Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
People like to talk about social media sites in terms the amount of traffic sent by getting on the front page, backlinks, profile backlinks, and passing pagerank.
Image credit: sara.musico
Today, we’re going to have a little fun with it. We’re going to take the web 1.0 metric of time on site and go a little more touchy feely with it for a web 2.0 world. Trust me, this will be fun. Here is a list of my top 5 favorite most addictive sites within social media. Perhaps they aren’t even my favorite, but rather that I can’t seem to get myself off of them 
Plurk
There’s a reason that people are taking a long hard look at Plurk, some of them even migrating or at least spending more time there than on Twitter. Two words: Instant gratification. As if Twitter wasn’t instant gratification enough to type in 140 character points and responses, Twitter has fallen from some people’s obsession list as Plurkers seem heavily engaged, providing rapid threaded responses. It isn’t uncommon to see dozens of responses to a Plurk in 15 minutes – something you’ll never see on Twitter unless your name is Guy or Scoble. What’s worse (best?) is that Plurk’s karma, a key factor in its addictiveness, will actually go down if you’re inactive for a while. Oh, and don’t Plurk too much, the safe Plurking habits guide recommends no more than 30 Plurks per day. Brilliant.
Twitter
Once you’ve found interesting people to follow and have a following, Twitter is an awesome place. Also helpful is to be watching some search tools and have a good client (I’m big on using Twitterfox and Hahlo for the iPhone). It’s great for asking questions, looking for resources on a project, and keeping up with what people are doing.
Breaking news can often be found on Twitter as well. And yes, it has been criticized for its uptime performance – the same people that are hitting the refresh button every 2 minutes while Twitter is down Yeah, it’s that addictive.
StumbleUpon
It’s been around considerably longer than many people think. StumbleUpon is one of my favorite sites due to all the great finds I get through it. SU is a true discovery engine, something that if positioned correctly can give traditional search a true run for its money. StumbleUpon is doing something right, and people are taking notice. I’m a big fan of what they have done with SearchReviews (now in Yahoo as well), putting in your friends stumble ratings right on the SERPS.
Facebook
I know what you’re thinking. Facebook is for kids. It’s annoying. It invades my privacy. Say what you will, but with facebook chat, a few addictive apps, and seeing people on there that mainly stay off other social sites (read: have a life off the computer), Facebook is still a daily mainstay for me. It’s a great way to connect with people that you haven’t seen in years, and you can quickly get lost in time through all the possibilities.
Digg
Image credit: Valleywag
Say what you will. Digg has its issues, but for me, it’s still something I’m checking out throughout the day. While Digg has its challenges and critics, it really is a great place to find a wealth of content (and finally has a new comment system). Yes, a lot of it is just funny/linux/apple, but there really is a lot of good stuff.
There are several others that just missed the list for me: Mixx, Reddit, LinkedIn and FriendFeed, just to name a few. Reason is that I’m finding with the demands of my total addict sites, I’m just not spending time on these other sites every day consistently.
Which social sites are you finding the most addictive?
Posted in Social Media | 38 Comments »
Thursday, February 7th, 2008
Just released yesterday, Mixx has stepped up its growing social news site, now adding the ability to message other users within the site. Chris McGill spoke about these features being on the Mixx roadmap in our earlier interview with him. From the Mixx blog:
Mixx Mail Phase 1: Now you can send and receive messages to and from anyone in the community without ever leaving the Mixx. Mixx Mail offers some very handy little features, including:
* The icons of all Mixx friends in your address book—especially useful if you’re like us and remember faces/avatars better than names.
* Send a message to a Mixxer directly from that user’s profile page.
* Block overeager wanna-be groupies. That’s right—not only can you slam the door on their friendship pleas, but now you can block them from sending messages, not that you’d be so cruel. Right? Well ok then, just don’t block us.
* Opt to have a daily digest sent to your regular email and we’ll let you know how many messages you have waiting.
The recognizability that an avatar brings is taken into account here, as shown below:
There is also a new release on group message boards, a handy addition that Mixxingbowl, the unofficial Mixx forum, doesn’t entirely address.
These are welcome features and should certainly improve usability on the site.
