PeakD core values and home page

in About PeakD3 years ago (edited)

Yesterday we published a new version post with a list of a ton of new changes big and small to https://peakd.com/... today we want to go over more in depth what was the biggest project on that list. The new Home Page.

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THE NEW HOME PAGE = PEAKD FOCUS

https://peakd.com/

Our new home page is about education and expectations and sharing a message that we believe is truly marketable. We therefore wanted to write a longer post to help our users to be on board with this approach. Maybe we can help you with your marketing pitch to your own friends.

The home page was many months in the making. Not because it took a long time to design. The new home page represents months of talking about our core values (internally and with others) and debating our unique offering to the world, both for PeakD and Hive. In the end it doesn't seem like it should have taken us this long to get to something that seems so obvious and it was always what we were working on for the last 3 years... but now it's been vocalized in a way we love.

  1. So what do we have to offer the world? True Ownership.
  2. What can we focus on to make this possible? Decentralization.
  3. What is our role with our users? A partnership

PeakD is a Partner in Decentralized Social Media with True Ownership

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4Cs - COMMUNITIES AS THE TOP "C"

Hive/PeakD offer many features and product focuses.
We use the 4Cs to classify those products.

  • Communities
  • Content
  • Connections
  • Crypto

On the home page we talk about how each of those 4 are decentralized and you can have TRUE OWNERSHIP of all of them.

COMMUNITY TOP PRODUCT: We have decided that COMMUNITY will be the product that we want to talk about and promote the most. It gives PeakD/Hive the most unique feature set and we believe it will end up being the biggest product so we want to focus on it now... even as communities are barely one year old and there is sooo much room to grow technically speaking and also user base speaking. Check this post about the history of communities.

So you should expect that many of our future features will be created to help improve the community experience though we will still improve many other areas of the website and the other 4Cs.

Like What?

  • Open chats for Communities
  • Integrating Hive-Engine and ScotBot features into community pages
  • Upgrading the layout of community pages
  • Integrating badges
  • Classifying/organizing post topic types
  • ...and so much more

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WHO IS OUR HOME PAGE DIRECTED AT?

The PeakD.com home page will go through more changes in the years to come but for now we had a particular type of person in mind with the home page.

The person we had in mind for the new PeakD.com home page is:
The Thought Leader and motivator in each person's group of friends
That person who researches, has strong opinions, shares those opinions frequently and effectively and has lots of friends that listen to what they say.

  • They are interested in the problems with social media
  • They get the idea of decentralization
  • They have a tendency to value freedom and choice
  • They are skeptical of large corporations and the control they have
  • They believe people should have more control
  • They are not excited about other people forcing decisions on them
  • They believe in the value of ownership

This person will likely be a good source of support to new users helping with education needs and customized support for new users.

In short PeakD is very interested in getting that type of individual to come to PeakD.com and then be a support to bring in lots of their own friends. And we want that individual to come to PeakD because they believe in our core principles and are good at sharing them to others.
Therefore we need to do a little extra work to present that message to them. We believe this type of individual will be willing to read a few more paragraphs because they are thoughtful and careful and when convinced they are also the type to jump all in and share the message.

STILL WORKS FOR NEWBIES
At the same time we also want to make sure the home page quickly identifies what kind of EXPERIENCE a new user can expect on PeakD.
Even if they don't fully grasp the importance of Decentralization and Ownership and how PeakD is more of a partner for the content owner... it's important that they realize what kind of site PeakD is.
We believe that on the new home page users will realize pretty quickly what they would expect inside.

We believe the outspoken friend will re-share our principles to newbies (sometimes in their own words) and do a better job of convincing them at their own level. They'll tell people they can "take control" of their content and share why it would be important to their friends. They'll tell users that other sites give "pinky promises" but Hive and PeakD play a completely different game where they don't need to trust a pinky-promise (Terms of Service)

UP FRONT ABOUT KEYS AND LOGIN METHODS
On the home page we mention keys and in our video we share why they're part of our unique offering: they are part of what allows true ownership. So we are connecting the idea of Ownership together with letting the user know there is some responsibility on their part. In a sense we are marketing some of the harder aspects of Hive as one of the cool things about Hive... a thing that is worth understanding instead of running away from.

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FIRST STEPS OF ONBOARDING: EDUCATION

On Hive we often talk about "bringing in the masses" but we also need to have the masses understand how to be a part and then for them to STAY.

