I'm seeing lots of bounties and they are generous. But not many people posting.
I think if more people were invited to join we'd see more engagement.
It's kind of like shooting fish in a barrel at the moment because there is not enough competition.
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It's a fair comment! We're planning on throwing open the doors and really publicising the platform more heavily in the next month or two.
We haven't been particularly communicative in terms of the plan, but whilst we're happy with some of the elements we've delivered, we've still got a handful of things we need to deliver before we leave this testing phase:
We're rebuilding the signup and login flow, because it's extremely clunky at the moment
We're rebuilding the way replies (and reactions) are handled, so you'll be able to do more in the main feed... and the performance issues will be fixed
We're rebuilding the post editor, as it's quite buggy
We've got a much-improved mobile version of the site coming
And curated articles will be visible to the internet finally! With the goal of attracting new users in as well as giving a bigger audience to the things that members are creating
So, lots going on behind the scenes but hopefully not too much longer. We've also got some partnerships with games companies coming which'll allow us to fund some pretty cool new communities and rewards, and we're starting work on our Discord bot too which'll help the platform reach a whole load of new people... and eventually allow people to hear about new bounties, submit to them and vote etc without necessarily leaving where they are.
... Lots to do! :)
A referral reward sounds like something that could encourage people whose goal it is to earn an income online. It seems like a feature that Content Creators may want to tap into.
For myself, I'd promote Just About to grow my games community here. It feels like a reward in itself to watch my community grow. It's what I've been doing on Reddit anyway and I didn't need payment for that.
Anyway referral rewards might be a way to start generating initial momentum, but long term once Just About is growing, I think it won't be needed. Just be the best platform and all the growth will occur organically.
These are really nice updates, looking forward to see them. Especially exciting the curated posts and Discord update.
This sounds fab, is there plans for a standalone app for Just About?
Yep! Although still a few things to get done first...
Oh! One other thing, which we'll talk about more next week... whilst the last few weeks have been a bit quiet in terms of visible front-end changes, the team actually delivered a really fundamental piece of the puzzle in the background: JAutoMod.
All posts are now being filtered through this system. This was one of the most important things we needed to do before opening up the platform further. Because one of our goals is to create positive, friendly and safe communities - hopefully at scale - blocking abusive posts, spam, gibberish, dangerous URLs etc at source is so important.
We've all seen what happens when platforms become toxic and go downhill (mentioning no names!) so we want to retain the current pleasant atmosphere as we grow, and automate as much as possible so that human moderators only have to get involved in the most nuanced of cases. Alongside JAutoMod, we also now have much better human moderation tools, which'll be vital to give mods the support they need too.
To be honest, I'm not even interested in the bounties... So to that extent, money doesn't really motivate me (in this context). Yeah, sure... It's nice... But it's not what's ultimately driving me to post here.
There's a part of me that sometimes thinks that this site has been designed slightly wrong. When I first heard about it, I thought that it would be more like Reddit - where people got paid. But as time has gone on, I don't see the Reddit part.
I also think that the way posts are displayed are a tad bit "broken" at the moment.
And then there's the notion of splitting a community's attention (into many related sub-communities - like Gaming and Eve Online) which isn't great for retaining user engagement, or for developing cohesion.
Honestly, a "one-size fits all" approach should be fostered on this site - at least initially... Make the site follow the same templates as laid out by traditional forums like Neogaf etc - where you have "Gaming", "Music", "TV & Movies", etc... And make the "sub-communities" be more like "threads" at this point... If only because there aren't even enough active users at the moment.
Also, maybe it's better to not spend that money on Bounties, but to spend it instead on marketing the site. Because as more people become aware of the site, it will attract more users, gain more traction, and also get more ad revenue as a result - which will result in more money coming into the site, thereby allowing users to get paid more.
Considering how many Neogaf and Resetera users have been alienated by those sites' policies, I honestly think that there's a pretty big audience out there that's willing to defect... They just need to be made aware of Just About. And if you can get the more "influential" posters from those sites to defect, then this might result in Just About getting more prominent due to the "network effect".
Maybe it would be a good idea to get prominent influencers / industry spokesmen to open accounts on Just About, and also write a blog post - which they can then publicise on Twitter etc. That would generate more interest, and also allow the site to get more users.
Ultimately, Just About needs to foster an environment where people can feel at home... Where they are within easy reach of their "friends" (like Facebook and Twitter). Because whilst it's nice to have bounties (and attract people with a mercenary attitude), what's even nicer is to work towards having a semblance of community... And unfortunately, that takes a LOOOOOONG time (depending on how you want to position the site).
Honestly, I think there's faaaaaar better ways of spending that money than on Bounties... Like Marketing... Spend that $10 on weekly ads over at Facebook or something... Get more users... And then allow them to figure out what sort of content they want to create - as long as it fits certain parameters. But to be honest, the tag system is also a bit limited at the moment. Where are the tags for reviews, news, interviews, late to the party etc?
Maybe have a "bounty" for best post of the week... Or a post that Just About wants more of... That would allow the site to foster more of the kind of users it wants to attract (and keep) long-term.
The problem is that community sites take a looooong time to build... There's a lot of work required on iteration and getting the formula right. Zuckerberg realised this... Which is why he didn't focus on profit.
The problem with sites that want growth and revenue at all cost, the ones that require profit for shareholders and VCs, they're the ones that have the shortest vision, and which fall by the wayside the quickest... Just ask MySpace after it was acquired by Rupert Murdoch.
Is this sote being funded by VC capital? What sort of pressure are they putting on to the site for it to yield a profit? In which case, we're almost making the analogy with sooooooo many GAAS games (including multiplayer arena shooters - like the aborted Hyenas), where all the VCs smell is the money, but have little care for the long-term viability of the product.
Don't get me wrong... What Cerium (from Resetera) did was absolutely wrong - when he pocketed all the community's proceeds (and I can see that Just About is probably a reaction to that entire fiasco)... but one shouldn't be so inclined to go the other way, and start throwing money at the community - when the underlying infrastructure still needs a massive amount of work.
Unfortunately, Just About just isn't at that stage yet, and still needs a massive amount of work.
My advice would be to spend the money on fixing the issues, and making the site more homely / enticing. And then spend that money on marketing - so as to draw in more users. After which you can start devoting money to the kind of community activities which you want to openly encourage.
I think there are a lot of useful things any new platform can learn from those that came before, and this applies to Just About as well.
You mentioned that at the moment some things felt broken. If you wanted to leave some thoughts here then I can pass them onto the team to discuss, or you can join in on the discussion in our new weekly Thursday Thoughts posts.
One thing we don't want to do is to scale too quickly before we've got the infrastructure in place to support the growth of healthy and inclusive communities.
Rupert mentioned in a reply above that at the moment we're focusing heavily on tools related to moderation, the post editor, and platform optimisation, all of which will help us when we come to open the platform up.
We're in a fortunate position where we don't have to rush to scale up, and we're still able to reward our members via bounties without pulling resources from anywhere else.
Honestly it's great that the rewards aren't the sole motivator for your participation 🙂 Even for those that are motivated by the rewards, we want them to be a nice bonus for getting involved, and they're our way of showing we recognise and value community members' contributions to the platform.
Please do leave some comments on the posts I linked above, as they'll help us as we continue to develop the platform.
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