The Social Shenanigans of the Deep Dream Generator

I don't know about you, but for me it's been quite obvious. DeepDreamGenerator.com has started making many frequent daily posts across their social media accounts.

A few days ago they even launched a new BLOG area at the site where they can publish articles and interviews of selected artists. How interesting!

Seeing all this new constant social activity from DDG got me to wondering why they have suddenly decided that a strong social media presence is so important?

Well, I have a theory about it, and of course I'm going to share it with you here! I want to emphasize though that this is just my THEORY, (but I betcha I'm correct)!

We're approaching the 6 month anniversary of when DDG made all of their great changes to the site by introducing Deep Dream Generator Version 3.

I think they've been closely monitoring the site traffic and the number of paying accounts since making those changes. I think they've been watching to see if the changes would bring in a higher numbers of users, and especially paid users, to the site. I also think they've been disappointed with the results they've seen.

Let's face it, the AI-art creating scene is way over saturated these days. There must be dozens, if not HUNDREDS of places we can go to create artwork with AI now. I think that DDG was eXpecting a lot of the people who had moved on to other places before the changes were made would come back to DDG after V.3 was introduced, and I think that this just hasn't happened for them.

The numbers haven't increased, at least not up to what DDG's 'business plan' likely predicted they would. So Deep Dreams is now getting all social, showing off the great artwork that is produced at the site in hopes of new (and old) users coming back to the site, to dish out some cash to play with the PRO options, increasing the numbers to where they should be!

That's what I'd do if I found myself in this situation, and that's why I think that's what's going on.

As mentioned above, there's a LOT of competition out there these days, so DDG has to find a way to stand out from their competitors. Having a strong social presence, as well as a strong community, has never been more important than it is now. Highlighting the artwork and the artists across their various media platforms obviously helps to get the word 'out there'.

DDG wisely introduced the ability for us to comment on other's artwork several months ago. That was part of their push to increase the community strength. Help the artists to get to know each other better, that way they will be less likely to leave the community.

NOW, let's start showing off the artwork and entice NEW artists to join the community, or OLD ones to return to it, and build it up and make mo' money!

It all looks good on paper, I'll say that much!

When DDG introduced V.3, and especially "AIVision", which was a huge part of the upgrade, it was a game changer. Or at least should have been a game changer. It brought the images made at the site up to the quality of other big players, like Midjourney & NightCafe, etc. But DDG has other issues besides the actual quality of the images being made there, and until they deal with those issues, I really don't think they're going to get their numbers back up to where they want them to be.

Just the other day I was visiting the site and noticed the bottom few pictures on the front page had only 60-70 likes each, (again). This is a sign of a lack of images being made and engagement with them compared to what the site was doing in its prime, the 'olden days'. Though it's true DDG now displays more images per page than they did back then, it's also true that the images stay up much longer than they used to, so these facts cancel each other out.

Back in the day, an image would need around 130-150 likes before it would appear on the front page, and top images on the page often received 400 likes, sometimes even 500 likes before being taken down. This was when the images stayed up hours less than they do now! DDG creates much better images now than they did back then, so why aren't the number of users increasing back to where they once were?

It's nice to see DDG getting all social, (it really IS), but I think they need to seriously consider making some radical changes to the site if they want to increase the user numbers and play with the 'big boys' again. Here's some suggestions for them...

ENERGY POINTS

I dunno, personally I find the energy points system at DDG a little pricey, outdated, and frankly...IRRITATING! I understand it's designed so that when people run out of points they'll purchase more of them or upgrade their accounts, but I think it also drives folks AWAY from DDG. When they run out of points, but still feel like creating, many people just move on to another website to keep making AI pictures, and it stands to reason that when you send folks to other websites that offer the same thing you do, at least a few of them won't bother coming back. Maybe the energy points should be kept for free accounts, but paying customers should get much more bang for their bucks! Why not offer them packages that allow 100 images/day, 500 images/day, etc.?

DEEP STYLE

This is, as far as I know, a unique tool that DDG offers. They should be pushing it because of it's uniqueness to help themselves stand out from other AI sites. Instead, they have sort of hidden the feature now, like they are in the process of phasing it out. I think DDG should proudly display this feature again, it's an important part of their history! MANY of the people who use DDG still love this feature, and would probably even still use it more if DDG fiXed it up and promoted it! For goodness sake, display the images that are made with it the same way you display other images at the site. Get rid of the 2 silly creation images displayed on the trending pages so that the finished image can be displayed like the text to dream ones are, full sized and fantastic!

MULTIPLE IMAGES / MISSING TOOLS

While visiting other AI sites, I've discovered most of the big ones will give you four images to choose from after you click on the GENERATE/CREATE button. This is an amazing tool for AI artists that DDG doesn't offer, but really should! As I discussed HERE, once you've used it a few times you'll find it hard to live without!  DDG should strive to offer us the same tools that other AI sites do, so there are less reasons to leave and go shopping elsewhere.

POPULARITY ALGORITHM

And finally, (yep), I'm back to this old tired topic again, but it's the number one reason why people leave DDG! Let the artwork be judged for how many likes it gets ALONE, and remove the weight of the TRY button clicks. Quit penalizing people who keep their prompts private. The people who publish their prompts and get a lot of TRY clicks already are rewarded with eXtra energy points for their efforts, so it's unnecessary to also reward them in the algorithm while pushing others that don't way down on the trending pages. FiX it already!

So there you have it, my THEORY as to why Deep Dream Generator has become so social lately. You have to admit, it's a pretty GOOD THEORY, isn't it?  ; )

Of course I could be completely wrong and this sudden new frequent posting by DDG might have been in their plans for months now and they are just getting to it, but I doubt that.

It's easy for me to ponder things and dream up theories about DDG, but I do so because I love the site. Even though I'm one of the people who have been shopping around and playing at other sites, DDG remains my favorite AI creating website. That's because even with their flaws, they still have a LOT to offer and a wonderful community of artists.

I wish nothing but SUCCESS to DDG, and I really hope they achieve their goals in the future, but I also think they need to make some big changes to achieve those goals, and I'm waiting patiently in the background hoping to see some of them in the future.

ThanX for reading, and my always best regards to you!

"X"

April 24, 2024