The Frustrations of On-Boarding
It's 7am and I should be in bed. Instead, I am here at my PC writing again. Yesterday I onboarded a new person to HIVE and remembered how hard it was.
The last time I did this was in the STEEM days (over a year ago) and it took me weeks to get @grindle up to speed. Why is it so fucking hard, it frustrates the shit out of me that the HIVE world is so alien to Facebook users?
@amy-explores is a new HIVE blogger so please welcome her and understand that she does not know the ropes.
I sometimes feel like a week’s course is necessary to get someone up and running on HIVE. This is by no means a complaint and I will always welcome new people on to HIVE especially if they have something to offer.
I have sent Amy all my older ‘Demystifying HIVE’ articles I previously wrote, but there is so much to take in it can be overwhelming.
Maybe we need a community that has a repo of tutorials. @indigoocean did some videos some time ago, but what else do we have?
@nickyhavey is good at doing these, can you help out mate I can’t do it all!
I do feel the still crappy price of our native token is well under what it should be. If this marketing plan of @lordbutterfly’s (which has now been approved) kicks off then we are going to need all the tutorials we can get for the forthcoming masses.
Fortunately, @amy-explores was quite determined yesterday to create her own account after numerous obstacles and managed it without much help.
It’s all so alien. Your password is now 4 massive long strings of numbers and keys that you can't possibly remember and which one do I use?
It’s enough to put anyone off and I can hear the mutters of, ‘I really can’t be arsed with all this’ on their remote machines.
So this is short content for me, as I just want to exasperate my frustrations with the difficulty of signing up. It's getting better with Leo Finance, but it's far from perfect.
What we need is ‘Sign-up with your Facebook credentials', Twitter is good, but Facebook is the killer option and the one HIVE (or LEO) needs.
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I share your frustration... Trying to bring more people I know from outside crypto to Hive and the blockchain gaming world and it takes a lot of effort to make them jump through all the loops.
My new strategy for the gaming crowd is now have them make a Splinterlands account, play around with that for a week or two, and only then claim the Hive keys and slowly show them around.
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Via Splinterlands is a viable method, but not everyone is a gamer. That Facebook option is the one.., the thing that will bring people here. It needs to be as easy as signing up for the behemoth itself. The keys can come later.
The frustration can be telling sometimes, I mean being able to appear like a traditional social media is something we aren't on hive yet. I guess its probably because of the complexities with the chain and of course because of the case with security and how people can lose their accounts with hundreds of thousand of dollars. I guess we need to find ways to match somplicity with security. Leofinance is getting there, hive will need to because of onboarding
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This is the reason I don't tout HIVE much.., it's all the hard work that follows. The only reason to use HIVE is ... the money. What other carrot is there? I don't like it.. but I have little choice. If they ask me about it, I will spill the beans. Other than that, I don't do it anymore.
After you go through all the effirt, they finally post something only to have sone Hive Zealot or Whale come along and and dump all over them for not having enough text, or a correct Source format and downvote them to zero ... nobody wants to stick around to see what happens next.
Without some help it can happen. I hope the down-voters do a few checks first.. (real account, not another scammer etc..). I know I do before unloading.., there needs to be a very good reason for me to do that.
I used to try and get people to join many years ago. Failed every time.
There is another carrot: the platform cannot zap your account.
My hat is off to anyone who has ever managed to get people to join and stay.
Speaking of joining for the money, an additional hurdle for many is that no significant money will be coming in for quite some time even if one puts in some consistent effort. That is unavoidable and is the case on every single platform out there and always will be.
Hence, a custody service for light accounts is a must. LeoFinance does it fantastically well. A well-guided step by step process to download the keys and storing them automatically on Keychain with instructions to safely store copies of the keys is a must.
I think there already is quite a bit of content to enjoy for someone to want to stay on the platform for content. Peakd has developed a chat functionality integrated into the website.
But I agree with you in the futility of marketing the platform for the masses at this point. Hive is ultimately just a protocol. Apps should be marketed. Getting to understand the platform as a whole should come later.
This is not looking good on the outside is it? I have a count of two, one is actively posting, the other a passive voter (with a large stash). It's still crap, I want to have added 50 people.
I've tried to get people to join but I gave up quite some time ago. Other people have been more successful than I have. But very few have managed to get people to stay.
I think the difficulty boils down to the complexity of the platform and its immature stage of development. Also, not only is Hive complex but it is that it hits the newcomer with a many novel concepts that are central to its operation, some of which are counter-intuitive. That's when you get questions like "where does the money come from" and when they don't understand they suspect it must be a scam.
The entire Hive ecosystem is currently an early adopter's paradise. Trouble is, only a small proportion of people have the early adopter mindset.
I think it pays to get used to the idea that "the masses" are incredibly slow to adopt new things that require taking even a little bit of trouble to learn.
Just like on Hive, the world is full of hidden opportunities that most people will never take advantage of.
It's printed everyday, new coins ('yeah... it must be a scam, you can't make money'). Most people don't know our 'trusted banks' do exactly the same thing.
That is a good point.
