One of the things that appealed to me from the very start — and was a major contributing factor to why I decided to start publishing content on Hive and its predecessor — about this decentralized blockchain infrastructure is the fact that it seems quite "sturdy" as a place to park content in the longer run.
Having been at this online writing/publishing gig for a long time, there are few things more frustrating than building a body of work only to discover that it has all been unceremoniously deleted because whatever hosting system you were using either "ran out of money" (that one is common) or the originators simply got tired of what they were doing and didn't bother (or weren't able to) find someone to take over the reins.
I tend to work in the long term. It's one of the reasons twitter/X never worked for me. I don't think in 250-character comments... I think in stories.
I suppose you could argue that I could just write something and print it out in paper form... and that would provide more permanence.
True enough, but it's also not all that convenient if your intention is to share that content... even if such sharing is primarily for the benefit of friends and family members. The same thing could really be applied to "writing it and keeping it on a thumb drive."
Personal Stories — not Just "Blog Posts"
Of course, many might pipe up and say that we are "telling personal stories" with our blog posts, every day... and that's undeniable.
The context I'm thinking of when I speak of "serializing" is a little more autobiographical. What came to mind initially was the experience I had of coming to the USA from Europe, in the early 1980s. It's way more story than a blog post... but it's not a book, exactly.
"Serializing" is the process of breaking a 15,000-word personal essay into 15-20 more logically organized chapters.
Of course, we might say "why bother?"
Family history.
Many many Moons ago, I floated the idea that one good use case for Hive being as an adjunct to genealogy; not only can you post images, but there's far more of a facility to tell stories about those pictures here... and the blockchain provides more of a permanent record than most venues on the web... and it's a readily sharable venue.
For those needing it to be "easy to access," there's always something like @peakd's "Curated Collections" utility, allowing multiple chapters to be gathered in an easily organized format.
On "Utilizing" vs. "Profiting From" a Venue
When I think about communities, and particularly thriving communities, what comes to mind is that community members really want to be part of something.
That is, the communities offer something that makes people want to show up and participate.
On Hive, we tend to get terribly wrapped up in the whole "rewards" end of things. Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with being rewarded for your content... but it's also a line of thinking that has its limitations. One major limitation is that content becomes "rewards driven."
What I mean by that is that people will always be biased towards publishing something that's "likely to be popular and earn rewards."
Again, nothing wrong with that.
But not all personal stories are likely to be "popular," in a mass-market sense. Many are, of course, because we humans tend to be somewhat voyeuristic by nature, and we live vicariously through the experiences of others.
A second point is that most personal stories are long-term/evergreen in nature, and that makes them (on a monetary level) relatively irrelevant in the context of a system where only the first 7 days of publication has any real meaning.
That's where we part ways from the idea of "rewards driven" content. The objective changes. When I publish a personal story, it is my (vain, perhaps?) hope that our grandchildren might one day find it interesting to read about how "Pow-Pow" (that would be yours truly) originally came to America. Something that goes above and beyond basic entries and a photo on a standard genealogy site.
Perhaps this doesn't seem like much of a new idea to many people... but it's one of those things we tend talk a lot about... but then we revert back to following our well-worn paths.
Maybe it's time to break out of them!
Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your day!
Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation! I do my best to answer comments, even if it sometimes takes a few days!
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(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly and uniquely for this platform — NOT posted anywhere else!)
Created at 2024-01-19 14:50 PST
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