Stimulating the SW economy
I keep noticing people grumble about the lack of options they have with their amassed SW Coins, and it's something that baffles me too. Gifts are nice and all, but they kinda lost their novelty a while ago. Without another alternative, most users just let them pile up without a second thought, which basically defeats the purpose of having them in the first place.
People have also felt pretty bummed out about the lack of activity relative to busier periods as many users seemed to be drifting away. So I've decided to spend the better part of the afternoon thinking of possible avenues to best utilize these coins that would not only be cool for the user, but boost community engagement and even benefit the site overall.
So here's what I've been able to come up with:
[big]Audience-nominated Best Comment[/big]
If people really like a particular comment to a post and feel that it deserves to be Best Comment, they can spend some coins to nominate it as a potential candidate. Whichever response winds up with the most votes wins. It's democracy in action.
[big]Temporary VIP status[/big]
I think there's a lot of users that don't really see the point to getting VIP or don't feel like its value is worth spending real world money on. However, if they could spend fake digital money on a temporary free trial period, say for maybe a week, then maybe they can see what all the hubbub is about and realize the utility in paying for it.
This is a potential money maker for this site since if enough people see the value in it, they will start forking over money to continue reaping the benefits of VIP.
[big]Beating the algorithm[/big]
It's easy for a lot of posts to get lost in the stream or to fade into obscurity, which can feel pretty bad if you put your heart or a lot of thought into something that ends up barely being seen. So what if users could pay a certain amount of coins for posts that are important or meaningful to them to get more visibility?
You could make it so that users pay to have their posts hover near the top of the feed for a certain amount of time, and that can go a long ways towards making users feel like they're being heard. It could introduce users who don't normally interact with each other by helping them understand each other a little better. It might even incentivize people to make their posts more thoughtful if they know they'll be recognized for it.
[big]Unique flair[/big]
It's easy to see that people here generally like to be noticed, so a cool way for them to be seen is to give them cool flair to spice up their profiles and get them to stick out from the rest in the comment feeds.
Maybe it means getting to change the color of our usernames and/or make them bolded so that it's more easily identifiable. I also like the idea of having our profile pictures could be bordered by cool-looking designs, like electricity, flames, smoke, vines, flowers, barbed wire, etc. Perhaps even our entire posts could come with a customizable design, sort of like what happened to them during certain holidays.
People like the idea of being unique, so I'm sure they'll happily spend a few coins to jazz up their profiles and stand out from their peers for a little while.
[big]Becoming Supreme Leader of SW[/big]
I think it would be a pretty appealing idea for people to wield the title of King/Queen/President/Prime Minister/Supreme Leader, etc. of Similar Worlds given how rampant political commentary is here.
The title itself doesn't actually have to come with any authority. It'll be purely superficial, but I can already imagine the fun posts that will come about from people playing around with the idea of what changes they'd make or what laws they'd enact with their power.
I imagine that this could be done with a weekly lottery. Users here will pay coins to have their name entered into a raffle of sorts, and whoever wins gets to be an unofficial leader for a week. They could pick from a list of whichever title suits them best and have whatever kind of fun they'd want to have with that while it lasts.
People tend to debate who the King or Queen of SW is in the comments of posts often enough, but something like this could make it more official.
[big]Feeding the starving artists[/big]
There's a lot of artistic talent here on SW, with people that can draw, sing, rap, write poems, make music, etc. What if they could accept commissions here for their work?
It doesn't have to be professional quality since it's just digital coins meant to be used for fun, but it will make this place a lot more interactive if you could trade your coins for a little bit of someone else's time. A user might decide they're bored one day and like the idea of making doodles or haikus or little jingles for select users in exchange for some coins.
Ultimately, having all these outlets to spend coins on will gradually deplete the user's accumulated stash and they'll have to make more posts and comments in order to build their balance back up. It's a way to generate more activity, more interactions, more clicks, and eventually more ad revenue for the site.
