Steemit Business Intelligence: Meme Format Posts Analysis

Details

The existence of internet meme go a long way back even before the creation of the social media websites we know today. When the analyst started working in early 2002 meme was in Friendster, a year after in Myspace, but even before Friendster and Myspace, memes were already being shared via email, Yahoo messenger, and forums/usenets in the 90's.

The analyst feel that meme's popularity is a result of our ever shrinking attention span. The memes of today are characterized by short strings of text and a catchy relevant photo, often with humor or sarcasm. The other know format are really short (micro) videos delivering messages that would have otherwise taken more than a few spoken or written words. While there are varying opinion about what content should look like in Steemit, the current system allows for all types of content, there are in fact dApps built for very specific types of content. Specifically for memes, there is DMania, DecentMemes, and the newest MemeIt.

Outline

To show the trend, distribution and changes to behavior in posting meme contents, the analyst will look at:

• 12 Months Meme Posts Count & Payout Value Trend
• Which dApps are Being Used to Post Memes
• Delegation to Meme dApps, & Resulting Movements from DMania Sunset
• MemeIt Stats in its Short History

Scope of Analysis

This analysis will look at the twelve month trend of meme in Steemit and all the other frontend apps built on top of the Steem blockchain. The analyst will look more closely at the trend and distribution specific to the dApps created specifically for memes.

The data used in this analysis were captured between 12NN to 2PM GMT of May 1, 2018. The data included in this study is between May 1, 2017 to April 30, 2018. With the first meme specific dApp Dmania created in October 2017, having five months worth of prior data was deemed sufficient by the analyst to highlight that meme have long been part of the Steem community, as well as to highlight shift in posting behavior related to meme contents.

Tools

The analyst used arcange's Steem SQL Database to obtain the data related to count of posts, payout value, and distinct author count using the Comments table. Delegation details were taken from the TxDelegateVestingShares table. Here are the queries used to build this analysis:

/*Data for All #meme Tagged Posts*/
SELECT
    YEAR(Comments.created) AS [YEAR], 
    MONTH(Comments.created) AS [MONTH],
    IIF(isjson(json_metadata) = 1, IIF(CHARINDEX('/', json_value(json_metadata, '$.app')) > 0, SUBSTRING(json_value(json_metadata, '$.app'), 1, CHARINDEX('/', json_value(json_metadata, '$.app'))-1),json_value(json_metadata, '$.app')), null) as [SummarisedApp],
    Count(Comments.author) AS [Posts],
    Count(distinct Comments.author) AS [DistinctCommentAuthor],
    Sum(Comments.total_payout_value) AS [TotalPayout],
    Sum(Comments.pending_payout_value) AS [PendingPayout]
FROM
    Comments (NOLOCK)
WHERE
    depth = 0 AND
    CONTAINS(json_metadata, 'meme')
GROUP BY
    YEAR(Comments.created),
    MONTH(Comments.created),
    IIF(isjson(json_metadata) = 1, IIF(CHARINDEX('/', json_value(json_metadata, '$.app')) > 0, SUBSTRING(json_value(json_metadata, '$.app'), 1, CHARINDEX('/', json_value(json_metadata, '$.app'))-1),json_value(json_metadata, '$.app')), null)

The analyst decided to run queries for the three meme specific dApps for these reasons:

• The above query returned 16,883 posts with unidentified dApps (blank and null)
• From a previous analysis, the analyst learned that Dmania posts are listed in json_metadata as app":"dmania and app": "dmania (with space between : and ").
• The above query returned only one post for Decentmeme.
• While the three identified dApps for memes are for meme posts, not all post used the tag #meme.

A variation of this query were used to capture the data from all the posts from DMania, DecentMemes, and MemeIt:

/*Data for Specific dApps*/
SELECT 
    Comments.created, 
    Comments.author, 
    Comments.total_payout_value, 
    Comments.pending_payout_value
FROM 
    Comments
WHERE 
    Comments.created>= CONVERT(datetime,'4/01/2018') AND 
    Comments.created< CONVERT(datetime,'5/01/2018') AND
    Comments.parent_author=' ' AND
    Comments.json_metadata like ('%app":"memeit%')

To get the delegation data, this query was used:

/*Delegation to meme dApps*/
SELECT
    TxDelegateVestingShares.delegator,
    TxDelegateVestingShares.delegatee,
    TxDelegateVestingShares.timestamp,
    TxDelegateVestingShares.vesting_shares
FROM
    TxDelegateVestingShares
WHERE
    TxDelegateVestingShares.delegatee in ('dmania', 'memeit.lol', 'decentmemes')

The data-point collected were processed using Microsoft Excel, and the charts were created using Microsoft Power BI.

