The big migration is over, we've arrived at our new residence and... it needs lots of touch-ups.
Despite the immense potential in being a blockchain based social platform, I've never seen it being harvested on any of steem interfaces. It always lacked those small features necessary to make it a place to build an online presence on it.
But now that we're rebuilding this platform, let us see what we need to add to make it a suitable home for the best content this community can create, and give the rest of internet a reason to look at Hive as something more than just another way, to get their hands on some crypto-currency.
Easy membership (registering )
We all know as a social platform, the entry to steem was barred with steep conditions, and I've heard it's being worked on in hive.
My suggestion is letting anybody with an email create an account to leave temporary comments or interact with the posts and users. Let the users decide if they want those comments to be permanent by leaving an upvote or accepting the resource costs of the blockchain.
Those users can go through a second step, get their keys and become a full-fledged member at a later time.
We need more tools to manage posts (blogging)
Hide/archive posts
Just being able to edit old posts doesn't cut it. We need a way to hide/archive from our blog some of the old posts that are not relevant anymore.
Re-arrange posts
It happens rarely, but writing series of posts, we might need to add one in between the older ones. A way to move them up and down is necessary.
Categorize
There's nothing wrong with writing about several topics in one blog, but often a reader is only interested in one of them. give the users a way to make lists of their posts and send a link of those lists to their readers/fans/clients.
Easy to use editor
Markdown is awesome, but not everybody is as code savvy as we are. If we want non programmers to join us, we have to give them some easy to use tools to style their posts and comments with.
Pools
It's a wonderful little tool that among other benefits, gives the writers the power to get a reaction from the readers that usually don't bother to leave a comment.
Better tags
3D is a tag we often need, but try to add it to your post and you'll get "Must start with a letter ".
This among other limitations in the tagging system makes it very annoying and inaccurate, please fix those. Tags need to be free.
Multi user blogs
Building up a brand and growing a fan-base is a huge undertaking that often requires multiple people. I know hives are something like that but I haven't worked with hives enough to know if they're anything close to what I'm suggesting here.
Customizable pages
We can give few pages to each user to decorate with gadgets and posts they want their audience to see first. Freedom to present their personalized image is a big attraction in blogging platforms.
Hive management (social)
I'm not sure how hives work, hopefully the admins and managers can choose which post to show and which doesn't belong, otherwise they would be like any feed page with random posts. Unfortunately with the name overlap, it's pretty hard to find information on them right now and I have to experiment a bit first.
Notifications
We need email, push and desktop notifications. Social media platforms owe part of their popularity to their robust notification systems. most interactions on social media happen in few minutes window, while you wouldn't expect a reaction that fast to your comment on hive. We need to change that.
Long term value (fighting spam)
The short window that a post is profitable to the users have created an avalanche of spam and posts that lose their value after a week or two, and we're keeping them on the chain forever. Hive needs a way to recognize and promote the posts that stay relevant and useful for a long time. Maybe rewarding random top quality bloggers handsomely and regularly.
This shows the users that we value, value more than volume, and it's better to build up with quality, not just quantity.
Adds (more benefits)
I don't know who started this rumor that adds are bad and decentralized platforms should avoid them. We have a big community to feed and if companies are willing to pay for their adds to be shown to us, I'll say do it, get the money and spend it to benefit the community.
Even if there's money in mining users data, let the users decide what parts of their data is sold and turn that data to money with their consent. It will enrich the whole ecosystem and everybody will benefit no matter how many are participating.
Mobile wallet (economy)
A desktop wallet is good, but it's not that necessary. A good mobile wallet combined with fast and fee-less transactions can elevate Hive from another crypto-currency to the preferred touch free payment method of this generation. Just imagine paying vendors by scanning a QR code from their cellphone and entering your pin! 1, 2, 3 and done.
The demand for it exist today, we just have to get ready for the rush of new users.
Fun (naming)
This might be a good time to rename "Hive dollars" to "honey". Just imagine how much more fun would it be to say, I got honey to pay with.