Social media news and TV – Current.com Blog – Your guide to Current

Hey Currentators,

Well, it’s Friday and before you all make a mad dash towards the weekend, let’s take a little time out for our final fastest growing group post for the week. In today’s top spot is lookmypix’s Organic group. Here’s the full list:

1. Organic (4 new members) — curated by lookatmypix

2. Stem Cells (3 new members) — curated by Pakistan

3. Tiffany Anne (3 new members) — curated by TiffanyAnneMusic

4. Babies vs. Pets (2 new members) — curated by Mel0dy

5. Comic Book Universe (2 new members) — curated by ThoughtNu

Way to go lookatmypix! If you haven’t already, give a join if you’re interested! This group is now officially featured in the “Current Stories” section of the Current.com homepage, as well our Groups homepage. Yay!

If you think your group has what it takes to get the top spot on the fastest growing groups list, polish off your social skills and get out there. Let people know about your group, and better yet, let them know why they should join! Give them a reason to click that button!

We’ll be back next week with all-new top 5 lists of the fastest growing groups on Current.com. See you then!

Seriously? I’ve been thinking about online connections lately, and it’s interesting to realize that I have different methodologies when it comes to connections on various sites.

For example, Twitter is a far more open community. I follow people on Twitter based on interest, not real world ties or relationships. Sure, I follow people I interact with offline on a regular basis: co-workers, family, and friends. But the bulk of the people I follow on Twitter fall into a pool I like to call “people I find interesting.” They say intelligent things, pass interesting links, and entertain in 140 characters.

Facebook is an entirely different story altogether. When it comes to friends on my Facebook profile, I opt for personal relationships over random encounters. I’ve made a few exceptions here and there, but for the most part I try to keep Facebook a little more personal than public.

Over on flickr, I prefer a mix between the two approaches, specifically because I can control the privacy settings on each and every piece of my content. Family and friends get to see all of my photos, whereas random connections only get the filtered “public” view. It’s my choice.

When it comes to Current, our connections work a little differently. We’ve received suggestions for improvements, and are always open to more. But it does seem fitting to go over some of the ways connections work on Current, what they allow you to do, and how they influence the flow of content on the site.

While the debate over the preferred way to consume content on Current has largely wavered between the “I prefer the homepage” and the “I prefer my group” camps, there is a third, oft-overlooked, “dark horse” candidate in the mix — My Current.

My Current is a connection-based customizable experience, if you think of connections on Current in the same way I do. You see, I look at Current connections as feeds, a quick way to influence what type of content shows up in My Current. If my contacts are all voting or commenting on one story, I know I’ll need to check that story out. If someone continuously posts or votes on stories I don’t care to see, I can remove them from my connections and keep My Current feed streamlined.

This is just one way to think about connections on Current. What about you? How do you manage your connections here? I’m interested to hear what you think, so leave a comment.

Related:

• Connect with me on Current
• Follow us on Twitter
• Friend us on Facebook
• Check out Current TV photos on Flickr

In case you haven’t checked it out yet, take a look at DeliaTheArtist’s post about bringing back Vicky and Current News. First of all, a HUGE thanks to everyone who has taken the time to weigh in, comment, or vote on this story. We love hearing your feedback and we appreciate that you continue to support Current.com.

Question: Will the “news on TV” concept return?

Mario: Yes. It’s certainly taken longer than we’ve hoped, but bringing back community-submitted stories to TV is definitely on our (long) list of things to do — we’ve got some serious work to do to get things running smoothly.

Question: What needs to be done?

Mario: Right now Current.com ranks popularity based on a site-wide score across all of the items submitted to the site. We’re actively working on this, and I’ll quote myself from a previous blog post in an attempt to explain things:

“This actually relates to one of the reasons we needed to pull down the “get on TV” portion of Current News. We recognized that our community is comprised of people who share varied “news-related” interests that span a broader spectrum, which is why we rolled out our channel structure. However, our algorithm and scoring for items is sitewide, which causes complications when calculating popularity on individual channels. We have a PhD on staff named DrGary who will be working on a vastly improved classifier and channel-based scoring system, but this is pretty involved work.”

It’s going to take some more time before we’re ready to flip the switch, but we are working on getting there as quickly as we can.

Question: Will it be the same?

Answer: As I’ve said from the get-go, when we flip the “get on TV” switch back on it will be somewhat different. First of all, the sad news: Vicky won’t be returning.

BUT, your submissions on air will return, and in greater volume. We’re aiming to stick with the hourly update format, but the difference is we plan to pull more stories from our channels each hour. For those familiar with the old version of the site, only one story would be picked at a time, AND these picks would occur sporadically (sometimes the next pick would be one hour away, sometimes two or three). Our goal is to stick to new picks every hour, PLUS more picks at a time from a broader collection of channels (not just news).

We haven’t finalized all of this just yet (still needs to be tested and worked through), but this is the general plan.

