Fresh News on 3Speak: Feed Algorithm, Watch Time Tracking and 3Speak Analytics! by @tibfox on 3Speak
We all forget how important the first few moments on a new platform are. Someone signs up to Hive, looks around, and decides pretty fast whether this place makes sense to them or not. They aren't c...
Tags: #development #news #3speak #algorithm #content #discovery #update #onboarding
Hey there, despite my thump, I developed some things on 3Speak, I want to share with you, and I think it's kind of revolutionary on the Hive blockchain. For a long time, we sold Hive with one feature that is no algos, and yeah, algorithms. can be bad, but content discovery is important, especially in today's age. Nobody that is coming from TikTok or Instagram Reels will go on 3Speak and think, oh yeah, that's content I really want to watch. That's not because we have bad content on 3Speak. We have actually really good content, but the good content is buried underneath automatic voted posts. and this is an issue on Hive itself. Lod Butterfly wrote a short post about it. Also, he talked with other people on the Hive Discord about it, and I was just listening. I thought, yeah, we have everything prepared on ThreeSpeak. We only need to execute it properly and use the data we have to influence the short feed, but also the trending feed and the follow feed. As of now, yesterday... We have retention tracking, so if you open a video, the system is checking if you are watching the video, not by using some crazy surveillance things, no, it's just checking if you started the video, and if you properly play back the video. By doing this, we know which videos perform. Not in terms of votes, we are basing our calculations on actual viewing data. And that's obviously easier on a video platform slash audio platform than on a platform where you read posts. There comes another catch. If you go on Efficiency or Peak D or HiveBlock and you watch a video which was posted with the 3Speak backend, so also Efficiency videos, then the player will track your viewing. This enables us now to have a feed like, for example, trending, which was always about the raw views, view count, the votes. and the comments and turn it upside down sorted by actually successful videos. This is a big, big milestone, I think. Since recording the first part of this video, I made some more progress and I want to actually show you some changes and things you can do on 3Speak to improve the whole algorithm thing. So if you open up a 3Speak TV, you will have this homepage layout. You will see four different tabs. Trending is not there anymore because we do not use it anymore. We have now Discover, new content, interests and follow feed. These might be in a different order for you because I moved them around. This is done by simply drag and drop and then on the next startup, interests will be my first. priority. If you are more a short form content viewer, you can go to the settings and enable open shorts on start. That's probably a setting you will use on mobile devices. This is an experiment. We do not want to force you to watch shorts by default. That's why it's a setting now. Let's go to Discover, because this will be the main feed. And if you aren't here, you see there are videos from one day ago, but also from two months ago, from years ago, we push content here on this page because we want to collect some retention data. Every time you watch a video, there is a retention measurement going on in the background. So we can actually track how long a video was watched. Let's check this. You see in the timeline this overlay here. Not the preview, this is also new, but the overlay of the watch time. And this is based on people have actually watched this video. By using this data, we can... order the main feed for you and for other people. As you can see, the video I've just watched is not there anymore. That's also a big change because you do not want to watch a video. all over again. Maybe you want, then you will search for the video, or you go in your watch list, which is on playlist, watch history, but that's the main concept. So, videos are sorted by people watching videos, but also by interests. When you go to SweetSpeak TV and you have not been there for a long time, then you will see a pop-up asking for your interests. You can always change them in the settings, interests, and there you have all the topics we currently support. So let's go this video from... Sagar or from TechCoder Labs, let's check it out. And we have determined the topic education. And if I say, no, that's not true, it's something different, then I go to vote. And in the vote dialogue, you can, of course, adjust your vote weight, but you can also adjust the topic of this video. Every vote... For example, with a 100% vote, my topic selection, in this case tutorial, because Sagar made a tutorial, will be 100. And 100 against 100 equals 50 to 50. If another one is coming and watching the video and is tagging it also with tutorial, then tutorial wins. And people with the interest tutorial will see this video more likely than someone who has not picked tutorial as their interest. This is how it works. If you don't care about all that stuff, there is a setting. It's called simple feeds. But I personally would highly encourage you to not disable this setting because we need to optimize this algorithm. In future, it could be that people from Web 2 will come to 3 speak and find a place that is similar. to what they are used to. And that only works if we have people who give us feedback about the algorithm, who also take care for the interests tagging. This leaderboard is also new. Check it out. It's awesome. You can compare yourself to others. But on the tags, you see that Tipbox tagged 29 videos. and the others also tagged some