Frustration, disappointment and departure are often symptoms of bad or un-met expectations

  1. Teach them why they should consider Hive/PeakD: True ownership.
  2. Familiarize them with the basics of how true ownership is possible: Keys, the idea of blockchain and need for login software like keychain or peaklock.
  3. Get them in the mindset that ownership means the mindset of responsibility.
  4. We also believe pointing them toward communities is important because it's our most exciting product with the most potential.

THE MESSAGE WORKS

Here's the awesome part... this message of "True ownership" WORKS and it's more efficient. (Your mileage may vary)

I have spent time talking to lots of people recently, from the "technological illiterates" to the content creators with millions and millions of subscribers... they understand the message of Content Ownership and they understand it quickly. True ownership is an easier quicker pitch to convince them how PeakD/Hive is special and worthy of looking into and how there is nothing else like it and they see the connection between what is happening in social media and what we are offering.

The news has done much of the job for us with Twitter, Trump, Parler and Cancel Culture. Users quickly understand why having true ownership is at least different. Doesn't mean that each of those people has a personal hole in their life where they are desperately wanting True Ownership but they get it and they think it's awesome and they know it will help some of the content creators they follow. They also understand when I bring up that: "a companies terms of service are as easy to change as using a word processor and the delete button and therefore sites promoting 'censorship resistance' are just like pinky-promises and they are setups for future disappointments."

Therefore... We think the best option is to orient the pitch of the home page to people who will most be attracted to hese core principles and understand them the quickest and then share them the most.

BETTER THAN REWARDS

These principles are propositions/incentives that are more durable than economic propositions... it's a pitch that is not dependent on the price of Hive token nor dependent on success being how many "Hive-Whales" that content creators can get to see their stuff. The user will always have true content ownership, it is a constant they can always be happy about.

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WHERE DOES HIVE-REWARDS FIT IN THE PITCH?
It's there... at the end.
You may find it interesting that PeakD only mentions rewards at the bottom of the page and hive-rewards-pool is not at the top of the list... it's TIPS... because tips you have much more control over. Tips is a one to one transaction between you and someone else. Hive Rewards Pool is a decision made by every single active account on Hive... meaning the actions of every other hive account impacts your reward, not just the votes on your post but the votes on all other posts will impact your rewards for your post.

We like Hive Rewards pool... but it isn't as solid of a foundation to make new users excited and would never be economically fulfilling enough for large influential content creators. We want large content creators to come to PeakD and bring their viewers here. If the pitch for Hive was about hive rewards pool then they would have less incentive to bring their viewers... they would instead be mostly interested in getting users like @theycallmedan @ocdb or @blocktrades to read their posts.

Decentralization of economic incentives is the name of the game. We want business minded creators to have several options so that there are no dependencies on any one in particular.


Will the home page perfectly explain itself to your next door neighbor or mom?

Maybe not perfectly yet but it does a better job than previously. Also we did add a nice video and a link right on the top of the home page that describes how to login and post. We are also going to be doing lots of individual feedback reviews with new users to make the site more intuitive and we'll get more feedback about the home page as well. Meaning we will work at understanding what it is a new user wants to know the most or will set up the best expectations for their Hive/PeakD experience.

For those people seeing someone login and post in about 90 seconds or less is perhaps the most valuable thing.

Do we still have some more work to do to appeal to the masses? Yes.

And PeakD is going to be working on making many of the tougher parts easier / more intuitive.

Hive does need to figure out how to handle onboarding millions of users both with account creation costs but also infrastructure. A faster but measured growth is not a bad option specially if those users are educated and can be a good foundation for when "the masses" are ready.

THOUGHTS?

  • How do you feel about our updated home page?
  • What do you think of the 3 core principles of PeakD?
  • Will the new home page help your friends?
  • Do you think true ownership is the main appeal of Hive? If not what do you think it is?
  • Do you have a testimonial you think would be a good addition to the home page that will help potential users "get it"?

We would love to hear from you and perhaps more importantly we want to hear from your friends who come to PeakD for the first time. We will always be working to improve our messaging.



SUPPORT @PEAKD

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Am loving the new update. It feels more cohesive and is actually quite unique looking among social accounts which is really nice ! The decentralised message I think is a good one.

I have commented on the recent work in another post, and really like what you have done with the page. However, I do think that new users (like me) who are excited about true ownership will want to know where their content goes when they hit the button. From PeakD's own FAQ (and the new home page), I learned that text is saved on the blockchain, but it then does not really spell out where other content (such as photos and videos) goes.

