin'

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I don't think the blockchain distinguishes between manual and automated actions. The dapps need to figure it out. Most of my voting is manual though,

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Agreed, votes automation are the only downside of this, if votes are manual then that would be "proof of brain" giving the contents in mention credibility...

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The question is how the posts are pushed to Hive. If they appear as blog posts, then autovoters are affected. However, if they show up at another level, either as comments or custom JSONs, then the autovoters arent affected.

The fact is that lots of people will neither read nor write long posts and Hive should be open to all.

Twitter is huge but Medium and LinkedIn are powerful also.

So I think there will be readers and writers for long form on Hive regardless.

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I still use Twitter and read long posts on Hive. I don't use Tiktok or Instagram at all. There will be a lot of variety in how people consume content. As I said, Hive should cover all the bases, but it may need some thinking about how that could work.

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I'm a pacifist in this battle.

I don't mind 'short form' at all. I consume some of it-some of the time. Truth be told I often get ideas and hints to research from Twitter.

I don't mind 'long form' at all. I really like to read and a good long form post will make me think and consider-even if it's only 'damn, I wish I were there'.

I think short form is what is going to drive Hive in the long term. No fees, decentralized, community policed. I suspect if will be painful at the very best in the short run.

I think (hope probably) that there is a place left for long form. I've written in several spaces and I really like the freedom of Hive.

Nicely stated, Mr. Bozz. Let the record show "damn. I wish I were in the UP right now."

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Thanks for that. You had some really good points and stated your case very well. I appreciate long form content too. As I said, it would be a huge shift for me to move away from it. I tend to get wordy when I am behind a keyboard. I do think short form is the direction we are heading though. The world has slowly been making that shift over time.

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Change is inevitable, it's best to accept both long and short-form content as long as it's of value. What's of value to someone may not be to another, let's see how the war turns out when PB gets launched.

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I agree. A lot of it is very subjective and only time will tell what really ends up being the case. I hope that getting these discussions out there now helps people to see all points of view.

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I am not against short posts. Actually I appreciate them some times. I am against short posts that are worthless. My best example was a couple of weeks ago. I picture of a cat with the word terrified. The cat did have a terrified look on its face but I did not consider it of any value.

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Yeah, that is pretty blatant right there. Reminds me of the early days on the chain when a post like that would be vote bought up to hundreds of dollars if not thousands.

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That is interesting. I think the 500 word restriction will make a difference in quality, as spam is an issue. When will this take effect?

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I think you misunderstood my post.

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My bad! Yes, I get the dichotomy between spam and quality. Short form can be just as viable as long form 500-word count or more. Most of my posts are just under 500 words. The conveyence of thought is most important and most social media posts are far less than 500 words.

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Yeah, for sure. I think there are some really good posts that are clear and concise.

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I do have concerns about this as someone doing a tweet is like a comment and should be rewarded as such. It takes you 1 minutes against someone taking a few hours and I know I will down vote stuff that has no value if it is heavily rewarded.

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I feel like we are sometimes a little too strict with these type of contents, let's take our attention away from the blockchain and crypto and look at centralised social platforms.

Let's say tittok, we see people making very short contents and making a ton off it, so somehow, it's a question of reputation, of which a good one would be a reward of past work done.

I don't exactly believe there's any such thing as "over rewarded" but then there's being lucky and just reward of hard work...

Most times one could be taking away a person's joy all in the name of disagreeing with rewards...

Don't you think they should be a better way around this? Considering all that?

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No as we have seen abuse in the past and this is going to happen again. Persons joy is more about milking the reward pool and would be very unfair if a one sentence tweet made more than someone who is putting a ton of effort in every day.

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Considering that the only way one earns from his posts on hive is through receiving upvotes from others, so it doesn't seem like milking in this manner, someone has to believe it's worth the vote to give it off.

Milking only comes in when votes are automated and through self votes of less valuable posts...

Anyways I don't think a one line tweet would earn anything significant...

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I think it is going to help that it will be a separate token. I should have mentioned that in my post. I still think there is going to be a lot of contention at first.

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Will make a difference but there will still be Hive value associated with the votes. Best to wait and see how good or bad it will be.

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I personally believe the problem isn't really about how long or short a content is, it's more about what value is within.

Most people are able the pass the best through a short piece, while others like/have to embrace long form to lay out their points...

I'm eager to see how project blank evolves...

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I am too. I think the fact that it will have its own token should help things a lot. I still expect there is going to be a lot of push and pull between the two ways of thinking. Hopefully I am wrong.

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It's something to look forward to and see how it would go. Both long and short are okay with me. The good thing is that we have the freedom (option) to read what we want and skip those we don't.

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Yes, that is the logical thought, but there are some people who don't feel the same. Instead of just moving along they choose to exercise their downvote. It is a very divisive topic.

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My thought on the downvote button is that it is used for plagiarized things but there are those who think otherwise.

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Yeah, I kind of feel the same way. Really, it is your stake so you can use it however you want. I'd rather make friends though.

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As long as I have been on Hive (four + years), the idea that quality content has to be long form content has been the dogma.

One of the main reasons why Hive hasn't gotten mainstream. The other is poor marketing or complete lack of it. Project blank will be a game changer. I've said it many times on my blog and I will be proven to have been right when the time comes.

