Social media websites have made a huge splash on the Internet as we know it. No longer do editors dictate what is news, and what is important. The power belongs to the masses on social news sites, which is a huge reason for their traction and loyal users.
It’s no surprise that developing a niche social media site is a popular job request for web developers. When I first learned about brand new social site for financial news, ideas, and tips Tip’d, I was immediately impressed with the clean, sophisticated design and impressive functionality. Yet what was truly amazing about Tip’d was how fast the site was assembled by it’s rockstar development team.
Quick Turnarounds
Most developers know that sites involving social media features are hard to do right. Features like voting, comments, account creation and moderation take a long time to get right. The Tip’d team bypassed a lot of that coding and used a CMS specifically for social news sites, Social Web CMS, which had many of the features that they needed right out of the box.
Here’s an interview with the Tip’d team of Andy Hagans, Chris Pearson and Jimmy (”Jimbeaux”) Atkins.
Planning: Interview with Andy Hagans, Tip’d Founder
WJ: What sparked the idea behind Tipd?
AH: A couple weeks ago, I was reviewing all of the ‘niche social media sites’ (Ballhype for sports, Lipstick for celeb news, etc). I simply couldn’t believe (2 years after social news hit it big) that there still wasn’t a financial social news site with some real presence. So I ran the idea by Jimbo, and that night, around 2 AM, we got the first (very ugly) version of the site up and running.
WJ: What were planning meetings like to get everyone together and organized? Just email, or did you use something like Basecamp to get organized?
AH: Email, Basecamp, and IM, depending on what needed communicated. We work virtually as we all live in different areas.
WJ: Do you have any goals or expectations of the site? Big future plans?
AH: Goals- We want to have 2,000 members by the time we move out of beta in early December. Long term, we want to be THE place people set as their homepage for financial news. We want to have 50,000 members and get 5 million pageviews per month. I think it’s do-able–not because I’m a genius or anything, but because our team is so good at what they do, and because so many bloggers and finance junkies have been craving a more social place to find and comment on financial content.
Development: Interview with Jimmy Atkinson, Tip’d Developer
WJ: What was the total time taken to get the site from concept to launch? Can you kind of give a general idea of the breakdown of time spent?
JA: Andy and I first discussed the concept of Tip’d on September 24. We purchased the domain name and began working on the site that day. Our beta launch occurred just three weeks later, on October 14. Here’s how we got there: The first steps we took was to install Pligg to our server on day 1, September 24. After a few days of customizing it as best we could, we decided on October 1 to contact Ash, the a former Pligg developer and current lead developer on the SWCMS team, to see if he would be interested in working with us. He began working with us later that day, and this gave our development productivity a much needed shot in the arm. It was on this day that we made the change from Pligg to SWCMS. Since then, we’ve constantly been tweaking and adding new features on an almost daily basis. This will likely continue for a few more weeks until we reach a stable point.
WJ: Caching/Performance- What hardware do you guys use to host the site?
JA: Currently the site is hosted on a Media Temple grid server. We use a caching plugin designed specifically for Pligg/SWCMS.
WJ: I hear that you guys had a doozy of a time hacking the socialwebcms. Can you give us a little background about this? What were you changing from the source code?
JA: As I explained in the first question, we did spend a few days configuring (I’m not sure I would quite call it hacking) Pligg after we first installed it on September 24. A few days later, we reached the point where we decided we needed some outside expert help on the system. That is when we decided to reach out to Ash. And since October 1, Ash has been handling all of the really complex stuff (i.e. adding new features and working out bugs).
WJ: I noticed that you guys use a redirect script to track outgoing clicks, as opposed to just linking to the story normally. Are you going to be providing any statistics or analytics in the future?
JA: We are not planning on providing any stats at this point; although this could be something we’ll discuss in the future.
WJ: What tools did you guys use to speed up your development process? Any IDE’s, collaboration tools, etc.?
JA: No IDEs, but we did use NotePad, PsPad, WinMerge, and Windows Grep in development. We love using 37signals’ Basecamp as our collaboration tool.
WJ: 6. Any tips for developers wanting to hack a CMS and create a social news site?
