Help Me Brainstorm a WordPress Idea
Ok, from now on, I will do my best to keep all Revolution news announcements over at the Revolution site, and use my personal site to write about other things. That being said, I wanted to run by an idea I had the other day, and see if there would be any interest from you.
Many of you know that the whole RSS/Syndication thing is now a very popular way to display content, and I had a crazy brainstorm the other day on creating a site that was made up of something similar. A lot of niche sites are scraping RSS feeds (illegally I might add) from the popular ones such as Yahoo, ESPN, CNN, etc and the likes.
Well my idea is to create a site that uses RSS feeds from the WordPress community, and will be broken down by category - somewhat of a directory, but it will show the most recent posts from those of us who love to use WordPress. The key here, is that it would be completely opt-in. Which means if you wanted to increase visibility to your website, and establish higher traffic, you could opt-in to have your RSS feeds displayed on this site.
For example, if I was interested in Football, I could visit this potential site and click on Football, (among many other categories/subcategories) and see a list recent posts written by those who use WordPress for their blogs.
It’s just a fun idea I had the other day to help promote the WordPress community - so, what do you all think of it? Feel free to comment with suggestions or concerns…
Comments
50 Responses to “Help Me Brainstorm a WordPress Idea”
I think that’s a great idea. My netvibes “wordpress” page is way overcrowded and going to a single site to view the feeds would be a big time saver.
Chris thanks for the feedback - there are some things I’d have to test/figure out, but if I knew there would be enough of a demand or interest, I’d pursue it. Which, I hope happens, because it would be a fun thing to do!
Sounds like a good idea. And you might come across something that may interest your revolution fans. Kinda like the forum feature.
-TJ
Thanks for the feedback TJ - not sure if there would even be enough interest with this, but it seemed like a fun idea. Who knows if it would even turn out to become anything.
Brian, I must say that I absolutely LOVE your idea, and can see how it would most definitely be of interest to the art community!!
(one artists’ opinion)
Opt me in under the “Art” category!!
Please let me know if & how I may be of assistance in helping move this brilliant idea of yours forward.
Artfully yours,
Carol
i’d get down
I know of a guy here in the Netherlands who did a similar thing and was very successful with that. Not WordPress related but still.
You’d be taken it to a higher level I’m sure. I think it would be great to have such a site running and working as a great information center.
Only thing though, I will seriously have to consider to start bloging in English as well ’cause I seem to missing out on a lot of action
Carol - thanks, I’d love to be able to have categories such as art, etc as I think it would really draw each particular niche into the site.
Nick - I’m sure that you’re RSS would be the first one signed up!
DeFries - yes, you’d need to double blog - in both languages!
Double blog? I’m already doing that. Frisian and Dutch. English would be the third. Good thing Frisian is the closest language to English though…
I will give it some serious thought… and in time will get opted-in :d
So, a Technorati of WordPress blogs?
go read The E-Myth Revisited … this seems outside your hedgehog concept (see: http://jimcollins.com/lab/hedgehog/index.html for that reference).
It’s not a bad idea, but it seems like you will do more good for the community by making it look good, as you have in the past.
Yes, something like that Mark - I just thought it would be a fun way to give something back to the WordPress community, and thought that a lot of people might find it a) useful to search for blogs or b) help people starting out to promote their sites.
It’s just an idea, and am open to suggestions. (although I just obtained the domain name that I plan to use for this project, so admittingly it’s now “more than just an idea”)
Nation - I still plan on making it look good, why not promote their sites in the process? Besides, at the moment I am living and breathing Revolution, I need something more in my diet!
It would work as long as a mechanism existed to opt a site out so that others couldn’t opt my feed in if I didn’t want it to be included.
Isn’t this something like http://www.newsnow.co.uk/h/ ?
Shaun - understood, that would have to be in place, I agree. I’d probably manually approve those just to make sure that everything was legit.
Matej - Yes, sort of. I just thought it would be a fun way for the WP community to have something of it’s own, and not pull in all of the “big dog” stuff. More of an intimate type thing, that we can all take ownership of.
It sounds very interesting.
That way other bloggers ( bigger and smaller) will found out about your site - which is of great importance in blogging community.