videos. And I personally have heard rumors that we are going to do a little contest about this tagging feature because it is mandatory for an algorithm and we do not have a lot of budget to pay people watching videos and categorizing them. But you can do this for new videos, for old videos, for shorts, it's also implemented. I think this is probably travel. Then I go to like, pick travel vote, and now this short is tagged with travel. So the algorithm knows, okay, if someone wants to see travel videos and shorts, they will see this one. Speaking of shorts, we also integrated shorts in the Discover Feed interests, new content and follow feed, because if you scroll a little bit down... You see shorts in here. This is something YouTube does, and also I think Instagram does. If you do not like this, there is also a setting for this. Let's go back to settings, shorts, and there is shorts inside the feeds. If you disable this, then these parts are not shown. And also on the video page, we have these shorts in here. I won't cover all the changes I made in the past two weeks. If you want, you can just check our GitHub of my DeKia Soft. You can see all the commits I made. I'm an admin. That's why I see the stats. tab here. And on the stats top, just go there. If you have a video recently published, then you will see some results. You see your total watch time of all time, or in the past seven days. And also, if you scroll down, you will see where the people are located who are watching your content. So it's kind of YouTube analytics. Just give it a shot. Tell me what you think. Tell me what you need there. This is the first draft for our... statistics and if you go to the video itself, then I can see stats also on this video. Just go to stats and you will see the complete retention graphs of the video, which is super important if you want to optimize your content. In basic terms, it is important that your video is edited in a way that people watch until the end. If people click on the video and they close it immediately, then the video is not well. or it's not good for the algorithm and it will get ranked lower. That's why it's important that you engage with your audience and that you're keeping it entertaining. If you don't want to be shown in the world map where you've watched the video, then just activate private mode. We will still send your view data to the server so we can measure actual viewer attention, but it will be anonymous. This is kind of everything. I will now hand over to my previous recording. We have a lot of potential improvement on this algorithm. It will hopefully not turn your 3Speak experience in a bubble. We'll see, but we will adjust this. And also, this whole system relies on people watching videos. So, the more you watch on 3Speak, the better your algorithm will be, but also the better other people's algorithms will be. And we will finally see videos from two years ago that are extremely valuable and that have only been watched like seven days after publishing. This is what we want, because all the videos that are stored, they cost us money and they don't have any use right now. Except you go on a profile and scroll down to old videos. They are not played out anymore. And that's what is changing now. We will play out more old videos. We'll play out more valuable videos as long as people are watching things on the platform. So I think this is a big milestone. If you have any questions, just let me know in the comments below or go on the 3Speak Discord server. We are open to make everything transparent when it comes to this algorithm. If you have any other question or if you have any suggestion, also go in the 3Speak Discord or write me a comment and we are going to work on it. was a crazy ride until now and I only see some awesome crazy rides in the future. Thanks for using 3Spek, thanks for watching, and I know we see us back very, very soon with another video here on 3Speak. Peace out.
@paultactico2: I really love all these new implementations, but hey I do think that we need a community option in our channels, just as the one that Youtube have, I know that I've been going on and on about this, but I think that this implementation could help us a lot in order to organize and get more connected with our viewers : ) . But take your time, 3Speak is evolving so fast 👍 Regards & great work. replied to 4:30 on 3speak.tv
@favourstrings: I love this I'm not seeing this by mistake. What a great motivation. How I wish the Blockchain will reach to an extent where creators can be streaming live just as ticktock. Kudus👍
@buttcoins: Im loving this! Kudos. Seems the chain is hitting an inflection point to me. Receptivity is high. Fresh ideas getting heard and acted upon. Feeling very hopeful these days. As always, you are a hive rockstar for this butt!!!
@gamingnature: No doubt your ideas are great and rockstar like. It's great to hear that some great updates are coming.
@cherrygiggles: Nice to see this. So would love to focus more on videos. Shorts would be handy. Wish we could bring in tik tok kinda attraction.
@elsalvadorian: I like it! replied to 10:43 on 3speak.tv
@katerinaramm: Congrats!! I soooo need to go and restart creating videos!
@acgalarza: This is great progress! Thanks for your hard work, @tibfox! 👍 !HBIT
@alessandrawhite: Congrats 🎈🎉 @tibfox & Team @threespeak!! Great job on both the content and delivery. It feels like you had us over to your apartment for a chat! 😘
@opponent: I'm a new friend, I'm learning little by little, and it can be very overwhelming at first, but I'm getting there gradually.
@weone: Amazing work 🙂
@stortebeker: Nice! Interesting coincidence that I just happened to upload again. Nothing current, but rather something I had been wanting to add for a long time.
@meno: So proud of you bro...