Money is a very difficult concept. But that, too, is changing. Today's teenagers and children are used to virtual currencies in games, some of which have exchange rates against fiat currencies.
I feel you bud. 3+ years later and I haven't been able to persuade a single person to be part of the Hive fam...
I did manage to persuade a fam member to invest in crypto yesterday though...post incoming
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I have had a little more success, but it's not been easy. Even if they get here, it's keeping them interested. Kudos and likes are important so some, as well as a massive community. Once.. it was much larger here. If the token went nuts, they would come.., some of them for the wrong reasons. !WINE
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Onboarding has to be simpler. Ought to be possible to import keys from sign-up straight into Keychain, with prompt to make a safe backup. New users should be directed to some tutorials that cater for different languages. I expect a lot of people give up quickly and we have to avoid that.
I know there have been some efforts on this, but if it's still hard work then more needs doing.
It's going to have to be easier. Users will give it a go and if it's too hard will go away with a mental note, 'too complicated, forget it'. That will stick in their minds forever, even if 2 weeks later it's suddenly much easier due to some new dev work. They won't try again.. it's a one shot thing.
I know there was some talk of 'lite/light' accounts that might be authorised by a Twitter/FB/Google account, but eventually people need to understand keys. Once you set up Keychain it's mostly easy.
There's the technical aspects and then the 'what is acceptable' side. Hivewatchers need to make people welcome rather than scaring them off.
Can this be implemented in Peakd? It would be a start I think.
Yes, I am aware of @hivewatchers, and that's why I stuck my foot in early. She is already verified.
I helped about 5 people join Hive or Steemit and only one of them stuck around.
Even 1 will work, it doubles the population. If everyone could do what you have done, it would be more buoyant. !WINE
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I know how it feels, I have been lot in this shit do 🤭😂😂 some times I think how it can be hard to use 3 codes . And they say it is easy to use instagram or facebook.... what f..k :))) Facebook-Instagram-Twitter they make these pages as easy as possible. That when you leave their system, the rest of the new pages out there becomes so difficult and difficult to understand even if you are highly educated even though these new things are very simple to use.( This means they will be manipulated you to come back to on simple system pages what they have and they will be able to further collect your personal information for free )The people inside the old systems don't realize that they have been programmed for years to do this shit.
The keys are completely alien. I had to explain that the keys are your passwords.. kind of.
YEs they look like Aliens first time :)) , but if you use them for a while, you will start to see that it is not complicated, it was just scary ideas in your head what maid it look scary, and in the new system the people are always scared to try something new.
The only thing is to not force it on them, then they will refuse everything :)))
Also if you can Give them Ecency app or Ecency on the laptop , it helps them to go in like they going in old pages ;)
Totally agree with you.
I too try to promote Hive and the first steps for new users are not easy.
It would take a container (maybe a community) that collects tutorials and guides on Hive
!BEER
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A community is not a bad idea. I'll think about it over the weekend, maybe a collab with @nickyhavey if I can persuade him to put his tutor cap back on.
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One can use a mobile number and get signed up instantly. Hope that helps. And I also feel the frustration - I convinced my own niece @anusham to join , but she does not find this platform very interesting as well. She likes instagram more.
Thanks for the link. LeoFinance would confuse her more. She's an explorer, not a Finance Wiz! We know the connection but it would be yet another layer of complexity. !WINE
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WINE Current Market Price : 0.270 HIVE
These were my exact thoughts when there was all the excitement around Twitter. I was surprised that LeoFinance went for Twitter but then realised that it is the most popular platform for crypto users.
However, for non cryptos Facebook is way more popular. I just kept thinking if I was ever gong to have a chance of signing up the communities I used to be involved in it would have to be via Facebook. Khal has said that that is coming though so, hopefully, it won't be long.
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Signup with Facebook is the key.., they may get on easier but that doesn't mean they will stick.
True. I think a major problem, and with marketing too, is that Hive is more than one thing but is talked about as though it's only one.
It could be the blogging plarform, the token or the blockchain and people talk about it without differentiating which bit they mean.
From a marketing perspective I think it would be better it they just focussed on the blockchain with all it's plus points and marketed to developers.
For bloggers it would be better to point people to specific frontends depending if they're interested in crypto or finance or gaming or music etc.
Once blogging within a specific community it would then be easier to learn about the other stuff. But as long as it's all lumped in together it will continue to be very confusing for newbies.
I actually came here from Facebook, hoping to do the creative stuff I was doing there on Steem but there wasn't a big enough community at the time. So I slipped into the photography gang. And did some general blogging.
I never transitioned to Hive nor went back to Facebook and, as a result, the creative side of my life has dwindled and I've ended up gaming. Gaming?!!! Bloody hell. How did that happen?
Wandered a bit off topic there. 😂
I like the games, some are better than others. Some are nice generators of HIVE..
Is there anything like a plugnplay interface to set up a specialized community for sign up? That way a mod could handle the incoming through that particular gateway.
Also, I am not sure if @pharesim's Hiveinvite is still operational, but I think it allowed for group invite links, that could hold a number of account tokens until gone.
I don't know of that..
I couldn't log in there earlier, but will have another look later.
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