Wednesday, March 05, 2003

weblog browse strategies and results

How do you find the good stuff on (or via) weblogs?

You read a few good ones (ideally ones with plenty of outbound links), and you check the Daypop Top 40 ("a list of links that are currently popular with webloggers from around the world") for anything else big that you've missed.

confession: the authority here is but a single step ahead of the reader(s), today was my first visit to Daypop. The reward was Joel on Building [online] Communities with Software -
In software, as in architecture, design decisions are just as important to the type of community that develops or fails to develop. When you make something easy, people do it more often. When you make something hard, people do it less often. In this way you can gently encourage people to behave in certain ways which determine the character and quality of the community. Will it feel friendly? Is there thick conversation, a European salon full of intellectuals with interesting ideas? Or is the place deserted, with a few dirty advertising leaflets lying around on the floor that nobody has bothered to pick up?
Nice comparison of different online communities, their character, what design decisions led them there. Good lessons.

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