While Twitter is rumored to lift it's 140 character constraint, This launches with a contrasting limitation.
@agolis -- to play devil's advocate, do we need another place to share links? Is limiting to one link a day enough to make this "different" and useful?
@rrhoover did we need another place to find new products? ;)
I joke, but I think there's a strong similarity. You guys have been able to build something powerful by deploying a lot of the tools and patterns developed in the first big social sites in a much more focused and elegant way. Mix that with a carefully cultivated early community of influential and discerning members and you were able to build a powerful destination for people who care more than the average web citizen.
We're doing something similar. As I outlined in this blog post yesterday (https://blog.this.cm/i-drew-a-bu...), we believe that media discovery on most social media sites is getting worse at the same time as the quality of media on the web in general is getting much much better. That's already created an opening to build something for people who really care, and over time we think that opening will only get bigger.
The web is becoming a more and more powerful and valuable cultural force, and we desperately need a cultural discovery layer that deeply connects to it. That's what we're building.
@bentossell thanks Ben! Kind of you to put us up here.
As you can see, the idea is simple enough: a social media site for the best of the web where you follow members you trust, and each member is allowed to share just one link a day. While other social sites are stuck in a crazy spiral of more more more and therefore making each share worth less less less (https://blog.this.cm/i-drew-a-bu...) we're going the opposite direction: the 1 per day limit makes ever share special. Every share is a statement by the curator: "*This* is really worth your time."
After a little while in private beta, This. went public back in October and our community has been growing quickly since. We've added a layer of Featured Members (https://this.cm/members/featured) and Publishers (https://this.cm/members/publishers) -- including folks like the NYT, BuzzFeed, NY Review of Books, Vimeo, The Verge and others with active accounts -- and made it easy to find folks you already know with a Twitter integration and member search. We've got lots lots more coming in the next few months.
Would love the thoughts of folks here. We view Product Hunt as a kindred spirit in the war on glut (and the joy of discovery).
You can sign up and give it a spin right here: https://this.cm/join. And you can check out my links and sign up at the same time right here: https://this.cm/golis/follow.
Product Hunt
This
Makerpad
This