Adam Loving’s BlogSeattle Facebook, OpenSocial, and Web Development

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I’ve been trying to prioritize the requests I’ve had for StumbleRead. Thanks to everybody who has provided feedback.

1. Support for “Hide” (as defined by FriendFeed)

2. There is a bug when opening articles (for example from the New York Times) where the article takes over the StumbleRead frame. I’m not 100% sure I can fix this, but I will try.

3. “Next >>” bookmarklet. Just discovered that Google Reader has one of these, and it would be perfect for StumbleRead. Clicking the button would take you to the next unread item in your FriendFeed queue. (This would likely also entail “read item” tracking, though you could imagine it opening just the item with the newest comment or like).

4. Reverse sort order comments. Probably will make this a preference option.

5. Pop-out mode, where StumbleRead left hand frame becomes its own window (like a Web based Twhirl). it would still auto open posts, but allow us to see the URL of the content pane.

6. “Horizontal” mode. Just something I want to try. One item at a time in horizontal pane at the top.

7. FireFox add-in. This would probably be too much work for me to undertake. I’m hoping the combination of the above features will make an add-in unnecessary.

8. Skins. Would be great to have some alternate color schemes.

9. Search and filter. I really want to be able to filter to just videos or photos.

James Mowery has posted separately with some great suggestions for the ultimate FriendFeed client.

“Perhaps third-party developers should attempt to integrate more tabs and/or filters within a FriendFeed client. Why not have tabs or filters for each of the following: blogging activity, news activity, social networking activity, multimedia activity, shopping activity, comment activity, and more.”

#9 should cover that

“The interface should allow users to properly and intuitively manage, display, and sort comments.”

#4 should help

“Finally, the person or people who decide to make the ultimate FriendFeed client should find ways to extend FriendFeed’s uses. Honestly now, who knew that Twitter was going to be a popular service to track packages and calculate MPG rates? Who knew that it would turn the everyday person into a reporter? Who knew that it would be one of the most dominant marketing tools today? Who knew that it would change the world? FriendFeed’s third-party developers should apply all this knowledge to their creations.”

This is a big but fascinating challenge. FriendFeed is already so interoperable. What StumbleRead could do is package all the audio or video links into a playlist. Just one idea.

Image via Wikipedia

Lookmarks is my simple link sharing site that died under the weight of link spammers (both bots and humans). I’ve been trying to think of a way to re-work the site to capture the enthusiasm of all those unexpected “customers”. I’ve got the site half-way ported to Google App Engine, and I’m taking an internet marketing course (I’m ashamed to admit) that I’m sure will influence my ideas further.

Goal

The goal is to build a quality link directory by encouraging self promotion and harnessing it to enforce quality (like Mahalo or Wikia but with controls instead of paid editors). The business model is AdWords and paid sponsored links.

Idea

Create a “digg” like system where you only ever vote on random links. You gain or lose credibility points based on how many people later vote the same as you.

Detail

The new Lookmarks works like a very simple social bookmarking site (with a search function), except by default links you add are only visible to yourself (and your friends).

In order to make a link appear public (and to other users that are not your friends) without having other people bookmark it, you must spend Lookmarks points (or dollars). You presumably only want to do this when you are trying to promote your own site. Once public, the link appears in anonymous search results and is indexed by Google (what the link spammers want).

Points are awarded to users based on their ability to predict how many other people will bookmark or “vote up” links. The site doesn’t allow you to go around voting on links because this would allow collusion between fake user accounts. One user could follow around another, bookmark everything and earn a ton of points. You can however, visit a special voting page that presents random links that you can vote on. You are presented with a screen like:

When searching for “Seattle restaurants” do you think most people would find the link below useful, informative, or entertaining… Yes or No

The prediction scoring in this case grants you one point for all the people after you that vote the same as you, and subtracts a point for everybody who votes differently. The volume of random links prevents collusion (the database is already seeded with 10s of thousands of questionable links). Even if you teamed up to vote yes on everything with the letter “X” in it, you’d have to wade through too many links to make the points add up.

Once you’d acquired some points, you could spend/deposit them on one of your links to keep it public even if it received negative votes. For example, you could put 10 points on it to counter-act 10 negative votes.

Just to re-iterate, only link spammers and super-contributors would care about earning points. Normal users could ignore them.

Issues, Questions, Refinements

1. Sites like delicious, faves don’t appear to need a points system - so captchas and spam filters are presumably enough to throw away the spam (discouraging the spammers instead of harnessing them).
2. Is the visibility of points (or spending points) necessary? We could just weight the votes of people who make best predictions. The points should probably be visible though as motivation.
3. Could streamlining the voting so that when you are submitting your link, you have to vote right then and there if you want to make your link public. Include paypal pay now button.
4. Scoring would be slow to get going. Could give everyone 5 points to start. Could make “random” selection weighted towards links that had 1 vote to speed up scoring.
5. How would you combine the UI of Digg and Delicious? Since use cases are different, should probably keep them separate. Could be separate views on the same database.
6. Would it be more efficient to force comparison between two links instead of voting on one?
7. Can I add one more feature that makes the world a better place (like improve link sharing for teams) to make this whole venture worthwhile.
8. Other random idea: award one point for each external domain that links to lookmarks (ick :)!)

What do you think of the points system? Should it be visible or invisible? The question is not whether or not you’d use the site, but whether link spammers would bother to go through the voting exercise.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Steve Rubel had an interesting post today about where you should invest your time “contributing” online.

Micro Persuasion: Should You Rent or Buy Social Real Estate?

“Renting” in this context means participating in discussion on someone else’s site (like Twitter). “Owning” means collecting content on your own domain (or blog). From the post:

It seems to me like “renting” online equity is now what’s in vogue. Long-form blogging is less prevalent because the competition for attention from pro-bloggers is steep. That’s why I love the Friendfeed model. It’s like a co-op. I can invest in my blog and realize benefits not only here but also on Friendfeed. Or, I can invest in Twitter and see the same return on Friendfeed, though certain provisions apply. You’re still beholden to the landlord.

I think MyBlogLog had the potential to be a better example than FriendFeed. I’m still enamoured with the idea, and am eagerly awating Google’s Friend Connect.