the future of planner reads is in your hands

04 Nov, 2009 • posts i've written • 11 comments

I’m meeting with my developer pal later this week to talk about the next phase of PlannerReads.com and I need your two cents.

The site’s been live for about a month and a half and we’ve made steady strides growing traffic and contributors (71 in all!)… a big thank you to everyone that has shared the site.

We still have a good deal of work ahead to make the site a truly valuable resource for the planning and strategy community, but we’re committed to seeing this through.

Directions we’re considering (please jump in the comments and toss your support to ideas you want to see pursued)

– More in-depth profiles for the contributors of the site and more information on where visitors can find you across the web

– A rating/leaderboard system for contributors, who is sharing the best content first (best as in shared by other users)?

– A rating/leaderboard system for the sources linked to and shared; what sites are hot for our community this month?

– Adding more interaction to the site: can visitors vote up posts/contributors/sources?

– Adding other sources of sharing; should tweets count towards posts/sources?

– Questions/Polls (is there a weekly question we can pose to all visitors that would be valuable for the community?)

– Editorial, would you like to see more interviews with planners and discussions on the future of the industry?

– Portability, would you like a better conditioned RSS feed or an email newsletter with a weekly round-up of top posts?

Alright, let me know what I missed and what you think in the comments!

*quick tip: use the search on plannerreads.com to find articles about topics you’re interested in, like mobile, for instance.

sneak peek: planner reads

16 Sep, 2009 • posts i've written • 6 comments

With the help of Undercurrent, I’ve been hard at work on a new project I’d like to share first (and early) with my readers: Planner Reads – a site that aggregates the most shared content from some of the smartest planners and strategists around.

If you read my site, you know I have a certain obsession with aggregating and sharing content. Planner Reads is my obsession on crack (or multiplied by a small group of brilliant planners and strategists).

Planner Reads works by aggregating the Google Reader shared feeds from a small group of planners and strategists. Once a user adds an item to their Google Reader shared feed, our sophisticated system (an intrepid feline database admin named Dennis, as pictured) adds up the number of users in the system sharing the same post and posts a synopsis to the site. The number you see on the left of every post is the number of users in the group that have hit ’share’ on that post inside their Google Reader.

I’m still in the very early stages of development with the site (and the technology behind it), so I’m looking for your feedback as a reader or your participation as a member of the contributing group. To be a candidate for the group you need only satisfy three basic requirements: 1) you use Google Reader, 2) you share interesting stuff, and 3) you work in some capacity in this crazy advertising/marketing/planning/strategy world.

If you’d like to join the growing community of planners and strategists sharing posts, for now you’ll need to visit this spreadsheet and add your information. I’m doing my best to add users as quickly as I can.