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Show HN: Our first startup attempt: blogging without a blog

11 points by akligman 15y ago

akligman 15y ago
So the three of us are trying to quit our finance jobs and get into startups. Man.. that would be nice... None of us are bloggers, so we wanted to build something where we could post ad hoc content without having to create/build/maintain a blog. FB is not really meant for article-length content. InsideWord is kind of a mix between citizen journalism sites and, I guess, blogging platforms - at least, that’s what we think it is. We could definitely use some feedback and advice.
- anony1212 15y ago
  >> So the three of us are trying to quit our finance jobs and get into startups. bubble :-)
shadowpwner 15y ago
What's the incentive for people to contribute? It seems that it'll quickly turn into something like Associated Content.
- akligman 15y ago
  We've definitely studied AC. In our case, we're not telling anyone what to write about or incentivizing them by paying them (i.e., trying not to be a content farm here). Users simply write about their interests like on any blog. The idea is to aggregate and promote the best content. We'll direct traffic back to their site via URLs on their profile, customization, etc
  - corin_ 15y ago
    What plans do you have in place to prevent the site from (if it becomes popular) being a place where most content is written by SEO copywriters who discover it's a great place to get links?
    - mblomquist 15y ago
      Well first Google's ranking system works off of more than just one website, otherwise these SEO link farms would just make one WordPress site and post a thousand of links from there. Google's graph based algorithm is based on many sites. So even if we do get used for that we wouldn't be a good enough target, but you're right, we can definitely see us possible getting bundled in with other tricks. This issue however has been tackled by hundreds of other sites who also have similar issues, like bots creating accounts and posting comments with links. So the technology for solving this is already there and there are plenty of Thirdparty vendors that provide software to fight this stuff off by doing things like cross-site string matching. But all in all yes, the fact that someone can post anonymously comes with great technical challenges that we're eager to try and solve.
      - corin_ 15y ago
        "Well first Google's ranking system works off of more than just one website, otherwise these SEO link farms would just make one WordPress site and post a thousand of links from there." Well, yes and no. Obviously one site only gets so far for SEO links, but if a site is popular enough then it is very worthwhile to have links from it. My company runs a number of websites, PageRank 4-6, and we have had multiple requests from SEO companies to buy links on our sites (which we obviously turned down). If they all created one site and posted links from it, they would gain very little as Google would a.) detect that it is a site full of SEO spam and b.) realise that no-one actually reads the site, so the value of its links would be very low anyway. However, if your site becomes popular, which Google will judge based on a number of things, such as other sites linking to you, then your Google PageRank will go up. With a high PageRank, suddenly you linking out to other sites will become useful for SEO purposes. There are already plenty of SEO copywriters whose job it is to find popular websites and offer those websites pieces of content in return for a specific text link. They could see your site and start using it regularly, essentially turning it into an SEO content farm, generating SEO value not for you, but for all the websites these SEO people are working for. "This issue however has been tackled by hundreds of other sites who also have similar issues, like bots creating accounts and posting comments with links." Yeah, that problem is, for the most part, a non-issue, it's not hard to eradicate that, 99% automatically and 1% with human moderation. But actual SEO copywriting is very real, I have a few friends who are paid to write web content purely for SEO purposes. They could go and get a job creating content for one site, their writing isn't terrible, but instead they look for a site, they write content for it in return for a link - one person might write an