JA: If you’re going to hack a CMS, don’t hesitate to talk to the developer if possible. Doing this has worked out great for us so far. If you’re going to create a social news site, remember that the most important thing is the community. You can have a fantastic CMS with all sorts of great features, but if no one is using it, what’s the use? The community is the most important aspect of any good social news site. The fact that we recognized this before we began work on the project is one of the main reasons for the success of Tip’d so far.
Design: Interview with Chris Pearson, Designer for Tip’d
WJ: Designing a community site is much, much different than designing a website like a blog. Can you explain some of the ways that the Tip’d design is different than a typical blog or website?
CP: Sites like Tip’d exist primarily to steer people in the direction of articles that they want to read, and because of this, the design/usability goal is simply to get people the information they need as clearly and as quickly as possible. In environments like this, users tend to process information in visual chunks, and this means that certain details (headlines, submission data, usernames, links, etc.) must be both obvious and quickly discernable.
On a community site like Tip’d, it’s extremely important to give users the context they need to process information and then to get the hell out of their way. Unlike a blog, people tend to use community sites over and over again in search of new and rewarding content, and this places an even higher premium on usability (which is really the hallmark of any great community site).
WJ: The Tip’d’s theme is very nice, clean, and reeks of Chris Pearson’s excellent design work 
Did you guys create a theme from scratch, or did you just modify an existing socialwebcms theme?
CP: In order to reduce development time, we simply used the HTML from an existing SocialWebCMS template to build the site. In truth, the existing code was so bad that we had to make lots of little customizations, but when you look at the big picture, most of the HTML is stuff that was there before I got my hands dirty with the styles.
The CSS is a completely different story, though. I rewrote everything from the ground-up and basically breathed new life into an HTML structure that makes me want to pull out my hair. As a result, I don’t really know what to call this… I guess it’s sort of a hybrid re-design, and even though we started with an existing template, the final product looks, feels, and behaves differently than the original.
WJ: What features in the design did you try to do differently than other major social news sites, like Digg or Reddit?
CP: Not that it’s all that “different” from other major social news sites, but with Tip’d, I simply tried to guide users directly to the meat of the site. In this case, the “meat” consists of three main things—article headlines, article summaries, and vote buttons. These are the three most important elements users rely on when scanning, and I wanted to make sure that they didn’t have to put forth any effort whatsoever to locate them.
To accomplish this, I employed some very basic typographical conventions in combination with a limited color scheme to emphasize both important elements and visual breaks. The end result is a layout that is almost devoid of visual fluff, and this makes scanning a more intuitive, less confusing process. The idea is that you want to avoid forcing users to learn a proprietary navigation system or new usability conventions when they visit your site—just give ‘em the keys and let ‘em drive.
WJ: Were there any restrictions designing the theme of a CMS as opposed to a blog or a regular website?
CP: CMS platforms like Pligg exist because they run a very particular type of Website, and naturally, there are little nuances that are unique to each type of site. Aside from that, though, most sites share common elements that constitute a vast majority of both the design and functionality. For instance, the primary content column of Tip’d really isn’t that much different from a stream of blog posts; it’s just been adapted to display the specific blurbs and meta data that are important to this type of site.
WJ: Do you have any tips/advice for anyone wanting to design a killer social news site?
CP: The biggest thing to watch for with any type of site built on a CMS is the core template system that you use as a foundation. Before you get started, make sure you’ve got a sensible markup structure and a stylesheet setup that isn’t overly complicated—it’ll make your life MUCH easier as you trudge through the intricacies of the design process!
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28 Comments
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I have used many community sites before, I have found that getting local companies to par take in the monthly revenue is a winner!
This way the site pays for its self and the community have great content from a INTRA-NET!
Wow dudethat is like WAY too cool. I thought there was a lot more to it than that.
jess
http://www.anonymize.us.tc
I like the user interface of tipd.com. I will probably suggest this to some of my friends.
It is really amazing that you successfully launched the site in just 21 days. Your article is inspiring for any new entrant. I am a big fan of you and constantly follow you on social media sites. Thanks.
How much did they pay for the domain tipd.com anyone know?
I wasn’t personally involved in the transaction, but I talked to the previous owner of the domain, and he said he sold it to Tip’d for a “low six figure sum”.
That seems pretty high to me, but on the other hand, 4 letter domains are hard to come by these days…
wow, 21 days? that would be excruciating.
But they did it, so salute for the team.
