{ 2008 01 18 }

Is There A Need For Ping.sg?

Is there a need for Ping.sg? This is a question I’ve been thinking about for some time and that I have decided to blog about after reading xizor2000’s post “Back to using Mozilla Thunderbird’s RSS reader again…“.

Firstly, what functions does Ping.sg perform:

1. Alert Function - It allows us to know when a blog has been updated with a post.

2. Discovery Function - It allows us to discover new blogs.

3. Filter Function - It allows us to decide which posts might be worth reading based on the number of pongs received.

Alert Function

Most blogs have a RSS feed which can be subscribed to using an online reader like Google Reader or a desktop reader like Mozilla Thunderbird. If a blog has an update, the reader would capture this update, you would be notified of it when you use the reader and you can then proceed to read it.

I think this function of Ping.sg is the least useful of the three and one that can easily be obtained by using other types of software despite the site’s name.

Discovery Function

There are a lot of blogs out there but how do you find these blogs? You could go to Google and just type random keywords to see what you might stumble upon. You could just use StumbleUpon. You could surf to the usual sites and then use that as the base to explore outwards to the sites that they link to and to the sites those sites link to and so on and so on. You could see who comments on a blog and if they leave a link with their comments, discover new blogs worth reading.

Ping.sg helps with discovery because anyone can add their blog to the service and whenever the blog updates, Ping.sg displays on the main page the header of the latest post with a short blurb. You can discover new blogs worth reading by checking out what are the latest posts.

However, the design of the site is to emphasize the post and not the blog. Also, besides there being some blogs that flood the service by posting lots of entries in a short span of time, because the site was created to inform on blog updates, the chance of you finding a new blog depends on the time you visit the site. Visit the site when the header of a post from a new blog has been pushed down to the third or fourth page, it is likely you might miss that blog until the next time you visit the site when the blog has a post on the front page.

Now, you could of course subscribe to the RSS feed of Ping.sg, but the feed is worse than the actual site for discovery in the sense that there is no mention of the blog which posts the update just the header and blurb for each of the posts.

Filter Function

Each of us have only a finite amount of time in a day to spend reading stuff online so generally we would appreciate any help in finding things worth reading. Ping.sg helps us do that with its ‘pong’ system and leaderboard. Every time someone clicks on a header to read a post, that post gains one pong. The assumption is that the posts with the most pongs are usually the ones worth reading. The leaderboard shows the 10 posts with the most pongs over different timeframes - last 24 hours, this week, this month, this year.

Now, Ping.sg doesn’t have algorithms like Techmeme running to decide what’s the buzz online. Neither does it have editor(s) like Singapore Daily and Tomorrow.sg to help decide what is worth reading. In a way it is like Digg where people vote for the posts worth reading, however the difference is that in Digg, people have to explicitly vote for a post while at Ping.sg, the very act of reading is akin to a vote.

Because of Ping.sg’s system, there is the emergence of blogs using ‘bait-and-switch’ tactics. What they would do is try to capture your attention with a catchy header and interesting blurb - once you click to visit their site, you realize that the post is either full of shit, useless or doesn’t have much content beyond the blurb.

Now, why would there be such evil people who would want to waste your time? Simple reason and for this reason, I blame ad networks like Google Adsense, Advertlets and Nuffnang. These blogs are using Ping.sg to drive traffic to their site to earn ad revenues. The more traffic, the more money. Ping.sg instead of being a service that helps disseminate information and informs people of posts and blogs worth reading becomes a service to suck people into blogs to feed the petty greed of certain bloggers (petty because apparently earnings for most blogs are small).

Update:

I have learned why Ping.sg wasn’t helping me filter stuff out effectively. I didn’t realize that beyond just having a ‘My Favs’ utility, I could also block out updates from crap blogs. Maybe the name can be changed to ‘My Favs/Hates’? In any case, I gave the functionality a try. Once I said I didn’t like a blog, it seems that I won’t see any updates from that blog on the main page. However, if the blog somehow had a post on the leaderboard, I would still see that post on it. Sigh. Am I doing something wrong?

I guess this is an important lesson. If you want to use a service, login to use it so you get maximum benefits.

Is there a way to share ‘Hates’?  For example, if I respect the judgment of Kevin and he has blocked a set of sites, can I just copy-block those sites?

So, is there a need for Ping.sg? Despite all its flaws, it is the only service that I know of in Singapore that combines all these functions. It used to do these functions well but has become a victim of its own success.

I still like Ping.sg a lot and hope that whatever new incarnation Uzyn has for the site, it will become better at helping discover blogs and filter posts.

Some suggestions - Pay attention to tags. So, bloggers who want to help make Ping.sg better can start tagging their posts better. Tags help give additional context to the posts. Also, provide tools for members of the community to do some policing. For example, after reading a post, if the member decides the blogger only intended to do ‘bait-and-switch’ just for traffic, then allow the member to indicate that beside the post.

I haven’t really thought about how Ping.sg could be better but I hope it will be. Till then, Ping.sg is, like what someone close said, my little guilty indulgence. I read it just for the fun of seeing what noise we Singaporeans can make with the faint hope that maybe like how comic book gems can be found in the discount bin, I would find some new blog worth constantly reading.

Posted by iantimothy on Friday, January 18th, 2008, at 1:59 pm, and filed under On Singapore, Tangled Web We Weave.

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