Joel Liu's Library tagged delicious →  View Popular, Search in Google

4. Before HN, looking at the usage of tags and stories per tag helped me figure out what technologies or topics were growing in popularity and find out what to read first about them.

Maybe the long-term future for Delicious lies away from that user base; but you can’t move them along simply by flipping the switch. Reworking an existing product is not the same as starting from scratch.

When you’re rebuilding or redesigning, you have a legacy to maintain. Yes, that can be a pain — but what else was AVOS buying if it wasn’t the brand and the user base of the site, and the data that they’ve put into it? It clearly wasn’t the technology, which was the first thing to get thrown out the door. When you rebuild a product, you have to remember that it needs to take into account all those people who rely on the service for all sorts of things. At the very least you give them options to fall back on, rather than simply telling them that all the stuff they’ve been using for years will be in the product again… just not yet.

We have many similarities to Reddit and HackerNews - except we are focused on people's real identities, and connections between their friends, and the experts in the topics they care about.

We are constantly tinkering with the formula of what makes something interesting - is it because it is controversial and there are many comments about it? Is it because a large number of people posted it too? Or is it enough that one of your friends, who is knowledgable about the topic, posted it? These are the questions that we are exploring and planning on answering by building The Shared Web.

But, there is something even more powerful that we realized as we were developing and using it. The sense of community and common context that is created when people that you know start seeing the same content as you. It makes for better conversations. That social engagement around content translates to discussions in different topics - it’s the evolution of old school forums. It’s a way to make sure that the people you care about see the things that you find interesting so you can discuss them, so you can interpret them, so you can develop closer relationships by having common experiences. That’s what we hope to achieve with TSW, creating stronger, more meaningful connections between people through the content that they enjoy together.

That’s our mission. That’s why we are building The Shared Web.

What do you think are the most interesting heuristics to decide whether content is interesting to you or not?

http://www.thesharedweb.com

We'd love to hear your thoughts, so please try out The Shared Web, tell us what you think help shape our vision.