diesellaws
The second is the ability to market your app to your clients or fans via your website or through Facebook, to get instant engagement (vs a banner/screenshot) to drive downloads. We've found it to be highly effective and the average app play is about 1:30. Hope that helps!
I may create a playlist one day based upon a certain artist (with similar artists in the mix) however the next day I may want to listen to something a bit heavier, making those playlists irrelevant no matter how far I've drilled down my preference list.
While Play Strength is a good concept, it's still just a feature that can become just as underused or overused as a star count.
Instead of focusing on how 'perfectly-automatic' we can make a playlist based on features such as genre, BPM & play strength, we should be focusing on tools that help better understand our moods, the environment around us & the energy and vibes we intend to create from the music itself. The Effect > The Cause.
The lack of 'women in tech': No one is stopping a woman learning to code.
Teacher Uses Barkles To Initiate Change
Do You Still Use Physical Business Cards?
Great Design Is Now The Currency
New To Barkles: Ask A Question
I would recommend getting in touch with these places (all on Twitter) @inspire9, @yorkbutter, @angelcubemelb and @startupaus. There are so many amazing Australian Startups coming out of the woodwork through these hubs and teams and they will surely give you enough companies to profile.
A great time to feature Aussie startups - The melb scene especially is on the rise.
You can reach me @diesellaws on Twitter if needed.
The UX Behind Barkles UI
I have seen many layouts of the same/similar concept and this is one that worked well for us. I think the layout closest to what you refer to is represented very well by Twosides.co (please correct me if I am wrong).
The comment sanitization is always going to be a hot topic as any opinion is valid - and if we start removing that opinion it could cause problems (moderation is something we are still considering).
Although "penis, penis, penis" has little to do with Coffee (http://barkl.es/uJaCAk) they may or may not be making a valid opinion (depending on your opinion of their opinion).
But in all seriousness, we will work out ways over time to combat irrelevant/improper Responses/Dogfights the right way without limiting open opinion from users.
"This is a website that relies on user participation and right now you're not offering too much to your users." - I'm not really sure I feel your sentiment on this as by 'currently' allowing ANY opinions aren't we offering more?
- Diesel
This comes up a often and there are a lot of for and against opinions for both scenarios. The main reason we have chosen to keep the Dogfights tab first is due to the long term value of that tab itself - based on our minimal, but varied research.
If we were to show the Popular/Active tabs first many users may fail to see the value/point in connecting with their friends and chasing other users.
It's probably a hot topic ripe for debate (lol) but just to get the point across - imagine if Twitter/Facebook were to show the "Active" tab first from people who aren't your friends. For me and many others it would be a constant stream of noise from people you may not know nor be interested in following - which would then force a user to keep switching tabs back to the people I follow.
We have chosen to set a user up for the future, rather than appeal to their instant gratification of a stream of active noise. We will be reworking the model in future to connect users to friends initially and also showing Dogfights on the front page without being logged in - hopefully this will help that 'empty' feeling.
This is purely the decision we have come to and is not the only way to go about it. It's just what we feel works best for our long term users.
Thanks for asking!
When we first started working on this we considered an "add-on" platform to the likes of Twitter/Facebook - but decided we wanted our own system from the get-go. There was no real data-set to explain why, only the fact that we can control every part of the User Experience that way.
The obvious downfall to creating another Social Network is the challenge of building a userbase - but with the natural virality of debating we feel we have a strong chance to bring friends of friends into Barkles.
Thanks for your honesty :)
I'm actually suprised so far that of the 100+ Dogfights created, very few have been about politics.