Just purging some thoughts so

Just purging some thoughts so I can revisit them later…

In Steven Johnson’s book Emergence he talks about sites like slashdot that miss the non-verbal cues that go on in conversations. The only way to shape discussion on slashdot is to post something, whereas in real life if a lunatic is trying to dominate the conversation people will just walk away. This has really gotten me to wonder about the passive ways people can affect web sites.

If you have a toy in a store that people can play with it changes over time. The more popular the toy is the more likely it will be maimed and torn apart. At the very least it collects fingerprints and gets moved around. The important thing here is that you don’t have a list of written statements from kids saying how much they liked the toy, with moderators modding up the statements that they like. How does one capture that sort of thing on a web site? Some people might like an entry but don’t want to leave a comment stating such. Maybe the site should take note of how long they linger on the entry and try to visually reflect that. The more an entry is “handled” by people the more it should collect “fingerprints.”

How do other sites take shape through the direct or indirect manipulation of the visitors? What sites change the more they get used?