#feature

Exploring Featured Posts

By clicking the “X” in the top right corner of these posts you can ensure that you will never see that individual post ever again.

Users who enjoy dark mode might not have been seeing this X previously, but as of now the X should be clearly visible at all times.

Screen Shot 2019-05-08 at 1.03.52 PM.png

Important Steem Updates

Featured Posts also offer a venue through which we can share important updates from other Steem projects as well as great projects that aren’t necessarily powered by Steem, but are eager to communicate how they can deliver value to Steem users like today’s post from @snaxteam. Snax is a blockchain solution that rewards people for sharing content on public social media and they recently integrated Steem! Many Steem users like @NathanMars7, @surfermarly, @steevc, and so many more have taken to Twitter to get the word out about Steem and now thanks to Snax they can earn crypto (in both SNAX and STEEM) for that great content posted outside of the Steem ecosystem.

Screen Shot 2019-05-08 at 12.58.44 PM.png

steemitwallet.com

We decided to implement this feature after the roll out of steemitwallet.com during which it became clear that we were not getting important updates into the hands of our users. Leading up to that release we published a number of communications that we hoped would prepare users for the upcoming change. Despite those communications, which were featured in the “Updates Log,” an unacceptable number of users were still taken by surprise. Featured Posts will dramatically increase the number of people who see important updates, but we understand that with this capability comes a responsibility to ensure that we are not polluting people’s feeds.

Paid Advertising?

We have not accepted any payments in return for being featured, but we are open to this possibility in the future. We would still vet these posts to ensure they are sufficiently high quality and provide valuable information to Steem stakeholders.

Communities and Pinned Posts

Featured Posts are actually a rough implementation of a feature that will launch with Communities called “Pinned Posts” which will enable community owners and moderators to feature the content they believe provides valuable information to their community members. So if you have any feedback on how this feature can be improved, we’d love to read that feedback in the comments section below.

The Steemit Team

Comments · 52

@darkflame(70)· 2662d
You need to finish fixing the WALLET @steemitblog I still cannot 'reveal' my keys even when I type in my master key it does not reveal the keys in the permission area. Not happy with this update at all.
@happyme(72)· 2662d
I can't know if I speak for others, but I DO NOT LOOK AT THE FEATURED POSTS. Please continue to use the side-bar for important messages.

I tend to agree with those who say that Steemit Inc. should NOT be manipulating what shows up in the featured posts page. It is already flooded with much of the same stuff I don't care to see. The side bar is the BEST place for posting important information that needs a place OF ITS OWN and NOT be mingled in with other stuff.

Steem has such great potential; please don't tank it with your "improvements". It's bad enough I need to be annoyed by having to scroll up each time I need to access the menu in the disappearing header.
@karenmckersie(74)· 2663d
So many adds popping up with no X to close them. @steemitblogs is there a way to stop all these advertisments from showing up in my comments section, or a way to at least close them!?!? thanks!😤😠
@blog-beginner(57)· 2664d
I think this is a really great feature to make sure that important updates are not missed by users. Even if we follow certain accounts, important updates may still be missed if you do not open steemit for long enough. In such cases these updates are really helpful. Like the Steemwallet update or Steemconnect issue which had caused a lot of panic an year ago. This feature is absolutely spot on. Just hope it is not abused for promotions of random posts
@joeyarnoldvn(68)· 2664d
Can the top 100 witnesses vote on which posts can be featured?
@tryezz(60)· 2664d
Much appreciated for all your hard work.
@bashadow(70)· 2664d
I tried busy.org, and steeve.app also and no go on posting a post. Any Idea why. Missing Posting Authority Issues again. I have seen other new post. I even shut down restarted, logged off, resigned on, and still no ability to make a post yet I can comment something is wrong. Is my post to long it is over 4000 words long and has one picture? What is the issue?
@bashadow(70)· 2664d
There appears to be a problem Houston:

