28 April 2012
When we first set out designing Opuss we wanted to make sure beautiful words were front and centre. Celebrating the power of the written word and placing creativity at the very heart of the app. This we hoped would encourage users to write rather than just passively read.
It came as somewhat a pleasant surprise to find just how enthusiastic and willing people are to post.
Discovery is key
Finding great work is one of the most important aspects of making Opuss an enjoyable experience. How could we achieve this without curating content?
Rather than us defining what we consider you should be reading we wanted the service to be self-curated with a sprinkling of competitiveness. The best writers and the best work promoted by peers liking and following.
The Top Opuss Today/Week/Month/Year showing the charts of individual opusses and the rank showing where an author is regarded by their peers overall.
The ranking algorithm we first employed to do this was very primitive and we always knew this would need a continual refinement rather than being a fait accompli.
The need to tweak
As more and more people have joined the service there seems to be a clear distinction between three types of poster:
•People who post words that inspire them. •People who post their own original work. •People who have mistaken Opuss for Twitter. Yes, you know who you are! ;-)
Rightly so, original authors have been finding that “competing” against inspiring quotes from the likes of Einstein, Churchill et al slightly unfair.
You may have noticed recently that your rank might have changed. This is due to some tweaking we have been making to make things a bit fairer. There will be winners and losers but the key thing to be aware of is the algorithm is rewarding people for posting great work that is enjoyed by others. This includes likes, followers and also the amount of time spent reading it.
We’re not done yet - there will be more changes coming soon so expect a degree of turbulence while we work on the “secret sauce”.
So how does a good poet or author stand out from the crowd? Keep on writing great poems and stories! Let us worry about distinguishing you - because we have every intention on doing just that!
What "The Man" Says • Opuss № I