Traffic is Still Mixx’s Weak Point
When you compare Mixx with a Niche Pligg-based site like Sphinn, the result is disappointing: even with a large spike in November/December, its visitor numbers have barely risen. Let’s look back at our own home-brew of those events, Google Trends like style:
To put things into perspective we can’t show you the graph between Digg and Mixx as Mixx visitor numbers are so tiny it’s barely more the a straight line. So instead let’s compare it to a large Social Media Blog like Dosh Dosh
Keep in mind that Compete.com numbers are to be taken with a pinch of salt but they are a good guide to trends and Mixx seems to be stuck in the mud.
On the flip side, social media is not just about numbers but reaching the right numbers. Mixx is developing its own diverse crowd, many of whom are active Stumblers and Diggers, making it a great spot to promote material that is ultimately aimed at these audiences.
Mixx as a site is technologically ahead of the game, its owners are well known and are in touch with their user base and their accountants. The question remains: is a business model based on poaching users a successful one? Can Mixx gain the traction needed to get out of the mud and when is there API coming?
This social media public service announcement has been a joint effort between the illustrious Brian “stop making me write long posts” Wallace and Tim “You got to write long posts” Nash. Thanks for stopping by, good citizen.
Posted in Social Media | 12 Comments »
Monday, January 14th, 2008
I read a nice little post by Brent Csutoras I had been pointed towards it by Brian who is quoted within. I have been preparing a post on Mixx since before Christmas for Collective Thoughts so was keen to see another perspective, I was pleasantly surprised but also a little concerned.
Sheer Volume of worthless traffic is still worthless
How you define worthless of course is the key. The argument put forward by Brent is that Mixx simply doesn’t have a critical mass (or activity) to produce enough traffic to make it worth while for marketers. He quotes some stats that are pretty close to mine in terms of sheer visitor numbers to his site and their he stops. The problem is that sheer volume is not a useful metric indeed in many respects rather then being a goal the traffic itself should be considered the cost let me try to explain.
The cost of Volume
Every unique visitor costs a small amount of money, they are taking up bandwidth and resources, the more pages they view the more they cost. A well designed site has a set of “Call to actions” be it to buy a product, subscribe to the RSS feed or comment on the post each of these provide a small ROI how much this return is depends on the action. Even if the return has no financial return it still has a cost implication.
Example
Joe has a blog he has two calls to action 1) advertisement (he wants people to click the links) and 2) Subscribe to RSS
His hosting costs and monthly bandwidth mean each visitor per page costs him approx 1c.
Joe gets 100 visitors – the cost of these visitors is $1 and 1 person clicks an advert he recoups $0.30 Joes total cost is $0.70 if he values RSS subscription at a $0.5 and some two people subscribe then Joe has a ROI of $0.30
Lets say Joe gets to the front page of Digg and has 10k visitors a total cost of $100 he picks up 100 subscribers and 20 people click the ads his total cost is $94 financially and a ROI (including subscribers) -$44
Now I made those numbers up, but the point I want to get across is that everything has a ROI which should be included in any metric. If you sell an Ebook which is it better to have 10 visitors of which 1 buys the book or 10k visitors of which 1 buy the book.
Social media in particular can drive vast amount of traffic with little or no effort but why would you want this traffic what was the point?
Every Goal has to be measured to have success
Working out success on pure visitor numbers is like working out your crop size based on locust population. If your site never had any set goals then it can not have any measured success, to measure success you need to first define your goals and how much reward such goals bring.
In my above example I used financial costs and rewards simply because it is the one thing most people understand but a cost and reward can be far more wide ranging. A good example of a non fiscal metric for blogs is Avinash Kaushik 6 methods for measuring blog success if your interested in looking at these on your own blog Joost has written a plugin at Collective Thoughts we have been using it for a while though it will take a few months before its data will be really useful.
Traffic is good, conversions are better
I love stats and I love social media I watch with joy when I see thousands of visitors on my site through the likes of StumbleUpon regardless of any goals so it seems hypocritical to suggest that traffic doesn’t matter but ultimately beyond a childish fascination it does not matter. What matters is if that traffic converted and achieved my goals.
Is Mixx ready for marketers peddling their wares probably not, is it ready for Link Builders hoping to get their stories in front of some of the most forward thinking people in social media quite possibly.
