Did you notice? @dantheman introduced reblogging!
Hopefully, I can explain a few of the features and benefits of reblogging, while also requesting a few changes to accompany this update.
What it is.
Think of Twitter and the retweet. It's almost that simple. Somebody posts on Steemit, and you want to repost their content. For the Steemers who follow you, they will see the content you reblog. As Dan mentioned, if you care about curator rewards, you will want to reblog content to make sure other Steemers see it and can upvote as well. Additionally, when you reblog the right type of content for your audience, you will add more followers. Ellen DeGeneres holds the record for most retweets, at around 3.3 million, with this picture.
What it isn't.
Unless you want to look like that crazy uncle of yours with only three followers on Twitter, be careful about what you reblog and how often you do it. If your followers are interested in #Libertarian themes, like I am, they probably don't want to see you reblogging about zombies or turtles. Well, maybe if it's this kid.
What I hope for.
Change the name.
Along with this update, Dan announced that they will be changing the name to resteem. This is a small aesthetic change and one I'm glad to see soon. Steemit has its own culture, and as the dev team makes changes, hopefully, we can continue to grow that culture. Who knew what a retweet was 2006?
Keep track of reblogs/resteems.
Also announced was that they will soon give us the ability to count the number of resteems. It will be wonderful to see how many times our posts have been resteemed and by who. The Steemit community is very much about reciprocation, and if I have a follower who often resteems me, I will likely want to return the favor.
Older, valuable posts will be given new life.
Resteeming posts may not give you curator or author rewards, but if you are looking to add followers, giving them the right content through resteeming will likely do the trick.
The ability to sort resteems vs fresh content.
Twitter has a setting where you can turn off retweets from selected users. Unfortunately, Twitter doesn't give you the ability to turn off all retweets. If you are looking for original content the last thing you want to do is wade through hundreds of posts before you can find them. I would like to see the ability to turn off all resteems, as well as from selected users.
Limit the number of resteems.
With the announcement, there was talk about not limiting the number of resteems. I think this should be evaluated and considered like the number of blog posts each user can make in a day. The emphasis with Steemit should always be quality, not quantity.
The ability to mute selected users.
We choose who we follow now. With the ability to resteem our feed will be opened up to content and bloggers that we have no interest in. It will certainly affect how steemers choose who they follow! If we follow Steemer A who resteems Steemer B, who we don't like, the only option at this point is to unfollow Steemer A. If Steemer A has great content and occasionally resteems Steemer B, it would be good to able to mute Steemer B.
Reblog/Resteem rewards.
We get paid author rewards. We get paid curator rewards. Why not add a small percentage for resteem rewards? Of course, if we upvote a post, we will likely also resteem the post in hopes of driving the post up. However, there will be plenty of posts that we choose to upvote which may not be worthy of a resteem. The resteem should be a very valuable tool that we use selectively to drive up the best of Steemit. Let's figure out a system to reward Steemersfor using it properly.
My name is @RichHersey. I'm interested in topics covering Steemit, liberty and freedom, and cyptocurrencies. If you posts those types of blogs, leave me a comment so that we can be friends.