What Abuzz Was(Thats an independenteuphoniousphoneticdevice)

All of the above, but at different points in time. Abuzz was a forum that was developed by the New York Times. A lot of us on A2K cut our cyberteeth on Abuzz. It was really a great site.

When the dot.com bubble burst, just about all of the moderators and techs were laid off. The site was taken over by no-goods, frauds, imposters, and various other trouble makers. Most of the good people on Abuzz left, although some hung on for old times sake. But it was never the same. Many of the old Abuzz members came to this site.

On September 3rd, Abuzz went dark.

Assonance could be considered a rhyme of sorts, but it is an independent euphonious phonetic delight.

I dunno Noddy...it just doesn't have the same ring

Of course assonance doesn't ring....it flows.

See, now...this is why I'm a math person. :wink:

This site was never meant to be a replacement for Abuzz, it was just meant to just be a replacement for a small MSN community.

The comparison between Abuzz and A2K means far less to the people who made and run this site than to most of the members (whose transition from one site to the other made it a logical comparison).

Sometimes the forced marriage bugs me, it made a lot of people I was on friendly terms with dislike me (seeing this site as a competitor to Abuzz) and I thought the rivalries generated were silly.

But hell, if you want a comparison here's one as objective as I can make it (noting that some comparisons are subjective).

Business Model and Site Vision

Abuzz was owned by the New York Times. The goal was to make money and having a viable community was a means to that end.

Able2Know is owned by some idiot goat farmer and the goal was to make a viable community and raising money is a means to that end.

NYT sponsorship meant much more development resources, it also meant a "make it or go broke" model in which profitability was the only measure of success.

A2K's financial model is such that a viable community is the only measure of success and profitability was a need that came with the hard awakening of costs (the idiot owner thought the site could be run on $10/month hosting).

NYT money meant more programming man-hours but also brang corporate inflexibility to the table.

A2K's lack of money meant the goat farmer had to learn it all.

The benefit of NYT money was a far more advanced software.

The benefit of the goat farmer figuring **** out was that the overall path is well maintained for longevity and there is no segmentation in which the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

The benefit of the NYT money was that Abuzz could run without ads and the actual resource (non-human) cost per month was less than what some NYT execs payed for ONE group lunch.

The benefit of the goat farmer losing personal money was an imperative to learn how to avoid it. Costs are different here, all the humans come free (from a desire to build a viable community, and not to make profit) and only the unavoidable resource cost needs to be covered.

Despite bumps and bruises the A2K model got out of the red many times faster than Abuzz would have.

Summary: For the end user, the A2K business model has given the site a longevity that Abuzz would not match.

If NYT had allowed some autonomy (i.e. users helping run the site) it could have gone on forever. It would have taken out the bulk of the cost (human resources). Heck, the goat farmer even volunteered because he bought his first goat on Abuzz.

But the corporate inflexibility prevented an acceptance of Abuzz autonomy while ironically granting Abuzz an anarchic autonomy.

Policies

Abuzz was at times more draconian than Able2Know and at times completely anarchic.

Their policy focus seemed to be harder on sexual innuendo than Able2Know and lighter on incivility and trolling.

Summary: Personally, I prefer the Abuzz style of more rough and tumble even though I think Able2Know is running the way it should.

Moderators

In the end it was absence versus presence. But in comparing both presence I'd say the main difference was that on Abuzz not all the moderators were users first. It's a more corporate style to have moderators infused from above rather than spring up from the member base.

I don't think there is a clear benefit except in that when you do it with moderators coming from the member base you often have people who want to do it.

Member Base

Abuzz had a larger member base with more diversity. The way the site was structured also meant that there were pockets of activity and you could "discover" new people and areas because the site was divided more than here, where it all pulls together.

Summary: Abuzz came across as having a richer texture for these reasons IMO.

This will change here though, design changes and growth will add this.

Topics

Abuzz covered more topics (part of why there were pockets of members/topics) than here.

Summary: Made Abuzz interesting and deeper.

This will change here with the future addition of subforums.

Technical differences


1) email updates

Abuzz provided more useful email updates, Able2Know counts on easier on-site navigation. The updates are generally good for loyal users but most casual users are wary of email.

The way users were invited to threads based on interest was the best technical feature of Abuzz and we will be hard pressed to replicate it here (though a similar feature IS planned).

2) navigation

Abuzz wasn't made in a way that made reading the whole site easy and people would rely on email more

But it had many small advantages on the other hand

3) Search engine optimization

Abuzz did not allow search engines to index their threads, and was not well optimized, this meant a lot of potential was not tapped.

Able2Know gets many times more traffic than Abuzz ever did (mostly from guests, as Abuzz has less guest traffic because of the lack of SEO) and without a big media company behind it only because of this.

