The Psychic Cost of Transparency
The Cullect Feed Stats widget displays everything Cullect knows about a feed; recommended posts, number of reading lists, amount of donations, number of patrons. The goal is to be transparent with publishers about the life of their feed within Cullect and show the importance of their feed to new readers.
All these metrics are volatile.
We can now actually ask these questions. If Dave knew the missing reading list’s number, he could dial it up. Was he part of a mass unsub? Did the tone of the reading list change such that EGC didn’t seem on-topic any more?
Sure there’s a possibility the answer is still unsatisfying, but it’s still one more step closer to the larger goal of connecting publishers and readers.
Encouraging the Resistance
via NewsGang, I got this great post from Jacob Sloan on why he hasn’t signed up for FriendFeed yet. He identifies a number of issues, each one Cullect is designed to minimize or solve completely.
Me neither. Cullect was built on the assumptions that; you’d rather not have yet-another-name-and-password to remember, you currently have an account that can be used to uniquely identify you, and well, you’re at least as lazy as I am.
Jacob on comment silos:
“With FriendFeed, my posts collect their own comments in various places that never ping back to my blog. These comments are never shared with regular readers.”
While I touched on this in the Comment Silo post, this is one of the benefits of the ’send to; blog, twitter, tumblr’ feature of Cullect. This spreads the meme, rather than keeping it hostage.
He continues with issue of context and distinct social groups
“I maintain a pretty unified social presence across all services, but for those who do not, connections originally from one social media service might be bored or offended by your social actions and blogging within another service.”
So many services (esp. feed readers) assume I want everything in one big pile and that I want to share the same info with everyone. That’s a recipes for information overload and spamming-you-’friends’.
Think of Meetup.com or 37Signals’ Basecamp, while there may be the same names and faces across the different groups and projects you’re a member of, it’s not assumed nor is it expected. Cullect is designed for sharing your different reading lists with the different groups of people in your life, not everything to everyone.
Cullect Will Be Unavailable: May 22, 11:00PM - 12:00AM PDT
During this time while our network infrastructure is upgraded, we encourage you to:
- Record a podcast and link it to this post.
- Write a nice long blog post and again, link it to this post.
- Email someone you know that should know about Cullect.
- Go to bed early.
- Read a book.
Built for Use
Paul DeBettingnies on Cullect:
“I like that [Garrick] built it the way a user would want it to be.”
Jamuraa Representin’ at LifeHacker
A big thanks to Jamuraa for representing Cullect in last week’s LifeHacker Hive Five Call for Contenders: Best RSS Newsreader competition.
“Intelligent sorting and easy sharing to the places I already have is the win.” - Jamuraa
That’s right, comment number 2!
While we didn’t make the final cut (the night is still young), I’m happy that the choice is so clear for those that have used Cullect.
Thank you all.
Lower Bloat
“If you’ve grown tired of Google Reader bloat, then I highly suggest Cullect.” - Arik Jones
Say ‘Thank$ for the Blog’ with Your Cullect.com Membership
After talking about the feed support aspect of Cullect.com in a demo yesterday, the response was:
“You’re not really giving the feeds money.”
Yes. Yes, I am. In fact, I contacted feed publisher today about how to pass along a Cullect.com member’s donation to them.
I’ve also made it easy for publishers to see their stats including donations. It’s both the feed stats widget and the Cullect.com Robot’s Message, of course - you’ll also see it in your PayPal account.
As I’ve mentioned before, supporting the publishers you enjoy reading increases their importance within your reading lists and everyone else’s.
So, if you like Minneapoliscast, join Cullect.com and give a percentage of your membership back to Tony.
“Cullect.com is the best I’ve seen” - Matt Tharp
Matt Tharp writes another review of Cullect.com just the way I like them; the good and the bad.
Laurie Starts Migrating to Cullect
Cullect Demo - Twin Cities Social Media Breakfast May 16th 8am
If you’re in or around Concordia College in St. Paul on May 16th and want a walk-through of Cullect.com I’ll be demo-ing as part of the Twin Cities Social Media Breakfast. More info and RSVP at Rick Mahn .com: Social Media Breakfast - Twin Cities 3.