The Goldhat Blog

After a week-and-a-half-long slog through PHP tutorials I’ve finally figured out how to create WordPress plugin and hook it up to the Goldhat web app.  The funny thing was, it was the idea for this very widget (which displays number of donations made to your blog post/photograph, etc) that was the catalyst for creating the web app.  Little did I know that it would be one of the last features I’d develop, at least for Goldhat 1.0.

The widget itself is a little large as widgets go, it’s about 5 times the size of a tweetmeme button.  Although I certainly could have made it this more convenient size, I realize that very few people would know exactly what the numbers on the widget represented, or what the heck Goldhat was.  That’s why, at least for this particular version, I decided to make it larger and have it provide as much detail as possible.  Although I imagine I’ll get fewer users with a larger widget, I believe that they’ll be more committed users.  At this stage of Goldhat’s development, that’s exactly what we’re looking for.

The plugin itself will display information on how many donations each post receives, but it will also help you submit links that haven’t been inputted into the Goldhat database.  I figured this was better than an “auto-submit” function because we don’t want every “I’m taking a vacation for two weeks” blog post to fill up the Goldhat index.

At the moment, I’m working on a couple more features to improve shareability and SEO for Goldhat.  Once those changes are made, I think Goldhat will be ready for it’s first big marketing push (think contests and glamorous prizes!).

In the meantime, you can see just how the plugin works down below this post.  If you notice any bugs please shoot me a mail at kenji [at] goldhat dot org.  Also, any suggestions for other, better widgets I might put together in the future are appreciated.

To install the widget, just click “Add New” in your plugins sidebar on your WordPress Dashboard.  Search for ‘goldhat’ and install from there. You can get the widget here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/goldhat-widget/

For a working example of this widget on a real live blog, you can check out my personal  site Unready and Willing.  For those who do decide to put the widget up, please let me know, I’ll be sure to mention you on this blog, and elsewhere!

Big news! Goldhat just got its first independent review!

Just a few weeks after launch, goldhat.org was found on KillerStartups.com, a website dedicated to finding the newest, coolest web startups out there. They did an excellent write-up on how the site works, so good that I’m wondering if I can’t borrow what they said about it for use on our own site.

You check out the review here.

Please be sure to vote up Goldhat on the site. Your votes will help us stay featured on a site that gets a TON of traffic. Just one click will go miles to help promoting Goldhat and our cause.

Thanks everyone for voting!

With all the millions upon millions of links out there, how do you choose? How do you find the stories that inspire you, the news that goes beyond the soundbite and gives you real insights about what’s going on? How do you find advice that’s so convincing that you not only agree with it, but act upon it? Where is that photograph, painting, or poem that has the potential to change your perspective forever?

They’re out there, but for every great link there are a thousand bad ones, and to sort through it all is exhausting. The overabundance of information and the lack of any reliable way to quickly determine the value of what you’re going to read or watch is the internet’s biggest limitation.

Content aggregators like Digg and Reddit have tried to solve this problem by having their users vote on links to content that they like and featuring links that receive the most votes. This filters out a lot of the crap, but despite hundreds of thousands of users and millions of votes, the front pages of these sites are filled with nothing more than five minute distractions: news stories about surfers punching sharks and pictures of cats watching fightened squirrels through screen doors. You’d have to spend an hour browsing through the pages just to find anything that approaches meaningful, quality content.

Votes are an unreliable gauge of quality because the voters must first choose the content they want to read or watch BEFORE voting. If, for example, voters had the choice between watching a one-minute gag video and a 30 minute short indie film, most would opt for the gag video because it requires less of a time commitment. Because more people choose to see the gag video more people will vote for it. Because more people will vote for it, the greater chance it has to be featured on Digg or Reddit. It doesn’t matter that the indie film could be the best thing the voters see all month. It’s much easier to go for (and vote for) the content that provides instant gratification.

Consider a scenario where one user decides to watch the 30 minute film and falls in love with it. If they wanted to promote it they’d vote for it, tweet it or share through facebook or twitter. This would help bring the film to wider audience, but few people will be motivated to watch it because they would risk wasting thirty minutes of their time.

But if that same user decides to make a $20.00 donation on goldhat, THAT will get people’s attention. They’ll want to know what was so great about the video that a user donated such a large amount. They’ll take the time to read the glowing review, and decide that if it was worth $20.00 to one person, it’s certainly worth spending 30 minutes watching the film for free. That $20.00 became more than just an expression of one person’s appreciation for someone’s else art,  it became an endorsement that expressed the film’s value, which can be many times more valuable to an artist than a $20.00 drop in the hat.

If one user is bold enough to toss a twenty into the hat, more users will be encouraged to watch. The more users that watch, the more users donate, and the more users donate, the more artists, writers, and creative people will be encouraged to create and publish works of enduring quality.

It’s up to us to make these donations, to inspire artists to have the courage to make something real and great. If we do this, we can change not only the way people find content on the internet, but we can also improve the quality of the content itself.  It might take a few bucks out of your pocket, but think about how many hours you spend on the internet. Wouldn’t you venture to spend just a few bucks on the off chance that you could make your experience a little better?

All it takes is a penny. Let’s do it.