

The Programming Strategy - mudge
http://nickmudge.info/?post=80
When things are tough, write some more software.
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iamwil
I find myself having the same problem with my own work. I feel like it's not
at a point where I feel good about promoting it. I too would rather talk about
a product I can stand behind. In addition, I fear that if I introduce it to
users too early, they'll take one look at it and won't come back until many
months later. There's only so many times new users will look at something in
the beginning.

However, on the flip side, the fear is also that I'm building it away from
what users would want without feedback. "Release Early and Release Often",
right?

So I'm torn between promoting it to get feedback but "wasting" some early
adopters, versus keep working on it based on what I think should go in there,
and saving it until it's at a point where early adopters would have a better
chance of sticking around.

What's the right balance?

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mudge
I totally know what you're saying. Maybe promote it a little bit, get some
feedback, make it better, promote it a little bit more, get some more
feedback, make it better. Promote it more based on your confidence of the site
being better. That's what I'm doing. I've loved some of the feedback I've
gotten, and it has been really helpful.

~~~
iamwil
Do you keep promoting it to the same crowd? Or do you have a couple different
places where you promote it and do a round-robin?

~~~
mudge
I write blog posts sometimes. When I write something that I think might be
interesting to Hacker News or programming.reddit.com I submit it there. I also
submit stuff sometimes a few other places like mixx.com and digg.com. I tell
friends when I add features to newsconomy. When the site is better I'll write
more about it and submit blog posts to more sites, and I'll send email to
bloggers and other people on the Internet I don't directly know but who I
think the site might be interesting to.

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gruseom
I found that quote interesting too, so after reading your post I took a look
at your app. I wasn't able to figure out what it does in the 60 seconds I
usually allot to these things. I had trouble finding the "About Newsconomy"
link (hidden at the bottom), and once I did it didn't make sense to me. I'm
not a baseball person so that metaphor didn't draw me in. You might consider
adding a more prominent "Start Here" link or some such thing that would
provide examples of cool things your app can do. Good luck.

~~~
r7000
I agree. I find it difficult to see what the next step is. How does owning an
item help me (or it)? My thought is a created item would be of low value but I
can set any price and that is the value. Do I buy an item to promote it? or
just to have edit control over the description and title?

The items seem to be sorted simply by the order they were created irregardless
of the value in lambdas. It seems like an interesting idea that is still
missing a few core features.

~~~
mudge
You are right, you can set the price of any item you own and that is its
value, especially if someone else buys it for that price. When you buy an item
you get the ability edit the description, the title, the tags, and the price.
You can change the price on any item you own. Also, when you buy an item, it
puts it at the top of lists.

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bayareaguy
I just went there.

The first thing I thought was "These just look like stories but what's up with
these lambdas and what's the deal with the Buy link?". Sadly after a minute or
so I got no answer and my interest waned. You definitely need an "About" or a
"What is this?" page.

One simple thing you should do is eliminate the "dead end" transitions (e.g. I
press Submit and I get to a "you must login first" dead end page). If I can't
submit, make the link inactive or at least take me straight to the login page.

Another thing you could do is add some descriptive tooltips so if I mouse over
a link like "Buy" I'll see something more informative than "Address:
<https://newsconomy.com/buy/208>".

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mudge
Hey, thanks very much. I see that I need to make it much clearer what it is.
Also, here's a list of items that give more info:
<http://newsconomy.com/tag/newsconomy>

~~~
mudge
I just wrote another blog posts that explains some uses of newsconomy.
Hopefully it makes it clearer what it is about:
<http://nickmudge.info/?post=81>

~~~
iamwil
Yeah, I wasn't sure what lambdas were, and wasn't sure what 'buy' was on first
glance. However, after reading that you can "do stuff" to news that you "buy",
and putting it together with the name "newsconomy", it comes together in my
mind.

You're basically using capitalistic model to better rate the "value" of a news
item--hence an economy/market based on trading(buying/selling) news, instead
of using a basic democratic process modeled after political organizations
(which is what digg/reddit/yc is modeled after).

I think it makes sense for those that understand basic supply/demand and
capitalism ideas, such as "decentralized market determines price", "invisible
hand", etc. But for those that don't, they'll have a hard time with
understanding why they're buying web links with no inherent value with virtual
'dollars'

I assume lambdas are unit of exchange--price. You might want to call it
something that people can infer are money...like "rupies", "newsdollar", etc.

