Ever since I've started to visit hubski I've been on this website almost every moment of my spare time. I'm pretty curious what the average hubski user's experience of it so far is. Do you visit the site daily, hourly, weekly? Why?
I find that there are typically only about 5 posts that reach my page that get over 8 shares. I think those posts basically get to everyone on hubski. Apart from that it seems as though either a lot of people reserve shares for very good posts (which of course, I have nothing against), but end up making peoples' feeds very empty if they don't follow enough people. I follow 46 different users and still find myself looking in unshared to find more content to read. It's certainly possible I'm going about browsing hubski wrong, and I should be spending more time per post, but I typically read the entire thing and if I have anything insightful to say, comment on it. Maybe I devote too much time to a website meant for a more brief stay.
What are your thoughts on browsing hubski, and what could the average user do while browsing to make it a better experience?
Actually, what I'd like to address is the feeling of a hole in the middle between unshared posts and popular ones. I can appreciate that some people are browsers, and I think we could improve the breadth of posts that can be perused for new content or people to follow without watering down the overall experience. We will see if I am right.
Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Currently, once you have pretty defined what your info bubble looks like, it's hard to really break out of it :) I'll state from the beginning that as a user, what I want in terms of discoverability is to see things that are popular (or seeing intermittent popularity) to other people, but that do not fit within my self-built echo chamber. The way it is right now, if a post is good it will not stay in the unshared section for more than a few minutes. However, if it's not shared by someone with the followers to get it out there and exposed, it'll languish without any real exposure. At least, that's the impression I get.
Small communities tend to lead to better content, just compare any of the default subs on Reddit to their smaller, more discussion focused equivalents (r/gaming -> r/games and r/truegaming). Hopefully it was stay this way as the community grows.It may be smaller (~5500 registered users) but the coversations are of higher quality.
I've never really thought about this, but we've been a community for some time now and I'm not sure why a conversation needs to end just because the day, week, month or even year has changed? Most of the original hubskiers are still around. So I guess my point is, why not dig back in to some older posts to find conversations and light a fire under them? You could even start at #1 and work your way back. edit: Here is a link I just mentioned to littlebirdie that I think would be worth exploring: What's on your bucket list? As for how much time I'm on Hubski. -I dare not consider :)
I think it's totally awesome that the post with ID #1 is Carl Sagans words of wisdom for humanity. What an great way to start things off!
Yeah I thought that was a great call by mk. I hadn't been on Hubski yet. I know that Sagan had a tremendous impact on mk and it seems fitting that he should be the one to be the first post. Question to you: if you were to start an aggregator and needed a first post to set the tone etc, what would it be?
if you were to start an aggregator and needed a first post to set the tone etc, what would it be?
great question tng. I'd say this for the happy collective amazingness of this (for non-clickers: John Lennon singing Give Peace a Chance during the bed-in or this. John singing Imagine live in Madison Square Gardens.
Good calls Lil, I could definitely get behind a place that started out along those lines.
I actually meant to bring this up with mk and you- if I share an old post, I don't think that it jumps back into people's feeds- the things which make it decline based on time posted make it still very irrelevant. I think instead of caring about when something was posted, it should jump based on how recently it was interacted with (shared or commented) and the extent of that interaction. Does that make any sense to you guys?
Here's the new algorithm in a nutshell: Posts are listed in your feed according to their score. The score is 1 by default. It falls off to 0 with time. Every time it is shared (or badged) a bit is added to the score, and then it is fed back into the decay equation. So even if a post is really old, a single share should bump it into people's feeds. This new system should be integrated into the site code in the next couple days. We'll see how it works. I'm very proficient at math, but not at computer code, so it could be a train wreck.
Makes sense to me, I'm not sure as to the best way to rectify it though.
Instead of declining based on time since posted, make it decline based on time since it was interacted with, which is an actual measure of how bored people are with a topic.
