Popular

Maybe there could be a time limit on the Blips appearing??

I too enjoyed the way Spotlight was working in the last days of Blip as we knew it, and for exactly the same reasons. I'd like that function/algorithm restored please.

I expect these areas will return. Blip Central have a lot on their plate at the moment and will get round to things as and when they can. I agree with the sentiment about Spotlight. Images only stayed on for 24 hours at most, so it was always current.

I think 'most popular' pictures mislead us. The most popular ones always remained the same on the old website because people naturally clicked on them to see why they were popular and each click increased their popularity. Popularity was a self-fulfilling thing. This certainly happened with my own blips. The views on my most viewed blip went up and up but it was far from being my most interesting or original blip. Spotlight had the same effect but, if brought back, it could be a good way to draw attention to exceptionally good (ie most viewed) pictures so long as they ceased to be eligible for Spotlight perhaps 12 after being posted. The feature I miss most is 'Random'. I often saw interesting blips (and sometimes interesting blippers to subscribe to) that I would otherwise have missed. Incidentally, I decided to look at a few blips several pages into the new 'Popular' section and was surprised how few views some had had. It left me wondering how popularity is measured.

Totally agree. My thoughts from yesterday reflect this...

It’s hard to work out for me exactly where the personality has gone but I have some ideas. I don’t see any activity outside my journal. I think, for me, that gave part of the community feel and I don’t know if that is coming back.

My intention when I started blip was to post a picture a day and that was it. Up until a few days ago, it had become much, much more. Now it feels like just that again. I enjoyed seeing a stream of people's activity even if I did nothing with it. People were around. For me, it wasn’t just about people commenting on my photos, it was seeing the community in action. The Popular page is OK but unless you hunt, it barely changes so again, no community in action.

Now, I am faced with a stark white wall that seems to separate me from everyone else. The universal design has not helped the divide.

I like plenty of the site. I do find it intuitive even if everything isn’t back or working correctly yet. It seems stable and fast which is brilliant. I’m OK with the fact that the site has simplified in order to do the switch early. I have faith that bugs will be resolved and over time, plenty of the old features will return and the old site almost forgotten.

Just not yet.

I am disappointed with the loss of Spotlight (even with it's mysterious qualifications to get there), I don't have a problem with Popular per se, but I think it should just be for the 24 hour period as Spotlight was.

Well, from what I can see the selection process for Popular images is fairly simplistic. Hearts rule, i.e. the image with the most hearts is first and then it goes along in descending order. If images have the same number of hearts, stars are factored in. As I suggested earlier, Blip Central have probably set this up initially to replace the old favourites and Spotlight. I have an expectation that when they have more time they will make the selection algorithm more complex and hopefully encourage those people who produce great images but do not have the following of some journals.