Deeplinking » Effects

Sean Flannagan — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 15:36:40 +0000

If you start from successful startups, you find they often behaved like nonprofits. And if you start from ideas for nonprofits, you find they’d often make good startups.

–from a Paul Graham classic that’s worth reading in its entirety, repeatedly, and keeping handy in your Instapaper account.

The Sun Rises in the East

Sean Flannagan — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 19:00:10 +0000

Etsy’s Treasury is something I’ve long been fascinated by. It’s an ever-changing, member-curated shopping gallery with some unique constraints. Treasury lists only live for 48 hours. Each list has a limit of 42 comments. You can only create a list if the total number of lists falls below 333 (shorthand for <333, meaning 'MUCH LOVE', according to Wikipedia). And you can only have one list living at a time. These constraints create scarcity, which makes the opportunity to create a Treasury list more desirable. The constraints also help to give the Treasury a “live” feel—what you’re seeing in the Treasury and sharing with other visitors is ephemeral, and will soon go away. As we used to say, “Embrace the decay!” Plus there are some real-time aspects to the Treasury that are rare on the web: When you’re viewing a list, you can watch other people’s clicks as they happen—the items are highlighted in yellow for other visitors the moment they’re clicked. Each list is a temporary, shared space. You can see this in the Treasury list URLs, which contain a “room_id.” The lists are rooms, and you always know how many other people are in the room with you. In the early days, this was made explicit from the start, and you could watch other visitors fly into rooms from the main Treasury page.

In other words, everything that makes the old Treasury unique is related to the fact that it’s a Flash application: its constraints, and its real-time feel. These things are inseparable from its origins in Flash. But at Etsy an entirely new infrastructure for collections is being created, powered by MongoDB.

So we launched Treasury East as a testing ground for a new unlimited Treasury world, where anyone would be able to create a curated list of items, and that curation activity would be rewarded and harnessed as the important signal it is in a marketplace of one-of-a-kind items made by humans. Etsy is filled with things you never knew existed and never knew you wanted. People welcome guidance and clues from other people in this environment.

And the birth of Treasury East has been remarkable. It feels like the flowering of something new and great, as fascinating items and shops are surfaced by people with a talent for finding things.

Because as any collector knows, it’s fun and satisfying to find things, and can be an outlet for self-expression. Here’s a list I made this morning while on a vintage mid-century modern housewares binge (it happens):

Already we’re seeing games emerge organically, some reminiscent of the Etsy Sneak Attack and PIF (Pay It Forward) phenomena, like Treasury East BnR (Buy and Replace), started by Grace of Homespun Handmaiden. BnRs are bemoaned in the old Treasury world but in this new environment they start to feel like a primitive social-commerce life form that might evolve into something more interesting.

OK I’ve started a treasury east that’s a BnR (buy and replace). Basically you can buy any of the items in the treasury and post the transaction link in the comments. I then go to YOUR shop and replace the item you bought with one of your items! It’s a win-win for all involved. This is a great way to promote your shop and support fellow etsians at the same time!

Keeping an eye on the constant stream of Treasury East blog mentions and Twitter mentions for more.

Finding Yourself Through Your Favorites

Sean Flannagan — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 05:21:40 +0000

Japanese Tumblr users are “addicted to reblogging,” ffffolks on FFFFOUND are defining themselves by the images they find, and Etsians are hearting more items than ever. I’m discovering more about myself as I build up my Etsy Favorites, namely that I’m fond of hand-drawn pattern and complexity:

We just need better ways of sharing, organizing, displaying and discovering these things (working on it!).

Search Datamob

Sean Flannagan — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 04:34:31 +0000

Lauren got the search functionality for Datamob up and running, making the site about 1,000 times more useful. Adjustments are in progress but you can subscribe to feeds of search results.

Recent additions: NPR API, BBC Backstage, CrunchBase API, CrunchBase Map, TheMiddleClass.org, geophysically scaled economic data, Walk Score, Lee Byron’s San Franscisco Walkability Map, Toby Segaran’s Industry Browser and a number of resources.

Summer Remix

Sean Flannagan — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:57:26 +0000

A personal announcement: After more than four years immersed in all things web-, blog- and ecommerce-related at the 92nd Street Y (new look/season/brand launching Thursday)—a place I love and have had the privilege of contributing to while working alongside some truly amazing people—I’m moving on to another amazing place: Etsy. Specifically the product team. And the busiest and Best Summer Ever continues.

And We’re Back

Sean Flannagan — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:21:44 +0000

Back up and running after a sudden barrage of generous linking from Joshua Schachter, Andy Baio, Jack Dorsey, Valleywag, Boing Boing, Daring Fireball, Download Squad, CNET’s Webware, UTNE Reader, Bub.blicio.us and other good folks.

Servers don’t hold up as well as paper.

Charticle Theory

Sean Flannagan — Tue, 06 May 2008 23:28:09 +0000

(FFFFOUND)

Top interface tags on Datamob

usa
26
(52%)
government
23
(46%)
maps
14
(28%)
language
7
(14%)
business
7
(14%)

Standards-based bar chart via Wilson Miner.

Recent blips: interactive Voronoi treemaps, basketball data visualizations, Watchdog.net.

Datamob-compliant APIs: MAPLight, GovTracker, AMEE, Project Vote Smart, Civic Footprint.

Coffee table: The Alphabet Abecedarium, Mashups, Miscellany.

All Bookish Social Networks Considered

Sean Flannagan — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:24:45 +0000

NPR’s Martha Woodroof interviewed me for a piece on bookish social networks last month and the spot aired on All Things Considered today. Check it out here. Since the interview I’ve been all over LibraryThing. And since LibraryThing started bridging the gap between virtual and real bookish social networks with LibraryThing Local, GoodReads has hooked up with BookTour (which used to date LibraryThing). And some people are still just reading books.

Comic Strips and Blog Posts

Sean Flannagan — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 05:17:48 +0000

Illustration Art blogger David Apatoff:

In the course of just 100 intense years, comic art has put on display the personalities of some deeply odd people who have produced truly excellent but Quixotic art—a far higher ratio than would ever surface through art museums.

Why is this? Perhaps the medium combines the privacy for artists to sit alone at their drawing board, a little incubation chamber for their neuroses and quirks, with a wide daily audience for the resulting work product. Or maybe the pressure of putting out a daily strip for decades simply drove them nuts.

Bookish Social Network Socialization

Sean Flannagan — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 04:20:15 +0000

When Ning relaunched with their “Create Your Own Social Network for Anything” tagline, I joked that someone should use Ning to create a social network for social networks. LibraryThing creator Tim Spalding was ahead of the game as usual and went and did exactly that: SocialCatalogers is a social network for people who make or who are for some reason profoundly interested in social cataloging sites. Social cataloging sites being “social” media sites centered around books, beer, words and other things people feel compelled to list and explore.

It’s a burgeoning micro-industry and if you share the love with me, join up.