article on gaming, an article on software development, an article on politics and an article on medicine all on the same day. And that's the kind of problem I can see, it would happen like this: 1) Site becomes popular 2) SEO people see that it is popular, and that therefore Google will care about links from your site to other sites 3) SEO people start writing content for your site, which includes their links 4) The majority of your content is no longer really user generated. It still is, technically, but all the users generating it are SEO copywriters. Now, if that happens, there are two possible end results, and I'm not sure which is more likely. The first is a possible good result - the SEO writers get the links they want, they give you good content, your readers enjoy consuming that content, and everyone is happy. But the other possibility is either than Google/etc. start to see your site as a content farm and punish you in their rankings (which could lead to the SEO copywriters disappearing and your content drying up, as you also lose traffic from readers) or search enginges don't care, but readers stop visiting your site because the SEO content isn't good enough - that would lead to less visits, less links to your site, and the same negative result. So, conclusion, not saying you definitely have a problem, and if it did happen, it might not end badly for you. But certainly something to think about. While I wish you all the luck in the world, I'm also slightly hoping this happens because I'm now very interested in what the end result actually would be.
  - troymc 15y ago
    How is this any different from the wordpress.com homepage, where they highlight some of the better recent wordpress.com blog posts?
    - akligman 15y ago
      We are similar, true, but this is the central theme of IW - our sole focus. On wordpress it's kind of up to you to promote it. We're trying to improve what's just a 'feature' on many other sites.
talbina 15y ago
Do you think that business/science/technology writers who have valuable information and insight are finding obstacles to getting published online?
- akligman 15y ago
  There aren't really obstacles, you're right. I know there are sites out there, but I guess I'm just lazy to find them. By centralizing some of the content, it may be easier to find. I think IW is also geared more towards the novice blogger, who simply has a blogger or wordpress site with little traffic. By syncing it to IW, it should generate more exposure.
talbina 15y ago
How are you going to stop spam?
- akligman 15y ago
  We actually met a VC at SXSW this year who asked the same thing. We have a ranking algo - rying to avoid spam the same way Reddit does by only getting the best content promoted. We're thinking of building tools so users accounts time out or a captcha generates if they post too much.
  - pan69 15y ago
    You could start by hooking into Mollom for the time being (mollom.com)
    - akligman 15y ago
      Thanks that's really cool. We're checking it out now.
- staunch 15y ago
  You probably want to add rel="nofollow" to links until the post has been validated/upvoted enough or something.
  - mblomquist 15y ago
    Yeah, we were planning in using some of StackOverflows reputation based logic as well, so that will help a lot.
kqueue 15y ago
Most of the articles are copied from somewhere else. http://www.insideword.com/member/profile/31 http://www.insideword.com/member/profile/31 -> http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-04-04/computing/29379872_1_new-android-software-android-tablets-ipad-competitors http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-04-04/compu... Solving the original content problem is a must.
- akligman 15y ago
  We filled in a few for demo purposes.. will be deleted :)
nedwin 15y ago
I really like the "I want to read / I want to write" UI element. Is that something you guys came up with or discovered somewhere else?
- akligman 15y ago
  Thx, We actually found it on another site (can't remember which one - too many bookmarks!), but it was a tutorial slider. We just thought the idea was cool and recoded it from scratch with jquery. Stupid thing won't work on an iPad yet...
  - farout 15y ago
    is it the jquery will not work or the app using UISlider will not work on the iPad?
    - akligman 15y ago
      Not really sure actually. We haven't had time to look into it yet. Just frustrating.

