In the course of my 20+ year blogging "career," I have seen lots and lots of "split-offs" and "alternatives" being started as alleged "improvements" to venues I have participated in.
Blurt is by no means the first. Some years back, there was Zujava, branching off from Squidoo.
The challenge pretty much all late comers face is that it's hard to stand out, compared to an original. Consider what might happen if someone were to start a "new version" of Facebook, here in 2020.
How far do you think that would that get?
Probably not very far. There might be some initial enthusiasm among a smallish group of people, most of whom would keep a foot in each camp for a while... "just to see what happens, before I commit fully."
That's not about being wishy-washy or indecisive... that's simply human nature... and leaves new developers having to overcome that very real thing called the "First Mover Advantage."
I'm not suggesting it can't be done, just that it's difficult, and success or failure tends to hinge on whether or not the newcomer is able to establish significant differentiation from the venue they split off from.
In the vast majority of cases, "looks like the old one, except with new management" is insufficient to provide the sort of lasting value needed to attract and maintain a sustainable community.
I find myself here on Blurt, "poking around" again. Because I am curious, and wondering where this project will head.
My point being, that I expect I am pretty representative of many users here... watching from the sidelines and taking a "wait and see" approach. Which leaves the eternal question of whether that will be enough to build a new community?
Sequence: 009 Timestamp: 2020.08.11 - 22:16 PDT
You're definitely representative of a lot of people. I've seen all kinds so far. Some think like you; they take the "wait and see" approach. I've seen some that don't want anything to do with it other than to power down and sell their lot. They believe that the project won't go anywhere. And I've also seen quite a few that are all in and they believe that the project will do awesome.
I'm optimistic myself. I see some of what's happening behind the scenes and I believe that the project has lots of potential. I guess we'll see in the long run. I've been buying some and powering up. It's cheap at the moment, so it's time to buy.
There are a few that have started projects and contests on Blurt, and I think that has a potential to boost it quite a bit as well. There is @blurtography, the Man Cave project run by @brofund, and @blurtrides for car enthusiasts. These are the three that I can think of off the top of my head.
If there's enough demand for #caturday and cat related content, I might fire up @caturday.curator on Blurt as well. Hehe!
If I do the Daily Prompt on a regular basis - would you fire up a bot for that?
That is certainly something I could do. We'd have to figure out how the bot would evaluate the posts and then set it up. It wouldn't be too hard.
The way my @caturday.curator bot works on Hive, it looks for posts with cat related tags every four hours, then it picks up to 5 posts randomly and evaluates the posts based on the number of words and the number of images, then upvotes them with a percentage based on the evaluation.
I could do something similar for the Daily Prompt posts.
That sounds good. Here on blurt, I have it open for writing, photography and art...
I don't know how that would work.
Thanks for the thoughtful and informative replay @saboin.
I don't know what's happening behind the scenes, so my perceptions are purely based on what is visible. So I look at Blurt and ask "what DIFFERENTIATES this community from Steem/Hive?" What is materially (rather than just "cosmetically") different from the other sites... in terms of functionality, features, distribution of wealth and power and so forth.
Caturday might be a nice addition here!
There are so many new platforms out there and I know that many are dipping a foot into it and some will stick. After all, how many platforms can a person be on...
But sometimes, a small group is enough to spread the word.
I think the success here will depend on new people joining and not just spammers...