Results

While memes have become increasingly popular form on content, it still accounts for low share of what is published in Steemit and all other Steem blockchain dApps. In contrast with a similar study done by the analyst on Video Format Posts having a share of more than 6% of posts, meme is just a little over 3.5%. There's been a significant increase in both the number posts, and the payout a month after DMania was created. Taking a closer look at the delegation to DMania at that time, over 200MVest were delegated in November. Here are the top 10 delegators in November:

delegator	delegatee	timestamp	vesting_shares
freedom	dmania	21/11/2017 18:29	100,000,000.00
lafona-miner	dmania	26/11/2017 14:54	42,000,000.00
xeldal	dmania	07/11/2017 23:01	41,813,047.00
zombee	dmania	13/11/2017 22:28	15,406,174.71
cnts	dmania	14/11/2017 23:13	11,662,884.99
imacryptorick	dmania	30/11/2017 8:10	3,078,653.05
okean123	dmania	13/11/2017 19:19	2,875,838.58
ippua	dmania	29/11/2017 5:01	2,257,809.03
nickfost	dmania	09/11/2017 18:30	2,064,868.75
reggaemuffin	dmania	11/11/2017 8:10	2,054,429.96

The increase in November and December 2017 however, is nothing compared in the January 2018, and the peak of both highest percentage of post (5.32%), and highest percentage of payout (2.94%) in February 2018. What happened in January 2018? A huge delegation from Steemit Inc. followed by waves of new delegation and increase of existing delegation from the community.

delegator	delegatee	timestamp	vesting_shares
misterdelegation	dmania	16/01/2018 19:21	1,023,794,141.83
misterdelegation	dmania	09/01/2018 19:59	233,368,092.00

As of the second of May, 2018, Dmania announced its sunset detailed in dMania Shuts Down post from the operator zombee. Before the shutdown, the account dmania lost its reputation, Steemit Inc. undelegated a significant amount of Vest leaving no more than 13MVest, and the community quickly followed suit with waves of undelegation.

DMania's Run, DecentMemes' Start, & The Birth of Memeit

As early as December 2018, a couple of months from its creation, DMania has already taken over the meme format posts. At the peak of DMania's success, DecentMemes offered a competition, and had a good run in February. While remarks from Memeit team says that the timing of their release has nothing to do with DMania's apparent decline, the timing couldn't have been better. The next section on delegation will highlight that.

From DMania to MemeIt

The main chart highlights that out of the current Top 20 delegators of Memeit, 12 moved their delegation from DMania. The pie chart at the upper right hand corner shows that DMania still holds the highest delegation amongst the three meme platforms. This is just going to be a matter of time now. As soon as the delegators realize the shutdown, the rest of the delegators are likely to withdraw their precious Steem Power. Where will those Steem Power go? We will find out soon enough.

When filtered to April, the lower right chart shows that Memeit has already started getting more delegation, while DecentMemes is not even in the chart. The operator of DecentMemes remarked in comments on posts that he is getting nods to further the development of the dApp. Temporarily, Memeit seems to be getting the popularity that is quickly leaving DMania.

MemeIt Stats

The creator gktown naturally tops the users of the new dApp while building it's popularity. In its announcement five days ago in the post [ANN] MEMEIT.LOL - Create New Viral Content Today!, the creator detailed how MemeIt will be different. From what will set it apart from DMania, a ranking process through moderation, how the community can contribute and earn from their contribution, and quoted how much posts in MemeIt makes currently. A snapshot of the can be seen in the lower right chart. gktown was right in saying a significant amount of posts in MemeIt currently makes at least $1 in payout.

Conclusion

As seen in this study, DMania or no DMania, memes' been an accepted - and quickly becoming popular form of the content in Steemit and all the other dApps in the Steem blockchain. It sure looks like that the DMania popularity is being taken by MemeIt, but the creator of DecentMemes is already talking about development. It will be exciting to watch where the sunset of DMania leads, but slowing down and certainly a stop in memes isn't likely to be a result. It will be a race between MemeIt and DecentMemes for now, until another platform emerges.