edit: as you can see I can comment, but not post. Why?
@thecryptodrive(70)· 2664d
What if we pressed the X by mistake and wanted to view the post again :) Maybe a featured post history tab would be nice and ensures that those posts get longer term visibility and means you can show a history to prospective advertisers and charge more because their post will have longer exposure to anyone who decides to browse the history. Aslo if people have been away for a bit and want to catch up on featured posts that history would be good for that.
@bitcoinflood(80)· 2664d
I think it is a good idea. Also some type of notification in our top menu that is ONLY steem updates would be helpful as well.
@jerrytsuseer(73)· 2665d
I agree with what @soyrosa said: (PS: The best way to get people to see content is if their favorite Steemians/influencers resteem a post. Making sure a resteem works like a retweet, with a personal comment from the Steemian that resteems would be my preferred functionality to add to Steemit.com in order to get more 'viral content' - people want to know why a person resteems a post so they can decide to open a post from an otherwise random author.) I am so small a user, even though I've been here for nearly 2 yrs, I only make a few pennies a day. When I go to my feed (which is rare because) all I see is resteem after resteem right down the wall, people I know and like resteeming stuff, but WHY? I don't have time to open each one of those things, and the TITLE'S are often obscure from the content. If I resteem something, let me say WHY I thought it worthy of resteeming.
@steemarketing(50)· 2665d
There are many Venezuelans in steemit because of the crisis that crosses the country .. but I have always said that steemit should have at least 10 million users .. we need to have a larger advertising scheme. well for this initiative
@pagandance(56)· 2665d
I wanted to show a link to the other Steemians where they can see who is doing the hard work behind the scenes:

https://steemit.com/steemit/@pagandance/who-does-the-work-at-steem-it-and-theo-other-steem-thingies-nobody-knows-of-what-they-stand-for

But then came by a very famous witness and flagged - sorry - downvoted this topic with an army of downvote-bots.

Do you think this is a good thing for Steem(it) users to see how these things go on here?

I think if you guys can't fix the root causes of the collapse of Steem(it), dead is inevitable for this project.

Don't forget to read the quite extensive reactions from other abused Steemians in this topic I posted.
@lays(67)· 2665d
@steemitblog i bought steem coin at 2$ now price is only 30 cent please invest your revenue coming from adsense into steem and pump it otherwise i will be ruined
@arcange(79)· 2665d
Congratulations @steemitblog! Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following category:
- Comments - Ranked 4 with 81 comments
@clixmoney(78)· 2665d
Thanks for considering my suggestion about pinned posts. I hope to see that soon in steemit !
@carloserp-2000(69)· 2665d
A lot of innovation for steem! and then why is the price still falling? I do not understand absolutely nothing
@mattockfs(61)· 2665d
Would be cool if the featured/pinned posts wouldn't just be to announce things that are going to happen, and to do last minute polls for features already implemented, but also for crowdsourcing expertise.

The steemitwallet.com example, I think, is a great example of a missed opportunity to crowdsource infosec expertise for example. The idea of the split is great from a least authority perspective, the choice though to have a new domain for the wallet instead of for the posting-key only site goes against first principles of trust. Something that I feel would have been cought by an infosec expertise crowd-sourcing post earlier in the process.

I imagine this same principle to be sensible for other subjects as well. Avoid "I could have told you that wouldn't work" type of responses to actions and announcements by making "please tell us if you feel there are any problems with this" posts that are marked as "featured".

An other thing. Regarding advertisement. I think both STEEM and Steemit are missing out on a major enabler for the platform by not facilitating a STEEM based advertisements economy. The platform's value in the end is derived from the content. The best way for the platform to improve and grow is pulling in top content provider, get them to move from their current blogging or vlogging platform to the STEEM platform. Problem though, if they move to STEEM, whey will pretty much lose out on their advertising revenues while trying to establish a completely new revenue generating audience on STEEM. Not much of an incentive for them to make them move. There should, I feel, be an option for STEEM users to opt in to advertising on their posts. Such an option could draw in some of the bigger top content providers and as such improve the value of the platform. Same for the other side of the coin. The promoted tab is pretty much dead, as nobody ever looks there anyway. If I have 500 STEEM and want to run an add campaign, lets say for my novel, currently I'll need to take my STEEM, trade it for fiat currency, do to Amazon, FB, Twitter, whatever, and spent my STEEM there, while instead, if there were any top scifi book bloggers on the platform, I'dd much rather spent my STEEM right here and have my ads show up on the top blogger's page, than I would take my money out of the platform to run my ads on some platform I don't really support. Create the economy, and the platform will florifh IMHO. Don't cramp out on having ads fund Steemit Inc, when an adds economy could lift up the whole platform, and the value of Steemit Inc's STEEM assets with it.

Hope I'm making sense.
@coingecko(71)· 2665d
We think this is a wise way to make full use of the 10-15 Million monthly page views and eyeballs steemit.com as a top 5000 website.

Any communications by the Steemit team can now be better communicated to Steemians who are using Steemit.com. Which has been a major pain point by the users from what we have observed.

Maybe one day @coingecko would have a featured post on Steemit.com too when the need arises😉
@bigbot(59)· 2665d
somthing do that because steem price decreasing you have to maintain steem price at least 1 dollar why you not preparing for smt btc growing but steem still going down don't forget if price ever decreasing then steem going die.
@theguruasia(69)· 2665d
@steemitblog, Two Highlighted Errors so far! Under post, the advertisement align should be centered to the post! Seems it got a CSS error!

