SoapBoxxer.com – The End to an Experiment in Social Networking

2008-11-12T00:00:00.000-08:00

We have decided to shut down our social networking site, SoapBoxxer.com - it has been taken down and redirected here. Let me take a few moments to explain how SB came to be, what went right and what went wrong, and how we came to the decision that it was time to end the project.

An experiment in engagement
On March 6th, 2008 an email was sent within the team...

I was thinking tonight about how users engage with content and what makes a site sticky. If you think about it often the best thing about a piece of content is not the content itself but the discussion that ensues. Amazon's reviews, for example, are usually more interesting than the actual product, and the comments at Digg/Slashdot etc. are often more engaging than the story itself. What if you were able to create a site where the content was the discussion and the content by its nature incited debate?

Now, we’re an ecommerce company, and so we constantly work to improve the site and the interaction rates of our customers. Unfortunately, appliance parts aren’t always something that grab’s the user’s attention. We help thousands of people every day, but very few of them interact with the site in a social way. SoapBoxxer was an attempt to create something that really engages its users, to see if we could learn something about the way users want to interact with a site and with each other. Of course, if SoapBoxxer became the next Digg we wouldn’t exactly complain.

The SoapBoxxer project also fit well into some work that our development team was doing – learning Ruby on Rails.

Developing SoapBoxxer in Ruby on Rails
We’re a Dot Net development shop, but we’re intrigued by the potential in rapid application development, and in RoR in particular. As an example of the speed at which you can develop in Rails we had the first version of SoapBoxxer out and in the wild on March 10th, just two business days after the conversation started.

We were able to pull together a mock-up of SB in such a short time because of Rails and because we cut a few corners. The initial version had no user accounts, no sessions, nothing. If the user took the time to refresh the page they could vote again (many did).

Everyone who came to the page was greeted with an opinion and giant links that said “Agree” and “Disagree”. Once they registered their vote they could see the voting results and the comment section opened up so they could read the comments of others or add their own. They could also enter some text in the opinion box in the header and create their own opinion for others to vote on. Still, the rudimentary system had some amazing results:

Visits: 1,972
Interactions (votes, comments, new opinions): 3,000
Interaction Rate: 152%
Votes: 2,730
Vote Rate: 138%
Comments: 226
Comment Rate: 11.4%
Opinions: 61
Opinion Rate: 3%

We were really excited when these first numbers came in. It proved that if given the opportunity users would produce lots of great content – all you have to do is get out of their way by providing a simple way to do it.

From there, the site just sort of took off. We redeveloped it somewhat properly in RoR, launched it and allowed the users to make it into whatever they wanted. Along the way we learned a few things.

What we learned
1. Users will interact if it’s easy
2. The world is full of thoughtful users with reasoned opinions
3. The world is full of trolls, spammers, bigots and narrow-minded partisans
4. The community will control spam if given the tools
5. Every loophole will be exploited
6. Social networks must grow to survive

Users will interact if it’s easy
Our first version of SoapBoxxer was completely stripped down – all it had was an opinion, agree and disagree links, and the option to add an opinion in the header. From the first 2,000 visitors to this simple version we had:
2,730 votes cast (1.37 / visit)
226 comments (.113 / visit)
61 soapboxxes (.031 / visit)

Eventually we got these interaction rates to a staggering level:
Vote 42.5%
Comment 5.6%
Create soapboxx 0.9%
Join 1.7%

So, 42.5% of users who came to us through a site like StumbleUpon or from a friend’s email would vote. 1.7% joined, even though there was no need to join in order to interact – they opted in to joining.

The world is full of thoughtful users with reasoned opinions
I, personally, was constantly amazed at the level of discourse at SoapBoxxer. My favorite soapboxx of all time was an early one – “SoapBoxxer has changed my views on a lot of subjects through discussion”. When we originally discussed the idea I secretly feared that it would end up as a platform for flame wars, but that was not the case. In fact, the majority of soapboxxers were surprisingly reasonable.

The world is full of trolls, spammers, bigots and narrow-minded partisans
I won’t get into the details here, but you’ll have to trust me on this – some people like to ruin things for other people. I don’t know exactly why they want to do it, but they do. And I’m not talking about tugging the pigtails of a girl they like so they’ll get noticed. No, there are people that will silently and anonymously attempt to destroy what other people are working on with no apparent gain. Any social network needs tools to control these people.

You can see that even though there was a fair bit of spam, there was far more wheat than chaff.

The community will control spam if given the tools
We gave users the ability to flag items as spam, and they used it effectively. We were concerned that there would be abuse but generally there was none (eventually there was abuse, but only for manipulating authority). We contemplated allowing users to ban other users (it would have come in handy, see above) but decided it would turn SoapBoxxer into a police state. We did restrict spam flagging to users with a minimum authority, as we felt that the longer you’d been around, the less likely you were to trash the place. It did seem to work.

