This is the vision for WhatConsumesMe, phase 2.

1. CLIENT:
WHAT CONSUMES ME
PROJECT TITLE:
INSPIRATION ENGINE
DATE:
NOVEMBER, 2011

2. OUR MISSION IS TO BUILD THE
DEFINITIVE INSPIRATION
ENGINE FOR THE CREATIVE
COMMUNITY.
2

3. WHAT IS AN
INSPIRATION ENGINE?
YO U D ID N ’ T J U ST PU L L T H A T O UT O F Y OU R AS S D I D Y O U?
An inspiration engine puts beauty and brilliance in form
and functionality that aid work, not just distraction.
An inspiration engine is full of content, but delivered in a
way that is highly relevant, useful, addictive, and
actionable.
An inspiration engine doesn’t just support reading, it
supports doing. It helps to unleash more creativity upon
the world.
It isn’t your typical blog, or even content aggregator, it’s
something more – something functional.
What follows is a high-level, foolishly ambitious plan to
build the creative community’s most insanely loved site
on the web.
3

4. CONTENT
FUNCTIONALITY
AN INSPIRATION ENGINE IS
ULTIMATELY AN INNOVATIVE
PACKAGING OF THE TWO.
4

5. CONTENT STRATEGY
STOCKS AND FLOWS
5

6. What is Flow Content? RE T AIL AR T FANDOM
A F LO O D OF B EAUT Y, INSPIRATION, AN D NO VE L TY
EN TE RT AINME NT ME DIA
Flow content represents your typical daily stream of novel
content on sites like Buzzfeed or PSFK, often aggregated AUTOM OTIVE FOUND IMAGE S
from other sources. Flow content will be the bulk of day-
FASHION AR CHITE CT UR E
to-day content on the site published by a handful of
editors, ranging from topics far and wide. FOOD L IT ER ATURE GAM ES
Challenges inherent in Flow Content: L UXUR Y W EB CULTUR E
• The social currency of this content is usually short-lived JOURN ALISM STATISTICS
(mostly determined by novelty among peers) and the
TECHNOL OGY DATA
lifespan on most sites ends once it’s fallen off the
homepage
W ORK PRODU CTIVITY
• Sites that compete on flow content typically need to BUSINE SS PL ANNING
publish early and often, our challenge is to be as fast or
faster than other aggregator sites and to publish often W EB COM PLE XITY
on a broad range of creative topics
MU SIC DES IGN STRA TE GY
• We don’t want to simply amass this content and let it
HAC KIN G AND M ORE
languish in our archives, we have to find ways to make it
useful to readers far beyond its publish date
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7. Publishing Flow Content SOCIAL FEEDS
C R EA TIN G AN ADDIC TIVE READING E X PE R I E N CE AND BLOG RSS
• First, we need to find a handful of editors that will
publish to the site multiple times a day, and we need to S
use Percolate’s analysis of feed sources to measure O
whether our initial editors have enough topical variety C
to avoid homogenous sharing PERCOLATE I
A
USED BY EACH EDITOR L
• Percolate will help our editors in making sharing more
S
frictionless W H
O A
R R
• We need a way to stop duplicate content from being D I
posted P N
R G
E
• We need to preserve that content’s original categories/
S D
tags so we can minimize the work we have to do to S A
identify content T
A
• We need a design to handle that incoming content and
best show off video/image content
WHATCONSUMESME
COMMUNITY
• We need to track how shared the original content is to
value it for our readers
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8. BuzzFeed Does Flow • First and foremost, BuzzFeed publishes a
Better Than Most huge amount of fresh content each day,
this is a must if we’re to be successful
• They’ve created a category system voted
on by the community, in a vernacular that’s
driven by reaction, not content category
(e.g. LOL, cute, win, etc.), we should
explore categories like this for our flow
content (awe, service, wha?)
• The content is presented with social
context, how popular it is, how it is being
spread, there’s lots of social proof to why
you should pay attention
• Content is an opportunity for performance,
and Buzzfeed asks for reactions,
responses, and contributions that are
community rated
• The design balances easy scanning and
yet entices the user to click on stories
8