Matej - sure, that is possible, be certainly not the driving force behind this. WordPress is very unique in that it’s significantly community driven. Which means that we all take ownership in using it and promoting it - why not offer a cool place that people can come to enhance WordPress and it’s future.
brian, that is why I suggested reading The E-Myth Revisited
Nation - shoot me an email (or PM me through Rev support forum) so you can give me the synopsis (and your reasoning for bringing it to my attention) in a sentence or two. My brain is fried and I’m not sure I’m following you.
Do you think Yahoo Pipes would be helpful in some way for this?
Hi Brian,
Sounds like a good idea. I imagine the advertising potential on the site could be golden also. You could use targetted ads depending on what category the user goes to , to view the latest rss feeds for that category.
Interesting idea.
p.s. Great name Brian
Not sure if I might be bursting your bubble…
But I’ve been using AllTop for this since it launched last week (think it’s a project by Guy Kawasaki) and if I’m correct, this is what you wanted to achieve!? Maybe if you did it completely for WordPress, you’ll find some traction…
I don’t think that Alltop is really the competition here, they just have all the big dogs. The little guys don’t really get a chance there with CNN, ESPN, SI those type of sites dominating. In Brians format it’s for the little guys to get their shine.
I think it’s a great idea to allow some more blogs and websites to get exposure that they might not otherwise get.
Some thoughts I had about it were:
How is this different from a topical blog directory? I suppose getting RSS feeds is more unique and maybe better than just directory listings.
Do you want people to read that site regularly, or does it act to drive traffic to the blogs themselves and subscribe to their feeds? My concern would be that the site itself gains popularity, but doesn’t feed any of that onto the participating blogs.
Hope that made sense =S
Like the idea, look forward to hearing more detailed ideas (if there are any).
Brian - Sounds like a great idea. You already have a broad collection of neat sites using Rev., from sports to politics and business. Rather than choosing each site, why not categorize them and offer their feeds — driving traffic both to Rev sites as well as your core design business? Put it all in a Rev. Pro wrapper and you have a definite winner!
Hi Brian,
Great suggestion Ed!
Brian are you familiar with the use of the “co-operative model” as perhaps an application basis for your idea?
In a co-operative model, the micro-enterprises combine to form one multi-activity enterprise whose members provide
a mutually supportive environment for each other. Your “core idea website” would then provide budding Wordpress bloggers
with an easy transition from inactivity to being able to include their blogs’ feeds on a daily co-operative basis, therefore gaining exposure,
but in a collective framework.
(they would have to be made responsible for their “co-operative” share of costs involved, but look at the benefits they would receive)
This opens up new horizons for bloggers who have ambition but who lack the skills or confidence needed to set off entirely on their own –
or who simply want to carry on an independent blogging activity but within a supportive group context.
For example (on a small scale) this newly formed collective group of Fine Art Photographers have pooled together and created ONE blog and their individual posts (their daily photos) are processed and exposed through a single feed.
http://www.fineartphotoblog.com/
Just a little something to think about…wishing you a totally creative and productive day!
Artfully yours,
Carol
Nick,
Alltop doesn’t just feature large websites. My own little blog about logo design is included too, and it’s only been running since last month.
Brian,
I’m interested to see how you get on with this. I think it’d be worth pursuing, although where you’d find the time is another question!
*correction:
Guy told me he’d include my latest website on Alltop, but I just looked and it’s not yet up.
Ed - I like your idea of doing this JUST for Revolution sites, as it might be a fun way to promote the community. I’d have to think about that, since I plunked down money yesterday for the domain I was going to use. But like the support forums, building something around Revolution (possibly using another Revolution theme not released yet) might be a good way to do this.
Perhaps if the Revolution RSS site worked on a small scale, I could use that experience and apply it to something larger down the road. Thanks for your insight!
David - if I follow Ed’s advice and put this under the Revolution umbrella, then it won’t feel like something that is outside of my everyday activities!
Carol - I like the concept and idea you provided, but something like that has to be niche focused, and might take a lot of time. I do like the site you showed - very well done. Especially the author page!
So, essentially Technorati but it only allows wordpress websites in?
David
SecurityExtra.com
Brian - Yes; use the Rev feed hub to work out the bugs (as well as increase your brand) then put what you learned to create a feed portal for the wider WordPress community.
