hey currentians,
i know, i know…it’s been SOOOO long since our last feature release. all jokes aside, the second part of our feature release doubleheader just rolled out, and it introduces a brand new concept to current.com called “bundles.”
Q: what is a bundle?
A: a bundle is a group of stories packaged together based on their relationship to one another. these stories usually come from different sources, but are all related based on keywords and other similarities.
Q: why are you calling these “baby-bundles” then?
A: well, the bundling concept is still in the infancy stage — hence, the use of the word “baby.” we have much, much bigger plans for these once they reach the “adult” stage, but we are not quite there yet in this release. so let’s get into some of the details.
Q: where can i find these baby-bundles?
A: each homepage channel on current.com (news, music, movies, tech, green, gaming, comedy, and art & style) has a new module in the right rail of the channel homepage. this module is titled, “real-time news” and it includes a cloud of trending terms and links to the most recently created bundles for that channel.
Q: how do baby-bundles work?
A: for our first iteration, we’ve deploying a team of current bots (e.g. current_news_bot, current_tech_bot, current_movies_bot, etc.) to scour the web for stories to turn into baby-bundles. these baby-bundles are created specifically for the current.com community to engage with and discuss. baby-bundles are similar to individual items on current.com — you can comment, vote, and share them with others.
Q: what can i do with a baby-bundle?
A: when someone comments and/or votes on a bundle for the first time, the bot associated with the bundle’s channel will place the bundle in that channel’s stream. by voting and commenting, you tell our bots which bundles are interesting enough to place in the channel. so, if you see a bundle in the music section that looks like something the current.com/music community would be interested in, vote and comment! the bundle will automatically be added to the current music channel, where others can vote and comment on it as well.
Q: can i create my own baby-bundles?
A: baby-bundles? no. full-blown “adult” bundles? yes! as i mentioned, this is just the early stages for bundles, but we plan to roll out the ability for our community to bundle stories together when we get closer to releasing the fully matured bundles.
Q: what do the trend links mean?
A: these are terms that we recognize as trending within our bundles creation flow. clicking on these links will take you to the bundles that directly reflect those trends.
so, take our new baby-bundles for a test drive and let us know what you think. we’ll be tweaking the process for bundle creation over the next few weeks, so any feedback you have will be very helpful. you can ask questions or offer suggestions over on our Get Satisfaction page.
in the meantime, here are a few bundles that caught my eye:
shoot us feedback, and feel free to share some of your favorite baby-bundles with me,
– mario
