Activity on Woot‘s deal aggregation site Deals.woot.com has exploded over the past week, what lit the fuse? A new reputation system that is clear, easy to understand, and gives users hints on actions that they can take to increase their reputation.
Deals.Woot Top Reputation Leaderboard
This was a much needed to boost to traffic and user activity, more than making up for the brutal attack on the site’s most active users a few months ago. Segregation of the site’s more social area and excessive, at times stalking and shockingly personal, moderation of users caused many of the sites most active users to fade into the shadows or abandon the site altogether.
These changes to the reputation system have been in the works for quite a while, but the deals.woot programming team used the time well and the enhancements have been well received.
Deals.Woot Reputation Dashboard
The new dashboard is the center-piece of the changes, it details how the users rank in all the categories of activities that earn reputation. It also provides useful hints that inform users what they can do if they want to increase their reputation.
Some activity is bound to drop off after some of the novelty wears off, but this change has made a real difference in getting the users more involved and has given the site a much needed shot of energy.
April Fool’s Day pranks know no bounds and you’ll find them all over the web today, here are some of my favorite from the sites I regularly visit. I’ll try to update as I come across more today.
ThinkGeek: Always one of my favorite sites, the top banner advertises Wii Sports for the iPhone and it only gets better from there…
The NSA Mega Encrypted Tee – This is a “real” product for April Fool’s Day. Free with orders of $20 or more!
Virgle Pioneer – “Earth has issues, and it’s time humanity got started on a Plan B. So, starting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars.” (be sure to apply!)
Google Wake Up Kit – “The “wake up” notification uses several progressively more annoying alerts to wake you up. First it will send an SMS message to your phone. If that fails, more coercive means will be used. The kit includes an industrial-sized bucket and is designed to be connected to your water main for automatic filling. In addition, a bed-flipping device is included for forceful removal from your sleeping quarters.”
GMail Custom Time – Set the time on your e-mails to anytime (min of April 1 2004 when GMail launched) Only 10 custom time changes a year so use them wisely!
Woot: For April Fools Day, Woot has Woot-Off featuring the same product over and over and over! Click the pictures from the posts to see the power pack on vacation!