Reading between the lines, I understand there's no decentralized solution for that yet? That may make some (especially the big names) wait until there is a true decentralized solution that ensures their data is shielded from censorship.

Anyway, that was a roundabout way of saying that maybe there could be more complete info on the decentralization part of PeakD.

 3 years ago  

Yes Hive Blockchain itself doesn't handle decentralized storage of large items like photos or videos just text but we are happy to integrate other systems that are offering that. 3speak is working towards this aim with IPFS type storage options. It is our opinion that it is good for different projects to specialize and get really good at the offering they are working on.

Definitely falling in love with the new home page! It is very informative with smooth UX! Great work!

The work you are putting into communities is truly exciting! Thank you!

Continuing progress from the team, I like it, never standing still for a moment and willing to make changes and re-make changes when needed. I like the two panel view verse the three panel view on post.

I love the widget at the right when reading a post, with details about the author and other posts. I noticed it since today I think.

You guys do a great job with a world-class frontend, thanks so much for your hard work and discipline!

I keep Peakd as a beneficiary of all posts posted on Peakd for a reason!

ps. I'd love to see an option in my feed to filter out certain tags. For example, I don't always want to be looking at dBuzz posts. Sometimes my feed is has quite a few of these one sentence things. I like dBuzz but I also just like to look at the other stuff when I'm on my feed (or at least have the option to).

Hey, thanks for your comment. Is this option not available for you in your feed?

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Ah, yes, that is there but it would be great to have a check box in 'filters'. The same place you can exclude reblogs, so you can flick it on and off easily.

Ok, thanks. Got it now 👍

I'll see if we can this in one of the upcoming release.

That would be great... Possibly a toggle for a couple like actifit and dbuzz then possibly also a custom toggle which you can fill in yourself and add to a list of personalised toggles.

It's great to follow hundreds of people but getting useful or desired information out of your feed can be troublesome.

Had an idea recently and not sure if it will work or is not already being sussed out -

Make a 'photo only' post option and call it something catchy like 'PikQuik' or something - which provides for a title and caption and the ability to post up to ten photos or a 1 minute video - then also provide a toggle for these posts in your feed. I feel that with the seemless integration of toggles Peakd can become an uber interface - with one account one accesses the equivalent of twitter, instagram, YouTube posts etc.

With messaging (now integrated which is cool) and an extended profile option, it would be indistinguishable from a regular social media platform.

A social media on steroids that is immutable and can earn you coin.

Another idea is to extend profiles. Allow people to make a Facebook style profile if they want, via utilising a single forever edited post on the blockchain, one that is formatted in such a way to allow a larger bio, a few more pictures and/or links in an attractive format.

Ideas!

I know you guys are a small development team but I'm excited at the prospects of Hive myself as I see if it got big enough, has potential to shape society in a positive way. I'm a visionary - hey we've got to be in these dark times hey? 😅 Hehe

Ok, good luck and good night,

Monty

Such awesome updates to the site. I love all the new information on it. Thanks for all the hard work you all are doing here.

Love the update!

Thanks for everything you guys do.

I haven't tried the new version yet. Even so, I am truly amazed at how handy peakd already. How much more for the new one. I can't tell you for now how I am happy about this update. Although, I expect always better from you guys.

Thanks for the hard work and for this update.

This is really awesome, you never stop amazing us! 😉👍

I love using @peakd for posting , commenting and also uploading pictures into my post. The Peakd interface is so superb and so attractive. I saw a new upgraded version as well. Keep it up here.

Truly amazing 🤩 @peakd

I am new in hive but I see this work as detailed and informative and also mind blowing

really great job!!!

True Ownership is a great aspect of hive, but as soon as people censor the downvote icon they are attacking the freedom of expression of those who wish to show dissent.

I dissent on a daily basis, as much as I agree actually, it's a harmony of agreeing and disagreeing that we all go through in life, and I feel the people own less usage for those keys if they can't not downvote whoever they want for any reason they want.

Great post, I have still problems with keys, posting ,management but it's normal and probably I will never overcome these problems.

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Suggested feature: aggregate on rewards daily/weekly/monthly. That would be a helpful view. I noticed that Hive no longer shows the weekly curation/author reward (ie: https://wallet.hive.blog/@user/author-rewards). This would be a useful addition, especially since Hive removed it.