Steam – Facebook’s nerdier, shyer and richer brother

Firstly, I imagine the majority of you, along with my group, are thinking what is Steam? I’ve never heard of it! Oh uneducated one, Steam is wonderful, Steam is the future, Steam is far too geeky for me to be this excited about. It started as a digital distribution platform, somewhere PC gamers can download games straight over the internet instead of normal hard copy purchases. It has then expanded into what one can argue is a social network with chat rooms, user submissions and unprecedented peer interaction and continues to evolve.

Steam currently has over 50 million users, with around 6 million concurrent at peak times. This is tiny compared to Facebook but for a gaming platform is huge. It’s estimated it holds around 70% of the digital download market, which is currently rapidly expanding as users gain faster and more reliable internet speeds.

What’s interesting about Steam when compared to other sites is it is the reverse of other social networks in the way it has been monetised. Because it was created as a store first and foremost, the revenue stream is already in place. Designed to counter the increasing piracy in the game market, Valve (its creators) combat this by adding value to games instead of restricting as the music and film industries do. While you are restricted by having to use Steam, by providing free voice chat servers, community pages and all the updates to the game in one place they increase the end product. This has been extremely successful for them as seen by its rapid expansion.

Why do I claim it’s a social network though? Firstly, community content is currently exploding. It allows users to create content for the games which can then either be downloaded (Skyrim, Civilisation 5) or in the case of Team Fortress 2 (go look it up!) selected content is sold by Valve and the profits split with the creator. Not only is this adding huge value to each game, but it has led to some immense group projects all collaborated on through Steam and associated forums.

Secondly, the actual community pages contain youtube videos, screenshots and even the occasional poem about the game. Team Fortress currently has 7 million pictures, videos and articles created and submitted by players. Furthermore, far too many clans and gaming groups all exist to play on various community owned servers from train simulators to Call of Duty.

What I think is brilliant is the level of focus. I’m not saying you should go and download Steam when you get home; it is definitely a network by gamers for gamers (there are however several amazing free games, go and look at Alien Swarm, TF2 and DOTA2). Because everyone is there for the same purpose, to buy and play games, I find myself with a combination of strangers and real life friends simply there to enjoy gaming. While you get the occasional ‘troll’, the self-run nature of the network means they are few and far between, you can choose who you want to play with and talk to.

Anyway, I set my group the daunting challenge of actually having to research (and hopefully play) Steam, let’s see how they do.

Ali

Tumblr: Follow the World's Creators

For artists, writers, and the rest of the creative population the Internet is becoming a very interesting place to be.  With sites like RedBubble, DeviantART and Society6 individuals are being given the opportunity to get out there and be seen.  Yet one of the most interesting places on the net at the minute is Tumblr, all you have to do is go to the homepage and see the words ‘follow the world’s creators’ to know that you have found something that isn’t going to generate the general sarcasm and rolling of the eyes that Facebook can on a day to day basis.

Tumblr combines the things I love in one place: art, fandom and community. Tumblr is a microblogging platform that goes beyond Twitter, it goes a little bit deeper than that, it enables users to post images, videos, music without the emphasis on it being a social network.  You don’t comment on posts, you reblog them and manipulate them to your own view; you add your ideas or you add your emotional reaction (usually by a GIF of David Tennant crying in the rain).  You don’t have friends, you have followers, although a follower on Tumblr often has a greater kinship with you than a follower on Twitter might, and you don’t even send messages, you ask questions.  Tumblr is where the interesting and the intelligent get to meet and be creative.

It’s also a place of discovery.  Tumblr is not based upon who you’re friends with or celebrities, it’s about your interests, the things you love, and because of that you are able to build on that because you’re connecting with people who love them too.  I have read books that I never would have thought to read because someone has posted a quote from them on their Tumblr.  

It’s also an incredible platform for getting yourself out there and known, especially if you want to get into the creative industries.  The features of tracked tags and reblogging creates a chain of people seeing and further passing on your ideas and images, enabling any individual to get their work out there with ease.  I really wouldn’t be surprised if the idea was not originally generated by the idea of chain mail, but with an actual gain for all involved.

An average day on Tumblr can see someone post quotes from Sylvia Plath, their latest oil painting and then five minutes later GIFs of foxes bouncing on a trampoline.  It’s a very funny, strange corner of the Internet, but it’s where exciting things are happening and I would have it over Facebook and Twitter any day.