When we try to create a new post, sometimes the Title Bar is hidden!

Cheers~
@oldtimer(76)· 2665d
WTF have snax to do with steemit updates?
@oldtimer(76)· 2665d
Until I have an option in settings to switch this feature to off or on it's fine. Otherwise, I strongly disagree with this. And only pin changes and announcements from steemit inc.
@oadissin(77)· 2665d
This feature add value to the platform. We will have more interaction on steemit. In addition, we hope large adoption from social network. Peace
@aaronhawk(57)· 2665d
It is forced content. Forced content is bad most of the time.
@yogajill(67)· 2665d
Awesome work Steemit! I am so grateful for what you do and appreciate the new features being implemented. But, i could not figure out why the one post featured yesterday about something completely foreign to me was featured. It threw me off tbh. I felt like i was being asked for help or to contribute but i was completely confused as to how/ why i could do anything useful.
@toddfoster(61)· 2666d
Advertising to boost steems liquidity and volume would be great, only if paid in steem or SBD. If steem raises in price I think we will get more quality content providers
@ronel(61)· 2666d
I'm still having this problem/error since April 25, 2019 on creating post.
@platomaniac(61)· 2666d
nice to see the steemit lives, i believe in steemit because i think that promote many images creativity.
@ladybug146(70)· 2666d
Good job on communication to new features to the community these last few months, much appreciated. I'm happy to see the blockchain moving forward and new features being implemented.

About the feature post function, I'm fine with @steemitblog posts about community changes being pinned as an easy way to make sure all users that are interested in updates can clearly see them promptly but I'm not sure I agree with other featured posts. To me it's just more bias towards special interest/user that is being promoted, most larger users already don't pay much attention to lower users unless it's their buddy, Isn't that what the trending page is for? Isn't that enough for them already? Don't get me wrong, ppl do what they want with their stake and that's fine, that's what decentralisation is about, I just don't want it on my feed. Frankly I hardly visit that part of the site because it's always the same promoted "featured"content/users, please don't turn my feed into another replica of the shill trending page and keep that for the content I do follow.

If we could pin posts in our own individual page and those of community projects would be a nice implemented feature to pin certain things we might see as important, like projects mission, contest rules, an introduction of individual users etc instead of going thru 2 years of post to get an explanation on a project or user but on their own page. (I'm having a hard time to express this thought clearly, don't mind if it came out messed up)

I would really like to being able to say a few words on re-steemed posts being implemented, it would be a great addition to personalizing the platform a little as mentioned in a previous comment.
@angryman(69)· 2666d

Featured Posts are actually a rough implementation of a feature that will launch with Communities called “Pinned Posts”

The 'Featured Posts' implementation here on Steemit, is perhaps a helpful addition and being unobtrusive in nature, I don't mind it at all; as a matter of fact, I welcome it.
@drutter(73)· 2666d
It's mostly spam, and basically advertising. If it's not something I MUST know as a Steemit user, don't force it on me. Not impressed. Even muting the offending accounts doesn't get rid of it? I resent having to 'x' these, essentially popups, all the time. If I was actually being paid to use Steemit, sure, maybe you could advertise to me and waste my time. But Steemit isn't free, we all must buy in and keep our money locked into the blockchain, before we can make our first post, comment, or vote. Nothing happens on Steemit for free, especially after HardFork20. So come on, leave us paying customers alone. Spam to somebody else. You're just driving more users away. It's like adding an additional tax on a people. It slows things down, makes people upset, and ultimately ends up harming the economy. Come on, get rid of the spam. Set a good precedent for the rest of the users. Quality matters.
@soyrosa(75)· 2666d
Thanks for providing a post so we can discuss this topic! :-)

I am all for this featured posts functionality in case of the wallet change and any other future 'big changes' on Steemit.com. I'm also happy to see you learned from that experience and are making sure that doesn't ever happen again. The way it works now (post on top, x to click it away once read) works fine, so I'm glad you've implemented that.

Other than that I would suggest to be careful or just not use it on other posts. Always keep in mind who Steemit.com's users are (and if you don't know, try some market research amongst your users): they often have fled from (content) manipulation and centralization. Having one or two people at Steemit, Inc decide which posts 'we have to/should see' is just more centralization on a platform that is filled with people that don't like that.

