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My Startup: tracking real world trends - thoughts? suggestions?

10 pointsby matthewerabout 17 years ago

10 comments

Shooterabout 17 years ago
I like the idea of 'trendcasting' with a social element enought to have invested in the area repeatedly, so I was intrigued by your post. Unfortunately, I was disappointed in your implementation as it is now. I'm sure my criticisms are biased by my experiences (and what I'm actively looking to invest in), but I think you're not delivering on your promise or potential in this area. If you're happy with what you have, please ignore the ramblings of this grumpy old man. I think if you place social suggestions at the heart of the service it just becomes another social news site. You essentially end up with a different face on a Digg-style site, in a way, which opens itself up to gaming of the system and takes the focus away from actual trend identification and forecasting data.<p>Instead of a social news remake, you could become something that actually gleans insight from social data without overt promotion/edoption by individuals. People are looking for insights about trends, but they don't just want a data dump or a shill-fest. The "Soap Box" should be small or nonexistent in such a service. When you're talking about trend identification and forecasting, most customers want some degree of editorial analysis (Springwise, Teentracking focus groups, etc.) and/or some type of meta-analysis based on aggregate data, such as search data (Yahoo Buzz, Google Trends) and/or to have the tools to do an analysis for themselves (more advanced tools with NLP/ML features), possibly within a specific medium (forums, email, blogs, search, SMS, etc.) or verticals (retail investing, public relations, etc.) There is a huge market opportunity in finding sweet spots in these 'trendcasting' areas...and there is enough room for many profitable companies. I'm disappointed that there are relatively few companies that seem to be attacking the gaps, yet there are so many different takes on "me too" companies that draw from the trend and forecasting toolset (social news, reputation management, etc. as standalone services.) Why not go after the value-added services and niches and really make some money? How do you plan to make money? [Advertising?!?]<p>Your design looks professional, but it is very busy and makes it difficult to really get a feel for what it does and how it all works. I think if you want your site to work well in its current 'edopter' implementation, you should focus more on simplifying the interface.
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SwellJoeabout 17 years ago
I'm afraid it just confused me. I'm kinda old, so maybe I'm just too far down the Zuckerberg curve to understand.<p>So, I saw a "trend", I guess, called "World Politics" with a picture of Obama bein' cool (like all other pictures of Obama...that dude's definitely got cool down), clicked it, and found...nothing? I mean there was a page there, but there was just a picture of a couple of foreign dudes (World Politics...makes sense I guess) and a random video. And then I felt an overwhelming feeling of, "I want those 30 seconds back".<p>So, reading the comments here, I'm beginning to grasp the concept of the site, and I now realize why I was so disappointed by the content I saw: It was generated by an idiot user, the most common creature in the known universe. So, the system needs to be better at solving the hard problem of helping idiot users create something useful.<p>Your site design is nice, if a bit busy.<p>The "browse" page is a much better overview than your front page, which I found intimidating and confusing. Browse, while it could be mistaken for "just another social news site" is actually comprehensible to me, and makes your site seem more interesting...it also seems to allow the genuinely interesting stuff to rise to the top, so I don't wind up on the nonsensical "World Politics" page that has nothing interesting to look at or read.<p>I think maybe this is a case where simplifying your application would be a net positive. Easier said than done, I know, as I'm sure every little feature on the site had someone campaigning for it at some point in the devel/beta cycle. But new users show up and see an explosion of confusing concepts and no clear entry point to get involved.
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matthewerabout 17 years ago
Quick background: we are just two guys (24,25) who left our jobs and started this site. We have been working on it for months, and would love some constructive feedback. Thanks!
andrabout 17 years ago
I rather like the feel of the site. However, I think you should order trends by the percent of users that like them, not total number of users. Otherwise, every trend's popularity would be going up as your user count increases.<p>Plus trendcasting is rather trendy in itself, so your data would be somewhat skewed. It will be interesting to analyze the developments of trade compared to total market share data (easy to get for public companies) as a time series problem. Then you get into the business forecasting area and your data would be worth some serious cheddar.<p>Just my 2 cents.
k4stabout 17 years ago
One thing that seems problematic is having too many trends. How do you plan on motivating users to discover added but unknown trends on your website so that they might be able to see the light of day?
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EastSmithabout 17 years ago
I just read this month trends at trendwatching.com, but crowdsourced trend watching is great idea. Well until new ideas stop coming. Hope you can build good user base.<p>One thing: Ad some kind of feeds. I just wont remember the site (despite the nice design ), I don't want yet another login to remember, but might want to fallow trends and comment on a trend I am interested in. New trends, Popular trends, Random trends, etc.
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mrincredibleabout 17 years ago
Interesting site. What's the revenue model like? Seems like a shiny wikipedia combined with a simple stock market, but still don't totally get it. I just signed up so I'll give you my full thoughts once I get a chance.
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ejsabout 17 years ago
Interesting idea, how does it work? by aggregating news on the internet? is there some complicated algorithm?<p>I am still a little confused so to what I would do with it however...?
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earleabout 17 years ago
<a href="http://www.google.com/trends" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/trends</a>
wehriamabout 17 years ago
Who did the design? Because it's good.
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