Having spent the last couple years developing a bookmarking / archiving service which is somewhat similar to Kippt (as well as Historious and Pinboard + Archiving) I'd be interested in knowing what other tools you've found that provide a valuable core feature set?
Shameless self plug: The site is called http://preserve.io and if you're interested we'd love your feedback on our pre-beta which has now been actively used for over a year
DuckDuckGo uses more than just Bing for it's search backend [1], however I wonder if their other sources are enough to compensate for the potential loss of Bing.
Is there a way I can input burritos? I entered my address, and nothing came up. There's a great hole-in-the-wall not to far from here that'd be perfect.
I personally HATE social networking in my news. That is, for example, you going to the Huffington Post and seeing Facebook Connect buttons, as well as Twitter / Google / Yahoo! login buttons.
However I do think that the idea of use aggregation leaking in to the site, Reddit Style, could be a good resource. However that probably wouldn't be a main feature of the site, but likely a sub-section of the site completely separated from the actual content.
I have done PHP / MySQL, and learned Django before jumping ship to Ruby on Rails. I'm now exclusively Rails, but also have toyed with C# in the past.
As for projects, I have many ideas in my arsenal but as of now only one is being actively developed; however it isn't giving me the kind of passion I had when I came up with the idea about a year ago.
That's a good enough base for lots of web-based projects; it seems to me like your general "how do I..." question may not have been about how to build your idea with web software, but something else. How to attract early users/contributors, maybe? Or collaborators? Or other attention/support? (Or maybe you are wondering about the mechanics of setting everything like the domain/hosting/server up, in which case you may want to ask more specific questions in other targeted forums.)
I'd say build as much of what you've got in mind as you can. Encourage people to look at it even when it's very rough -- don't disappear for months making something slick/complete. Adjust. Continue.
You may also want to put contact details or a personal web page in your profile here.
Yes, my "how do I..." question was retaining to all of what you said. Support, attention, users, contributers.
I know how to do the site, front and back. I know how to host. I know where to host. I was simply looking for feedback on those questions as well as some general feedback on the idea.
And I will do. I'm a long time lurker, and this is my first post.
I unfortunately don't live in the Bay Area. I live in Sacramento, and have had the pleasure of going to the Googleplex, but unfortunately couldn't make it there.
Because I have ideas I feel could shake the news industry up, even if it's just for a small niche of people. I don't really want to be a "me too" site.
Your choice of tools (including blog vs custom code, PHP vs Rails, etc) doesn't determine whether or not you'll create a "me too" site.
One could shake up the industry with something that leverages blog software. Another could write an amazing piece of news-displaying technology and not make a dent.
+1. As a developer it's easy to take the old "not invented here" attitude, but you don't even know if people will be interested in your idea. Get it out there as quickly as possible with off-the-shelf software first. If it's something people want/need, your users will flock to it for the content. They truly don't care about the tech going on behind the scenes, especially as you're beta testing it.
Yes. I want to use a news source that is built mainly around bullet points, short sweet facts. A news source that provides resources for it's users to do it's own research, but not overwhelm them.
I can't find this. So I am considering building it.
Build it on top of wordpress, for sure. You could accomplish something not-so-pretty in a day with Wordpress as your foundation. Maybe even faster if you use v3.0 beta.
I think I can write, but I certainly don't know if I can in the form of reporting.
The kind of information I'm interested in publishing is non-biased facts. I doubt a news site could function purely on this, but if I could design one I would put a lot of emphasis on bullet points.
I've been in journalism for about six years now and have worked on some fairly prolific sites; in that time, I've learned that objectivity is a myth. Don't trick yourself into thinking otherwise.
That said, I'd love to offer advice/guidance on a more specific level if you'd like to chat.
What aren't I tricking myself into thinking?.. That I would like to make the news as non-biased as possible, that I'd like to use bullet points, or that I'd like to use facts?
Bias is inherent in every step of the news gathering and reporting process. It better to recognize (and perhaps even highlight) this than to expend energy and resources on pursuing that which is ultimately unattainable. Doing so will go farther in creating credibility and trust than operating under the guise of presenting "just the facts."
I see what you're saying... So you are saying that because facts are so hard to find, and bias is all over, it would be helpful to point out bias for the sake of clarity? I like the sound of that, thanks for the tip.
Shameless self plug: The site is called http://preserve.io and if you're interested we'd love your feedback on our pre-beta which has now been actively used for over a year