If there were other features like games or adult images one could pay to access, then those would also be good uses. But even with where this site currently stands, I think these relatively minor site upgrades could really go a long way towards breathing some life into this place.
People have also felt pretty bummed out about the lack of activity relative to busier periods as many users seemed to be drifting away. So I've decided to spend the better part of the afternoon thinking of possible avenues to best utilize these coins that would not only be cool for the user, but boost community engagement and even benefit the site overall.
So here's what I've been able to come up with:
[big]Audience-nominated Best Comment[/big]
If people really like a particular comment to a post and feel that it deserves to be Best Comment, they can spend some coins to nominate it as a potential candidate. Whichever response winds up with the most votes wins. It's democracy in action.
[big]Temporary VIP status[/big]
I think there's a lot of users that don't really see the point to getting VIP or don't feel like its value is worth spending real world money on. However, if they could spend fake digital money on a temporary free trial period, say for maybe a week, then maybe they can see what all the hubbub is about and realize the utility in paying for it.
This is a potential money maker for this site since if enough people see the value in it, they will start forking over money to continue reaping the benefits of VIP.
[big]Beating the algorithm[/big]
It's easy for a lot of posts to get lost in the stream or to fade into obscurity, which can feel pretty bad if you put your heart or a lot of thought into something that ends up barely being seen. So what if users could pay a certain amount of coins for posts that are important or meaningful to them to get more visibility?
You could make it so that users pay to have their posts hover near the top of the feed for a certain amount of time, and that can go a long ways towards making users feel like they're being heard. It could introduce users who don't normally interact with each other by helping them understand each other a little better. It might even incentivize people to make their posts more thoughtful if they know they'll be recognized for it.
[big]Unique flair[/big]
It's easy to see that people here generally like to be noticed, so a cool way for them to be seen is to give them cool flair to spice up their profiles and get them to stick out from the rest in the comment feeds.
Maybe it means getting to change the color of our usernames and/or make them bolded so that it's more easily identifiable. I also like the idea of having our profile pictures could be bordered by cool-looking designs, like electricity, flames, smoke, vines, flowers, barbed wire, etc. Perhaps even our entire posts could come with a customizable design, sort of like what happened to them during certain holidays.
People like the idea of being unique, so I'm sure they'll happily spend a few coins to jazz up their profiles and stand out from their peers for a little while.
[big]Becoming Supreme Leader of SW[/big]
I think it would be a pretty appealing idea for people to wield the title of King/Queen/President/Prime Minister/Supreme Leader, etc. of Similar Worlds given how rampant political commentary is here.
The title itself doesn't actually have to come with any authority. It'll be purely superficial, but I can already imagine the fun posts that will come about from people playing around with the idea of what changes they'd make or what laws they'd enact with their power.
I imagine that this could be done with a weekly lottery. Users here will pay coins to have their name entered into a raffle of sorts, and whoever wins gets to be an unofficial leader for a week. They could pick from a list of whichever title suits them best and have whatever kind of fun they'd want to have with that while it lasts.
People tend to debate who the King or Queen of SW is in the comments of posts often enough, but something like this could make it more official.
[big]Feeding the starving artists[/big]
There's a lot of artistic talent here on SW, with people that can draw, sing, rap, write poems, make music, etc. What if they could accept commissions here for their work?
It doesn't have to be professional quality since it's just digital coins meant to be used for fun, but it will make this place a lot more interactive if you could trade your coins for a little bit of someone else's time. A user might decide they're bored one day and like the idea of making doodles or haikus or little jingles for select users in exchange for some coins.
Ultimately, having all these outlets to spend coins on will gradually deplete the user's accumulated stash and they'll have to make more posts and comments in order to build their balance back up. It's a way to generate more activity, more interactions, more clicks, and eventually more ad revenue for the site.
If there were other features like games or adult images one could pay to access, then those would also be good uses. But even with where this site currently stands, I think these relatively minor site upgrades could really go a long way towards breathing some life into this place.
31-35, M
