4 ms·

Solving The Scoble Problem In Social Networks

26 points by Garbage 15y ago

DanielRibeiro 15y ago
Good points. Remineded me a lot of this recent article: http://jamieforrest.com/2010/07/01/notifications-unread-items-and-information-overload/ http://jamieforrest.com/2010/07/01/notifications-unread-item...
ender7 15y ago
Previous comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2727454 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2727454 tl;dr I really want to be able to mute people and/or entire circles. This won't "block" them; it just means that I won't have to see their messages unless they specifically target me.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
bvi 15y ago
This is something that Google+ needs to deal with immediately. It's also a problem that Twitter faces. Certain folks tend to dominate or flood my Twitter or Google+ stream - but muting/blocking/unfollowing them is not really an option. From a usability point of view, it would be great to have a slider or a similar control that will allow me to tweak how often Person X's posts are displayed in my stream. Everyone in a Circle is not equally important.
- justincormack 15y ago
  Why isnt unfollowing an option? Unlike the author of the article I do find twitter a good conversational medium. I dont follow firehose people as it is not conversational. I havent quite worked out how/if i will use plus long term.
  - bvi 15y ago
    Unfollowing isn't an option because I'd still like to get the occasional post from Person X - just not as frequently as I'd like to see posts from Person Y. I'm not talking about "firehose people" - my point is, it would be great if I could see (posts from Y) > (posts from X) > (posts from Scoble), even if they're all in the same Circle. Currently, everyone inside a Circle is given the same weight.
- akavi 15y ago
  I wonder if a solution similar to what Reddit does to subreddits might make sense. The likelihood of a link showing up on your front page is not just a function of votes, but also how many votes the average story from that subreddit gets (ie, In a popular subreddit? More votes needed to frontpage it. In r/highlySpecificHobby? Fewer votes needed) Similarly, G+ could normalize how often it pushes up posts as a function of how much activity the average post from that person receives.
Pewpewarrows 15y ago
This is pretty easily solved with my current setup. I have a "Following" circle filled with prominent developers or tech celebs whose posts I find interesting. There are a few with the firehose problem, where either they post constantly or have way too many people commenting on their posts. When browsing G+, I typically just hang-out in my Friends, Family, or Acquaintances streams. If I comment on a firehose post and don't want to see notifications about it anymore, I just mute the post. I could definitely see the advantage in them adding the ability to mute a circle from the master stream.
- akkartik 15y ago
  But that 'Stream' page used to be useful until I added Scoble. I want muted circles, which don't show up in the Stream. That way I can make 'Following' a muted circle and my Stream page remains useable.
ugh 15y ago
Google+’s structure – specifically circles – allows for solutions to this problem that would feel completely natural. Everyone who uses Google+ also uses circles, it’s not tacked on and optional. Circles could become a powerful tool for filtering your stream (by, for example, allowing you to pick which circles appear in your stream by default) and it’s certainly also easy to imagine other options, e.g. the ability to disable notifications from certain circles. At the moment all your circles are displayed by default and you can’t, for example, select more than one circle at once to filter your stream. It’s either all circles or one circle. I can’t imagine that Google won’t add such options. The UI is a bit of a challenge – I’m certain they want to keep it simple and not add a few dozen checkboxes to the circles page – but certainly a solvable challenge. I’m not too worried about it but it’s certainly true that now is the time to complain about such shortcomings.
protomyth 15y ago
If they do a decent API and don't go the twitter route, I can see some very interesting clients that allow a lot of muting and maybe a rules engine type construct. Twitter messed up by killing any innovation in smart clients, maybe Google will not repeat that problem. // yeah, I had a side project of a rules based twitter client - oh well

26 points by Garbage 15y ago

Good points. Remineded me a lot of this recent article: http://jamieforrest.com/2010/07/01/notifications-unread-items-and-information-overload/ http://jamieforrest.com/2010/07/01/notifications-unread-item...

ender7 15y ago

Previous comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2727454 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2727454 tl;dr I really want to be able to mute people and/or entire circles. This won't "block" them; it just means that I won't have to see their messages unless they specifically target me.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

bvi 15y ago

This is something that Google+ needs to deal with immediately. It's also a problem that Twitter faces. Certain folks tend to dominate or flood my Twitter or Google+ stream - but muting/blocking/unfollowing them is not really an option. From a usability point of view, it would be great to have a slider or a similar control that will allow me to tweak how often Person X's posts are displayed in my stream. Everyone in a Circle is not equally important.

justincormack 15y ago
Why isnt unfollowing an option? Unlike the author of the article I do find twitter a good conversational medium. I dont follow firehose people as it is not conversational. I havent quite worked out how/if i will use plus long term.
- bvi 15y ago
  Unfollowing isn't an option because I'd still like to get the occasional post from Person X - just not as frequently as I'd like to see posts from Person Y. I'm not talking about "firehose people" - my point is, it would be great if I could see (posts from Y) > (posts from X) > (posts from Scoble), even if they're all in the same Circle. Currently, everyone inside a Circle is given the same weight.
akavi 15y ago
I wonder if a solution similar to what Reddit does to subreddits might make sense. The likelihood of a link showing up on your front page is not just a function of votes, but also how many votes the average story from that subreddit gets (ie, In a popular subreddit? More votes needed to frontpage it. In r/highlySpecificHobby? Fewer votes needed) Similarly, G+ could normalize how often it pushes up posts as a function of how much activity the average post from that person receives.

Pewpewarrows 15y ago

This is pretty easily solved with my current setup. I have a "Following" circle filled with prominent developers or tech celebs whose posts I find interesting. There are a few with the firehose problem, where either they post constantly or have way too many people commenting on their posts. When browsing G+, I typically just hang-out in my Friends, Family, or Acquaintances streams. If I comment on a firehose post and don't want to see notifications about it anymore, I just mute the post. I could definitely see the advantage in them adding the ability to mute a circle from the master stream.

akkartik 15y ago
But that 'Stream' page used to be useful until I added Scoble. I want muted circles, which don't show up in the Stream. That way I can make 'Following' a muted circle and my Stream page remains useable.

ugh 15y ago

Google+’s structure – specifically circles – allows for solutions to this problem that would feel completely natural. Everyone who uses Google+ also uses circles, it’s not tacked on and optional. Circles could become a powerful tool for filtering your stream (by, for example, allowing you to pick which circles appear in your stream by default) and it’s certainly also easy to imagine other options, e.g. the ability to disable notifications from certain circles. At the moment all your circles are displayed by default and you can’t, for example, select more than one circle at once to filter your stream. It’s either all circles or one circle. I can’t imagine that Google won’t add such options. The UI is a bit of a challenge – I’m certain they want to keep it simple and not add a few dozen checkboxes to the circles page – but certainly a solvable challenge. I’m not too worried about it but it’s certainly true that now is the time to complain about such shortcomings.

protomyth 15y ago

If they do a decent API and don't go the twitter route, I can see some very interesting clients that allow a lot of muting and maybe a rules engine type construct. Twitter messed up by killing any innovation in smart clients, maybe Google will not repeat that problem. // yeah, I had a side project of a rules based twitter client - oh well