The Antman hath spoken. He bringeth forth word of wonderous goings on and magical machines that can count how great we are.
Low, this is what he saideth:
"There has been some good conversation re: the buzzranking.
Brillig asked; I am confused, why am I #1 overall but #2 in Moms? Farmers wife threw up a tight post. cre8Buzz: Just another popularity contest. Others have asked which is better when rating 1 or 8. Some folks have said it is too hard to keep up. Others have rejoiced as they climb the rankings. Regardless of ya feeling, the "buzzranking" has NOT gone unnoticed.
So what is the "buzzranking" all about? Why do we have it and how does it work?
In its simplest form, the "buzzranking" is designed to allow the best content to rise to the top. It is to give a voice to everyone, no matter their popularity.
In most cases, A list bloggers get all the attention, pictures from famous artists always seem to be seen. It is the most famous musicians whose music is heard, but what about everyone else? What about all the other bloggers? What about the artist who paints or takes photo's as a hobby? What about the garage band? Don't they have good stuff too? Don't they deserve a chance to get a little exposure, to get some love for their stuff? We think so! The "buzzranking" is there to give EVERYONE a chance to get exposure.
I gotta give an example to a ya: Dawniemom wrote an open and emotional post called Momtuition about a topic that is extremely close to the hearts of all parents. Within two days it rose to the Top 8 and it now sits at number 2 in Moms and number 6 overall. There are 363 cre8Buzz blog posts currently. Without the "buzzranking" Dawniemoms post would not have gotten as much attention. It could have been lost within the mass of other posts. It was a great post, it deserved to be seen and it was.
The "buzzranking" is also about making it easy for people who will NEVER join cre8Buzz and build a profile, but are interested in the same interests as you to participate. Imagine, someone is a Mom, or a Musicisian, or a Techie and they stumble on cre8Buzz (after we go public). They are not going to build a profile BUT they are interested in checking out the content. How easy does the "buzzranking" allow them to check out the cool stuff in a community they like or have an interest in. The "buzzranking" gives people a reason to visit cre8Buzz even if the DON'T have a profile. Try doing that on Myspace or Facebook.
Is it a popularity contest? We can see how it could be percieved that way. Is it competitive? To some people, it probably is. But, what it does for everyone is ensure that if they have a slammin post, a fantastic picture, a kickin new podcast, a rockin new tune, a hilarious video, it WILL get exposure, it WILL be seen, it WILL be heard; regardless of how popular they are. We believe that people should have a way to know that their work is appreciated and the "buzzranking" does just this! Everyone has got some good stuff and deserves a chance to have it shine.
So now that ya know why we did it, how does it work? I bet ya dying to figure it out. I'm gonna give ya the secret here. I will give you the exact ranking parameters today and will then delete this post in 24 hours never to share it again. So read closely. The buzzranking works like this . . . ya'll are crazy. Gotcha! I ain't given you the secret. However; I will tell ya a bit how it works.
Your profile ranking is the aggregation of the value of all your work or content. In other words, the score from all of your pictures, your video's, audio, blogs, blog posts, all your content scores makes up your profile "buzzranking". Have good content have a higher "buzzranking". It also measures your relationships, like Google links. Finally, it has been suggested that being active on the site helps, and yes it does. We reward participation. A community needs activity and interaction, therefore we give love to those who play.
The "buzzranking" is a complicated algorithm that takes into consideration many, many variables and is calculated every 24 hours. So how can someone be #1 overall, but #2 in their community?
The algorithm gives greater value to those things rated by someone within a community than those rated from someone outside of that community. For example: if someone in BMX is getting a lot of attention and high ratings from people across all of cre8Buzz but not as much from people in BMX they will have a higher overall ranking than they will a BMX ranking. If someone in BMX gets high ratings from all the people in BMX but little attention from the rest of the site then they can be ranked higher in BMX than someone in BMX who has a higher overall ranking. The closer someone is to your community, the higher the value of their votes.
Finally, when rating why is 8 better than 1, when 1 is a better "buzzranking"?
We struggled with this one as well. It seems whacked uh? The answer is; We are RATING the content and profiles and then RANKING them. Example, when you are voting on a picture or a profile, or a video your are rating it, like rating a movie 5 stars or rating a restaurant or a book. It is your opinion of that particular piece of content. Ratings always use the higher number, 5 stars is better than one. When rating on a scale of 1 to 10, ten is always the highest.
Rankings compare many rated things and 1 is always the highest. Ex: the Top Ranked Business Schools, the Top Ranked Cities to live etc. In this case 1 is always the best. Thus why, when rating 8 is the best, yet with a "buzzranking" 1 is best
So there you have it. I know, it was stupid long, but if you made it this far you know more than everyone else, cause they probably didn't finish it. I can get winded at times.
Hope this helps.
Peace, I'm out! Got a "buzzranking" to work on.
BTW: Yes, we will be making changes and tweaking the "buzzranking" as the site grows. We are passionate about making it as accurate as possible!"
And some other stuff about *bless-ed are the cheesemakers but you don't want to know about all that...
*if you have no idea what the last bit was all about don't worry about it. It's probably better that way.
