When we split from Steem, we chose the name Hive, which is a highly generic English word present in several domains, including the technology space - even the narrower spaces of blockchain and social media. This has made it difficult to identify signal from noise when we are trying to evaluate interest in our Hive, be that on Google Trends or elsewhere. The "noise" around Hive is just so much larger than our Hive. "Hive" is a highly searched term all over the world.
However for the first time, we are starting to see that signal step out of the noise, at least a little. Google Trends is showing a spike in interest in Hive, and it just happens to coincide with the region where we know for a fact that we have our highest penetration rate.
In Cumaná (Sucre state, Venezuela) we have @hivesucre leading a merchant on-boarding project. While still trivially small, it is growing fast.
That growth has an exponential factor.
In up to 50 stores in the city, staff are wearing the Hive logo on their sleeves. Some of them have even started blogging here.
Every day I am seeing new users join from the city of Cumaná, as well as older accounts who had stopped being active become active to post again.
Similarweb.com has shown Hive.blog jumping up the rankings for web traffic in Venezuela. In just a couple of months it went from below rank #1000 to #373 in the country. Though hive.blog and peakd.com overall appear to have low traffic overall, and aside from play to earn games and some conspiracy content, the random organic traffic we appear to get is directly mostly towards Hispanic, particularly Venezuelan content.
(I realize the screenshot above mentions Mexico, but if you explore the link above you'll notice it is mostly Venezuelan.)
The proportion of Spanish-tagged posts is on the verge of an all time high.
Will any of this amount to anything?
It must be understood that all this is not an entirely organic trend. The high popularity of Hive in Cumaná has been picked up on by the community. The @hivesucre merchant on-boarding project is a result of an intentional drive by community members to grow the Hive community and even the HBD economy in the region. It is intentionally supported with funds and resources through @valueplan, itself funded by the DHF.
So rather than a purely organic trend, this should be seen in part as the ongoing return on an ongoing, intentional investment in the region. For now this costs us money, such is the nature of an investment. Will the investment pay off? We do not know. It's entirely possible that it will not be able to grow beyond the level that can be sustained through subsidy. However, there is a path to self-perpetuating growth, a self-sustaining economy that contributes financial value to Hive, rather than as an expense.
Hive is not going to grow purely organically - it is something we have to make work with intentional effort and focus. If we are on the verge of anything in Cumaná, it is an opportunity that requires our support, not just something that will happen and we can benefit from without our own collective effort as well.