Proposal: Algorithmically curated news stories as first class feed items
Why: Excluding WvM and stonks, our largest markets are typically about current events. Since users are already coming to Manifold to learn more about topics in the news, it makes sense to direct users to news sources where they can learn more. The newsfeed is also a time-tested pattern in social media sites; every site eventually converges to it—the carcinization of the internet.
Vision: Toutiao + markets: Creating an explicit news feed has the potential to fundamentally change how people use Manifold. Instead of a place you refer to from time to time to see the market’s take on hot-button issues or events happening in your friend group, Manifold could be something people use daily as a place to get their news. This use-case is much more passive than the current ones we target (forecasting, gaming, etc), but consequently, can appeal to a much wider pool of people.
UX
- News-focused feed
- Top level news stories + related markets
- If there is a big news story that matches a user’s interest vector, we’ll display it as a top-level item in the feed (including the headline, news-related image or video, and the first paragraph or two of text, and a link to the article), and then list a few related markets directly below it
- Less ambitious ways to incorporate news
- Market card addition
- If there is a semantic match between a recent news story and the title and/or description of a market, we will show 1-3 news link previews in the market feed card, below or in place of the market image
- Link previews in comments
Missing elements:
- News feed api: to source relevant stories
- Site scraper: scrape meta tags to generate data for link preview
- Link preview component: to display news stories in a compelling way on our site (embedded iframes are terrible!)
Austin’s thoughts
- Agree that news has been one of the most compelling use cases for Manifold so far, and is a large reason why users come back to our site