It was originally written in Rails, but was rewritten in Laravel, a framework by Taylor Otwell who's a really smart guy (http://laravel.com).
I wanted to go with PHP because I'm thinking I might want to do an open source GNU/GPL version that ties directly into PressRise.com at some point in the future, and the general population seems more comfortable with PHP for that kind of thing.
This is the prototype/MVP of an idea I had for a blogging platform. It was only made public a few hours ago so it's a ghost town, and it's very basic because I want to iterate based on user feedback, but here's the idea.
For bloggers: It's a blogging platform where you can create your own hosted independent blog. Your blog will receive a built-in audience, and your posts will automatically be promoted to that audience, all for free.
For readers: It's a blogging community where you can read, comment, and vote on blog posts. The newest and best content is always easy to find because it rises to the top based on your votes.
The aggregator frontend works a lot like Reddit or Imgur, but for blogging.
I can think of a lot of advantages this system would have over current blogging platforms and content aggregators.
For blogging platforms the advantage is obviously the built-in audience. It's hard to get that by submitting your blog to current aggregators because of rules against self-promotion, difficulties in finding the right subreddit, domain loyalty, and hug of death.
The advantages over current aggregators might be less obvious though:
1. Users would be able to post almost any form of content imaginable, not just external links or images
2. The content is hosted, no hug of death ever, + all the other benefits of hosting the content yourself
3. Content moderation would scale much more easily, because blog owners would each be responsible for their own blog. This could lead to faster and greater diversification of content. On reddit for example I feel like there's a lot of content that people miss out on because it can't be done at a scale that's active and moderated
4. If this ever were to be monetized, the monetization plan wouldn't be murky. It'd actually be really straightforward and proven
5. Content has a life beyond its 12-hour expiration date. Blog posts are naturally formatted for SEO and it actually makes sense for Google to index them, unlike a Reddit or Imgur submission page. So traffic can be referred internally or externally, and continue to receive steady traffic over long periods of time
I'm really interested to hear your feedback on this. I'm wondering what the biggest flaws are with the concept, and what challenges I will face if I pursue it. I'm also hoping to get some direction on the design and features so I can get back to development. I'm also anticipating the mother of all chicken-and-egg problems, so advice on how to overcome that is appreciated as well.
If any developers or designers are interested in joining me to develop this idea, there's a contact form on the main website, or you can email me directly at my username on Google's email service.
> For bloggers: It's a blogging platform where you can create your own hosted independent blog. Your blog will receive a built-in audience, and your posts will automatically be promoted to that audience, all for free.
This, along with other bullet points in your post, is the exact same value proposition as Medium, and given the troubles Medium is hitting with a much greater staff and venture capital, that's not exactly comforting.
Not affiliated with this project in any way but that comparison is not quite the same thing, Medium's promotions to their audience are heavily skewed towards the things they manually curate.
This platform would let anyone be exposed to a larger audience if the content is upvoted by people enough.
"all the other benefits of hosting the content yourself"
Other than it not being associated with my domain name?
"create your own hosted independent blog. Your blog..."
But it's not 'my blog'. My blog is already hosted on my own system.
How about something which aggregates my blog content in to your platform, allows commenting, but pushes those comments back to my blog as well, so readers at either end of the pipeline are getting the whole picture?
"For blogging platforms the advantage is obviously the built-in audience." It's only a benefit when there's a particular ratio of users to content. Otherwise it's a hindrance.
"and what challenges I will face if I pursue it"
1) getting people to use it
2) dealing with spam
3) getting people to use it
4) dealing with spam
I have plans to eventually write an open source competitor to WordPress that will do exactly what you're describing. Maybe even a WordPress plugin? I've written those before. It might be unfeasible to standardize the posting format for a plugin though..
Plugins for wordpress, joomla, etc... in to an aggregator with two-way communication - that's been on my back-burner for a couple of years. There are loads of people who are existing bloggers already - trying to get them to change platforms for some potential benefits, vs giving them benefits without having to switch - that's a more lucrative nut to crack, I think. But hey, you shipped something, and I haven't in this area, so kudos.
I do really think that you'll have a hell of a time trying to get any moderate momentum to justify moving forward in the current incarnation, hence my response to your 'challenges'. Getting people to notice, care and use a system is by far the biggest challenge in almost all cases.
