A bird in hand: Fixing Blurt

Yesterday I made a post ridiculing what passes for Hot and Trending here at Blurt. This little series I'm writing is inspired by conversations I've had with Khrom and MK.

https://blurt.blog/blurt/@practicalthought/33emdw-my-black-and-white-photo-meal-and-acting-fit-and-who-i-voted-for-post

Right now, here are the top 5 Hot posts one would see coming to Blurt.

1- 전국 커피전문점 10만 개 시대~ (The era of 100,000 coffee shops nationwide~)

2- WWE - Blurt : Imagination Contest || Put your imagination to work - #161

3- Market manipulation at peak

4- Fruit photography #1

5- photography

Only one has a comment, and it is the spam I was here and voted message from C-time.

Let's take a look at the top 5 trending now.

1- A lazy paddle up the River

2- [블러트 #1383] 오싹! ([Blurt #1383] Creepy!)

3- Meine Actifit-Report-Card: Juli 3 2024

4- How did you come across blurt? - Take part in the survey and get strong upvotes

5- 전국 커피전문점 10만 개 시대~ (The era of 100,000 coffee shops nationwide~)

Only one post has REAL comments, and it is the only interesting post in either top 5 in my opinion. I would suggest everyone else as well since it inspired no one to talk. None of the other posts have comments.

A saying with much merit is the bird in hand.

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This has to change, or the potential bird in hand that sees Blurt for the first time will nope out of here quick.

No one who respects their own time and creative abilities would feel inspired to place their work amidst such boring work. Especially when this place appears like a ghost town in interaction.

In a discussion with MK, I mentioned the need for SEO to show up in search, to which he dismissed the need for SEO. He said that Khrom measures the visits from search and questioned how it had helped Blurt at all.

I would posit that it helped a bunch, it was many facets including the ABYSMAL care put into posts and lack of interaction that is the first impediment against us with the potential new birds in hand.

They came, they saw and they left.

The amounts earned on these posts range from about .80 to the only worthwhile post by Khrom which is the outlier at a whopping 2.51 value.

While some in economies that have been raped by the West can find that helpful, not so if you live in the West.

I do wish to point out that Blurt is not worth what it says most of the time. Twice in the last few days, my wallet value has decreased by almost half with only 60.89 in trade volume.

Imagine how low Blurt would be right now if someone had wanted to unload thousands of dollars worth?

That does not sound too lucrative. For the pure investor type, there is much downside and not any real upside. The charts going back years bear this truth out.

So let's pretend that our new visitor is not deterred by the low effort posts that are the hot trending posts of the entire site.

Pretend that the very low payout for producing also isn't a deterrent.

They click the sign me up button and see two ways to join.

They pay 3.00 in cash or spend 10 Blurt, obviously the better deal.

I'll give credit where it's due here. The offer to pay cash to join is genius and allows those (the majority of people) with no experience in crypto a means to join despite their ignorance of keys and exchanges.

However...

Most folks will find the above to be a deterrent to participating.

In the push to make everything online, folks are overwhelmed with the amount of passwords those in power are trying to force on us.

Having to adopt a James Bond mindset with not one but FOUR passwords that are super long strings of characters is not what the average person is looking to add to their lives.

ESPECIALLY for at best one or two dollars a whack.

I could go on about the way it still isn't explained at this point in the process one will need to become adept at password management (keys) and learn the one exchange we are listed at to even buy in if of a mind to do so.

Without SEO we rely solely on word of mouth, which is lacking again if you search the web.

Real bloggers spend an inordinate amount of time on other social sites like Pinterest and work their asses off promoting their blogs. And it still takes a lot of time (years) to generate any real traffic. Search engine discovery is still king, as witnessed by the decimation of blogs after the HCU update.

The March update hit like an aftershock that toppled many of the bloggers remaining standing after the HCU. Many prominent SEOs were hit with Manual Actions before the algorithm could even affect their sites.

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In conclusion, it's my recommendation that we make Blurt easier to buy than the one exchange we are listed on. Where one can buy in with cash as we see has been offered to sign up.

If we can offer a means of buy in that simplifies purchasing Blurt, it will ease some of what I've discussed.

I have no solution for the pathetic shit that passes for Hot and Trending. It seems obvious to me that most users here are apathetic and could care less that their postings damage others who want to express themselves creatively from wanting to be here.

My last recommendation is to get rid of this ridiculous 7-day payout window.

It makes no sense. We all have the stake pull we have, and whether it is used on a post from the last week or four years ago has no effect on this stake voting limitation.

Why is a post of value only of value for seven days?

That's a huge impediment. In the real blogging world pages written years ago, if written properly will continue producing income for potentially years and years.

It makes no sense as I point out, only acts as a deterrent to those serious of their blogging craft who are trying to create residual forms of income as most blogging efforts offer.

I could have said much more, but I feel this is enough. I really don't plan on blogging here anymore. In over 6 months back from curating I've earned maybe (based on the recent fall of value) about 30.00 for my curation.

I still will continue curating.

I only made this and the last post to offer my insights based on conversations I've had with Khrom and MK. I believe both are trying to think outside of the box and repair this rut Blurt is digging deeper for itself.

I believe in the coming week I'll write one more post, in which I'll outline why I appreciate the tools offered here because this place doesn't have to be doom and gloom and falling value.

A lot of it depends on the stakeholders here. If you continue to treat this place like shit, don't have a surprised Pikachu face when the value is shit.

Start treating this place as worthy of your heart and valuable and that will go far in offering a different first view for visitors from SEO.