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Nice information here. So we are expecting to have the blockchain version of twitter? Sound exciting!

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Yes! It is going to be awesome!

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Skimming through the comments, it seems the concern is the same.

The solution is where does the data get placed? If it is a blog post, then all concerns are valid. If however, it is via a custom JSON or at the comment layer, then we are dealing with something different. Then, it is likely only the ProjectBlank front end will pick it up.

I believe this is why Lightning is essential to blank. It is an entirely new data structure format being tied to Hive for these "posts".

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As a comment makes the most sense to me. Musing had issues with that when they first launched. All of the answers to the questions were falling into the post category and people started getting upset. They quickly moved it to comments but gave you the option to have it show up on your posts. It was as easy as checking a box.

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Interesting. Funny thing, I never actually think about the word count of my posts, they just seem to end somewhere between 500-1000. Maybe it's a visual thing. That under 500 just seems too short to me.
!CTP

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I do keep track of mine, but like you they usually fall right where I need them to be. I honestly feel like that is the sweet spot. Less than 500 and they look to sparse, over 1500 and my eyes start rolling into the back of my head. That's just me though.

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I honestly feel like that is the sweet spot. Less than 500 and they look to sparse

Exactly. I've not yet written a post that would feel too long though. But surely a topic like that will come to my mind soon!

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Just meditate on it for a bit...

I will definitely do so.....i've been on the fence about this since way back in the Devtome/Devcoin days. It is ironic to me that blockchain enthusiast constantly make statements like "XXXX on this post is more than you will get from Facebook or Twitter" yet they attack any attempt to create apps that will use short form posting.

got here from LN

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I think a lot of people are going to need to rethink the way they approach it or just give up and move along without wasting the energy to downvote.

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I agree, but we both know that won't happen until it gets a bit bloody lololololol People and their ideals are hard to separate lolol

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For sure! Ideally they would implement it in a way that the old guard doesn't even notice.

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I think its already here with DBuzz and Liketu. Dbuzz just implemented Hive Lite accounts last week too. Things are moving very fast.

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I haven't been impressed with either of those two so far. They don't quite have the publishing mechanics down yet. I shouldn't be seeing a short form content post on my feed like I do with DBuzz.

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I agree, perhaps the answer is to have 2 feeds, 1 for short and 1 normal. But as Short form content is now on the main feed and earning similar rewards, the battle lines are drawn.

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Reading the comments, I see that you stirred the point, @bozz.
I think a short post version is needed as the Hive world evolves, but I can see where some people are strongly opposed to it. This one will be fun to watch.

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For sure! There has been some awesome points raised!

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I have not read all the comments, so maybe someone already covered this but from my understanding Project Blank will have its own token reward system. Which may not put it at odds with the Hive reward pool. If it does use the Hive reward pool I would hope that autovotes will be revised.
Either way, I am looking forward to it. I enjoy the restrictions of short-form content as it brings new possibilities for creativity. However, I will still continue writing long-form as well.

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They were actually having a good discussion about all of this in the Leo Discord today. A lot of it was over my head, but they are definitely thinking about impact and ramifications before they implement anything.

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I just love that the blockchain keeps evolving past what Dan Larimer first envisioned when he created it.

The community has taken it, used it differently and it has taken on a mind of its own.

If a short form content dApp built on Hive takes off, this will just be another natural evolution.

Adapt or die ;)

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I totally agree with you. I kind of wonder how Dan feels about Hive. I know he had his reasons for leaving the other chain, but what we have done and are doing here seems like something he would kind of dig.

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I am sick of this word count pressure. Sometimes 300 words hold the value 900 don't. The quality over quantity is something I prefer. But then I wouldn't say that there should be very small content. The content length should be enough to make the sense of the post.

I think it is going to be dramatic, because people are people. And I am sure an abuse of this opportunity will start that may bring negative consequences all over the ecosystem.

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I think Project Blank is going to be making the short-form posts more like comments rather than high-level posts. So it means that it won't be an issue of filling up people's feed and you would need to use Project Blank to really see the stuff going on there. At least that was my view of it.

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I personally okay with both short and long form content as long as they are appropriate.

I am interested on how Project Blank would affect our Hive.

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(Edited)

I definitely see the tide turning against long form content and this seems to be the case with all social media platforms. Most established YouTubers are terrified that the platform plans to shift to "short" format and their channels won't survive the transition. One of the channels I follow, Kara and Nate, just commented on their fears about this. I think it's the way of the world, you can't fight change.

My earning and engagement have definitely taken a huge hit this year on Hive. I probably won't change my format much because I blog here mainly to keep my skills sharp. Besides, I had a really good run those first few years and don't mind passing the torch to younger, more current creators.

As an author I fear that our attention spans are shrinking more each year. Book sales are also down but everything is cyclical and eventually there will be a backlash and media will trend back to long form.

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I agree with you on a lot of those points. Short form is the way of the future and people who drag their feet will be left behind. Much the same way people who keep ignoring crypto will be. I also think it is cyclical. I never would have thought flannels would be back in style, but here we are..

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For sure. I am taking notes of all of those in the MSM trash talking crypto right now to see how fast they flip to the positive once the market recovers. Just like most politicians, they have no opinions of their own they only push the narrative that they think will win them the most points with their corporate overlords.

Wait, flannels went out of style? I didn't get the memo. : )

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