Catalyst: “I” is the most important thing in our lives, individuals care about “I” more than anything, in other words What makes me “I” feel important is the most important question. Some feel important by materialistic things (I own this house/car), others through achieving something (I created the design for this architecture) and some by achieving something they get recognition/appreciation from others …. You get the gist, below are some of the recommendations that revolve around “I” to potentially improve UX & growth.
1- Sats sent to me (post/comment)
As-Is (current situation): after a post/comment you can see the total sats received reflected into your balance
To-Be (desired situation): adding WHO has transferred sats to you
Why: knowing who, can potentially increase the tendency to send sats back to them once they post/comment, it fosters the community as a whole and it encourages individuals to be more generous. The downside is that it can encourage popularity contests but at the same time quality posts/comments will prevail in terms of ranking
2-Indexing topics (posts)
As-Is: all different topics are shared and they cover a wide range of topics both technical and non-technical
To-Be: once user base (and posts) has grown to a certain number, it would be worth categorising posts per topic while keeping the ranking
Why: existing and mainly new users will check the 1st page or max. the 2nd page and they might be confused what the topic covers (although the title might be indicative of what the post is all about but most users don’t have experience in choosing a catchy title and/or have an experience in content). This dilutes the UX
3- Metric for growth
As-Is: current algorithm gives priority to top comments in regard to sats received
To-Be: Stacker.news to share updates (and tweets) of the top contributors and what they have posted
Why: it will achieve mainly 4 things:
A- For high contributors: It gives more visibility which will encourage them to wanting to maintain their status via offering quality content (leading to more posts)
B- For high contributors: they will re-tweet (bragging rights) within their social networks which will encourage new users to join stacker news (nothing beats stacker news marketing other than its own members)
C- For non-highly contributing members: it sends an indirect message to them to want to get the same recognition/status (leading to more posts)
4-Ranking & Sats
As-Is: currently it shows the top posts along with sats received
To-Be: changing the color of sats from grey to orange for the top 5 posts (for example)
Why: this will differentiate top contributors from the rest of the pack as they are deemed the best and they should be treated like the best which will encourage them to share more and will encourage others to contribute valuable content (game theoretic way) to get into that top 5 slot
5- Jobs
As-Is: this works typically similar to traditional job boards while the difference in dynamic payments by job posters.
To-Be: once job posts grow to a certain limit there is a need to incorporate a small payment by applicants
Why: as an ex-HR professional, you get bombarded with CVs as its just a click/email for applicant which affects the quality of CVs received, by having payments it ensures higher quality of applicants which will lead more Bitcoin companies to post more jobs thus leading to more users to the site.
6- User Analytics
As-Is: non existent
To-Be: a weekly analysis is generated and shared with to every user that shows positive/negative in their posts and comments (numbers and/ quality content) in terms of sats received
Why: it’s a reminder of how good am I (making me wanting to maintain status or even give more) or bad my contribution is (vs. last week) …… encouraging me to post more valuable content as its simply a competition with myself!
7- Stacker.news name
As-Is: names are indicative of what the thing is but “news” can indicate its media or just plebs sharing updates
To-Be: once you have more posts/users/engagements its worth considering changing the name into
Stacker.Everything
Why: this will open the door for more content on different topics and you will be surprised of what the members can come up with …. It can become to go-to place for everything a bitcoiner want from general education, LN, news, podcasts, Bitcoin businesses (products/services), markets etc… simply anything....the sky is not the limit :)