Grupl.com - Digg Killer?
by
on March 30, 2007,
I accepted an invitation to test a website called Grupl.com. Grupl professes to be the "Digg killer" in a forum post, while acknowledging that they may be labeled as just a clone. I joined the community to evaluate at least how good a clone they might be, and really found the site to be quite excellent in this early stage of its development.
Grupl is one heck of a lot prettier than Digg for sure, and the nature of submissions and voting are much more straightforward and simple. The site tags its service as "group powered content", which is essentially what any such community is about. Perhaps what we should start to look at for Web 2.0 is who the group is comprised of. Part of the problem, and one of the great things about Web communities, is how people are jumbled together. Human beings cast into a cauldron in such a way do not stand much of a chance for harmony for sure. Maybe Grupl can tackle this aspect of disharmony in Web 2.0 communities.
Grupl uses a little bit different system for voting on stories. Stories are graded by either "Loved it" or "Hated it" criteria which are obviously averaged to determine a story's relative popularity and value. The submissions are further evaluated based on the number of comments submitted for a particular story. Grupl.com also organizes the submitted news or stories into groups so that a particular user is not burdened with submission outside their interest areas. Submissions reach the top of their pertinent classification based on the criteria mentioned. This aspect is not altogether different from Digg or Netscape. Another nice aspect of Grupl's way of doing things is the way members are rated. Grupl takes into consideration a member's submissions by rated value combined with the number of comments submitted. In this way Grupl sort of combines the way Digg and Netscape operate.
Is it a clone?
Grupl is not strictly a clone because it adds elements that Digg or Netscape do not share. It is a modification or derivative however, but this is really how any new site should progress outside the realm of inspired genius. The point here is "Do we need a better Digg?" If you are of a mind to think so, then searching for alternatives like Grupl is a pretty obvious course. The thing that sites like Grupl are missing is the massive feedback that sites like Digg no longer apparently desire.
Lacking features
Grupl does not have a blog or even a forum that I could find. Any Web 2.0 community should have a venue outside the feedback comments so that users can share the community on a one-to-one basis. RSS feeds and more tools are missing from Grupl as well, but the basic community is ready for these additions. Digg has a blog, however woefully inept at allowing users to express themselves. Netscape has one too, but it falls short of enabling users as well. Grupl is essentially only lacking in the number of people to help the community grow from the input and innovation.
Is it a Digg Killer?
I like Grupl in its potential for growth and the rather logical and honest way submissions and voting are handled. Is it a Digg killer? That is a very big hill to climb and only you guys can answer that question. Perhaps the coolest thing about Web 2.0 is that people can make any site into a hit. If half the Digg community signs up for Grupl, and everyone gets past the server crashing and all the other growing pains, then the site would be easily better than Digg. This is an unarguable fact because we have all learned and can contribute more now than when Digg was a startup. I bet someone wrote a similar post about Digg once, but this does not make me some kind of visionary, or does it?
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Bighorn
kalipso
Mav
Opensource 
Michael Fidler 
The biggest problem with “loved it”/”hated it” rating comes to political stories. For example, if a story is about how Congress is trying to ban partial birth abortions (has already happened), but I, as a reader (hypothetically) am in favor of partial birth abortions, then what do I vote? Do I vote “loved it” so that more people will read it and rally against what the article is speaking about? Or “hated it” because I don’t like the politics behind the story? For “thinking” people, the answer is: “loved it” so that others will read the story and hopefully those who wish these types of abortions continue will get angry enough to do something about the ban.
But I think for the vast majority of people, they tend not to make a distinction between the content of the story and the story itself. Thus, political stories get a very skewed voting record.
There’s no way in hell that this is a Digg killer. It uses comic sans.
‘Nuff said.
Hi Jordan and Moe! Well, I just think loved or hated beats the heck of the political story being buried in the pit of hell before anyone sees it!
As for this being a Digg killer Moe, that is what the question mark is for in the title. I see you don’t think so, but the implication that you are evaluating it on that basis presupposes that the possibility was “at least” present in your mind before you found the reason it could not be.
Seriously, thanks for your input guys.
Always,
Phil
Hey Phil,
Judging the site purely on the basis that it uses Comic Sans was rather stupid (:P), but still, I find it hard to take a site seriously if it uses any of ‘those’ fonts (you know the ones I’m talking about).
Referring to the article, there are a few key issues that I can’t say I agree with.
Firstly, you said that ‘Grupl is one heck of a lot prettier than Digg for sure..’, which, taking into account that things like aesthetics are a matter of opinion, for me is untrue. Not only does it look like Digg, in a layout sense, the awkward colour scheme doesn’t do it for me.
You also said ‘..the nature of submissions and voting are much more straightforward and simple.’. There are two possible voting options, ‘Hate it’ or ‘Love it’. If the site ranks news on how many ‘Loves’ there are, minus ‘Hates’, you’ve got yourself a pretty plain number. For example, say there are 15 ‘Loves’ and 5 ‘Hates’. The value of the story would be 10, which would make it equivalent (on the Digg point of view), to 10 people digging it, and 5 people ‘Not digging it’. So in my eyes, the ‘Hating and Loving’ system is actually even more complex than the Digg voting system.
I’m sure there’s more going on in the backend than that, but that’s how I see it.
As for lacking features, the blog/forum. Digg has a pretty hard-to-access, not-really-official blog on blogspot, and it also doesn’t have a forum as far as I can tell, but I’d hardly put them down as missing features.
And finally, the name itself, ‘Grupl’. It sounds to me like the sound you might make when you’re vomiting or something. It’s just kinda off putting..
Anywho, just my thoughts.
- Moe
Hi Moe,
You are quite right in regard to the opinion aspect of aesthetics. I just said what I thought, which is based on some qualified ability I would rather not go into. You also made a good point about voting, but you must consider that I did not want to just say how FUBAR Digg’s methodology for voting is, but rather to suggest that Grupl is superior, which it and just about anything this side of a coin toss is.
I do not really want to elaborate on Digg, but suffice it to say that a coin toss would be superior to their system of rating stories. Anyone who is reasonable would agree with this assessment I think.
The name issue is one of those things we are 100% eye to eye on. I suspect they were trying to grab a domain that rang of a group? However, we are comparing an upset stomach to digging for gold lmao, so I think we have a toss up there. I appreciate your comments very much even if I don’t exactly agree always.
Phil