Why Propeller Is No Digg! »
Posted By CommonDavid 3 months, 3 weeks ago in Science & TechnologyPropeller is good, but not great. Although this is a social network, it's missing a few key features for bringing people together in an environment where they want to share and contribute. Here are just a few major things that Propeller is missing.
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CommonDavid
Somewhat green guy who loves camping, hiking, biking and spending time with my family.
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Comments So Far: 77
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david_nwpa3 months, 3 weeks ago
I was a Digg user for about 10 days. I did not like it, because it seemed to bulky. I compare it to shopping at Wal Mart when all I want is one item or a few selected items. I do not want to run a marathon across the store to buy just toothpaste.
As for your comments about Propeller, spot on! I agree that the images are a good idea, but an icon of our choosing would be nice. As for the sharing stories option, we have a view friends' activity/submitted stories. It is far faster to check there than to send "share story" notices. On the other hand, it would be ideal if we could share with say up to 20 members at a time without drastically slowing down the system.
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hyperbola3 months, 3 weeks ago
I detest this idea:
"" 1. You Can Only Share to 5 People!!! - The main reason Propeller is an inferior product is how hard they make it to share a story. If you want to share a story on Propeller you can only send it to 5 friends at a time, making it very time consuming to let your friends know about a story you like. ""
The last thing I want here is for it to be made easy to spam me. If that begins to happen, I will leave.
What would be advantageous is a good search feature - e.g. to be able to find stories submitted by "group x" about "topics y".
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capn_caveman3 months, 3 weeks ago
I'll have to agree with you. Personally, when I send out share this story sitemails I take the time to share this story with people who I really feel that would appreciate the content based on what I know about their user history. I might spend a couple of minutes sending it out to 5 maybe 10 people tops. The people complaining that they cannot send a story out to their entire list of friends at once are people who may be abusing the feature as opposed to using it as it was intended. Just my opinion.
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ind063 months, 3 weeks ago
1. as a poster of a mere two stories a day I couldn't agree with you more. Takes me an hour just to post let alone the time I spend finding the stories.
2. Propeller does show who voted on a story.
4. Propeller does show your sinks, votes and comments; but, I guess you're talking about stats as in how many, propeller shows that too on the "Friends" page next to each of your friends' avatars are icons and numbers indicating these three things.
5. Propeller does allow you to get a heads up for new PM's. I got a heads up when you sent me the notification for this post.
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chapelhillNC3 months, 3 weeks ago
I love the transparency of propeller. It is easy to know where you and your story really stand.
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cosmogenium3 months, 3 weeks ago
You can also set you inbox to accept only messages and shares from "mutual" friends, those you have befriended. This is in the Settings of your profile, over on the right column.
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populist3 months, 3 weeks ago
Interesting discussion. I happen to find propeller much more compelling as far as discussion and articles. Features? I've been happy with what they've provided us to use for free - and am pretty excited to see what they've got in store for the site with the new update that's coming "soon"...
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david_nwpa3 months, 3 weeks ago
I find the people here to be far more connected, concerned, and passionate about the stories they submit. Whether they come from Stoners, populist, Radiofreeuropa, or more conservative folks like AlphaGnosis, libsRfunny, 1-2-Oscar, they at least know how to debate and keep me thinking. Thank you all for the hard work and dedication to crafting your responses and providing for some lively discussion of the topics of the day.
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Mdiar3 months, 3 weeks ago
Propeller, to me, seems far more serious. I know where to go when I want laughs (ind06 and, of course, various other places on the web/real life) and the usual entertainment. Propeller is something that makes you think and consider other viewpoints. I wish we had more non-Americans on this site and a greater number of libertarians, whether right or left leaning ones. Propeller is a place that almost reminds me of a classroom at times... and I liked school (except for homework, other then that part I was brilliant!).
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PsychoHosebeast3 months, 3 weeks ago
This is what's actually wrong with Propeller. Idiots and foot dragging on dumping them. Too bad he couldn't sitemail this to everyone on his friends list in two seconds, it would be so much easier.
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CommonDavid3 months, 3 weeks ago
I edited my #2 to include the lack of a search feature:
2. No Search Featureâ;; The search feature on Propeller isâ;¦ oh wait, there is no search feature! It's really tough to find a friend's story that you voted on a while ago, find stories on a particular subject etc. because of the lack of a search feature. This is really a shame because the functionality is there, as you can see it when you are submitting something new Propeller will show you related stories on the side bar, and these stories are VERY related, proving that they have the functionality there, and it's actually very advanced.
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PsychoHosebeast3 months, 3 weeks ago
Yeah, but that would actually require people to read and/or think, given how often they actually pay attention to the "check your story" feature you mention, I'd say it would never be used. Ever. It would be viewed more as an inconvenience, just slowing people down in their flailing, thrashing attempt to be most popular at all costs, including their own dignity.
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PsychoHosebeast3 months, 3 weeks ago
Sounds to me like the author is primarily interested in a blind voting popularity contest, and since he actually has to take a few minutes to do it on Propeller as opposed to bothering 1000 of his closest "friends" with the push of a button, he's whining.
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Bkumm3 months, 3 weeks ago
Well, most of you know I'm a Propellerhead to the core so here are my responses:
1. When this was Netscape we used to be able to share our submissions with our mutual friends all at once. However, people that went out friend-mining so that they could get their stories to the Front Page (mostly spammers) ruined that for the people that actually sent submissions out to people that might be interested in them. Now, the Staff could (and may) change this when we go over to Propeller 2.0, but for now it keeps the spamming into my PM box down to a minimum. However, due to my visibility and my site rank I still receive between 50 and 75 PM's every single day.
For instance, of the 75 PM's on the front page of my in-box only 25 of them are from mutual friends and many of those are personal communication not "shared" requests.
