Hang it on the fridge!
December 11, 2023 7:43 AM Subscribe
Eric A. Meyer: 'The tech industry continues to refuse to learn how to think like real, actual people when designing new features. Reddit, in the form of Reddit Recap, is merely the latest offender, though they do have the distinction of being nearly a decade behind Facebook in doing this.'
The tech industry continues to refuse to learn how to think like real, actual people when designing new features.
This has pretty much been the experience of Adobe users since forever.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:26 AM on December 11, 2023 [16 favorites]
This has pretty much been the experience of Adobe users since forever.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:26 AM on December 11, 2023 [16 favorites]
Reddit recap banner in my city's subreddit: 2023 is over
Me, looking at calendar: But is it though???
posted by Kitteh at 8:28 AM on December 11, 2023 [17 favorites]
Me, looking at calendar: But is it though???
posted by Kitteh at 8:28 AM on December 11, 2023 [17 favorites]
It's not so much that it refuses to think like real people as that it actively avoids doing this, IMHO.
posted by egypturnash at 8:33 AM on December 11, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by egypturnash at 8:33 AM on December 11, 2023 [6 favorites]
Reminds me of a time a few years ago where Spotify gave me a list of "top 100 songs you've played this year" or something like that. For some reason, the actual playlist had just 99 songs. huh?
posted by hydra77 at 8:33 AM on December 11, 2023
posted by hydra77 at 8:33 AM on December 11, 2023
They also revamped their mobile web UI to aggressively show ads at the top of every thread. If the third party API debacle didn’t make it clear enough, Reddit really does not want users using its product.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:35 AM on December 11, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:35 AM on December 11, 2023 [6 favorites]
Me, looking at calendar: But is it though???
Never celebrate until you're over the line.
posted by mhoye at 8:36 AM on December 11, 2023 [13 favorites]
Never celebrate until you're over the line.
posted by mhoye at 8:36 AM on December 11, 2023 [13 favorites]
"mine made it sound like i committed a mass shooting "
posted by uncleozzy at 8:44 AM on December 11, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by uncleozzy at 8:44 AM on December 11, 2023 [10 favorites]
The spread of "yearly recaps" is one of the worst tech trends of the last 10 years. Summarized data with no thought given to context or meaning. Just awful.
posted by rhymedirective at 8:44 AM on December 11, 2023 [19 favorites]
posted by rhymedirective at 8:44 AM on December 11, 2023 [19 favorites]
we're doing this at my company despite our audience being predominantly professionals seeking to up their sales revenue utilizing our service
in this case it's very much a 'why now' - like sure, the normal person around holiday times loves sharing stuff with friends, it's fun to talk about, etc. but in the midst of holiday sales crunch? you want us to send out a year-in-review with a full report on their engagement statistics? why didn't we do this early November? or this first week of December? or just... regularly? y'know, when people like that actually want to see these stats?
and the answer is, of course, when you split your company up into teams all working on MVP/two week long sprints with small basic iterations on products you end up with an extremely, narrowly focused vision in combination with the desire to be seen and recognized by leadership, you end up with a totally uneven mess of people striving to adopt successful trends without understanding why a trend is successful
Spotify Wrapped? that's a viral way for people to share their social capital, their coolness or their insight into how deeply, funnily uncool they are. it's an expression of self to the world, it's taking what people already did with their listening habits long ago via the likes of last.fm and turning it into a feature
on reddit? I dunno, a community based megaforum where the real value is in the freely exploited labor of moderators that you want more of? hand out Gold like candy to people who are mods and who your site tracking shows 40+ hours of engagement per week. thank them, personally
and to up engagement, to change lurkers into users and users into power users and power users into mods? just tell them their stats relative to others, how much more engaged they are compared to the average. your top subreddit in terms of karma/posts. you're 0.0X% of users in /obscure-subreddit. their biggest fan - who hit them with the most upvotes. which sub handed them the most karma. show them funny pics that they upvoted from a select range of subreddits that are exclusively cute/funny pics. throw one out for the lurkers. hell, you could even do a Steam Hardware review - which browsers and OS's are the most used, how many ppl keep things updated vs the avg American (reddit users are s u p e r i o r , after all). and a funny one - how much time you spent during your timezone'd work hours on reddit (lol)
like this stuff isn't hard to conceive of if you 1) understand your platform outside of your product and 2) actually use the platform. but like any giant corpo, the % of people who actually use a platform who actually work on and develop for the platform is a hilariously smaller percentage than you'd expect and this is most especially true of the leaders who are the product drivers. and so you end up with just hilarious bullshit like this
posted by paimapi at 8:55 AM on December 11, 2023 [17 favorites]
in this case it's very much a 'why now' - like sure, the normal person around holiday times loves sharing stuff with friends, it's fun to talk about, etc. but in the midst of holiday sales crunch? you want us to send out a year-in-review with a full report on their engagement statistics? why didn't we do this early November? or this first week of December? or just... regularly? y'know, when people like that actually want to see these stats?