Hi Brian,
I like the idea of using it for your Revolution community. Having the entire Wordpress community involved would entail thousands of blogs and it sounds like it would become a statistical nightmare for you.
A good implementation might look like what they have done at http://9rules.com/
Keep up the great work… I can’t wait to see your Revolution “business” template.
John
Ed - sounds like a plan - now that I have the Revolution Business theme done and available (John, please take note!) I can spend some time thinking about the potential Rev RSS site.
If you’re looking for something fresh, why not a revolution-esque version of automattic’s Prologue theme. I’m working with this concept (wordpress as twitter) and maybe it would be a great way for the revolution community to connect?
Fantastic idea. I would love to see this happen and contribute to it. I think it is very important that this remains a Wordpress community RSS site and continues as such.
Looking forward to this one.
Yeah, like someone mentioned up thread Alltop.com is doing something very, very similar (and in a very attractive way) using the Popurls framework; perhaps if it were WordPress focussed, but I think expanding outside of a very specific niche would be trying to invent something that already exists.
Well,
This is a good thing beucase you’ll be able to organize content in a relevant categories so anyone who needs to read blogs which covers WordPress development topics for example, will be able to stay in touch on daily basis.
I think this project could become a very recognizable and to gain popularity. Go ahead.
Cheers
Dimitar
This is a good thing beucase you’ll be able to organize content in a relevant categories so anyone who needs to read blogs which covers WordPress development topics for example, will be able to stay in touch on daily basis.
I think this project could become a very recognizable and to gain popularity. Go ahead.
Brian,
I think it is a great idea. I am new to blogging, a little over 5 months now. I recently switched from blogger to wordpress and have been very impressed with assistance everyone offers. I’d love to submit my site for RSS display, by the way, I will soon be using one of your Vertigo themes.
I also subscribed to your RSS feed.
Take care,
Joe Bartolotta
The Upfront Mortgage Broker
I think it is a great idea. What about selling a template like that with opt in options
Ok.
I think that the best way is to have it all in the same database. Just like wordpress.com do. At the end, your idea will become an external “wordpress.com”.
It’s going to be like… sending the post data to the “external wp.com” servers and then the data will be displayed at the page. Of course, there has to be webmasters who control it.
I’m going to think a little and then come back here.
Brian,
The problem with the idea, to my mind, is that unless there is great focus to the site, it won’t fly.
No one wants another “content portal” of content which is all duplicated from somewhere else, unless there is something uniquely valuable about the portal/directory itself.
What you’re suggesting is basically what Wordpress.com do with their pages… as individual Wordpress.com-hosted bloggers add posts, their content is automatically indexed by tags into the main Wordpress.com database. It’s a good traffic strategy/freebie for Wordpress.com blogs, actually.
But again… do people go to Wordpress.com, drill down by tags, etc, to look for stuff? I sure don’t.
Perhaps we should all work out how this would be fundamentally more VALUABLE to people, before we essentially “replicate” what I think Wordpress.com is already doing, and which I don’t think is particularly valuable to people.
Again, the mantra has to be: just because it’s technologically easy to do, doesn’t mean it will be valuable to enough people to make it worth doing.
I don’t mean to throw a dampener over this idea, but just to challenge everyone to think in terms of the “customer value”.
Heck I’m a branding guy… I have to talk like this
–Alister
Also to “read” all or some Feedburner
blogger’s subscription straight on the blog could be nice
[…] to brainstorm an idea I had about some sort of WordPress project, which might soon enter […]
Love it!
I think it’s a great idea.
Alister is right in a way, but I would say if you gonna built a site that have all the trends/news in a specific niche (here its Wordpress), it will work.
The reasons being:
1. People will love something that makes their (online) life easier.
2. Wordpress is a highly active community online.
3. You are a well know Wordpress personality and a brand already.
So I would say, go for it. Make sure that you have a efficient software, because that will make a huge difference to the service.
Wishing you all the best.
BTW: Now I know why you told me “won’t be available for some time” the other day. It’s OK
I like the idea, maybe create categories from tags.
[…] the past few months, I have been continually been brainstorming about building some sort of WordPress community site. It’s taken many shapes and forms in my […]
There is already a WordPress plugin called FeedWordPress doing such things for you. But some say it is illegal.
I’ve no idea about that.