I agree that it sounds like the author is miffed because they can't spam the world like they do at Digg.
cont.
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Bkumm3 months, 3 weeks ago
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2. I would like to see a more user friendly search feature as well. I think this is a valid point. However, I would point out that if you are interested in your friends submissions it is not difficult to see what they have submitted. You can also see "New stories". As for the "Related" functionality, that should be something that is part of the equation. I have a feeling that Propeller 2.0 is going to solve that issue.
3. The category issue needs to be addressed, but to say that Propeller has "worse" categories than Digg is simply not paying attention. Just because it's different doesn't make it bad.
4. Most of what the author talks about can be found on Propeller. If the author would take a couple of minutes they can find almost everything they want. It may be laid out differently than Digg, but it's there.
5. Who cares? The only people this pertains to are Internet marketers and spammers.
cont.
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CommonDavid3 months, 3 weeks ago
I don't claim to be a web usability expert, but I'm pretty close and the fact that I've been very active on this platform for about a month and didn't see who voted at the bottom is a very bad thing. Not only did I not see it, but colleagues did not see it either.
My other comment to all of you naysayers is: does this seem like spam? Am I selling anything? Nope, just making an educated, professional critique which I would bet the staff at Propeller.com actually USES and makes these fixes in the near future (like you said in later comments).
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Bkumm3 months, 3 weeks ago
Well, if you're "pretty close" to a web usability expert and you didn't see who voted on the bottom then you may not be the expert you think you are.
I'm nothing at all like an expert and I found it the second day I was on the site nearly two years ago. So there you have it.
Of COURSE you're selling something. You may be able to fool some people by suggesting that you aren't, simply because you aren't actively putting something out there, but you are indeed selling something. You're selling your so-called expertise. Observe:
"I have a feeling they'll get the picture soon enough and either hire consultants like myself, or someone there will smarten up and develop these basic features."
By the way, "smarten" is not a word. Welcome to Propeller.
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Bkumm3 months, 3 weeks ago
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6. Whatever. Of course, if a submission gets to the Front Page and you've got a picture of a naked woman on your submission about the latest Bollywood star, you can be assured that the Staff will change it.
And here, my fellow Propellerheads, is why this article was submitted:
FTA
"I have a feeling they'll get the picture soon enough and either hire consultants like myself, or someone there will smarten up and develop these basic features."
So for everyone that voted for this story (you know who you are, even if the author can't figure it out) please recognize that this has almost nothing to do with making our community better. It has everything to do with a person pointing out "issues" and trying to gain attention.
Having said that, I welcome CommonDavid and all others to our apparent "lessor" Digg. We are Propeller. NOT. DIGG.
PROPELLER FOREVER!!!
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SeGama3 months, 3 weeks ago
I like both of them; they offer different flavors, stories, and friends
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CommonDavid3 months, 3 weeks ago
Just trying to help our community by doing a little competitive analysis. I hope no one takes it personally!
The number of people visiting a site.
digg.com 23,583,915
reddit.com 2,378,443
propeller.com 1,865,212
According to Compete.com
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Bkumm3 months, 3 weeks ago
No one questions that Digg is the leading social networking/news-service site. However, that isn't exactly what Propeller is trying to do. If you'll look at the demographics of who visits each site you'll notice that Propeller isn't attracting the same people (and isn't trying to) that Digg is trying to attract. The users on this site tend to be more educated, more affluent and more involved than on many other sites.
So, it's not just a question of raw numbers. It's a question of the quality of dialog and the quality of the submissions.
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TweekerchickQC3 months, 3 weeks ago
Ive had experiences with both digg and propeller.
Im certainly not going to say anything bad about digg, but there's a reason I chose propeller.
In my experience (and its just that, MY experience I am not about to speak for anyone else!) I've had much higher quality discussions here than digg.
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Spadecaller3 months, 3 weeks ago
CommonDavid:
I have read enough of your article and posts to conclude that you have been doing a lot of shucking and jiving and lack the experience and understanding of how to use Propeller effectively.
You are certainly no expert on Propeller. That has already been made quite clear.
The question remains; do you really want to use what Propeller offers and to learn how? For a newcomer, your attitude appears not to be one that welcomes that opportunity. (But those are not your intentions, anyway.)
Instead, you want to convince everyone else that they are missing out on a better network. That is a hard sell when you don't even know the rudimentary tools available to you here.
My conclusions: You article and pitch is disengenuous and that your mercenary interests are all too obvious.
I consider your article a cherade and it should be classified as spam.
You deserve a sink and the boot...
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Mutainia3 months, 3 weeks ago
Digg is ok, but, it allows terrorists to hunt you down easier if you are critical of Islam.
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yellowhi3 months, 3 weeks ago
This quote pretty much sums it up nicely:
"Take a majority vote from people who don't know the answer, and you're not going to get the right answer. Summing collective ignorance isn't going to create wisdom."
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GPSCenter3 months, 3 weeks ago
The thing I dislike the most about propeller is their lack of a search feature. It makes it just that much harder to find anything.
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CommonDavid3 months, 2 weeks ago
A few other things I've noticed:
1. When you comment on an article, you cannot delete the post. This means when you post duplicate comments, you can't delete one.
2. Comments have multiple pages but the numbers of pages at the bottom are very hard to notice. With all of these feature flaws adding up Propeller is just pushing more and more new users away.
3. FAQ has broken links- very unprofessional that they didn't debug/ test their links:
http://browser.propeller.com/ns8/ http://community.propeller.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx...
4. Search takes you offsite. If you do decide to use the sub-par search feature, you'll be taken off of propeller completely.
5. Contact info? One great thing about digg is that they have tons of different email addresses that are easy to find. Propeller falls into the pre 2004 phase of hiding their contact info.
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