A long long time ago, I worked at a local Radio Shack store. This was one of their slogans during that period and I frequently found myself saying it as a phone greeting.
If it hadn't already been taken, I think this would have been a great slogan for Musing. Having never even heard of Quora before, I was intrigued by a Dapp platform where you could ask and answer questions.
I consider myself a jack of all trades and this seemed like a great way for me to share the little bit of knowledge I have about a lot of things.
It's also a fantastic way for you to share your opinion about a lot of things. Sometimes you have to have pretty thick skin though because you know what they say about opinions and everyone having one...
Getting Started
The Musing Dapp can be accessed here
If you already have an account on the STEEM blockchain, musing uses Steemconnect to log you in with those credentials. If you don't have an account on Steem but are interested in getting on, check out Steem Ninja.
Once you are logged in, you can see that the interface is pretty clean and easy to follow. You can read through the posted questions in the middle of the screen or choose specific categories(Feeds) over on the left hand side of the screen.
They also have a search feature if you are looking for a specific question. When I use Musing, I frequently find myself clicking the "Hot" or "New" links at the top of the question stack. This allows me to make sure I am answering only "fresh" questions.
If you click the "plus" sign next to your profile picture you can ask your own question.
I'd like to compliment how intuitive the interface is. Everything is really well laid out and the fields that you need to fill in are well labeled and easy to understand. First you enter your question at the top, then you list any tags your question applies to. Additionally, you can add more text if you want to clarify your question or give your personal thoughts. Finally, you click submit.
Replying to a question is just as easy.
Simply pick one that interests you, click the answer button, type in your text and then click submit.
It really is as easy as that.
If you click on your profile picture, you can see a brief overview of your account. A lot of this information is relative to your Steem account, not your specific account on Musing. It does give you a list of all the questions you have asked and answered though.
A quick search showed that in my time on Musing I have asked and answered around 481 questions. I think that is pretty impressive and speaks to the potential of the platform.
The Good
I stumbled onto Musing before the received their delegation from Steemit Inc. As I said in the intro, I thought it was a great way to share the wealth of information that I have as well as a fun way to pass the time pondering deep intellectual things.
When they received their delegation things only proceeded to explode for them. There were suddenly many more users on the platform and where before they were struggling to have 100 new questions asked a day they were now having thousands asked per day.
If you had the time, knowledge, and desire to spend crafting original well written answers, this could be very lucrative for you.
You can see in the picture above, in my time on Musing, I have made over $380 in rewards from them. That is just for spending a couple of minutes each day answering some questions with honest answers based on my experience.
The draw for Musing was so huge that I was even able to get my wife interested in it. I was telling her about how I was making some decent money answering questions and she said "I can answer questions". The next thing you know, the @mrsbozz account was born and she was spending some of her free time answering questions on Musing.
The Bad
According to the media section of State of the Dapps, Musing comes in at 68th, I have a feeling this probably used to be higher before their delegation was pulled.
I checked Musing’s profile page on State of the Dapps for this Dapp review, they have an average daily user count of 34 and their daily transactions are 116. That leads me to believe it is a handful of the same people posting content.
Even before their large delegation was pulled, Musing had some issues. With everyone gunning for that big upvote from the reviewers who manually curated the answers, the quality of some of the questions went downhill.
You would also see a lot of similar questions being asked and answered by the same people as well as a large deal of plagiarism happening with some users stealing other users answers. Additionally, some of the questions were just downright silly and kind of a slap in the face to the heart of the platform.
I really feel like they should have implemented some kind of whitelist system to ensure that the questions being asked were of a higher quality. One active user also proposed that they should have implemented a token system like Steemhunt did. Since they were using their curation rewards to pay their reviewers they were not growing their account. When the large delegation was pulled, this led to them not being able to sustain themselves.
As you can see from the screenshot above, they still have a decent delegation, but it is nowhere near what it used to be.
I feel another drawback is the fact that they don’t have a native app for smartphones. The only way Musing can be accessed at this time is via web browser. When you are on the go, that makes asking questions or typing in lengthy answers on your smartphone difficult.
Conclusion
Having never used Quora(as I mentioned before), I still think Musing is a great idea. It has a lot of potential and despite their delegation being pulled there are still a decent number of users trying to keep it afloat.
The have a relatively active Discord server and the developer sometimes pops in. The last time I saw him comment he basically stated they were in "survival mode".
I think if Musing can get some new life via a set plan to move forward, including a way to sustain their voting and curating, they might have a chance at success. If they continue the way they are, I have a feeling they will eventually fade into obscurity.
If you haven’t taken the time to check out Musing, I encourage you to do so. If we can get a new influx of people, I think the sky could be the limit!
Again, I like the potential of Musing as a way to share thoughts, feelings, and knowledge. Having been on the platform before, during, and after their delegation, I really miss the excitement everyone had(and the rewards) during its heyday. However, the current state of Musing forces me to give it three out of five stars.
All images and screenshots were created or captured by me.
"You've Got Questions, We've Got Answers" is a registered trademark