I think the “one post” aspect of One Post Wonder is going to hamper (and is already hampering) its success, and it needs to be done away with.
Users need to be able to post when the whim strikes.
If I understand the reasoning behind “one post”, it is the thought is that having just one post per person per day will reduce the amount of clutter in a news feed, making it manageable.
I think there are many things to challenge about the above, not only about the desired outcome, but about the means by which one may achieve it.
What is “too much”, when it comes to a social media feed?
One person’s firehose is another person’s dripping kitchen sink.
If you restrict post frequency so that the only available output rate is a drip, then you will lose two kinds of people — the people who want a firehose, and people who would otherwise help create a firehose. Both of these kinds of people are high engagers. They, jokes aside, make a site sticky -- with long, frequent visits. They enliven a site and tend to produce the content that first-timers, lurkers and casuls eat up.
But if you chase high frequency posters and eager readers away, all you are left with people who are okay with not posting much, and people who don’t read much because there isn’t much there. These are low engagers. And because their engagement is low, they tend to drift away if something better comes along. There's nothing to keep them around absent some external force (like knowing Tom personally).
I've certainly seen people come, and then go. Even people who know Tom.
And I've certainly been basically laughed at on Facebook for suggesting a site where you can only post once a day. "Be serious," my friends might say, "the only way we can really stay in touch with each other is through posting online, why the hell would I get anything out of an internet site that intentionally discourages me from interacting with my friends?"
Don't restrict writing; Instead, empower reading
The internet thrives on original content. There are enormously successful sites out there that do nothing other than repost other people’s content.
Social media sites are even more hungry for content, because humans thrive on social contact. Thrive, hell, we require it if we're not to fade into darkness.
If the problem that OPW was created to face down is “there is too much crap posted on sites like Facebook, so much so that the site is forced to filter it for us -- in an opaque fashion that only suits their needs and we can never really see what our friends are doing” then I think there is another way to solve the problem.
Don’t restrict the amount of posts -- posts are content. Content is the fuel that drives the internet, and social contact is the fuel that makes humanity go.
Without a deep, self-reinforcing wellspring of fuel that can only be produced by hungry readers driven by engaged writers, One Post Wonder is likely going to be forever just running on fumes, doomed to the dusty back-roads of the Internet, never really getting above walking speed.
So, instead of restricting the content for everyone based on one person's idea of the right amount of posting, allow each user to decide for themselves how much content is enough by giving them tools to manage and filter their own feeds. And let everyone post as much as they want.
In other words, getting all Kurzweil on you, instead of using technology in a negative way, saying "you can't do that, it's not allowed", use it in a positive way to giving users control over their lives.
Initial OPW changes
I am proposing several changes, most of which are fairly lightweight to implement.
First, allow people to post as often as they wish.
Second, encourage social connection-reinforcing short posts like FB check-in updates or tweets or whatever you want to call them. These little “blurbs” (<200 characters or so) don’t get a title, and are shown in a compact form with just the text, icon, and dateline. They won't take up much space on the screen but they'll help bond people together just the same. (Note that we keep the beautiful formatting for long posts, which will continue to encourage long-form quality content. I don't want to take that away.)
Third, on a user’s profile page, show an average post frequency of how many short/long posts per day/week that person makes, based perhaps on the past month. This will give you some idea of what kind of commitment following a particular user might engender.
And fourth, when you follow a user, you can choose the level of engagement you want with that user. We can call that level of engagement the user “rating”. You can change the rating at any time. And no one can see what rating you’ve given to someone else. I freely admit this idea was in part inspired by ello.
The rating works altering how posts from that user are shown on your read page.
Level 1 is “bestie.” All posts are shown, fully expanded, automatically.
Level 2 is “buddy.” Long posts are shown in compact form (300-400px tall) with the expander thumb-tab to reveal the rest.
Level 3 is “bozo.” All posts from this user are shown in abbreviated blurb form with an expander.
On someone’s own profile page, their posts are always shown at level 2 so that it’s easier to scroll through them.
Later Changes
Favourites. I would also like to add an opaque “favourite/like” system where you can mark any post as a favourite. You should be able to access your list of favourite posts separately.
Perhaps more interestingly, the number of favourites a post has vs. number of followers that user has might convey a sort of “warm/cool” rating about the post that could be shown in a small indicator on the post, letting them know there's something worthwhile to see even if the post is minimized in the "bozo" presentation.
Repost. I think the ability to say “hey look at this great post/user” is a vital part of social media and sharing. You should be able to echo a post to your own feed, but only if the post is public.
Sharing / reposting is huge on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. It's an enormously successful way of expanding networks, and is particularly effective at enhancing discovery. I think it's essential on social media sites.
How I think about it
Here's the super simple "thought experiment" I contrived which ultimately convinced me that OPW needs to change.
Imagine a clone of OPW, alike in every way, except without the one post per day limit. Put both sites on the internet at the same time. Which site is going to have more writer engagement, more content, higher reader engagement, higher overall user retention, and that much more sticky browsing experience that is so beloved by people who might wish to pay for eyeballs?
I just don't see how a "one post a day" version of the site, as opposed to a "post when you want" version, is in any way better for the users or for the developers. I've been bashing at this a month, and posting frequency is lower now than it was when I started. Either my changes really suck or some other factor is causing essentially negative uptake.
That's why I think it's time to "pivot". Especially if One Post Wonder is to become a profitable undertaking. I think the elevator pitch goes something like "let's make a social media site that discourages everyone who wants to be highly engaged with it." ... at which point the person in the elevator pushes the Emergency Stop button and runs away.
Discussion is good
I posted this publicly because I think everyone reading this is likely invested in OPW to some degree and would like to see it succeed.
If some other change/idea/approach will have as dramatic a positive impact as I think removing the post limit would, then I think it's time to explore it earnestly.
Looking forward to thoughtful comments on all sides of the matter.
Take me to the river
10/4 '14
