Notes from Del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter • Hacker News Board

Re: Notes from Del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter

#11

Post by dougw » Sat, Feb 24, 2007, 6:11 AM UTC

akkartik wrote: post #3

"It's a tool. The community can grow elsewhere." Agree or disagree? Is creating community a concern any web startup can afford to ignore?

Without a community you either have to create a sales force in-house or use outside "hired" labor/advertising. Essentially, without community, it will be up to you as a entrepreneur to evangelize your project. Community ensures viral growth through word-of-mouth advertising and it gives value to the network directly proportional to the number of users. I personally disagree that community is not necessary. But, I don't think delicious does either. For one, delicious has benefited greatly from it's community following. Yes, it is a tool, and I do use it - under the normal circumstance - as an individual using a tool he own privately. However, community allows me utility and efficiency when I can search for quality links tagged by others, or simply click tags that make sense when I'm saving a favorite. I think you shouldn't use the word ignore here, it seems out of context. Rather, I read him to mean you should focus on building a valuable tool for users and let the community follow. He never says to stifle community growth.

Re: Notes from Del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter

#12

Post by trevelyan » Mon, Feb 26, 2007, 12:12 AM UTC

dougw wrote: post #10

I really liked the comment on giving some service away before account creation. In my experience, one of the largest hurdles to user adoption is getting something useful from the site. If a user is able to see the value of the service *before* putting something into it, they are more likely to understand the offering and accepting the reward for 5 minutes worth of forms. There are so many services competing for users…

Anyone know what he means by the "No threading etc." comment in: 'It's a tool. The community can grow elsewhere. No threading etc. "del.icio.us sux" is an awful experience I'd rather user's didn't have.'

Re: Notes from Del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter

#13

Post by byrneseyeview » Mon, Feb 26, 2007, 7:02 PM UTC

trevelyan wrote: post #12

dougw wrote: post #10

I really liked the comment on giving some service away before account creation. In my experience, one of the largest hurdles to user adoption is getting something useful from the site. If a user is able to see the value of the service *before* putting something into it, they are more likely to understand the offering and accepting the reward for 5 minutes worth of forms. There are so many services competing for users…

Anyone know what he means by the "No threading etc." comment in: 'It's a tool. The community can grow elsewhere. No threading etc. "del.icio.us sux" is an awful experience I'd rather user's didn't have.'

I think he means that threaded comments encourage flamewars, since they let you respond to responses, instead of to the original article.

When reddit added comments, I think that was one of the complaints. But Digg's awful "@userX..." kludge demonstrates that people will flame no matter what, but if comments are unthreaded, they'll just flame more clumsily and less avoidably.

Re: Notes from Del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter

#14

Post by xinroman » Tue, Mar 20, 2007, 6:35 AM UTC

byrneseyeview wrote: post #13

trevelyan wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone know what he means by the "No threading etc." comment in: 'It's a tool. The community can grow elsewhere. No threading etc. "del.icio.us sux" is an awful experience I'd rather user's didn't have.'

I think he means that threaded comments encourage flamewars, since they let you respond to responses, instead of to the original article. When reddit added comments, I think that was one of the complaints. But Digg's awful "@userX..." kludge demonstrates that people will flame no matter what, but if comments are unthreaded, they'll just flame more clumsily and less avoidably.

I've had this discussion several times with one of the early developers of del.icio.us. It is by far one of my favorite web tools, and I think one of the most useful things about it is the way that it encourages a sort of conversation between its users (ie, someone can send a bookmrak to me, which of itself, begins a sort of dialogue between us, or can write a description in the notes taht I know is intended for me). What I find disappointing sometimes is that when this happens there is no way for me respond to them directly about the link (you can send messages to another user, but then you lose a lot of the context). The most obvious answer would be to allow me to comment on other users' bookmarks or "send" them a message back about the bookmark they sent me. The explanation I keep getting when I say this is that they didn't want to distract users or muddy the purpose of the app by turning it into another blogging tool. Ultimately, I think they made the right choice not to add this feature. It keeps it clean and useful while still allowing for self expression within the core of the application. I would probably like Digg a lot more if I weren't so damned distracted by all of the threaded comments that follow each post, most of which are completely useless.

Re: Notes from Del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter

#15

Post by xinroman » Tue, Mar 20, 2007, 6:42 AM UTC

danw wrote: post #4

akkartik wrote: post #3

"It's a tool. The community can grow elsewhere." Agree or disagree? Is creating community a concern any web startup can afford to ignore?

It depends a lot on the site. Theres far too many sites that just add community features when its not needed. My friends are on facebook and twitter, they dont need to be anywhere else. So judge it based on your app. Is the hassle of adding your friends to the site going to be far smaller than the benefit?

"Is the hassle of adding your friends to the site going to be far smaller than the benefit?"

Good point. If it's more useful to you to have more of your friends on the site then you will try to recruit them. But if it's still not vauable at all to them, then they will just think you are sending them junkmail. I think the most thriving online communities are the ones that grow organically. History shows us, it doesn't matter what the tool is, if people can use it to communicate with one another, they will find a way.