9. Stock Content
L ON G E R F OR M B RI L L IA N C E W OR T H B O OK MAR KI N G F OR L AT E R
Stock content represents long-reads or deep dives on
specific questions or topics. There is usually some
SE EKI N G W R I T E R S T H A T AR E A( N): topicality, but the value in the article goes far beyond its
reflection on current events. Our job is to court writers (like
I C O NO C L AS T W I T H A F OLLOWI NG
HuffPo) that will occasionally provide valuable stock
E NTE R T AI NE R A N D E D U CAT OR content, writers that represent a wide spectrum of
opinions and industries.
LO N G F O RM T H I N K E R T HAN C A N E NTICE
E V EN T HE M O S T S H O R T FOR M R E ADE R
Challenges inherent to Stock content:
R A B B I T H O L E D I V E R A N D TOU R GUIDE
• In a site dominated by Flow content, Stock can be easily
P U LP I T P R E A C H E R A N D C OMM UNITY overlooked, our design must break Stock content out of
O R G A NI Z ER
the time-based deluge of Flow
• We need to provide a valuable incentive to Stock
content writers to put their content on our platform
instead of their own (a larger audience is a good start)
• The design of Stock content article pages must entice
the reader to dive deep and break out of the short-
attention span we may have rewarded with Flow
content
9

10. Publishing Stock Content
C R E AT I N G L O N G- T E R M V AL U E , B O O KM AR KS , SH A R I N G , AN D RE - V IS IT S
• Our Stock writers need their bios/photos on the site
and our first writers need to be of the caliber to attract
other writers
• Our article pages must be the most legible and
engaging experience on the web
• We need to drive the use of comments to foster a true
dialog with our writers, to make their content even
more valuable
• We need to work with our writers to identify innovative
editorial ideas (e.g. tap two writers to do an open
debate on a controversial topic, give them each a day
to craft their responses, make it last a week and let
people vote on arguments - call it “Head to Head”)
• We could give Stock writers access to our editors to
pitch ideas and get immediate feedback
10

11. AWorkingLibrary.com
One of the Most Readable Sites on the Web
11

12. AtRoundtable.com
Creating New Models of Conversation
12

13. FUNCTIONALITY STRATEGY
CREATING UTILITY
AND ADDICTION
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14. WE NEED INNOVATIVE
FUNCTIONALITY THAT WILL
ELEVATE THE SITE BEYOND A
BLOG OR CONTENT PORTAL.
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15. FUNCTIONALITY THAT PUTS
OUR WEALTH OF CONTENT TO
WORK, CREATING VALUE
BEYOND DISTRACTION.
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16. INTRODUCING:
THE INSPIRATION BOARD
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17. The Inspiration Board
Q U ICKLY ASSEMBLIN G AND SHARING I N SPI R ATI O N
• Purpose: to make our content archive actionable and COMPFIGHT
our site more valuable
• Desired Outcome: The next innovative product idea
facilitated by our tool, inspired by our content, and MEETS
made by people in our community
• Use Case: a user is working on a project developing
mobile tools for health care patients, she opens our MINDMEISTER
tool, searches “mobile health care” and is given a
stream of content we think is related to those terms
(she sorts the content by popularity and social filters),
based on the content she drags into her workspace we MEETS
can suggest even more accurate content. She then
visually clusters content based on her needs, adding
content we may be missing by giving a URL (we then
add it to our content archive), and she adds notes to GOOGLE MODERATOR
pieces of content. She then invites her co-workers in to
her workspace and they begin asynchronously ideating
based on the content in front of them and are able to
vote and comment on each other’s ideas
17

