This week’s product feature release is so big, we had to crack our blog announcement in half just to do it justice. Part II covers RSS feed enhancements, email notification tweaks, and a brand new way to browse recommendations on Current.com items. But first, we tackle the elusive beast that is the Current.com group:
Way back in May we posted a callout for top secret testers to play around with some curation tools we built in preparation for launching groups. We received a pretty positive response to the test from a little under forty curators, and now the time has come to unleash our new groups functionality for the rest of the Current.com community to enjoy.
Starting now, every single member of our community will be able to create and customize a group on Current.com tailored to their own specific interests. This is a monumental change to the site, and there is a lot to cover. So, here goes.
Start a group!
It’s simple, click the “Start a Group” button in the green navigation bar on Current.com. You’ll need a name, description, and some tags for your group. For example:
Setting tags for your group is essential, because these will be used to recommend Current.com submissions to consider for your group. These recommendations will appear below you group, like this:
The items and submissions listed as potential “quick adds” are determined by two things: the tags you use to define your group, and the tags people use to define their story submissions to Current.com.
So for example, if you’re trying to set up your group to contain up-to-the-minute Nintendo gaming news, you will want to add tags related to video games, gaming, and of course Nintendo. A healthy set of tags for a Nintendo group might include: “Nintendo, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi, Nintendo Wii, Super Mario Bros, Shigeru Miyamoto, Video Games, and Gaming.”
Not only will you be able to handpick stories to add to your group, you’ll also be able to curate your group by featuring stories, or removing submissions that don’t truly belong to your group. You can use our curation tools to feature an item, and once it’s been featured you can then use the up/down buttons to position it on the page in the order of your choice. Featured items will have a star icon appear next to them.
If you feel that an item that someone added doesn’t fit with your group, simply check the red X button and it will be removed.
Your default view for your group will be a list view, but you can change it to a playlist template in your groups admin page.
The curation tools for featuring work the same in both templates, so the choice is really up to you. If you prefer the playlist layout, head over to the admin section of your group and select a different template.
Once you’ve finished setting up your group, all you’ll need are members! Share your group with others on Current.com, or reach out into your various social networks like facebook, Twitter, and MySpace to let your contacts know about your group!
Sometimes groups grow quickly, and you may find that you need more than one set of hands manning the ship. Once you’ve built up a following, you can even grant some members moderator status to help curate the group with you. Keep in mind, giving moderator powers to another group member can be easy to do, but it will also give them full access to curating your group. Choose your moderators wisely, and if things get out of hand, you can always revoke this status by using the ban function.
If you happen to find that some of your members get out of line in your group, you can even ban them from your group altogether. This will prevent them from adding content to your group. Remember, if you believe that a member is violating our community guidelines, make sure to flag them after you ban them and our community team will take a look at their profile.
Join a group!
Maybe creating a group is not your speed, but you can still join and participate in a group on Current.com. Who knows, someone might even make you a moderator!
You can find new groups to join on our newly added “Groups” tab — conveniently located in the Current.com header. On the groups page you’ll find some of our featured groups, as well as listings for other groups on Current.com. Browse around, see what you find, and if you don’t see a group that fits your needs that could be an indicator that you should make one yourself!
On every groups page you’ll find a “related groups” section that includes exactly what it sounds like — other groups related to that group. And as if that wasn’t enough, you can also find groups via search on Current.com. Search for keywords that interest you, and potential related groups will appear in the search results.
Contribute to a group!
There are couple different ways to contribute to groups:
1) When you submit a story to Current.com
2) When you read a story on Current.com
When you submit stories, you’ll now find a new “groups” section in the clipper. This section has a dropdown menu that comprises of all the groups you are a member of. Remember, you have to be a member of a group in order to add a story to that group.
A similar drop down menu can be found on Current.com item pages. So, when you read a Current.com story, you can easily access a dropdown menu of all your groups, and select one of them to add that story to.
If you are not a member of a group, you can still help recommend stories to different groups on Current.com with tags. We recommend stories to group moderators based on the tags on individual items, so if you see a story with very few tags, consider adding a few to help it find a new home.
Our team has been working very hard on groups, and we have plans to expand this functionality by make groups more customizable in coming releases. In the meantime, create and join some groups. Play around with the new features, and test out some of the other Easter Eggs we’ve rolled out in this new release.
So that’s it for groups. Steph is following this post up with Part II to our feature release announcement, and she’ll be laying out the latest updates to our RSS feeds, email notifications, and highlighting a brand new way to browse content on item pages. Check that out after the jump.
Otherwise, please keep in mind that your feedback helps us shape things to come, so be sure to take some time to shoot us your thoughts, make some suggestions, and let us know if you see any quirky behavior on the site. You can send us feedback by clicking on the feedback tab on the blog, head directly over to our Get Satisfaction page for groups, or by sending us ol’ fashioned email at feedback [at] current.com.