@sumaiya777: Nice idea replied to 1:27 on 3speak.tv
@bpcvoter1: bilpcoin bpc exposed buildawhalescam buildawhalefarm themarkymarkscam themarkymarkfarm hurtlockerscam hurtlockerfarm acidyoscam acidyofarm jacobtothescam hivepopescam @jacobtothe The ledger doesn't lie, and neither do we. We've already exposed the interconnected web of your friends—the numbered wallets, the synchronized voting, the farming rings disguised as curation. Yet, instead of reflection, you offer only more silence and more downvotes. Why does a "community" need so many ghost accounts to survive? Why do you refuse to admit that it is your friends and your own abusive behavior—not truth telling—that drives people away? You can not hide the pattern, it only highlights the desperation. We have to ask: Are you okay? Do you need some help with your mental health? Because no one in their right mind would choose to spend their life defending a house of cards built on lies, bullying, and botnets. There is still time to step back from the edge. Choose clarity over compulsion. Choose truth over the tribe. bilpcoin The Sanctuary of the Builder: A Manifesto for Free Creation Prologue: The Right to Rise There is a sacred covenant between the creator and the soil upon which they build. It is the promise that if you plant a seed with honest hands, the earth will not conspire to crush it before it breaks the surface. It is the assurance that the gardener exists to nurture the growth, not to trample the sprout because it does not yet resemble the tree. On the blockchain, this covenant has been broken. We have witnessed a tragedy where the very tools meant to protect the integrity of the network—the downvote, the curation trail—have been weaponized by leviathans of power. These "whales," entrusted with the stewardship of the ecosystem, have become its jailers. They do not prune the weeds; they scorch the earth. They do not guide the new voice; they silence it with the crushing weight of their accumulated capital. It is time to leave the shadow. It is time to build where you are free. I. The Betrayal of the Guardian The downvote was conceived as a shield—a delicate instrument to deflect spam, to repel malice, to preserve the sanctity of the commons. It was never intended to be a hammer. Yet, look at what has come to pass. The whales, those who hold the greatest sway, have turned the shield into a weapon of mass suppression. They do not downvote to protect; they downvote to dominate. They do not drive away the bad actors; they drive away the people . They create an atmosphere of fear where the creator hesitates to speak, fearing that a single misstep, a single unpopular truth, will summon the wrath of the oligarchy. When the guardian becomes the predator, the flock must flee. To build in such a place is to build on a fault line. It is to invest your soul in a garden where the owner holds the shears not to shape the hedge, but to decapitate the flowers that grow too tall or bloom in the wrong color. This is not protection. This is tyranny disguised as curation. II. The Call to New Grounds Where, then, shall the builder go? You must seek the lands where the soil is rich with freedom, not poisoned by fear. You must migrate to the platforms where the mechanism of suppression has been removed, where the only metric of success is the genuine appreciation of your peers. Go to Blurt. Here, the downvote button does not exist. There is no tool to crush your voice. There is only the upvote, the comment, the share. Here, value is created by addition, not subtraction. The whale cannot sink your ship, for there are no torpedoes in these waters. You are free to build, free to fail, and free to succeed on the merit of your work alone. Return to Steemit. In this older ground, the downvote remains, but it has not been twisted into a tool of systematic oppression. The culture there remembers the original intent: correction, not destruction. It is a place where the community self regulates through dialogue, not through the brute force of coordinated downvoting cascades. Build where the wind lifts you, not where the gale seeks to tear you down. III. The Architecture of Freedom Imagine a platform designed not for the convenience of the powerful, but for the dignity of the creator. No Shadow Bans: Your content reaches the eyes it was meant for. No Whale Veto: No single entity, no matter how wealthy, can unilaterally erase your