The document discusses the evolution of the social discovery website Jaanix based on user feedback. It describes Jaanix's initial features like video voting and recommendations. User studies found a need for easier sharing, discussions, and connecting with other users. Jaanix then added social networking capabilities like profiles, comments, and exported data. While traffic grew, users still found Jaanix confusing and wanted integration with their existing networks on sites like RSS feeds. The lessons learned were that Jaanix remained too complex and needed to import users' existing content and connections to be successful.

1. Olga Smyslova
olga@smyslova.com
Social Search and Discovery:

2. The evolution of recommendation
engine

3. YouTube videos aggregator:
• View the videos and vote ↑ Jaa or ↓ Nix
• Get videos to view based on your interests, likes, and
dislikes

4. Usability Methods:
• Discount Usability studies (live and
remote, via Skype)
• Questionnaires (mostly on usage of social
services and new Jaanix features)
• Getting as much feedback as possible
through forums and discussion groups
• Conceptual studies and exploration: what
users like to use and why

5. Target audience (same as Digg,
Del.icio.us, Reddit)
• Internet-savvy (spending 3-4 hours per
day online)
• Relatively young (up to their 40-ies)
• Highly connected
• Strong desire to be up to date
• Mostly male

6. Users feedback: it looks nice, but…
• I have no idea what to
do with it, other than
watching videos
• Why some of the
videos move to
another place, while
others don’t?
• What is it all about?

7. Further approximations
• A separate page for
registration: 5
topics/tags for users
to choose to find
relevant content
• Tabs (pictures,
videos, links)
• Tag cloud
• Search on site

8. Jaanix prototypes: Style

9. Jaanix prototypes: events

10. Users needs:
• To find new, interesting stories on the web
• To be able to reach their favorite content
• To share content with friends and discuss
it
• To feel social, engaged, in the flow

11. Social networking experience
feedback
• I start my day with my friend
feed… After reading a funny
story I feel like I met with my
friends – now I am up and
running
• It is like a cup of tea or going
to a great party
• I feel very social and ready for
adventures… worse than that
– I am ready for my daily
boring routines

12. Interviews showed:
Highly connected study participants use
social networking sites as their creative
labs or gatherings around water cooler.
They get inspiration, ideas, support, peer
recognition online and share their findings
there.

13. Jaanix: users’ feedback
• No need to click and choose topics
I want to see something interesting right now
• Ownership
Where my favorite videos will go? Can I keep my own links
there?
• Easy posting process
I want to grab the good stuff I see and post it right away,
no hassle with links, copy-and-paste…

14. Posting process: one click

15. Compare with LiveJournal: posting
a picture

16. Compare with Blogger: posting a
video

17. Compare with Reddit: link
submission

18. Next Jaanix incarnation:
• Tag cloud transformed
into categories (still tags)
with sliders:
• All types of content
together – links, video,
and pictures
• Name of a person
submitting a link
• Jaanix magic numbers:
ratings

19. Series of A/B testing: Rating tools

20. Stars vs. sliders

21. Picture size

22. Analysis of comments:
• Whenever possible
• Not taken as granted,
but a stimulus for
more research

23. Log analysis
• February – a great
month for Jaanix
• Each wide discussion
on any service or
forum sends crowds
to check on Jaanix
• Some of them stay
with us…

24. Registered users statistics: sliders
vs. votes usage
Three equally divided
groups:
• Some visitors use
sliders to play with
Jaanix content
• Some like to vote on
submissions and see
what Jaanix can
suggest them
• Some like both tools

25. Communication needs:
users’ metaphors on using Jaanix
• Watching a movie alone
• Spending time in an aquarium. There are
beautiful fish and interesting people
around, but you cannot reach them
• “Cold” service, not sure that there are real
people behind the scenes

26. The social network was born
• Most users appealed to a social network
or forum while discussing Jaanix (RSS
feed, Livejournal, Reddit)
• Users wanted to see _who_ submitted a
link or a video
• Communication needs: the ability to
discuss the link posted by others.

27. Visitor numbers:
• Return visitors (no accounts) – 7%
• Convertion rate (percent of users creating
accounts after visiting Jaanix) - 1%
• Number of active users (posting at least
once a week) – about 200
• Number of Jaanix users – about 2000
(visiting Jaanix at least once a week)

28. The last experiment

29. Heat maps usage:
Link “People” was on site before the
functionality itself
Users showed interest, clicking on the link
The functionality was added as users
“requested”

30. The final version of Jaanix:
• Social bookmarking
• Personalized recommendations
• Micro-blogging
• Comments
• The ability to find like-minded people
• Export to Deli.cio.us and Twitter
• Keeping spammers out: the accounts were not
suspended, but nobody could see their posts

32. Some more feedback
• The combination of Jaanix and illumio – a hosted service
that found relevant material in RSS feeds – would be
brilliant. For now, I'll use both; illumio to sort feeds, and
Jaanix to repost and comment on interesting articles.
• It hadn't reached critical mass for a while, but recently
I've found a lot of absolutely fascinating articles on things
relative to my interests. Reading the internet is fun again!
• I have now played with this site for about the past hour
and I’m sorry, I still don’t get it.

33. And more…
• I like how, after several hours, there is no
mention under "politics" of Bhutto's
assassination and one of the top three articles is
a week old DailyKos humor piece
• I kept scrolling down casually, thinking: "wow,
there are a lot of links on the main page because
I keep scrolling and I have yet to hit the bottom.“
• Reddit by people who can write software.
• Chasing the footer links down the page right now
trying to read the faq and about sections... :)

34. Lessons learned:
• Jaanix remained a black box users could
not understand.
• RSS import: let users bring their luggage
with them
• Keeping the existent networks is vital for
the users along with the ability to comment
others’ posts.

35. Jaanix Creators:
• Joseph Petviashvili
• Jonathan Christensen
• Koen Vos

36. Thank you!
Questions? Comments?