What is slant? Is it some kind of generic advisor?

#1

Got your “call for action” email @StuartK

I do identify at least a little with your “struggle” there, while trying to build my own business and all. And I sure want a better place to go for advices. I’m struggling precisely with both ideas (one is quite similar to yours at the core), seems like for even a bit longer than you are. And I’ve got much less success, I’d say. Sad introductions aside…

All this keeps reminding me of epinions, about 20 years old, older than google, one of the first times I ended up venturing these seas (trying to make a similar product in portuguese). And there are indeed plenty of recommendation / review sites. In fact, google is one of the best trying to do similar stuff, “organizing the world data”. I am amazed how they didn’t come up with a product for this yet. I mean, they sure tried in many ways, such as buying aardvark and building knol. Map reviews are working quite well. So are google now cards.

But I think they all are either way too broad or way too specific. None have hit the sweet middle spot yet, in which we could get good advice about anything. I don’t always know what I’m looking for, but I do want to turn on TV and zap the channels in hope to find something, or move to another city, no idea where. I do know I like quiet places (some people prefer noise), but got nowhere to look for that specific. You see?

I can tell you this is currently my goal. Building this service or being part of it. I’m focusing more and more there. If this makes any sense to you (or anyone reading this), I hope we can talk. :slight_smile:

#2

Hey mate, got the email and obviously saw this post :slight_smile: Glad we share a similar passion. We do share a similar goal as ePinions but we took a very different approach. Is there anything you would like to see as change/add to Slant?

#3

Well, I don’t know! I’m not sure I’m even going to participate anymore I already do in so many communities, or of so many others I appeared only once or twice. Right now, I see it as a community.

What’s that different approach exactly?

Ok…

I just read the whole blog (consists of 1 article from 6 months ago, right?). I keep feeling more and more related to this! :blush:

I have actually played a bit with slant and I’ve loved how it suggests to add sources. That does make it for better items, very subtle. Also love how you’re using discourse here. :wink:

Using a sum of points rather than a 1 time star grading is also something I had in mind, but I would weigh in favor of whoever does vote in each point instead of giving equal weight to whoever goes only for the general voting.

I can see a few other things (or at least pick one of them and then) I’d change right away, which is what I’m looking forward on the whole still unnamed idea as I’ve mentioned, in no particular order I guess:

  • Open source it. Allow it to work for any community, not just tech.

  • Profile people on the open. Track everything, grab all info from facebook, google and whoever shares it. Then the system could start making recommendations based on that profile, and the profile could keep getting both automatically adjusted, by other people and by the profile owner of course. A lot of people will think this is outrageous privacy issue, but I bet you Leo will love it. The list would bring different top picks tailored to each person and each person could easily change their profile. It’s just there would be their own default. This would be huge.

  • I’d start with places instead of tech. Cities, neighborhoods. I think there’s a bigger unexplored market there.

I think I might keep going on a little longer, but I feel like those 3 points are already enough for now. :sunglasses:

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Humanising Slant
Open source slant
#4

Also, just to let you know @StuartK, here’s where I’m coming from now. If you eventually are feeling like reading a whole lot of probably useless personal brain dumping. :man_with_gua_pi_mao:

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#5

I read it all :slight_smile: I have a to-do to reply!

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