A project I’ve been working on for some time has finally launched: an upgrade to the social news site called Propeller.com (Official blog post). I don’t normally write about work on my personal blog just because I’m already writing about it on corporate blogs and the like, and also because I like my blog to be a relaxing place to visit, with family pictures and all.

I’m proud of the effort my team put in and the final achievement. The site didn’t get very positive reviews from the tech blogs, and the existing community is still feeling it out. Social news is still a growing concept - I like its potential, where someone brings to light a story/meme/viral video and the community can share it. The mainstream news we get is OK, you can get that anywhere. The spam I hate. Really.

Social news sites are also victim to the fire hose effect, where the filtering mechanisms are too young/naive to really just show me what I want to see. Some community sites are starting to experiment with personalized news, but I don’t think that’s the whole solution. I want stuff you know I’ll like, but I also want good stuff I didn’t know I like - a tough task, but a noble one. BTW - lifestreaming services, news aggregators, RSS clients - you don’t do it right either. Trust me, I use all of you.

Time will tell whether or not we can make the right tweaks to the site to gain more mass traction. For now, though, I’m happy we got the upgrade out there. Trey, Blaine, George, Mike, Travis, Richard, James, Ryan, Alexia, Dakota, Helene - thanks. You guys rock.