11 points by akligman 15y ago

So the three of us are trying to quit our finance jobs and get into startups. Man.. that would be nice... None of us are bloggers, so we wanted to build something where we could post ad hoc content without having to create/build/maintain a blog. FB is not really meant for article-length content. InsideWord is kind of a mix between citizen journalism sites and, I guess, blogging platforms - at least, that’s what we think it is. We could definitely use some feedback and advice.

anony1212 15y ago
>> So the three of us are trying to quit our finance jobs and get into startups. bubble :-)

shadowpwner 15y ago

What's the incentive for people to contribute? It seems that it'll quickly turn into something like Associated Content.

akligman 15y ago
We've definitely studied AC. In our case, we're not telling anyone what to write about or incentivizing them by paying them (i.e., trying not to be a content farm here). Users simply write about their interests like on any blog. The idea is to aggregate and promote the best content. We'll direct traffic back to their site via URLs on their profile, customization, etc
- corin_ 15y ago
  What plans do you have in place to prevent the site from (if it becomes popular) being a place where most content is written by SEO copywriters who discover it's a great place to get links?
  - mblomquist 15y ago
    Well first Google's ranking system works off of more than just one website, otherwise these SEO link farms would just make one WordPress site and post a thousand of links from there. Google's graph based algorithm is based on many sites. So even if we do get used for that we wouldn't be a good enough target, but you're right, we can definitely see us possible getting bundled in with other tricks. This issue however has been tackled by hundreds of other sites who also have similar issues, like bots creating accounts and posting comments with links. So the technology for solving this is already there and there are plenty of Thirdparty vendors that provide software to fight this stuff off by doing things like cross-site string matching. But all in all yes, the fact that someone can post anonymously comes with great technical challenges that we're eager to try and solve.
    - corin_ 15y ago
      "Well first Google's ranking system works off of more than just one website, otherwise these SEO link farms would just make one WordPress site and post a thousand of links from there." Well, yes and no. Obviously one site only gets so far for SEO links, but if a site is popular enough then it is very worthwhile to have links from it. My company runs a number of websites, PageRank 4-6, and we have had multiple requests from SEO companies to buy links on our sites (which we obviously turned down). If they all created one site and posted links from it, they would gain very little as Google would a.) detect that it is a site full of SEO spam and b.) realise that no-one actually reads the site, so the value of its links would be very low anyway. However, if your site becomes popular, which Google will judge based on a number of things, such as other sites linking to you, then your Google PageRank will go up. With a high PageRank, suddenly you linking out to other sites will become useful for SEO purposes. There are already plenty of SEO copywriters whose job it is to find popular websites and offer those websites pieces of content in return for a specific text link. They could see your site and start using it regularly, essentially turning it into an SEO content farm, generating SEO value not for you, but for all the websites these SEO people are working for. "This issue however has been tackled by hundreds of other sites who also have similar issues, like bots creating accounts and posting comments with links." Yeah, that problem is, for the most part, a non-issue, it's not hard to eradicate that, 99% automatically and 1% with human moderation. But actual SEO copywriting is very real, I have a few friends who are paid to write web content purely for SEO purposes. They could go and get a job creating content for one site, their writing isn't terrible, but instead they look for a site, they write content for it in return for a link - one person might write an article on gaming, an article on software development, an article on politics and an article on medicine all on the same day. And that's the kind of problem I can see, it would happen like this: 1) Site becomes popular 2) SEO people see that it is popular, and that therefore Google will care about links from your site to other sites 3) SEO people start writing content for your site, which includes their links 4) The majority of your content is no longer really user generated. It still is, technically, but all the users generating it are SEO copywriters. Now, if that happens, there are two possible end results, and I'm not sure which is more likely. The first is a possible good result - the SEO writers get the links they want, they give you good content, your readers enjoy consuming that content, and everyone is happy. But the other possibility is either than Google/etc. start to see your site as a content farm and punish you in their rankings (which could lead to the SEO copywriters disappearing and your content drying up, as you also lose traffic from readers) or search enginges don't care, but readers stop visiting your site because the SEO content isn't good enough - that would lead to less visits, less links to your site, and the same negative result. So, conclusion, not saying you definitely have a problem, and if it did happen, it might not end badly for you. But certainly something to think about. While I wish you all the luck in the world, I'm also slightly hoping this happens because I'm now very interested in what the end result actually would be.
- troymc 15y ago
  How is this any different from the wordpress.com homepage, where they highlight some of the better recent wordpress.com blog posts?
  - akligman 15y ago
    We are similar, true, but this is the central theme of IW - our sole focus. On wordpress it's kind of up to you to promote it. We're trying to improve what's just a 'feature' on many other sites.

talbina 15y ago

Do you think that business/science/technology writers who have valuable information and insight are finding obstacles to getting published online?

akligman 15y ago
There aren't really obstacles, you're right. I know there are sites out there, but I guess I'm just lazy to find them. By centralizing some of the content, it may be easier to find. I think IW is also geared more towards the novice blogger, who simply has a blogger or wordpress site with little traffic. By syncing it to IW, it should generate more exposure.

talbina 15y ago

How are you going to stop spam?

akligman 15y ago
We actually met a VC at SXSW this year who asked the same thing. We have a ranking algo - rying to avoid spam the same way Reddit does by only getting the best content promoted. We're thinking of building tools so users accounts time out or a captcha generates if they post too much.
- pan69 15y ago
  You could start by hooking into Mollom for the time being (mollom.com)
  - akligman 15y ago
    Thanks that's really cool. We're checking it out now.
staunch 15y ago
You probably want to add rel="nofollow" to links until the post has been validated/upvoted enough or something.
- mblomquist 15y ago
  Yeah, we were planning in using some of StackOverflows reputation based logic as well, so that will help a lot.

kqueue 15y ago

Most of the articles are copied from somewhere else. http://www.insideword.com/member/profile/31 http://www.insideword.com/member/profile/31 -> http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-04-04/computing/29379872_1_new-android-software-android-tablets-ipad-competitors http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-04-04/compu... Solving the original content problem is a must.

akligman 15y ago
We filled in a few for demo purposes.. will be deleted :)

nedwin 15y ago

I really like the "I want to read / I want to write" UI element. Is that something you guys came up with or discovered somewhere else?

akligman 15y ago
Thx, We actually found it on another site (can't remember which one - too many bookmarks!), but it was a tutorial slider. We just thought the idea was cool and recoded it from scratch with jquery. Stupid thing won't work on an iPad yet...
- farout 15y ago
  is it the jquery will not work or the app using UISlider will not work on the iPad?
  - akligman 15y ago
    Not really sure actually. We haven't had time to look into it yet. Just frustrating.