SkimFeed Update and Thoughts

It’s been a busy week working on SkimFeed.com and I’d like some feedback if you have the time.

Added features:

• Most popular links added, together with latest links and random links.  For every category.  This is huge and a ton of work and optimization on the backend.
• Categories added for Tech, Business and Investing, Fun and Games, US News Sources, World News Sources.
• Tech page removed from front page into it’s own category.  Parts of the Tech page also split into other categories.  SOME USERS ARE NOT LIKING THIS.  EXPLAINED BELOW.  Feedback welcome.
• Front page contains Latest, Most popular and Random for the major feeds combined.
• Every page cached, timer added to next update time on every page.
• Added this Skimfeed blog.
• A ton of stuff, essentially built the entire site in a week.

Still outstanding work:

• Front page design is 5/10.  Needs a refresh.
• More feeds need to be added.  I want a minimum of 10 per category, more categories would be better too while keeping high quality curated sources in mind.

Now, on to the difficult issue of the front page.  The issue: “All Tech” as the front (and only) page was changed over to tech links in it’s own category because:

• Personally, I don’t want to waste time on Reddit/Digg/Junk when looking for good useful content.
• There’s a limited user base I can attract with just Tech on the front page.  The main free traffic I can push to this site comes from a wide variety of interests/age groups.
• I like more things than just Tech and want to expand into design and business and investment categories.  Would this suit the Tech page?
• Once a good feed was found I didn’t want to have to consider adding a feed vs. not over considering adding a feed to X or Y.  Good content is good content.

So that’s some of the reasons for removing the Tech from the front page.  I understand this is a big issue from the Feedback from the site and I understand the problem.  It’s the biggest change to the site.  It’s divisive.  but it’s a decision that needs to be made based on the goal of the site.

Goal of the site?

Well, what is the goal of the site.  A tough one, but here’s my best take:

The goal of Skimfeed is to..

Be the goto place for fresh quality content you never knew existed. 

We’ve all been to Reddit, Digg, HN, whatever.  It’s all regurgitated, spammy, time wasting, memefilled, hivemind, junk filled waste of noise at this point, but fun.  I wanted someplace to get good content, with a high signal to noise ratio.  That’s what I started coding the site out for originally…that’s what Skimfeed was all about.

Good content that’s worth your time.

The way to do “Good content” is through good quality feeds.  SkimFeed ticks this box.  But to limit the site to just Tech would be a diservice to its potential.

Now, personally, I’ve found myself using the site even more since the front page was changed.  The front page does need polish, it’s needs a good heavy spit shine, sure.  But I say it’s better than before. I’m checking out more, I’m discovering more.  The stats back me on this one, users are spending more time on the site, visiting more pages, checking out more links.

But I understand the concern too…I liked the simplicity of the site before.  It was refreshing…

Tech only on the front page?  nah, too limiting.

All feeds on the front page?  well, that’s possible and even a good idea.  This is probably what I’ll build up next.  Single page, all the feeds or all the best feeds, top links bar.  The code is there (SkimFeed started with this layout last week before the layout changes).

What do you think?  Front page good or bad?