Posted in Productivity, Social Media | 13 Comments »
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
With me today is Chris McGill, founder of the latest and greatest social news site, mixx.com. Mixx, only a 7 week old community that’s still in beta, has really taken off as of late, and has been featured in TechCrunch and other prominent blogs.
1 – You’ve got an impressive looking background. Can you tell us a little about your experience with Yahoo and USA Today, and perhaps how these experiences prepared you for the foray into making a social news site?
My experiences at Yahoo and at USA Today were pretty different. Yahoo, back in the day under Mallet and TK and the crew, was pretty much the Wild West. We were told to do what we thought was right. And there were literally dogs and an assortment of other critters running in the hallways. I’m proud of what we did with Yahoo News. We took a different approach—rather than producing news we simply empowered the user to customize what they wanted to look at, ignore what they didn’t, take action, share, see what was the most popular and go to the source if we didn’t have the content on Yahoo itself. Mixx is just a natural extension of that.
Working in a traditional press corporation like USA Today is very different. There is a certain way of doing things and while there are many people vigorously trying to adapt, long-standing culture and infrastructure (like big expensive iron presses) make it difficult to change rapidly. My time at USA Today gave me a huge appreciation for what the traditional press does for all of us. I’ve met reporters who literally walk into battle zones and risk their lives (usually getting paid very little to do so) to bring back information vital for all of us to make political, financial and moral decisions.
Taken together, my experiences with Yahoo News and USA Today gave me some understanding of what people want out of information and how they use it.
At Mixx, our mission is to bring together users and publishers (whether that’s a Mommy Blogger or big media) who are interested in the same topics. If we succeed, then everyone wins.
2 – What made you decide to start a social news site in the first place? Mixx doesn’t really seem like a niche site, so it appears to be direct competition with the major players (Digg, Reddit, Propeller, StumbleUpon, Newsvine, Del.icio.us)? I suppose though that Mixx’s personalization aspect makes it a different experience – is this the plan?
First, I like all those other sites and they certainly served as inspiration. But I wanted to take what these other sites do well and then be able to focus it on the things that I’m interested in. For example, sure, I want to know what people in general are interested in (text, photos, videos), but I also want to know what people in Bethesda, MD, are telling me I should look at, what Red Sox fans are raving or complaining about, and what people who are tracking research on Alzheimer’s (a family legacy I would prefer to avoid) are telling me is important. I wasn’t able to do that with any of the existing sites.
On Mixx, I’ve set up a private group for my co-workers, as well as one for the parents of my daughter’s pre-school classmates. I’m guessing that those groups wouldn’t be of much interest to many other people. Look, the reality is that we all have different interests; a one-size-fits-all recommendation board isn’t going to be very helpful to a diverse group of people. So a mom in Des Moines who comes to Mixx to find information relevant to her life and interests is just as welcome as our community of hard-core techies who use tags to drill down into tech topics. And it’s important to note that anyone who comes to Mixx can create topics of interest if they do not already exist, by using tags.
There are four ideas that drive us:
1) Personalization: We take as our example the likes of MyYahoo, Pageflakes and Netvibes.
2) Democratization: Obviously Digg and Reddit blazed the trail here.
3) Personal contact only when the user wants it: LinkedIn and Facebook were our standards.
4) Marvin Gaye: Because in Marvin’s words, “We’re all sensitive people with so much to give.”
3 – If I may, would love to share some ideas for improvement with you.
a. Many successful social sites have useful browser plugins to increase your ability to interact with the community, even when you aren’t directly on the site. Any plans for a toolbar release?
We absolutely have plans to do a toolbar. Giving our members a constant touch-point to Mixx is a great community builder—not to mention just good business.
b. Any plans for an open API? I’m sure that more developers could take the community to the next level.
Ah, someone’s been sneaking a look at our roadmap! APIs are one of the projects we’re working on right now. Our initial plan is to use them to build a Facebook application, but by opening up, we’re certainly hopeful that the community will step in and create cool applications that we never envisioned.
c. If I friend a user, they get an email that says that
<user> thinks you are a really cool person who knows your way around the web.
If they friend me back, I get a message saying:
<user> thinks you are a really cool person who knows your way around the web.
