Thanks to an email from Matt (no url supplied) I’m playing around with a new little widget on my sidebar here at ProBlogger called Skribit.
The idea is that it’s a tool for gathering and prioritizing the topics that readers (ie YOU) want a blogger (ie ME) to write about on a blog.
You’ll see over on the sidebar that there’s already some topics. One suggestion is to write about ‘Why are you using Skribit’ which was asked by the team at Skribit by default. I’m now answering that question and can then link it to this post.
There are a couple of other questions already added by my Twitter Followers.
The idea now is that YOU the readers can add your topics/questions and then vote up the ones that others have added to help me work out which are the main ones that you want addressed.
While I’ve been testing it all of 5 minutes I love the concept behind this tool as it gives bloggers great feedback on what’s on the mind of their readers and the readers control to prioritize their needs.
I’d love to see readers start to add their questions so we can test it out!
update: seems that when you link an answer as being answered it disappears from the list. Not sure where the links appear.
Hey Darren,
Any reason the skribit widget is browser specific?
I go the below error message when i view your webpage. Btw, I am using K-meleon. Thanks
“We’re sorry, but your browser version is not supported by this application.
This application requires a modern browser, such as Firefox 2.0+, Safari 2.0+, Internet Explorer 6.0+ or Opera 9.0+.
Your browser reported: mozilla/5.0 (windows; u; windows nt 5.1; en-us; rv:1.8.1.14) gecko/20080406 k-meleon/1.1.5”
Interesting…but personally I like what YOU write about and judging by the second suggestion in the list so far, I certainly would not want Problogger to be writing about TMZ and it’s influence on celebrity news! This could be highly spammed…
Thats really interesting. I like it. Did you know you can vote as many times as you like on it?
TDM
no idea on that one bmunch – it’s a pity though if people can’t see it because of their browser. I wonder how many this impacts? Is it just showing the error in place of the widget?
I can see how it’s good to receive feedback from readers.
But I also think that bloggers should blog about topics that are interesting/ important to them. if you are true to yourself, readership will follow, and it will be the right kind of readership – the one that sticks.
This is quite interesting. I’m creating a 10-question survey to send my readers, and this tool is handy when there’s no reason to create a multi-question survey via Email.
I’ll still conduct the poll, but this is very beneficial in terms of blog interaction.
Skribit Error on Front Page, but here in Single Post it’s fine…
Thanks for sharing this tool. May give it a try. I’m bored with my sidebar poll and might replace it with this. Let us know how it goes for you!
Oh wow. this is awesome. I can’t wait to try it out!
Well, if anyone can make Skribit work, it’d be you. :) What I’ve discovered from using mine for several months is that it requires a large audience (or at least a very enamored one) to make Skribit truly useful…
It’s very personality-dependent, I suppose.
I can’t wait to try this one out, thanks for sharing. The spam potential is enormous, but it could also be quite helpful as well. And there’s only one way to figure that out – to test it! Thanks Darren.
You could always ask Paul Stamatiou for help with the widget — it was his idea to create it at Startup Weekend Atlanta, and he’s one of the developers.
I am a little unsure why people think it’s a spam problem. Others can’t leave links in it. I can see it being abused by people adding questions that are dodgy/rude etc but there are a couple of safeguards:
1. I get an email every time someone enters a question
2. questions can be deleted by me
3. only the top questions appear on the blog (new ones take time to rise to the top and would take quite a few votes on a site with lots of questions)
4. if it’s being abused I can switch it to only allow people who are signed in to skribit to post questions (while this will limit question it’d help filter out trolls/trouble makers)
I would like to see them work on more moderation tools (perhaps the ability for people not only to vote up questions but to flag them as spam perhaps?)
Thanks for sharing this Darren. IT;s been a while since I’ve been on the lookout for one of these.
But, don’t you see a possible downside of the topics being published publicly? I mean, an unethical blogger would always check in your widget or anyone elses’ and steal an idea for a post, a post that you may be already doing?
Darren,
I found ya through “The Anthill” Midori Miller posted an interview ya did with her. It was well done!
Great widget, any process or tool that gives ya readers input and ownership in the development of ya blog, products, business, etc is a great thing. Listening to ya customers, readers etc. is critical.
We have a tool/widget called User Voice that we use to identify and prioritize new features we add to cre8Buzz. We are small with limited resources. Delivering the features our users want makes all the difference. It prevents us from spending money in the wrong places.
yes, it is showing the error in place of the widget on both the front page and single page for me.
From the error message, I think it only caters to the big four, Opera, IE, Firefox and Safari.
Later I might open up my IE to take a look at the widget…
Hey Darren, thanks for the Skribit post! We have a lot of ideas about moderation tools and stuff in general which I’d love to talk to you about later on – you caught me and Calvin (another Skribiter) on vacation. :-)
Paul Stamatiou,
Skribit.com
Thanks for sharing this tool, Darren. I am already using it on my blog.
Thanks Darren… I will try it!!
With the large audience that you have, I think that you’ll find this tool to be very useful. I used it for several months and really liked it. I just haven’t had a chance to put it back yet after my redesign. Hopefully, with the big guns (like yourself) using it, it will finally get the attention it deserves.
I just learned a lesson, always send Darren a link to your site when you send him something. :-)
The concept is really cool. The widget takes up a lot of space, though.
Very cool, I was just thinking of something similar recently.
I put it up on both my blogs but I can’t get the widgets verified by Skribit although they work 100%. Weird.
http://groupwritingprojects.com/
http://jobmob.co.il/
Thanks Darren, I now have Skribit on three blogs. I agree with Vered that bloggers should blog about things that interest them but it’s a bonus if you blog about stuff that interests your readers and interests you.
Cheers,
Sam Mooney
My question is:
Will this be worthwhile for me as a new blogger with only 50 people coming to my page each day?
Because you have a large customer base with lots of people wanting to give questions, however I have 3 subscribers (no where near the 50,000 you have) should I even bother trying this?
Putting the widget up, having an immediate question, and finding a broken contact form…..is never a good sign.
Darren, in regards to your update: I ask a question…you answer it and link to the post…how do I know?
what’s the difference from a poll widget, a post popularity widget or simply writing a weekly post asking readers to comment?
i would think that established bloggers would already have a good pool of topics from their existing post’s comments, emails, and personal suggestions they wouldn’t necessarily need a tool like this?