and the answer is, of course, when you split your company up into teams all working on MVP/two week long sprints with small basic iterations on products you end up with an extremely, narrowly focused vision in combination with the desire to be seen and recognized by leadership, you end up with a totally uneven mess of people striving to adopt successful trends without understanding why a trend is successful
Spotify Wrapped? that's a viral way for people to share their social capital, their coolness or their insight into how deeply, funnily uncool they are. it's an expression of self to the world, it's taking what people already did with their listening habits long ago via the likes of last.fm and turning it into a feature
on reddit? I dunno, a community based megaforum where the real value is in the freely exploited labor of moderators that you want more of? hand out Gold like candy to people who are mods and who your site tracking shows 40+ hours of engagement per week. thank them, personally
and to up engagement, to change lurkers into users and users into power users and power users into mods? just tell them their stats relative to others, how much more engaged they are compared to the average. your top subreddit in terms of karma/posts. you're 0.0X% of users in /obscure-subreddit. their biggest fan - who hit them with the most upvotes. which sub handed them the most karma. show them funny pics that they upvoted from a select range of subreddits that are exclusively cute/funny pics. throw one out for the lurkers. hell, you could even do a Steam Hardware review - which browsers and OS's are the most used, how many ppl keep things updated vs the avg American (reddit users are s u p e r i o r , after all). and a funny one - how much time you spent during your timezone'd work hours on reddit (lol)
like this stuff isn't hard to conceive of if you 1) understand your platform outside of your product and 2) actually use the platform. but like any giant corpo, the % of people who actually use a platform who actually work on and develop for the platform is a hilariously smaller percentage than you'd expect and this is most especially true of the leaders who are the product drivers. and so you end up with just hilarious bullshit like this
posted by paimapi at 8:55 AM on December 11, 2023 [17 favorites]
can't wait for mefi wrapped:
- your most viewed thread: 'the world is ending [MEGATHREAD]'
who knew you'd bring so much joy to so many? - your most liked comment: 'metafilter: definitely no real, actual people'
eponysterical! - times you dead goated threads in the past year: 6,943,217
it's what bladerunner would have done
This kinda problem (what is the sentiment expressed in this collection of the photos/text/content/etc?) is incredibly hard to solve, and takes a lot of resources to do well.
Take Apple's Memories feature. Did you notice that you never got a "Remember When?" on the anniversaries of Jan 6th? You probably have a shit load of screenshots and photos in your library about that day. How about all those vacations with your ex-wife? Or, as a coworker once asked me and therefore told me waaaaay to much about his personal life: "Isn't is weird that the Memories never shows you the nudes you took of yourself???".
You with your human brain can look at "My grandmother passed away today" and know it's probably not something you want to be reminded of as your "best" post, even if it had super high engagement. But your human brain (along with all the other human brains on Earth) cannot just look at the billions upon billions pieces of content and figure out their specific sentiment and then make a decision on rather or not it's "appropriate" for whatever you are trying to do. So you need to do it programmatically.
And if you can do that, lots of places will back up the Brinks truck to your house for those skills, so get your resume out there. Seriously, Reddit has a whole bunch of $220k+ remote jobs if you think you can do better.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 9:26 AM on December 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
Take Apple's Memories feature. Did you notice that you never got a "Remember When?" on the anniversaries of Jan 6th? You probably have a shit load of screenshots and photos in your library about that day. How about all those vacations with your ex-wife? Or, as a coworker once asked me and therefore told me waaaaay to much about his personal life: "Isn't is weird that the Memories never shows you the nudes you took of yourself???".