Question: Cool, but seriously…no Vicky? That’s weak.

Answer: Well, yes. The truth is, teach Vicky how to speak took a lot of human hand holding. We’ll be pulling more stories at a time, and we’ll be attempting to stick to a much faster-paced turnaround. This means, more community submissions on TV, but unfortunately to pull this off it also means dropping Vicky from the bumps on TV. You can still follow her on facebook, and she’s built up a pretty respectable following.

Question: So how will this work with the new homepage, I’m confused.

Answer: The goal of our last homepage revamp was to introduce the concept of channels to the Current community in preparation for groups. Our first iteration of groups is just about ready to launch, and when we relaunch the community submissions to TV concept our homepage will need to make room for that as well. Nothing has been finalized, but we’ll let you know as things develop.

Thanks for all of the support, you guys. We really do hear and appreciate all of your feedback, suggestions, and comments. Please continue to share this info with others on the site, and remember…the Current.com blog is really the best place to keep up to speed on the latest stuff happening in the Current.com community.

If you have any suggestions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment below or click on the “feedback” button on the left side of the page.

Hey Everyone,

Last week we featured a newer community member, whitespacecarpet, and his variety of interesting stories. This week we’re interviewing a Current veteran, DeliaTheArtist. I’m sure everyone has seen at least one of her great stories, but in case you haven’t, go take a look at her profile for an array of awesome posts. A few of my favorites are Gecko-Inspired dry adhesive headed to Space, Musicians’ brains keep time– With one another and Men and Women Respond Differently to Beauty. Call me nerdy if you like, but all of these are seriously interesting (and educational!).

This is one of DeliaTheArtist’s best know and favorite pieces of art, titled Peace.

Check out DeliaTheArtist’s interview below to get to know her better:

Q: How did you find out about Current? What made you a fan?

A: My fiancee watches Current TV and heard about Current.com from there. Once he told me about it, I was hooked. I love the user participation and discussion on world events, the broad range of topics and the level of interaction with the site, the television station and the community. Current has done a lot for me. I feel like I’m part of something important as well as participating in a fresh, customizable experience, and I think a lot of users feel that way. We’re bringing something new to journalism, art, activism, viewer created content and the internet in general.

Q: Where do you look for stories to add to Current?

A: All over the place! I go to a lot of science places (Sciam.com, Nat Geo, Discovery, etc) and I follow News Sources and Science sources on Twitter.

Q:  Okay–we gotta ask. How did you pick your username?

A: I went through a lot of online names in general and I wanted to decide on ONE and stick with it. I stopped bullshitting around and kept it simple: My name, what I am. DeliaTheArtist.

Q: If you could have one Superhero power, what would it be and why?

A: I’d want powers like Professor X – totally awesome mind powers that include telepathy and telekinesis. You can do pretty much anything; mind control, lift objects, fly around- it’s the perfect power!

And, if you haven’t heard, DeliatheArtist is now the curator of the Science channel, which is chalk full of stories terrific stories, maybe one of yours has even been featured! If one hasn’t though,we thought we would have Deliatheartist give ya the scoop:

Q: As curator of the Science channel, what kind of what do you look for in items for the Science channel?

A: I am always looking for breaking science news, but I’m really looking for conversation starters. Stories that pose a question to people. For example, I recently posted an article about possible legislation against animal/human hybrid cell research. I used it as an opportunity to ask the Current community how they felt about Animal-Human Hybrids- discussion ranged from the bioethics of mixing cells to what kind of animal parts people would like to have to the accusation of scientists “playing god.” Science is about questioning reality to achieve a deeper truth- that’s what I’m looking for, stories that make people really think!

Well, there you have it! Be sure to check out Deliatheartist’s profile and the Science channel for some amazing, thought-provoking content.

– Danielle

As some of you may remember, we mentioned that we’re on the look out for some community members to help us out with an alpha-test for our upcoming channels feature. We’re calling these folks our Current community channel curators, and we’re happy to announce the first batch to the rest of the community:

US Politics channel, curated by current89

From current89:

“So what can you post on the US Politics Channel? It’s simple, post anything that has to do with politics in the United States, that’s a lot of stuff. In order to contribute to the channel you’ll have to tag it with US Politics. If you have any questions about me and my curating feel free to post them here or if necessary current-mail me.”

Science channel, curated by DeliaTheArtist

From DeliaTheArtist:

“Science is the effort to discover and increase human understanding of how reality works.”

Random channel, curated by TravG73

From TravG73:

“Random is having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective.”

LGBT channel, curated by uroborus8

Live Music channel, curated by bansheewail

Culture channel, curated by St_Alia_10191

Indie Film channel, curated by Pericles_Lewnes

From Pericles_Lewnes:

“Here on the Current Indie Film Channel together we will explore the mighty and the mini of Independent Film. You will learn about Mumblecore, Schlock, Homebrew, Guerrilla and DIY filmmaking. You will get the skinny on the latest gear, the latest gossip and experience art and entertainment beyond the bounds of visual viral hyperbole.”

