Pipedot Turns One

by
in pipedot on (#2WX9)
On this day, one year ago, I registered the Pipedot domain name and threw up an ugly static webpage. Today, the site is a little less ugly and a lot less static. Although the original goal of creating a non-profit alternative to Slashdot has long since been obtained, I've continued the development of the code base and periodically add new features to scratch my own itch.

So my question now becomes: What's next? What other features would you like to see implemented over the next year to make this site even better than it is today?

Re: Submissions (Score: 5, Insightful)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2015-02-07 17:06 (#2WYH)

Well said. I still love this site too, and it's very highly usable. Got to say though, submitting stories is a bit of work. That level of effort seemed reasonable ten years ago, but in the age of smart phones and Facebook/Google Plus, etc., it's a bit much - particularly when you're not guaranteed to get much of a robust story going after all that work. That's vaguely discouraging.

I hate to suggest it, because I know it involves a ton of work. But it could be a killer: Pipedot needs an app. Not a "Pipedot on your cellphone" thing, a mechanism that allows Pipedot to show up on your Share menu and submit stories that way. One of the great things about Android is the share menu - makes it easy to go from one medium to the next. If I'm reading my RSS reader and something looks great, I hit the little dotted-triangle, and tons of sharing mechanisms come up, from Twitter to G+ to even Usenet (using the NewsReader app for Android). If Pipedot were on there, I'd be submitting multiple stories per day. Instead I have to wait until I'm at a computer, type it in, format the URL, etc.

So, knowing full well this means a new project, registering on Google Play, and probably lots of other annoyances, coding and making available a little app that allows me to send a story straight from my newsreader to Pipedot would take care of the content problem, which might easily take care of the 'number of people in the community' challenge. I'm not a coder, so I can't help there, but I am willing to contribute in other ways. Imagine the ease of submitting to G+ but with the comment and karma system of |. Match made in heaven?

Otherwise, happy birthday Pipedot!
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