You with your human brain can look at "My grandmother passed away today" and know it's probably not something you want to be reminded of as your "best" post, even if it had super high engagement. But your human brain (along with all the other human brains on Earth) cannot just look at the billions upon billions pieces of content and figure out their specific sentiment and then make a decision on rather or not it's "appropriate" for whatever you are trying to do. So you need to do it programmatically.
And if you can do that, lots of places will back up the Brinks truck to your house for those skills, so get your resume out there. Seriously, Reddit has a whole bunch of $220k+ remote jobs if you think you can do better.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 9:26 AM on December 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
but in the midst of holiday sales crunch? you want us to send out a year-in-review with a full report on their engagement statistics? why didn't we do this early November? or this first week of December? or just... regularly? y'know, when people like that actually want to see these stats?
Guess we have a new Mefi project plan for April 1.
posted by pwnguin at 9:33 AM on December 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
Guess we have a new Mefi project plan for April 1.
posted by pwnguin at 9:33 AM on December 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
Facebook has six reaction types; two of them being unambiguously negative, two positive, and two ambiguous (for the purposes of identifying the emotional pitch of the original post). If you want to remind people of their most popular posts, it wouldn't be hard to filter out the posts with a lot of negative reactions. It would be computationally expensive (but not technically impossible) to run sentiment analysis on the text of posts and comments to filter top posts.
posted by adamrice at 9:35 AM on December 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by adamrice at 9:35 AM on December 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
Reddit recap banner in my city's subreddit: 2023 is over
Tired: 2023
Wired: 2024 Early Access Beta
Vince McMahon screaming: Pre-order 2024 and receive inevitable Trump v. Biden lawsuit Limited Edition SCOTUS Bobbleheads
posted by Riki tiki at 9:41 AM on December 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
Tired: 2023
Wired: 2024 Early Access Beta
Vince McMahon screaming: Pre-order 2024 and receive inevitable Trump v. Biden lawsuit Limited Edition SCOTUS Bobbleheads
posted by Riki tiki at 9:41 AM on December 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
It would be computationally expensive (but not technically impossible) to run sentiment analysis on the text of posts and comments to filter top posts.
Or you could just...not do it. Save on time, effort and computation. Did anyone (and money-hungry boardroom occupiers don't count as "anyone"; they never do) actually ask for this?
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:45 AM on December 11, 2023 [9 favorites]
Or you could just...not do it. Save on time, effort and computation. Did anyone (and money-hungry boardroom occupiers don't count as "anyone"; they never do) actually ask for this?
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:45 AM on December 11, 2023 [9 favorites]
Jan 6th? You probably have a shit load of screenshots and photos in your library about that day
wut
posted by uncleozzy at 9:52 AM on December 11, 2023 [9 favorites]
wut
posted by uncleozzy at 9:52 AM on December 11, 2023 [9 favorites]
Related: all musical artist/band subreddits are essentially unusable this time of year as every other post is just someone's Spotify recap.
posted by exolstice at 9:54 AM on December 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by exolstice at 9:54 AM on December 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
I get really annoyed with Goodreads telling me how I did this year. I have three weeks of reading left, bub.
posted by soelo at 9:56 AM on December 11, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by soelo at 9:56 AM on December 11, 2023 [9 favorites]
They also revamped their mobile web UI to aggressively show ads at the top of every thread. If the third party API debacle didn’t make it clear enough, Reddit really does not want users using its product.
If you really want to experience proof of this, spend some time in Reddit's mobile app. Sweet jeebus, it's horrible.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:59 AM on December 11, 2023 [7 favorites]
If you really want to experience proof of this, spend some time in Reddit's mobile app. Sweet jeebus, it's horrible.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:59 AM on December 11, 2023 [7 favorites]
We are slowly figuring out the human LLM and how to prompt it by triggering memories of past moments of f online interactions and photos/videos you captured on your phone. The recaps are just the first step.
posted by interogative mood at 10:30 AM on December 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by interogative mood at 10:30 AM on December 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
I gave up on reddit altogether after they took away the only way that I could stand to read it (the Apollo app).
posted by smcdow at 10:31 AM on December 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by smcdow at 10:31 AM on December 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
Reminds me of a time a few years ago where Spotify gave me a list of "top 100 songs you've played this year" or something like that. For some reason, the actual playlist had just 99 songs. huh?
