subscribeThoof is getting spammed big time
Thursday, June 28, 2007
I received an email today from thoof.com:
After only 12 days of beta testing and o few months of initial development personalized digg-like service thoof launched officially today. Michael Arrington reviewed thoof and argued with thoof founder about the usability and success of personalized news services.
I disagree with Mike about the usability of personalized services and I believe the main problem thoof has to face now is the digg-like way of submitting stories. This model is prone to spam attacks and digg has so far survived from it due to its large user base.
Logging in today with my beta account I was faced with this screen:
My thoof history only had an article about poverty in Africa and nothing else.
The site is obviously under heavy spam attack and this for me is one of the problems personalized services are supposed to solve. Unless they find some way to solve this problem now, it’s quite possible that the user base might never take off. In my opinion the digg model should be abandoned. An example of the same service but with predefined news sources is findory.com which handles spam quite successfully.
You can also read one of my older posts about why personalization can sometimes suck even with google’s and amazon’s services.
After 12 days in private invite-only testing, Thoof is now ready to
go public. Anyone can now go to http://thoof.com/ and use the site
without an invitation
After only 12 days of beta testing and o few months of initial development personalized digg-like service thoof launched officially today. Michael Arrington reviewed thoof and argued with thoof founder about the usability and success of personalized news services.
I disagree with Mike about the usability of personalized services and I believe the main problem thoof has to face now is the digg-like way of submitting stories. This model is prone to spam attacks and digg has so far survived from it due to its large user base.
Logging in today with my beta account I was faced with this screen:
My thoof history only had an article about poverty in Africa and nothing else.
The site is obviously under heavy spam attack and this for me is one of the problems personalized services are supposed to solve. Unless they find some way to solve this problem now, it’s quite possible that the user base might never take off. In my opinion the digg model should be abandoned. An example of the same service but with predefined news sources is findory.com which handles spam quite successfully.
You can also read one of my older posts about why personalization can sometimes suck even with google’s and amazon’s services.
Labels: personalization
Amazon and google... a personalization mess!
Monday, June 11, 2007
Robert Scoble has a very interesting post today about personalization and google. He was getting his search result pages in Spanish because he was probably traveling to a Spanish speaking country.
I very strongly believe in personalization and what is can do for us (the users) if done right. The problem is that too many times services like google (amazon, netflix, etc) focus on very wrong parameters instead of things that should matter most for the users.
This is my story: Last month I placed an order for 4 books in amazon.com. My last order at amazon web store was back in 2003. Logging in with my account after almost 4 years, I was faced with a link on top of my page:
Clicking it, I was sent to a page where a message on the top said something like (I missed the chance to capture it):
:)... and the rest of the page was full of useless gifts and other items for me to buy. Isn’t it a bit stupid that amazon gave me the link for recommended items before checking their database to see if any existed for me?
I continued shopping, found a book I wanted to place on my shopping cart, and a fancy message appeared on top of the page:
VERY NICE! I clicked on "Some restrictions apply" (smaller font size link). A page full of legal jargon appeared. A couple of page-downs revealed the truth:
I wonder... How difficult is it for amazon to check my GeoIP or my VISA billing and shipping address, only to see that I live in Europe?
Ok, so let’s say I live in Europe but I am on vacations in the USA and want to shop from amazon. This would make me eligible for super free saving. It would be a great waste if I missed this offer, so amazon thinks that "free shipping" must always be displayed. That’s fine. There is a way for me to escape the hustle clicking the link and being faced with all this legal jargon, by having a link that said:
Having the best personalization algorithm in the word, while making me wonder helpless around amazon’s pages (full of literally hundreds of links) is crazy!
Badly designed pages, is another thing. I believe amazon has got it all wrong with the design lately. It has become a store full of cluttered pages with information and links everywhere, confusing me more than helping me. But I’ll leave this for a future post.
Scoble’s story and mine prove that many times we see the tree but miss the forest. I really strongly believe that the future of the web lies in personalization (some will call it web 3.0 I guess). But searching for Chinese restaurants does not make me a Chinese speaker.
I very strongly believe in personalization and what is can do for us (the users) if done right. The problem is that too many times services like google (amazon, netflix, etc) focus on very wrong parameters instead of things that should matter most for the users.
This is my story: Last month I placed an order for 4 books in amazon.com. My last order at amazon web store was back in 2003. Logging in with my account after almost 4 years, I was faced with a link on top of my page:
Hello [my name]. We have recommendations for you.
Clicking it, I was sent to a page where a message on the top said something like (I missed the chance to capture it):
Sorry [my name]. We have no recommendations for you today.
:)... and the rest of the page was full of useless gifts and other items for me to buy. Isn’t it a bit stupid that amazon gave me the link for recommended items before checking their database to see if any existed for me?
I continued shopping, found a book I wanted to place on my shopping cart, and a fancy message appeared on top of the page:
Your order qualifies for free shipping! (Some restrictions apply)
Make sure to select FREE Super Saver Shipping as your shipping speed at checkout.
VERY NICE! I clicked on "Some restrictions apply" (smaller font size link). A page full of legal jargon appeared. A couple of page-downs revealed the truth:
Applies to U.S. delivery addresses in the 50 states only, including Alaska and Hawaii. Geographic shipping restrictions may apply to particular products; for example, some Tools & Hardware items may not be shipped to Alaska and Hawaii using FREE Super Saver Shipping.
I wonder... How difficult is it for amazon to check my GeoIP or my VISA billing and shipping address, only to see that I live in Europe?
Ok, so let’s say I live in Europe but I am on vacations in the USA and want to shop from amazon. This would make me eligible for super free saving. It would be a great waste if I missed this offer, so amazon thinks that "free shipping" must always be displayed. That’s fine. There is a way for me to escape the hustle clicking the link and being faced with all this legal jargon, by having a link that said:
Your order qualifies for free shipping! (For U.S. shipping addresses only. Some restrictions apply)
Having the best personalization algorithm in the word, while making me wonder helpless around amazon’s pages (full of literally hundreds of links) is crazy!
Badly designed pages, is another thing. I believe amazon has got it all wrong with the design lately. It has become a store full of cluttered pages with information and links everywhere, confusing me more than helping me. But I’ll leave this for a future post.
Scoble’s story and mine prove that many times we see the tree but miss the forest. I really strongly believe that the future of the web lies in personalization (some will call it web 3.0 I guess). But searching for Chinese restaurants does not make me a Chinese speaker.
Labels: amazon, google, personalization, recommendations
