Hey everyone! I'm here to talk about a few things I think Steemit could do to improve itself, to grab more users and as a result of that, make this community a better place.
***Please note that I am not critisizing Steemit in any way. I really like Steemit and I'm glad that it exists, but that doesn't mean there aren't avenues it can explore to improve itself***

http://s32.postimg.org/68qkjn9ut/ily-steemit-tdg.png

# 1 - The UI changes
### People need easier discoverability 
***What I mean by this is that the platform currently doesn't really use the human psychology very well to its benefits currently its more  of  a site for power users and those are always the vast minority on huge social networks***

Here are some of the ways this could be achieved
* Easier ways to find the content you are interested in
  * And this would most likely be done through categories. I know, you gonna say we have that in the tag system right now, but these aren't really that well implemented, because to access them, you need be on your homepage.  
Just give us a thin menu on either of the sides (though psychology suggest on the left is better for most western readers since we read from left to right) where we could either put our favorite categories or just a list of the most popular ones the same way it is currently done on the home page, but this one would be there almost all the time, unless you would b creating your own post at the moment.

  * Slightly bigger previews of posts in the post listings would also go a long way, as now the amount of text that fits into the preview is so small, it is very hard to write a interesting description that would fit there. Plus it would allow the picture preview to stand out a bit more. Something along the lines of 30 - 50% bigger preview would be ideal in my opinion.
  * If the bigger previews aren't an option at the very least the payout sum, number of votes and comments should be much larger, because the human psyche just reacts to these numbers in a very big way.

  * Some sort of mechanism that would allow unknown quality posters to get displayed to community. This could be done on something like a weekly basis, where the five highest reputation posters in each tag (or category in the future) would get to pick a poster to promote their whole channel.
* A WYSIWYG editor for posts. While the markdown styling guide is done really well and is fairly easy to understand for almost anyone who has even the tiniest bit of knowledge about how computers work. BUT, most people aren't like that, so a editor the directly displays what you wan't to write would make the creating of even average quality content so much easier for them. Not all of the styling options even need to be available in the WYSIWYG editor, but the basics like headers, bold and italics should really be available in this form.
* Otherwise there could be a few customization options for Steemit. At the very least a night mode where the background is black and the text is white, but having the option to have the posts big, getting a different color pallet and many more things would people make spend much more time here, but this is probably the least important thing from the UI changes that would improve the users experience.

# 2 - Social network changes
### We need to get big name blogers and youtubers here
### Discussion needs to be the primary thing for which people come here
***When it comes to the social aspects of Steemit, the closest competitor is probably Reddit because of its very similar layout.***
***Getting big name blogers and youtubers will gain a large traction for Steemit as a percentage of their followers will at least check out Steemit and again at least a percentage of them may decide to stick here.***
***Specially the youtubers could be a giant source of new people coming here at the moment, as the current controversies with monetization and free speech could make at least some of the youtubers migrate here the same way some of them are migrating to sites like Minds.com, Vid.me and others.***
* Steemit needs to directly reach out to some of the largest blogers and youtubers and offer them trying this site out. Perhaps even giving them something like a free promotion to incentivize them using Steemit. Currently the so-called Skeptic community feels under attack on Youtube and Twitter and both could probably be easily swayed to come here and start using this platform very heavily.
* Gaming need to be introduced to Steemit in a big way.  ***Before I continue with this part, yes I am biased as a game reviewer***. Whether you like it or not, gaming has become an incredibly huge industry over the past years. It is most likely on par with the movie industry in terms of total revenue these days. But the main difference is that most gamers (and in particular PC gamers) are usually at least a bit computer savvy and very much used to getting their media content from the Internet, whether it is from Reddit, Youtube or from Twitch
  * Getting gaming on Steem could be achieved by a multitude of ways, but the most obvious one would seem to again be, directly reaching out to some of the gaming content creator and offering them to come here.
  * The second way and a one that should probably be used in tandem with the first one would be Official Steemit Tournaments with decent payouts for the winners, as the people who would attend these tournament often have huge followings on both Twitch and Youtube and could probably be easily convinced to promote Steemit for a guaranteed spot in these tournaments.
  * In general, some part of the Steemit staff should be trying to keep their eyes on potential controversies on other social media sites to try to sweep in and take parts of their user-base for themselves.