At the time, I had a playlist of 100 songs that was the only playlist I downloaded to my phone, so whenever I was away from home listening to Spotify -- on the bus or the train, while out for a walk, etc. -- that's all I played. So, Spotify carefully crunched my numbers and gave me a copy of that playlist, minus 1 song (never did figure out which one) plus the 30 minute long guided meditation I use to fall asleep on nights when I have insomnia.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:40 AM on December 11, 2023 [8 favorites]
At the time, I had a playlist of 100 songs that was the only playlist I downloaded to my phone, so whenever I was away from home listening to Spotify -- on the bus or the train, while out for a walk, etc. -- that's all I played. So, Spotify carefully crunched my numbers and gave me a copy of that playlist, minus 1 song (never did figure out which one) plus the 30 minute long guided meditation I use to fall asleep on nights when I have insomnia.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:40 AM on December 11, 2023 [8 favorites]
My biggest problem with the Reddit Wrapped thing is that they put it as the top link in your personal drop down menu in the app, right where 'profile' used to be, so the approximately 12 times a day that I try to go to my profile to check on the state of my posts and replies, I get Wrapped instead. They probably think I've very, very, very interested, when in reality I just can't avoid clicking on the stupid thing.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:45 AM on December 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by jacquilynne at 10:45 AM on December 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
Guys, I... uh, I don't think I've been hitting my metrics. ROI, KPI, WAR, BMI all too low. I think I'm gonna get sacked from humanity. Please, put in a good word, k?
(Also, yeah, good job Reddit. You nailed my involvement in the three subs in which I participate. And the several from which I'm banned)
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 10:48 AM on December 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
(Also, yeah, good job Reddit. You nailed my involvement in the three subs in which I participate. And the several from which I'm banned)
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 10:48 AM on December 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
6 or so years ago everyone on Instagram was doing something where you asked some outside app to look at your year on the instagram and it made a post for you of your 9 most popular pictures, arranged in a 3x3 grid. Instead of doing that I manually made a post that was just one picture, repeated 9 times in the grid and zoomed in further on my face each time. I used the standard hashtag of #TopNine2017 or whatever.
It was my most popular post of the year.
If I had truly committed to the bit I could have used a recursive picture for each subsequent top nine, but the whole concept disappeared as far as I can see.
posted by Emmy Rae at 11:01 AM on December 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
It was my most popular post of the year.
If I had truly committed to the bit I could have used a recursive picture for each subsequent top nine, but the whole concept disappeared as far as I can see.
posted by Emmy Rae at 11:01 AM on December 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
Most years, I'd sooner pay to be Neuralyzed than review the blooper reel.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:15 AM on December 11, 2023
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:15 AM on December 11, 2023
Jan 6th? You probably have a shit load of screenshots and photos in your library about that day
wut
it's a day that happens pretty normally most years, I've got a bunch of photos of a friend & her corgi from this year and taquito boyfriend in a plaid shirt next to a cactus from last year (no idea why) along with a very good selfie and a screenshot about intergenerational debt, and that's just me in the past couple years, some people got married on January 6
posted by taquito sunrise at 2:01 PM on December 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
wut
it's a day that happens pretty normally most years, I've got a bunch of photos of a friend & her corgi from this year and taquito boyfriend in a plaid shirt next to a cactus from last year (no idea why) along with a very good selfie and a screenshot about intergenerational debt, and that's just me in the past couple years, some people got married on January 6
posted by taquito sunrise at 2:01 PM on December 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
I can't wait to see the cultural remix I get from my dog being poisoned on Dr.r MLK Jr Day 2023 by my cop neighbors.
That should be a good one -- watch this space !
posted by MonsieurPEB at 2:51 PM on December 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
That should be a good one -- watch this space !
posted by MonsieurPEB at 2:51 PM on December 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
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posted by eruonna at 8:23 AM on December 11, 2023