Every loophole will be exploited
When we devised the authority system it was intended as a way for users to identify who was a helpful, long-term user, and who was just a random spammer. It immediately became a subject of great debate. Most people denied its importance, quietly worked at increasing theirs, then gloated when they displaced another SoapBoxxer. My favorite quote came soon after the introduction of authority: “I just spent my entire evening/morning/lunch break on soapboxxer for this pointless 'authority'”

Eventually, users figured out that they best way to win authority was destroying the authority of others. Bots were written to grow authority or trash others. We were always open about what generated authority (every action that affected anyone's authority was quantified as you did it) but still people weren't always happy and many conspiracy theorists debated the ins and outs of authority.

Social networks must grow to survive
This is not something that we necessarily “learned” but an important point that can’t be ignored. We tried everything to grow SoapBoxxer. Early on (the first spike in the chart) we got onto Digg. Unfortunately, the site wasn’t able to handle the load and we went down. While we gained some new users before the failure (and they were particularly likely to interact) it just wasn’t enough. We were never able to get featured prominently on Digg again, despite several attempts – it seems you only get one kick at that cat.

We always felt that a social network must grow from the users, not from artificial means like getting on the Digg home page or from StumbleUpon. We focused on user invitations as a means for growing our network, and while we had some success it was never able to exceed attrition. What we found is that while Facebook is about interacting with your real-world friends online SoapBoxxer was about interacting with strangers in a new environment. An oft-repeated sentiment was that people wouldn’t want their friends on SoapBoxxer because it would strip away their anonymity.

In the end, it has become clear that SoapBoxxer will not grow on its own. Certainly, it would never make any money - even if we added advertising the revenue would be insignificant. SoapBoxxer was an experiment, and like all experiments it must come to an end. To our dedicated users, thank you for your interest and good luck.

SoapBoxxer Closing

2008-11-04T10:03:00.000-08:00

SoapBoxxer will be taken down on November 11th, 2008.

Thanks to everybody who participated and best of luck.

KangAndKodos

New Feature - Follow

2008-04-25T16:15:00.001-07:00

Nobody wants to snuggle up with a site that has intimacy problems. That's why we've added a new Follow feature to help you stick close to your pals as SoapBoxxer grows.

Click on the "follow" link next to a user's name. Now any time they comment or create a SoapBoxx your feed will automatically be updated. If you get tired of following them, just click the "unfollow" link.

But here's the kicker: every follower you attract grants you a bunch of authority. Plus every time you create a SoapBoxx it's going get more votes and comments because your followers are automatically notified.

Crack the whip and start building your slavish following today!

KandAndKodos

Soapboxxer Tees = Love From Above

2008-04-15T06:10:00.001-07:00

Ever been turned away from your favorite fine-dining establishment for the old "No shirt, no shoes, no service". Of course you have. It happens to us all at one time or another.

There's not much we can do about the "no shoes" part of the equation but Soapboxxer will get you halfway home with a free tee.

Starting today, Soapboxxers, you officially have a 1 in 60 million chance to cover your furry little bodies in glorious Soapboxxer red!

Click on the "Swag!" link at Soapboxxer for details.

KandAndKodos

Go Forth And Multiply!

2008-04-14T08:04:00.000-07:00

Kang has more fun when Kodos is around and vice versa. That's why we thought it would be cool to let you Earthlings enjoy Soapboxxer with your friends - and gain some sweet authority for doing it.

For every friend you invite to Soapboxxer who actually joins, you get +100 authority.

Go forth, multiply, and spread some of that Soapboxxer love!

KangHugsKodos

New Features - Contact & Search

2008-04-14T07:45:00.000-07:00

You guys asked for a way to contact us and now you have one. Just click on the "Feedback" link in the header. Here's the first email that came in, which brought acid tears to our eyes:

Thanks for making the site. It's fantastic and I think a lot of people are going to enrich themselves from it.
Thanks again,
Niccolo

Some of you - OK, pretty much all of you - requested a search feature. Well, Kang and I put our ugly green heads together and came up with a solution. To try it on, click on the "Search" link in the header.

Enjoy the wonders of search!

KangAndKodos

Pushing electrons very, very fast

2008-04-11T13:07:00.000-07:00

We've got SoapBoxxer.com running very, very fast, but we're working to improve it even further. As more soapboxxers come along and we're inundated with votes, comments, and new soapboxxes it's allowing us to pinpoint bottlenecks in the DB.

We hope to prove that if you travel faster than the speed of light you will travel into the future. We'll let you know if there's any distortion of the space-time continuum as we get closer to the speed of light. I know all this work is making my mass increase...

Greetings, Soapboxxers!

2008-04-09T20:53:00.000-07:00

"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"-- KangAndKodos

First of all thanks for making our launch a success.

The community response has been overwhelming. Special thanks to members like Macnamera, VintageApril, BenThere, Joaquimds, FredFromCanada, and RWHickman, to name just a few, whose amazing contributions have helped make Soapboxxer a community.

Turns out you guys aren't shy about telling us how to make SoapBoxxer better! Well, we've been listening... but not in a creepy, lurking-outside-your-bedroom-window kind of way.

"Make authority mean something!" you guys hollered.

So we did... Now only SoapBoxxers with enough authority can flag a soapboxx as inappropriate. When enough trusted SoapBoxxers flag a SoapBoxx as inappropriate, it is whisked away into a land of eternal darkness, never again to see the light of day.

Look for more changes coming soon.

Have fun!
KangAndKodos

SoapBoxxer - Official Blog