4) Abuzz ran a horrible database system, with slower everything and much less data integrity

5) Abuzz did not paginate threads, making it slow for some threads but more importantly putting load on servers for a silly reason

6) Abuzz did not allow images to be posted

7) Abuzz did not allow any formatting of text

8) Abuzz has a ratings system (both good and bad in my opinion)

9) Abuzz delineated between topic types (question, discussion, commentary). This will be done (differently) here soon.

10) Abuzz had a lot more bugs (things like the post order getting mixed up)

11) Abuzz had a lot of security holes. I could have made anyone say something from their own account (not a fake one) if I had wanted to.

I reported the exploit but it was already during Abuzz's descent that I discovered it.

12) Abuzz did not force unique user names, this was so that the service could be farmed out to other companies allowing them to control their own user databases but it opened the doors for a lot of troll behavior.

13) Abuzz allowed name changes, which were fun but also made for some mischeif

This kind of thing made troll spotting a big part of Abuzz (kinda fun sometimes too).

14) Abuzz did not have signatures

15) Abuzz did not have Avatars

16) Abuzz did not have PMs

17) Abuzz did not have whoisonline data

18) Abuzz had better profiles (may change here eventually)

19) Abuzz did not authenticate email

20) Abuzz had a much better capture of guest to member (ask first, register before posting), that will be done here

21) Abuzz was not a forum (IMO a plus)

22) Abuzz had no chat room

23) Abuzz had no gallery

24) Abuzz had thread refresh javascript

25) Abuzz had stronger colours than the Able2Know default design
(changing to a new one in the future).

26) Abuzz had a less poweful search

27) I'm bored already


IMO, Able2Know has a better business model for the end user's interests and Abuzz had a better business model for the owner's.

Abuzz had technology that at it's ideal I think would be superior to Able2Know.

Able2Know has more bells and whistles but the Abuzz advantages are critical core stuff.

Anywho, Able2Know's technology is improving. We are still only at about 25% of where the initial goals were set at. And the goals have gone up a lot since then.

Wowzers, okay, that was REALLY helpful. Thanks.


And brang?

brang = brought

It's an invented word I use sometimes (like "goan").

Which means...?

going

I really like brang


Wow, thanks craven!



"Abuzz provided more useful email updates, Able2Know counts on easier on-site navigation. The updates are generally good for loyal users but most casual users are wary of email.

The way users were invited to threads based on interest was the best technical feature of Abuzz and we will be hard pressed to replicate it here (though a similar feature IS planned)."


I was privy to a lot of discussions re which sites people wanted to move to when Abuzz went down - and those are features many folk (including me) love.

and speakin' of bells and whistles, as craven was in his quite thorough comparison

there was a system (which worked better than ever at the end), if someone posted to a thread that had an open window on your puter a bell rang - kinda cute

Sheesh, if A2k had interaction invitation based on matching, i would've found this thread earlier :-)

Apart from missing the Abuzz email notification, I also miss the invitations based on matching :-) A coupel other things would be nice, too, like (say) a "bookmark" feature so people wouldn't have to post "bookmark" to a thread just to have it show up in "Your posts" (which then might need to be renamed).

Wow, the poll results are interesting. Apparently Abuzz was better.

And Hihp- what do you mean you have to mark yours "bookmark"?

Read again, I explained it :-)

Sometimes people will post the word "Bookmark" or somethign similar to a thread, like you can see in here: http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=33147#893818.

The purpose of that is to be able to find that thread inthe "Your Posts" list - in the upper left hand of the page or so, there it should say "Your Post". Clicking on it will give you a list of the threads you posted to.

I felt at home at Abuzz, whereas here I still dont really feel at ease, a little awkward, forced. (Thats even tho I must have actually posted more here than I ever did there).

That doesnt, of course, say anything negative about the way this site was built or is maintained. Its an emotional thing I guess, a mood thing.

I changed. The times changed. Theres a different set of people. And theres something undefinable about the look, feel and mechanics of a site that puts you in a more playful or more earnest, a more dogged or more relaxed, a more personal or more aloof state of mind. But the latter's perhaps the least important of those four factors. I dunno.

Awww, I know how you feel.

I belonged to another message board, too that changed ownership and looks. It was mostly the looks and lack of familiar faces (figuratively speaking) that made me homesick.

I like it here though.

Smartsux--

Math minded you may be, but the liberal arts can beckon to a man who hears the geometrical perfection of the music of the spheres.

Am I goan to have to 'zplain everything?

Noddy, do you consider yourself a poet? You talk really nicely. (That's a suck-up right there)

And I am most certainly NOT math-minded. I just jotted that down as a means of escape. Believe it or not I do MUCH better in English and writing-although, comparitively speaking, that may not mean much.