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Ask HN: Review my idea for discovering interesting content.

2 points by kaizenfury7 ↗ HN
I've written a web site prototype to test if I could improve upon current methods of discovering interesting content (ex. stumbleupon, reddit) by developing an interface focused on people sharing their interests with each other.

I've been using mechanical turk to recommend me content, and I've gotten pretty good results. I was hoping if some people could provide feedback as to whether you think it would introduce more interesting content than current sites.

I apologize if the UI is a little rough.

Thanks!

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3 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 16.4 ms ] thread
brianwillis
Let us sign up for real accounts would you? This demo account is pretty restrictive. You can put a cap on the number of accounts allowed to be created if you're worried about scale.

On the "Manage Links" page, what do "Run", "Clone", and "Pause" do?

You're right about the UI needing some work, but it's good that you're focusing on getting a prototype working quickly. Now iterate.

You're going to need a big community before someone can waltz in and say "I'm interested in gardening videos about pruning roses, any recommendations?". I'd suggest narrowing your focus to be a tech site similar to how Digg and Reddit started out. That way you'll actually have an audience that can answer requests from one another during the early days. Then later, if you want to broaden your focus, you can become more general. There are a million ways to fuck this up (case in point: Digg), so do it carefully.

kaizenfury7
Oops, I forgot to put in the link for a normal account.

Thanks for your feedback, especially the tidbit about focusing early on.

The 'manage links' is meant for a point game system where people can reward you with points based on the relevance of your links. Bad links get paused, but you can still re-word or modify your submission to improve its relevance, and then 'run' it again.

I was trying to focus on just the 'interests' part of the idea, but as you can see, got distracted by a tangent. =)

brianwillis
Yeah, don't make it too complicated. If there's a steep learning curve, you'll struggle to find users.

Even now, lots of new Reddit users complain about how they find the site confusing and unapproachable. That's probably part of the reason why Digg initially grew faster than Reddit.

Focus on creating the simplest thing that could possibly work. Release it to some actual users, and iterate from there based on their feedback.