Underground Music channel, curated by Mike_Johnston

From Mike_Johnston:

“Interviews, reviews and videos produced by and about indie music acts”

WTF channel, curated by LindsayBoo

From LindsayBoo:

“no explanations, no excuses, nothing more, nothing less. seriously! WTF!!”

YouWebRadio channel, curated by StopNoise

So how do you participate in these channels? Simple! Submit your stories and tag them to each relevant channel. Our channel curators are able to feature relevant submissions on their channel. They also have the ability to remove stories that are inappropriately tagged to their channel, which means you should be mindful of whether or not your story really belongs in that channel before applying the tag.

It’s also important to note that these powers are limited to individual channels only, which means our curators can’t apply their featuring or untagging abilities in other areas of Current.com. Additionally, the community guidelines still apply to our community channel curators.

We are still accepting slots to participate in our alpha-test of our new channels features, so if you’re interested, make sure to head over to our Get Satisfaction “alpha-test” thread and add your Current.com username to the list. If you’ve already responded but have yet to hear from us, don’t worry! We’re still getting the second group of testers ready to go. We’ll be in touch shortly!

In the meantime, tag some of your latest relevant submissions to these channels and help our curators out. You never know, your story might get featured! In addition, follow our new channels by clicking on the “”Follow this Topic” button in the channel header.

When you do this, and you have email notifications set to receive updates, you will get a weekly email with the latest additions to the channel. It’s an easy way to keep track of what is going on in a curated channel.

- mario

Hey guys and gals of Current!

Ever feel like you don’t know your fellow Current community members? Well, not to worry, I’m here to help you with that. Each week I’m going to be interviewing and featuring a different community member for us all to get to know a little better.

We’re kicking this off with the wonderful Whitespacecarpet. They’ve posted some really cool things on Current, ranging from Treetents (I want one!) to Robo-Maid. These are just a couple examples, so check out their profile for all the other great posts, and enjoy the interview.

1. Q:  How did you find out about Current? What made you a fan?

A: I first became aware of Current when I was flipping through my TV stations and landed on your channel, which eventually led me to the Current website. I love the site – it has lots of great news stories and some unique ones that you don’t see everywhere else.

2. Q: Where do you look for stories to add to Current?

A:  I scour the web to find anything that I think might be cool and unique – the quirkier the better. Sometimes I just do a simple Google search and combine random words related to the category I’m searching for (art, design, etc) and see what comes up. But I do have some favorite sites I visit daily – Red Ferret, Gizmodo, Wired, Design Boom, Cool Design Ideas Blog, Inhabitat. I also find a lot of information just by visiting artist websites and sometimes people forward me links to check out.

3. Q: Okay–we gotta ask. How did you pick your username?

A: It’s not the most exciting username, but it comes from the company I blog for – whitespace carpet (www.whitespace.bz <http://www.whitespace.bz/> ).

4. Q: If you could have one Superhero power, what would it be and why?

A: Just one superpower? This is probably the toughest question I’ll answer all day.  There are so many…let’s go with super speed. Buying into some of the things The Flash is capable of doing via super speed it opens the door for a lot of other perks like time travel, running across the Atlantic so you never have to worry about flight delays ever again and really good reflexes.  I’m a geek.

Our collective conscious is shifting, our mood changing, and we are leaving escapism in favor of aspiration.  Within a few days Superpowers, Comics, and Politics (an article about why type of superhero you aspire to be) managed to grab 518 views and 38 comments, while equally awesome Awesome Super Powers Ruined by Science (an article about how you really really don’t want that super power you think you do) grabbed none.

Why?

I think it represents a shift in the way you are thinking and feeling right now.  Thanks to the power of metadata – that neato stuff you choose to give us when you like us (which turns out to be often and a lot), we can see what tickles your fancy, and I see something significant here.  A year ago (perhaps even less), I think these two articles would have resulted in opposite success, but between then and now, a Sea Change occurred:  The election ended, change began to take shape, and Current members searching for symbols of heroism stopped turning to escapism and started looking in more tangible places…  themselves.

Aren’t communities grand?  A few years ago, the national psyche a one way street.  Most people were dictated to rather than allowed to participate.  Everyone watched the same evening news and read the same newspaper articles, and shared the same generic conclusions.  Automatons, sharing the exact same thoughts. Maybe a select few who were representative of a general viewpoint had their opinions featured.  Now things have changed, and we can see it going on right here right now.  Everyone has a unique spin, and the cumulative knowledge shared via comments is greater than the original post.  Leave me now.  Go to your articles.  Make sure your tags are good.  You’re voting things up (or down) and participating in the discussion by commenting.  By doing so, you’re telling me how the world feels right now.