1. Reddit has recently launched a 'Beta Profile' option. And I actually like it.
You can see they have a huge focus on the users content as opposed to simply a boring list we get more of a Facebook Timeline look and feel, coupled with a sidebar that has more information about the user and the Follow button upfront and obvious. They also added a 'most active' in section which shows where the user spends his/her time.
These are all great changes and if they only launch it like this it will be a large improvement over the current profile page, but my gut tells me they have some cool features either still being developed or that will be released later and that is why Steemit needs to put the gas pedal on before it becomes a game of who copied who :D
2. This shows they are trying to keep users on the website longer, and give them more to do.
I'm pretty sure the idea behind this move is to not only give Reddit a more user focused, and centric feel but to also give everyone yet another reason to be logging into Reddit and further boosting their time on site, and unique daily visitor stats which are both very key metrics. It just so happens Steemit also cares about those same stats! So a move like this would almost be common sense in my book.
Reddit spends millions of dollars trying to constantly improve the experience of their website alongside other companies such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram & Google and we would be wise to harness the power of all that research, Steemit is capable of doing everything in its own way, and even cool sub communities will one day be built entirely on the Steem blockchain!
3. They are placing a focus on users in order to compete with other social networks.
Websites such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube and so on all track a couple key stats to tell the overall story of how active the websites are; and they mostly pertain to users, time spent on the site, content submitted and so on, but most of all they care about the constant stream of new users and the total sum of all accounts. All of this simply results in investor considering the company more and more worthy of investment.
They are basically herding everyone up in 5 platforms so that when Steemit is primed and ready it will be a breeze to begin the massive culture shift to an open source, decentralized social era. So we would be smart to do everything they do and then some, and when the time comes, the users will be like wow, all of this is familiar to me AND you get paid? Sign me up!
4. Reddit is a very large, wealthy company and they know what they are doing. Being nimble is a key Steem advantage.
Reddit has been thinking this over for some time, I'm sure they have had many meetings about possibly doing this and have gone back and forth over it, but here we are and they have decided to move forward, which tells me they think this is a good idea and will provide value to their ecosystem, so being that Steemit is basically Reddit on steroids, wouldn't we benefit from implementing similar changes and keep the UX as familiar as we can while improving where we see fit? I think so.
So what do you think? Should Steemit also place am larger focus on user profiles and customization?
Checkout my other recent posts if you missed them!
1. (A Steem Powered World) Why Steem-powered projects are the future of Social Media.. the attention economy is real and you deserve a portion of it.
2. 5 Simple & Easy Steemit Tricks to Help Your Posts Earn More, from a Professional Marketer. [Fire Emoji]
3. A Steem-powered Twitter competitor is coming soon... & if you haven't got some ZAPPL from Openledger, you're doing this wrong. Invest in a piece of social media history.
4. How I turned $500 into $25,000, and will most likely turn that into millions and you can too. [aka Crypto101]
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