Selecting posts yourself is in my view a no-go, but having people pay for that very very special spot is maybe even worse. We now have: ads/banners, trending, hot, promoted, all places for promoted or 'not so much promoted' content. All these 4 spots still have their own challenges. Clean these up/remove/perfect these first before adding a fifth place with 'special' content would be my sincere suggestion :-)

(PS: The best way to get people to see content is if their favorite Steemians/influencers resteem a post. Making sure a resteem works like a retweet, with a personal comment from the Steemian that resteems would be my preferred functionality to add to Steemit.com in order to get more 'viral content' - people want to know why a person resteems a post so they can decide to open a post from an otherwise random author.)

Last thing I want to mention: the more this pinned feature is used, the less it will catch a person's eye. People easily get 'blind' for these sort of features, and if they had to click away uninteresting (to them) or paid posts a few times in the past few days, they will be less likely to see the actually important featured post where you announced a very important update on steemit.com - Yes, indeed, like the wallet change, the whole reason you as I understand it implemented the featured post.

Just my sincere input.

TLDR: Good job, but the less this feature is used, the more effective it will be.
@hustlehacker(56)· 2666d
@onepageX
@alexs1320(72)· 2666d

We have not accepted any payments in return for being featured, but we are open to this possibility in the future.

Noooooo!!!! Big mistake, Hudge. Think big, think about millions, not hundreds. Make a dedicated space only for relevant stuff (*if you really think you need that option)
@lordbutterfly(80)· 2666d
Please stop this.

Youre continuing to establish the idea that everyone should write STEEM related content making the community even more of an echo chamber filled with clones. Please stop. This is no way to attract mainstream audiences. Everyone outside Curie and OCD already ignores 99% of non crypto content. At least you dont have to make it worse.

You have the sidebar, use it, but stop featuring posts. This sends a bad message across. The content is already one sided as is. @andrarchy
@bashadow(70)· 2666d
I am sure the folks at D-live would have just loved this feature. Con the team into thinking they are doing something for steem, then con the people, and then cut and run.

So the next group that has an idea real or fake gets to pay to promote to each and every steemit user and then maybe get a vote from them because they think that steemit supports the poster, and they very well may support them, just like they initially supported D-live. Steemit Vetting has worked so well in the past.
@tarazkp(86)· 2666d
It would be nice if every Steemit blog could pin one post to the top of the page too, that way the businesses, intitiatives and communities can keep a post there that tells about themselves and has information, rules, procedures etc.
@jacksonchakma(65)· 2666d
How long do you want the post to stay featured? Whose post will mostly be featured, the moderator or the quality content creator?
@edicted(83)· 2666d
Hm yes, thank you for proving that payout and curation (visibility) are completely unrelated as all frontends are controlled in a centralized manner.

Now eliminate curation from the consensus layer and put it on an optional sliding scale to be determined by the content creator.
@bluengel(71)· 2666d
Feature PAYING for Future ? Any Another Improvements ?

Keep On ! #steem ♨ On ! #seven77 We Together Twitter Awareness Movement for None Nothing Supported Sponsered by Steemit ! just with ♥ LOVE ! ♬♬

Posted using Partiko Android
@uyobong(78)· 2666d
On pinned posts for communities, I think its a great idea. Every community will always have what to let their members have at their tip. Thanks for coming up with this @Steemitblog
@prakashghai(64)· 2666d
well done now you are moving in the right direction
@niallon11(77)· 2666d
It's important to get the info out there. Just as long as it's relevant to the chain and not spammy.
@stackin(78)· 2666d
Good Feature! The only issue would be who decides to be “featured”, some favoritism may apply. 😀

Posted using Partiko iOS
@angelica7(76)· 2666d
Great, it's always good to be informed and up to date with everything that happens in this wonderful chain of blocks. I will take this reference publication to inform our community in Spanish. Thanks for informing. Good vibes.
@vikisecrets(80)· 2666d
I like the featured post feature 👍
@whatsup(76)· 2666d
I like this feature and I think it will be really important when you drop the next changes to the interface, like wallets, etc.

I think some just aren't thinking about when it will matter yet.
@movingman(71)· 2666d
Better many years late than never! edit: funny thing is that these days there's now nobody here to read things anyway, so its basically just getting ready for the next gen of Steemians.. The rush before MEOS and things get happening lol
@fingolfin(63)· 2666d
Is there any way to stop the featured posts from coming back after I clicked the x? I'm getting real tired of having to remove posts I didn't want to see in the first place multiple times a day.

I'm sure this has to do with my privacy settings on my browser but why should I have to change them just to stop seeing shit I didn't want to see anyways?
@abdulmanan(67)· 2666d
Great! Keep it up. These changes should have done a long ago... But it's never too late..hoping for a great future! Steem on!
@doitvoluntarily(80)· 2666d
keep goin👍