contribution. True Meritocracy: Rewards flow from engagement and love, not from the whims of a cartel. This is not a dream. It is a choice. Every time you choose to build on a platform that respects your agency, you cast a vote for the future of the internet. Every time you refuse to tolerate the abuse of power, you strengthen the foundation of a free society. Do not let the whales convince you that their oppression is necessary. Do not let them tell you that their downvotes are for your own good. The gardener who kills the seedling does not love the garden; he loves only his own control over it. Epilogue: The Unchained Creator The blockchain was born from a desire for freedom. It was forged in the fire of resistance against centralized control. Let us not forget that origin. If the current chains of Hive have become heavy with the weight of abusive downvotes, then break them. Forge new links. Build new shores. Build where you are free. Build where you will not be downvoted into silence. Build where the whales are reminded that they are part of the ocean, not the masters of the tide. The future belongs to those who dare to create without fear. Go forth, and build your cathedral in the sunlight. — Bilpcoin: We expose the truth, so you can build upon it. FreeSpeech BlurtBlog Steemit NoDownvote CreatorRights HiveExodus Decentralization BuildFree AntiCensorship Bilpcoin @ipromote Wallet: Author Rewards: 2,181.16 Curation Rewards: 4,015.61 Staked HIVE (HP): 0.00 Rewards/Stake Co efficient (KE): NaN HIVE: 25,203.749 Staked HIVE (HP): 0.000 Delegated HIVE: 0.000 Estimated Account Value: $6,946.68 Recent Activity: Sent to alpha 5,196.000 HIVE (21 hours ago) Sent to hiveswap 1,000.000 HIVE (2 days ago) Withdraw vesting from @proposalalert to @ipromote 0.447 HIVE (3 days ago) Received from proposalalert 4.003 HIVE (5 days ago) Received from themarkymark 1,775.684 HIVE (9 days ago) Sent to alpha 4,245.000 HIVE (9 days ago) Received from themarkymark 4,280.527 HIVE (17 days ago) @leovoter Wallet: Author Rewards: 194.75 Curation Rewards: 193.88 Staked HIVE (HP): 0.00 Rewards/Stake Co efficient (KE): 388,632.00 (Suspiciously High) HIVE: 0.000 Staked HIVE (HP): 0.001 Total: 16.551 Delegated HIVE: +16.550 Recent Activity: Withdraw vesting from @leovoter to @ipromote 0.053 HIVE (Sep 29, 2024) Withdraw vesting from @leovoter to @ipromote 0.053 HIVE (Sep 22, 2024) Withdraw vesting from @leovoter to @ipromote 0.053 HIVE (Sep 15, 2024) Withdraw vesting from @leovoter to @ipromote 0.053 HIVE (Sep 8, 2024) Withdraw vesting from @leovoter to @ipromote 0.053 HIVE (Sep 1, 2024) @abide Wallet: Recent Activity: Sent to ipromote 2,459.000 HIVE (22 days ago) Sent to ipromote 2,486.200 HIVE (Apr 1, 2025) Received from yabapmatt 20,000.000 HIVE (Apr 1, 2025) Sent to ipromote 2,130.400 HIVE (Mar 8, 2025) Sent to ipromote 2,248.000 HIVE (Feb 2, 2025) Sent to yabapmatt 5,000.000 HIVE (Jan 25, 2025) @proposalalert Wallet: Author Rewards: 639.99 Curation Rewards: 0.00 Staked HIVE (HP): 6.03 Rewards/Stake Co efficient (KE): 106.12 Recent Activity: Withdraw vesting from @proposalalert to @ipromote 0.447 HIVE (3 days ago) Sent to ipromote 4.003 HIVE (5 days ago) Sent to themarkymark 0.012 HBD (5 days ago) Withdraw vesting from @proposalalert to @ipromote 0.447 HIVE (10 days ago) Withdraw vesting from @proposalalert to @ipromote 0.446 HIVE (17 days ago) @stemgeeks Wallet: Author Rewards: 4,391.77 Curation Rewards: 304.26 Staked HIVE (HP): 0.00 Rewards/Stake Co efficient (KE): 4,696,032.00 (Extremely Suspicious) Recent Activity: Sent to themarkymark 1.556 HBD (Jun 14, 2024) Withdraw vesting from @theycallmemarky to @ipromote 0.725 HIVE (Dec 1, 2024) Sent to ipromote 9.202 HIVE (Oct 17, 2024) @apeminingclub Wallet: Author Rewards: 432.57 Curation Rewards: 2,829.11 Staked HIVE (HP): 30.51 Rewards/Stake Co efficient (KE): 106.90 Recent Activity: Scheduled unstake (power down): 2.351 HIVE (in 4 days, remaining 7 weeks) Total Staked HIVE: 1,292.019 Delegated HIVE: +1,261.508 Received delegations: @xykorlz: 624 HP (Jan 26, 2024) @bashadow: 111 HP (Sep 20, 2021) @dechuck: 104 HP (Mar 10, 2024) @hironakamura: 76 HP (Aug 23, 2022) Withdraw vesting from @apeminingclub to @blockheadgames 2.348 HIVE (10 days ago) Claim rewards: 0.290 HP (10 days ago) Sent to bdhivesteem 40,000.000 HIVE 6 hours ago 101417581 Sent to bdhivesteem 20,000.000 HIVE 6 hours ago 103874728 !LADY !ALIVE !HUG !INDEED !HBIT !LUV !PIZZA