I just got here about 22 minutes ago. Over the past year my go-to site, which shall remain unnamed, has been declining in quality. I found my self reading less and less content and failing to find others to engage in content I distributed. I like the atmosphere of tranquility in here.
Welcome, rossberry. Be sure to look into hubski styles in your controls. Also feel free to send any questions or feedback along. Just PM me, or shout out putting @'s on either side of mk. The learning curve is a bit steep, and we are actively working on improving that.
I browse every day. While I enjoy reddit for the goofy memes and the cat pictures, its genuinely good posts are few and far between. Not so for hubski. I know that I can open hubski and have immediately awesome content, and excellent conversations with people. Every day I grow more tired of reddit and move more towards hubski. Call it growing up if you will, but reddit's content is slowly dulling and it doesn't engage my brain. Don't get me wrong, there are some subreddits that are great, but hubski is where it is at. I feel more at home here. Anyway enough of my ranting. Those are my two cents.
I have conveniently been trying to grow more mature this year. I decided that in 2013, I'm going to think about what I consume - entertainment, food, social activities, etc. I really don't want to be an immature kid any more. I want to be something better than that. I think that my switch from reddit to hubski embodies that change. It's kind of a real life symbolism of my slow switch. Sure, I still have a bunch of old stupid habits, but I'm working to change.
I no longer want to make everything a joke. I find doing that makes things easier to digest, but it is never something that encourages improvement or growth. Sometimes it's nice to laugh. Spending time with friends joking around can be amazing. But I lost a lot of who I was when I stopped looking at things seriously. Analysing, thinking and then contributing is something I want to be good at. When things are funny, you can laugh and move on. When things are serious, they stay with you. A good example is a post I read a few days ago that has basically been on the back of my mind constantly (here). If it was some kind of joking way to get the message across, I sincerely doubt that it would have had a big effect on me.
Moving from the 'casual' content of the internet to the serious and thoughtful stuff is a transition I'm embracing. I'm becoming more mature.
And I'd like to think hubski has a lot to do with it. I found out about it just around the time I started transitioning, and I couldn't be happier with it. Sure, there are already some things I don't quite enjoy being posted, but it is so damn easy to get rid of it. mk has done a fantastic job.
As for reddit, it is the embodiment of what I used to be like. Not only the default subs or stupid gifs or anything, but even the things like TrueReddit, TheoryOfReddit and DepthHub. I never enjoyed looking into subjects in-depth. I just wanted a tl;dr for everything. Most of the time actually, I just read the title of an article and the comments. It's an enormous change to go from that to hubski. I hate to admit it, but reddit was and always has been a dull and stereotypical site. It is designed to be able to read a post in less than 10 seconds. Admit it, you've all seen a pile of text and just scrolled through it all. Reddit encourages quickly deliverable content.
Don't get me wrong, sometimes I'm down to look through easy-to-digest content. But I just don't feel like doing so very often any more. I really hope my new attitude stays with me and isn't a phase, because I've learnt a ton of stuff from going on hubski for a relatively short time.
Even after a week or two, I have 14 followers. On reddit, I never posted because I didn't know what to post. My good posts would be down voted for no known reason. On hubski, when I'm looking through my daily assortment of blogs and news sites, I feel compelled to post. It's just something I'd like other people who are thoughtful to see. And it's totally up to them what they do with it. If no one shares, I don't feel offended like I do with reddit and down votes. It was just that nobody felt their followers would like to see it, for whatever reason. I think that's great. It means that content gets seen by the people who want to see it, according to who they follow. It's an adjustable experience. Wow, I might have gone a bit long with that reply. Went on a little bit of a rant there. But yeah, I'm really enjoying a new perspective on how to process information on the internet.
I think that going on hubski for new content or unseen articles is probably the wrong way to go about it. It's much more suited to see new perspectives, ideas and insights into topics you are either interested in or know a lot about. Once you follow the right set of people, I don't think you'll complain about the content hubski produces. *Pro tip: If you find someone who appears to have similar interests as you, check who they follow and follow those people too.