With the current growth rate of Mixx, I would find it easier to keep track if a friend back message said
<user> has returned the favor and friended you back.
This is a great suggestion, and probably something we should have been doing from the start. We’ve been working on our email communications, so we can definitely add in this idea.
d. How about giving users the ability to private message each other?
This is also on our roadmap. Allowing direct communications between users is a wonderful community-builder and something we want to move on as soon as we can. Unfortunately (or maybe it’s a good thing), we have a very long roadmap, and we’ve had such great feedback from the community that we want to give priority to some of their most-requested items.
e. How about making a Mixx button similar to Digg, Reddit and Sphinn that shows the number of votes an item has received?
A gallery of Mixx buttons is on the way. We hope to have some available on the site within a couple of weeks. But our first priority is to complete the APIs that we talked about earlier.
4 – What’s your whole take on Greg (aka cGt2099) getting banned from Digg episode? Looks like quite a number of Diggers have come over to Mixx since this episode.
Let me start off by saying that we have a lot of respect for what Digg has created. They’ve provided their users with an amazing set of tools to recommend content to each other. They also have a very strong community, and they have obviously been very successful and a key part of the Web 2.0 movement.
As far as Greg getting banned…I have no idea what happened. All I know is that Greg is a fabulous and active member of the Mixx community and we are very happy to have him.
5 – There are some good looking signs that Mixx is on the move. Some users have created the mixxingbowl, a forum site for Mixx, and stats show Mixx increasing fast. How many users are in the system now, and do you think that this rate of growth can compete with other social news sites?
The things we are seeing in the community just blow us away. Seriously, it is just incredibly heartening. People we had never talked to went out and set up a site called mixxingbowl.com to discuss what they like and what they don’t like about Mixx, as well as ways they can help us. I have been in the digital information business for nearly a decade—never seen anything like it. I think it does two things: 1) It shows that what we’re trying to do has struck a cord out there and people really appreciate it and, 2) it makes us want to run to work every morning to try to execute for these people. It is crazy fun, really. Emphasis on both the crazy and the fun.
As for our growth, we are seeing some encouraging trends. Visits and page views continue to rise on a day-over-day basis. Time spent on the site is increasing. We’re seeing a lot more voting and commenting. The photos section is really taking off. I could go on (and on and on!), but we know that we have a long way to go, and want to keep working with our users to build a friendly, vibrant community where people come to find content in their areas of interest.
6 – Do you see Mixx as an acquisition target? Something like Reddit or Newsvine?
I know some people will find it hard to believe, but we don’t even think about that right now. Maybe someday, but right now what we think about it how to make the product better and what the community is telling us they want.
7 – Are you pleased with the usage and turnout on Mixx so far? What are your goals?
We’re thrilled with the turnout—who wouldn’t be? We’re still really little because we’ve only been out for seven weeks, but as we continue to grow, we’re going to keep working to maintain the small community feel—we think the way we’re structured will allow us to do that. Our goal is to have a happy, engaged community that people will want to make a part of their daily routine.
8 – Why did you decide not to have any category of online marketing stuff, they have Apple but no Microsoft = back to the old Digg setup.
For a while we had Science and Tech in the same bucket and were limited by space as to how many sub-categories, or topics, we offered there. When we split those categories in two, we were able to create specific topics that people had been asking for—like Linux and Design. One of our next upgrades will include a few more topics that folks have been requesting—Microsoft and Software are two that come to mind.
The thing to remember is that categories are just plain old stock… users can set up tags to create ANY category they want.
9 – Does Mixx discourage or encourage submitting your own content? Communities such as Digg are not very big on having users submit their own content. Whereas many niche communities such as Sphinn actively encourage self-submissions of quality content by an author.
The only content we don’t encourage is submitting content that violates our Terms of Use. Our community will determine whether the content is worth recommending to others by voting up.
10 – Will there be a way to distinguish between friends, followers and mutual friends? I look at my page of followers and don’t know who I have friended back.
Great suggestions keep coming. We absolutely should do this, and will be part of what we’re doing as a general theme to encourage more community features to the site.
Thanks so much for your time, Chris! You’re really well on your way to building a great community. I’m glad you and your team are receptive to the feedback within your users.
Thanks for having me Brian!
Posted in Interviews | 26 Comments »
