Yoyoyo, there are so many things I wanted to talk about. I began typing and they all sort of mixed together. I had too many things on my mind to put into a little post.
What is adding value to Steem? I've been pondering on this question lately. There just doesn't seem to be a black and white answer. It involves perspective. Is adding value to be considered bringing new people onto the platform? Writing articles that get shared other places, or articles that get to the top of googles search algorithms for future page views? That is adding value surely. Hosting and taking part in competitions is adding value as well. However can't adding value be something that seems small? Encouraging dialogue, or writing something that has a profound affect on another user (Not saying that I have ever had this effect, others have on me though). Is a pretty picture adding value? is a Haejin TA adding value? How much value do these things add? How much are they worth? The lines are so blurry sometimes.
This place is a decentralized social media hub to me. Its going to have aspects of all other social media sites. Dmania is meme only, Zappl will be short form twitter style only, Steepshot is for pictures like Instagram. Apects of Quora, Reddit, Facebook, and Wordpress are all here. An Instagram photo might not have value to someone looking for answers on Quora, it still has value to someone. Nobody wants to see a Quora Q and A on their Instagram feed. When more 'Subsites' come out, people wont have to. As far as I heard though, Steemit will still aggregate them all. It will eventually be like the one social media account to rule them all. It could be prettttty sweet!
Is Steemit the place for a blog? I have a Steemit car magnet that says 'Blog, post, get paid' so it must be. Though I often talk myself out of posting because I get tripped up on what is adding value. I decide my words are probably not adding value. Then I just go upvote memes instead lol. You don't see a blog style post end up on the hot or trending pages very often. If I wanted to achieve that, I would turn this post into 3 or 4 posts.
One post titled 'What is considered adding value to Steemit - An open discussion' I would make another post titled 'Is Steemit a good place to be a blogger', yet another called 'Steemit is the hub and spoke blockchain for social media'.. I could go on. Then I just drag each one out, and individually they would have a better chance of ending up being of higher payouts. Nobody has time for these walls of text it seems.
I say yes. Blog here! this is the place to just write down your thoughts. Maybe we will have an aggregate blogging interface eventually that will separate posts like this, from memes, from photos. I enjoy getting it all from here though. I have had many a good discussion with people through posts like these. I have met many good people. I have learned, laughed, cried. To me it all has its value. Surely if Haejin's 10 TA's for the day are all worth 200$, then this post can be worth something. Your post can be worth something too!
I was on a website called the Dailypaul. It was dedicated to Ron Paul, real news, and ideas of liberty. I enjoyed my time there. I never made money. I just got to interact with people I respected. I was able to learn from them. To share ideas. When posting on there it was respectful to see if the news had already been posted by someone else, if it had. You wouldn't make a new post about it, you would just take part in the conversation that has already been started.
The other day I was up late. I found out that Steem was being listed on Binance. The announcement was 40 minutes old when I seen it. I though sweet I better make a post about that, BUT FIRST let me see if someone was first tot he news. 
I just want to offer the suggestion that this is one of the things Resteeming is for. If you are constantly on the top of the hot or trending pages. Or if you are even just like me and you make 3$ or 10$ a post. When you find something you want to post about, take a second to see if someone else has posted about it. If they have give them props. Upvote and resteem them. Join the dialogue in their comments. If it inspires you and you want to post about it too, to add something or to question something.. then go for it. I am not completely innocent of this, it has happened to me.
I make a decent effort to scroll through my feed, through the tags I would use on the post, and to do a search in Steemit just to see if someone beat me to it and deserves an upvote. To see if they covered all the things I wanted to talk about. If they did then there is no reason for me to post. This was an unwritten law on The Daily Paul. It would be nice if it were exercised a little more here, to gives to props to the minnows and get them on the hot page instead of posting about it yourself and stealing their moment for glory lol!
Man, this went quick for me today, so its probably a wall of text that will drag on for those who try to read it. Sorry about that, hope it encourages even just couple people to think about some of this though. If you have something to add, I would appreciate the thoughts. If I were to make another post today which of these subjects should I go into further detail on? Or are these topics done and dead and I should find something better to post about?
Thanks for your time as always. Im going to take some pictures today. The weather is nice and a drive sounds like a good idea so I might as well find some nice things to capture and share.
Woot woot,