18. IN ADDITION TO UTILITY, WE
SHOULD EXPERIMENT WITH
SMALL MECHANISMS THAT
REFLECT AND REWARD
PARTICIPATION.
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19. WE HATE THE G WORD.
BUT. IF AN ACTION CAN
MAKE THE USER EXPERIENCE
BETTER AND OUR SITE MORE
VALUABLE TO THE USER, WE
SHOULD MAKE THAT ACTION
ADDICTIVE AND REWARDING.
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20. Making Reading Addictive
T O ID ENT IFY AND RE WARD O UR M OS T AC TI VE VI S I TO R S
• Behaviors the site should track and reward for readers:
reading pieces of content, commenting, rating other
comments, sharing content in social media, we should
tick up points in the corner of the site and nudge users
to register to claim the points they’ve already accrued
• Feedback: give the user better content, show users
what topics they read most, how liked their comments
are, and a leaderboard of readers and commenters per
topic
• Rewards: the ability to send in links to the editors,
visibility on the site, specialist recognition (content or
comments), the ability to be invited to be a community
manager, editor, or a stock content author
• Future Vision: create community blogs that users have
to earn a right to use that editors can scan and decide
what to elevate to homepage/category level placement
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21. Making Publishing Addictive
TO I D E N T I F Y AN D R E W AR D O UR M O S T A C T IV E E D IT O R S & W RI T ER S
• Behaviors the site should track for Editors/Writers:
amount of content published per time period, number
of saves of that content, number of shares, number of
comments, overall score of comments per article
• Feedback: all of the above, show which categories are
being under nourished by fresh content (nudge the
editor to hunt down/share more of it), chart frequency
of content with frequency of visits, track comment
frequency on stock content with frequency of visits
(nudge writers to stay more active)
• Rewards: identify favorite editors/writers per content
category, elevate editors to writers based on
community popularity
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22. WARNING FOR THE
FUTURE: POINTS ARE ALL
FUN AND GAMES UNTIL THEY
CREATE UNINTENDED
CONSEQUENCES AND
DISTRACT US FROM OUR
ORIGINAL MISSION.
22

23. A QUICK NOD TO BUSINESS STRATEGY
REINFORCING
THE NETWORK
23

24. Ways to Pay for the Site
Without Serving Ads
TH OU S H AL T N OT H A RM T H E US E R ’ S E X PE R I E N CE
• Kickstart each phase of the site
• Charge for the Inspiration Board once it’s a viable
platform, limit free access to 1-2 boards or introduce
premium features, charge for the tablet experience as
it’s likely to be the most effective and engaging use
• Package the Stock content semi-annually and sell as
eBook
• Job board
• Host paid meet-ups, workshops, or full bore
conferences centered around unleashing creativity
• Make our revenue needs transparent and create
donation goals to keep the site ad-free or invite readers
to suggest monetization strategies
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25. We Must Respect and Reward
The Sites That Keep Us Fed
B EI N G GO OD W EB CITIZENS AND N OT S PA R K L Y W E B VAMPI R E S
• Above all, we have an obligation to the sites that
supply our Flow content to not reproduce their content
in its entirety and to send our readers their way for the
full story
• We should also have the ability to block content from a
specific source if that site owner requests it
• We should create a list of the top sites we link to and
make that visible and transparent, we should also think
of ways to promote those site owners (on-site
interviews, bios), we could even show which sites are
climbing the charts
• We should never be satisfied with how we reward our
favorite sites, we can always do more or be more
creative in how we show our appreciation
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26. Building a Shared Destiny
I N TH E W I L D , O B S CE N E EV E N T W E T U R N A PR OF I T
• We believe that participation should be rewarded in
kind, with that in mind, we’d like to investigate a
Worker’s Co-Op business model, where everyone earns
a say and a stake in the future of the business
• We need to consider levels of participation, the effort
required, the value created, and the stake and say that
warrants
• We need to reward the development partners willing to
take a gamble on our vision as well, and find a
relationship model that keeps them around and
interested to evolve the site based on use
• We need to explore liability under this model,
especially where copyright and intellectual property are
concerned (success on the web usually comes with
lawsuits)
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27. High Level Steps Forward
T O R EALIZ E THIS CRA ZY DREAM OF O U R S
• Recruit initial Editorial team and court Stock Writers
• Work with Percolate to build a test environment to
evaluate content, design, and ease of use
• Find development partner(s) to scope/plan/phase/
attack initial site and Inspiration Board product
• Investigate worker’s co-op model and explore
compensation rates
• Raise any necessary capital to get teams moving, lean
heavily on early supporters to pass the collection plate
• Focus on site mechanics, feedback mechanisms, and
build processes/teams to iterate and adapt quickly to
what users actually do
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29. THANK YOU
– BUD CADDELL –