And i love the ui design.
That is pretty damn fast. Being a start-up CEO myself (www.perkler.com) the detail involved in getting the smallest things right takes time…nice work guys
Great interview. Tip’d is growing at an amazing rate. Keep it up fellas.
You should check this site matterr.com
That’s a pretty cool design.
How were you able to get so many people to it so quickly?
Another way to launch a ‘hosted’ social news site in less than a day is slinkset.com.
Great job…hope things continue to go well for Tip’d.
Amazing, so fast and effective,let me know if this has been further enhanced….I can be reached on hemushetty@gmail.com
The design is simple but cool. Wish you good luck!
http://www.pedramdev.com/
you might wanna check this out hes ripping your articles
I used http://www.nonstopneighbors.com
Not a free site but the tools they have for managing your residents is far better than i have seen!
Really nice, simple website. Super fast as well…
I just completed a website using Social Web CMS as the backbone and in about 3 days everything was up and running. The site targets tech with an emphasis on bloggers, podcasters, video podcasters, and folks interested in New Media.
I also included a general Tech category, one for gadgets, and one for humor…
Due to the fact that I am not running my own server, instead paying for hosting and database access via GoDaddy, my setup time was minimal. Also, having the help of the guys over at the Social Web CMS forum assisted in the speed of getting http://www.blogfloat.com up and running so quickly.
Excellent post !
you try this site is about self development
http://www.rackdic.com
Good coverage of two sides of Tipd’s development, but I’d really, really, really enjoy reading about how they promoted it, marketed it, and actually got the community going.
SIR,
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A number of good communication techniques in this article. I wrote a couple things down to sticky not on my wall. This will be on my mind for a week at least. Thanks man.
Glen your the bomb
businessabcpages.com will be huge in a couple yrs also.
After submitting 2-3 articles to tipd – both related to business, my IP was banned without even a warning! I’m a regular user of digg, stumbleupon, reddit and various other sites and this is the FIRST time this has happened. What’s worse is that there’s not even a warning system in place. I can’t even go to the site because I just get a white screen with “your ip has been banned”.
I emailed Tamar Weinberg (tip’d moderator) and she said warning users “is not an efficient use of time for moderators”. She refused to unban my IP even after apologizing to her if one of my 2-3 posts submitted were somehow off-topic. I know that submitting your own posts is Ok as it reads in the FAQ: “Feel free to submit any of your own blog articles.” I told her I just want to read the site and promise not to submit, she still refused.
Yet their FAQ reads “The Tip’d staff is committed to being an open community, and avoiding the ban first, ask questions later attitude that seems to permeate so many other social media sites.”
Very hypocritical.
Reply
[Note to Web Jackalope - Tom spammed a lot of blogs with his comment, above, and I'm going to respond to each in kind.]
Tom, we also have a zero tolerance policy for spam submissions. When a specific member does not read the rules and submits off-topic content, it is evident that they do not have the desire to understand the community before self-promoting (or clearly submitting spam). If your first submission was on-topic, we’d be a lot more accepting to the fact that this was a misstep, but your submissions were all off-topic.
As for why Digg and Reddit don’t ban you, well, it’s also a much larger site and those spam submissions get lost in a sea of noise. Tip’d strives for high quality content throughout the site, including its upcoming queue. We’re much smaller and more niche, and as such, we have more eyeballs on our queue – we strive for quality throughout.
Finally, it is known that we ban users accounts when they disregard our rules. Here’s a relevant piece from March: http://blog.socialmarker.com/social-marker/play-by-the-rules/
Thank you.
Tamar
Tip’d Moderator
“Anonymous December 1, 2008 at 8:59 pm
I wasn’t personally involved in the transaction, but I talked to the previous owner of the domain, and he said he sold it to Tip’d for a “low six figure sum”.
That seems pretty high to me, but on the other hand, 4 letter domains are hard to come by these days…”
If this indeed is true, then Tip’d is hardly a startup built on sweat equity. Launching a business with a six figure expense for a domain name alone doesn’t add up, especially at around Oct’08 when the market were in
Interesting article, I can’t believe the number of new social sites that we have now, the number is huge, I just found a new one called http://www.urselections.com this social news site are very interesting but I think the number of this sites it’s so big that some of them will work correctly and some no.
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