

Rate my startup: Socialmod - take the pain out of UGC moderation - maccman
http://socialmod.com

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jerryji
Clear business model, great website design.

While I don't have a problem getting the idea at first sight, I believe an
introduction video/animation would help a lot.

The plans are a bit pricey to me -- (how) did you do your pricing
analysis/survey?

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thorax
Looks great-- as I mentioned in another comment, I'm definitely considering
how we might use this. We have a number of sites with user-generated content
and not enough hours in the day to review it all.

Regarding your semi-automated plans:

* What's the process for evaluating false positives/negatives?

* What guarantee do you provide against incorrect results? I know you have each item moderated 3 times, but it's still a worry. What if porn gets by?

* I assume your team will be able to handle really terrible objectionable content uploaded by griefers? The kind of stuff no human should have to see?

* I feel you should mention MTurk usage on your site somewhere. "How" you perform the automated pieces was one of the biggest questions I had, and I would not have purchased without emailing you to find out if you outsourced externally, used Amazon, or what-have-you.

* What's the turnaround time like for the moderation? Any estimates on that depending on the content?

Thanks in advance.

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maccman
* We have two rounds, each round is voted on by three people, if there's disagreement on the verdict in the first round, it goes to the second round. If the second round disagrees - the items is failed as a precaution.

* We only provide a money back guarantee. We don't charge enough to cover any insurance. If you need that we've partnered with moderation companies who offer insurance (cover obviously depends on the amount of moderation you need).

* Yes, the Turkers are all warned.

* I think you're right. Initially I thought it it would be a turn off - but in retrospect that was a mistake.

* Very quick, it's about 7 seconds per item (once it's on mturk). Items are batched up into 20 and sent off every minute - so the complete turnaround will be a bit longer.

Let me know if you've any more queries.

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chanux
Even After the tour, I couldn't get much of an idea on what it does.

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maccman
Does this help?
[http://www.socialmod.com/images/pages/home/how_it_works.png?...](http://www.socialmod.com/images/pages/home/how_it_works.png?1243415818)

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chanux
So is it a moderation engine?

Too bad that there are HNers who down vote a comment that says a problem some
one has. I said that the tour didn't help me because it really didn't. And I
hope there should be other people who would have the same problem. The
developer gets a chance to decide whether he needs to improve things.

Really proud of OH-SO-Intelligent portion of HN users who understand things at
a glance. Sorry I'm not. So down vote if you wish.

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mmelin
Looks great. Could you elaborate on how your "automated" plans work? Who does
the moderation - are you using Mechanical Turk, outsourced employees,
something else?

I'd also like to see a "developer" plan, for sites that haven't launched.

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maccman
Yes, we're using Mechanical Turk - we compare answers at least three times per
moderated item.

I agree with you about the developer plan - what sort of attributes would you
propose (pricing, usage etc)?

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nkohari
Site looks pretty good, however: "Our team are on call to moderation your
content 24/7."

Should be: "Our team is on call to moderate your content 24/7."

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maccman
Thanks, fixed

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cl3m
nice site, dunno if there is a market for that tough..

you should give example of client using your site also add an about us & blog
page

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robfitz
Scalable/easy moderation is one of the [several] major problems preventing UGC
from growing into a serious advertising medium. Moderation is a big part of
the value we add over other technology providers.

So I would say the market is definitely there, but that the pricing model
should better reflect the amount of time required to moderate images vs videos
of various lengths.

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qeorge
Great looking website. Its very clear what you're offering, and it sounds like
a great service for rich media moderation.

One suggestion: On the pricing page the default tab is for self-moderation.
Personally, I find the outsourced moderation offer much more compelling, and I
would lead with that.

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maccman
I've created a free evaluation version here:
<http://account.socialmod.com/signup?plan_name=free>

