Backchannel Share your thoughts with us

Scotty Sep 8, 2008

Currently, all the videos are about the presidential race. But the intent of the site is that any level political rhetoric can be analyzed, correct? Would state legislator races be fair game?

Matthew Burton site admin Jun 30, 2008

bgorson,

I love the idea for a "Featured Article" equivalent. We definitely want people to cite sources, but you're right: we should ask them explicitly to do so and make positive examples of those who do.

iachimo Jun 29, 2008

Wonderful, wonderful concept. I will tell my friends.

bgorson Jun 28, 2008

Love this idea. I see it as the "wikipedia" version of factcheck.org. You might add some content providing users models of "good research" and analysis. In particular, you might suggest users identify their sources (otherwise, credibility is in question).

Dan Phiffer site admin Jun 26, 2008

Also, as requested by user anonymous, I changed how invites work so that they now are addressed from Speechology, not the user's email address.

Dan Phiffer site admin Jun 26, 2008

Jeffrey, thanks for prodding me to finally add that feature -- I went ahead and added a new form for suggesting videos.

Jeffrey Jun 25, 2008

Eventually you might want to allow users to upload videos of speeches, ads, etc., subject to approval of the Site Admins of course.

Dan Phiffer site admin May 23, 2008

Took a first shot at highest rated (also lowest rated!) most viewed, and recently added lists on the front page. Right now the ratings are pretty dumb, just the average, but at some point we can factor in the number of ratings. Anyone know of a good algorithm for that?

Matthew Burton site admin May 23, 2008

Anon,

first of all, congrats on the username.

Second, your point re: bogus emails is well taken, and we'll definitely seal that up when trolls and spammers begin posing problems. The reason it isn't open yet is because we literally put the site online two days ago. It is not ready for prime time yet, so we invited people we trust to give us early feedback. And we thank you for doing so.

anonymous May 23, 2008

also, the practice of sending referral emails as if they are "From" the person is bordering on spam. just send the email as speechology with the friend's email address in the subject. much nicer. nice work, BTW.

anonymous May 23, 2008

please do not make people sign up to explore. leave some open doors and let the sunshine in. i was annoyed to have to sign up so i put in bogus email and it let me in. so now, what's the point of signing in to just get a peek at what's going on? nice work, BTW.

Matthew Burton site admin May 23, 2008

I agree with democodex re: related videos. Context should be paramount in our viewing and analysis of videos. So if you think Clinton's gas tax holiday is a bad idea, it's important to know that McCain agrees with her. So site should make it as easy as possible to see his take.

Dan Phiffer site admin May 22, 2008

democodex -- you're right about needing better navigation and orienting cues. Something I'll have to think about. And great idea about showing related videos in the sidebar -- I like the idea of comparing different politicians that way.

And yeah, we should basically offer an RSS format of all the various pages we have on the site...

Dan Phiffer site admin May 22, 2008

discoarse, thanks that's good to hear since I don't have a Linux machine to test on. Also, good idea about the rating feedback. I just uploaded a change that adds a "please wait" message and handles double-clicks gracefully.

democodex May 22, 2008

looking good, you guys.

i like the ajax filters on the right, which will be key as content grows. breadcrumb navigation or a menu may be something to consider, which would allow you to explore deeper functionality without users getting lost. i also agree with the multi-thread discussion idea.

an important use of your video tags would be cross-pollination by topic. e.g., for a page on obama speeches re: environment, you might see in a side column with videos thumbnails of other politicians speaking on environment. i think this would prompt users to consider different positions by different people they may not have sought out initially.

maybe an rss feed for speechology updates would be good. i've got a script i can throw your way, if you want. that way we can all stay apprised of the updates you are all making.

keep up the good work!

discoarse May 22, 2008

FF3 Beta 5 on Ubuntu has no problem with video on the site. Everything looks great.

The only interface issue that I was wondering about is if the AJAX-video rating thing with the stars could feel a bit snappier? I clicked on it and nothing happened (possibly while a request was being made to the server) and I clicked again before anything registered, thinking that my first request didn't take. Can there be some kind of immediate feedback when you click on a star to prevent what I did?

Site looks great, I'm excited about using it!

Dan Phiffer site admin May 22, 2008

Interesting point about multiple threads. Are there sites out there I should look at that do a good job of this? I'm not sure tag clouds are the right tool for discussions, but I could imagine needing something more than a flat list in chronological order.

But I'm probably going to hold off building any comment threading features until we actually have the problem it aims to fix (it's a good problem to have).

Gilad May 21, 2008

I wish this tool actually supported more of a debate and not just generic comment-style "conversation" thread after each video. It might work as a conversation for the first 10, but that gets old fast. For conversations - multi threads are a must, possibly some form of visuals (can be as simple as a tag cloud deriving from the comments) - something that will display the discussion, and provide new viewers with possible entry points into it.

except for that, its clean & functional. good job!

Dan Phiffer site admin May 21, 2008

Mike -- thanks, those are good ideas. I agree that we need to offer more ways for users to find stuff when they first arrive. That's going to be the first thing to fix...

Mike B May 21, 2008

Good job guys.

I'd like to see a what's new/popular section to both get an idea of how people are using the site and where there is activity. Currently you have to drill down to find out if an asset is active. Or have a YouTube style # of comments, # views at the top level. Thanks

Dan Phiffer site admin May 21, 2008

Micah, are you using Firefox 3 RC1? I just tried it and it seems to work. The buffering seemed to take longer though, oddly enough.

Dan Phiffer site admin May 21, 2008

Oh noes! Haven't tested in Firefox 3 or IE yet. Thanks for the heads up.

Micah Sifry May 21, 2008

Are the videos supposed to load? I'm using FF3 and I don't see any videos.