Why NorthPack Must Die (Or Evolve Soon)
March 5th, 2008
You may be asking, what is NorthPack?
It’s a site that aggregates northern tech bloggers run/created by Debs, Dom, Stanton (and others).
First The Back Story
There is a thing, called GeekUp, and GeekUp is a good thing because although the guys and other stars run GeekUp, they don’t own it.
Now in many ways, both technically and physically they probably do own GeekUp. They own the domain names and if they didn’t do what they do, it would wither and cease to be (so big thanks to them!). But “kind of ownership” is different from “actual ownership”.
“Kind of ownership is one tenth of the law” as they don’t say.
The NorthPack site itself is a wonderful thing because it aggregates some fab northern bloggers, people I’m likely to, or have bumped into at Geekups. I had started my own little list of people I’d met at GeekUps but NorthPack is way better because people can add themselves. It is a great rallying point and I’m glad the NorthPack guys have done it… Thank you!
This is where it starts getting sticky.
Because NorthCrew are the guys setting themselves up as a small web agency… Good for them and good luck. And their NorthCast podcast site is them providing northern tech news, which kinda promotes NorthCrew as much as NorthPack. And this is the point where I feel uncomfortable. Not vitriolic, angry or mad (which is my usual state of affairs… just kinda icky).
So What’s The Problem?
I don’t have access to NorthPack’s Google Analytics files. My data is contributing, so come on guys why not make my/the data available to everyone who promotes NorthPack with their content?
There is no directory of NorthPackers. Why not create a page that lists everyone who has added their RSS feed, maybe with optional location and services provided. Why not provide your OPML?
There is an issue to do with representation. I’m not a NorthPacker (only Dom, Stanton etc are) … I’m a fully paid up GeekUpper…
I have to trust that I aren’t getting hammered for duplicate content from Google. Am I?
The sidebar shows items that also appear on the “Featured” list, which is a shame/bug/featurette. This wouldn’t be so bad if I could browse back through time on the NorthPack site, but it doesn’t let me do that.
There is no added value for me, such as Google Map that might show Django developers on my street. What if I could send a message to fellow NorthPack contributors (say one message a month)? I’m not saying that’s a great idea, but it would be added value for being a contributor.
The source code to the NorthPack aggregator isn’t available. I can live with that, but it’d be a nice gesture. If it worked 
It would be nice if NorthPack was the thing that “made the connection” between peoples’ Facebook, Twitter, Blog, professional, whatever identities. I often find that I’ve been talking to someone I already know (online). The pictures feature starts to do this, but because there is no “rogues gallery” I can’t find who the hell xbaz is to ask him a question.
NorthPack needs a little more community oriented facillitation… who was that person I was chatting to at GeekUp?, I’d love to follow up on that conversation etc.
There aren’t enough women. That’s not a criticism of NorthPack, just an observation about life itself.
The thing I dislike about NorthPack, bless ‘em, is that they, through their hard work, they have made a strong play to become the central to the emerging northern tech scene. And they’ve done this without enabling connections between NorthPack participants. This simply seems a tad old school to me. Sorry guys, but what do I get out of the whole NorthPack shebang? Bugger all!
Dom did mention that person x got y*n more hits a day after adding themselves to NorthPack… and so I tried it. I get only 68 a month, but then I do write turgid crap like this.
So come on guys, an aggregator is no great shakes, a facillitatorator is a much more modern machine. And you are the go-getting, take no prisoners, do it before lunch type of guys that can make this sort of thing happen.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:13 pm (#)
Hi Tom, thanks for the heads up (not!)
I agree northpack sucks… really what ARE we doing..
First of all you can go back to view older posts (in our archive) and we have now added the search functionaility, we spoke when we launched about this, I said then that we honestly thought there were enough other ways to communitcate via networks and make friends… however we waited and wanted to see what others thought…
we’ve been quietly working on several features over the past few weeks and on saturday at Barcamp Manchester we spoke about some of them, yes the ability to “attend” an event and see who else attended is coming, also personal profiles with your latest blog posts / twitters and any other information you want to put on there..
we are also developing a skills section, so you can put your skills and talents on your profile and search for others in a nearby area who are willing to donate some time to your latest web app…
all this will be opt in of course but it is coming..
Northpack has 1 main developer… Mr. Stanton, who works full time (as do we all), each of the NorthCrew have our own project’s (or parts of projects) so you can understand when things are going a little slower than you would like..
As for duplicate content, we are only syndicating a small portion of your content so its like submitting to digg,
At barcamp manchester we had an ideas board during our presentation, a lot of what you mentioned has been posted and we are listening…
Cheers
Hodge
March 5th, 2008 at 9:17 pm (#)
You’ve responded to my “functional gripes” but not the “ownership wobbles”…
Do you get what I mean? It’s kinda hard to explain…
March 5th, 2008 at 9:19 pm (#)
I do indeed.. the source code issue it a thing we’ve been discussing internally for a while (a lot more since saturday)
if you delete your data it is delete non of this “hidden facebook” bullshit, we don’t own your data you do..
if you want us to be open about stats, we could do that, so far northpack has sent over 6000 clicks to articles, we could make some of our web stats more open
March 5th, 2008 at 9:33 pm (#)
I don’t think I agree.
There is an ownership issue, in that Northpack/Northcast/Northcrew is centred around (web) properties, whereas Geekup is not really property based (unless you count the mailing list).
But, in many ways, I feel Northpack has added a bit of momentum to the Leeds “scene”.
Geekup is great - it’s a place to go once a month to meet like-minded people.
But Northpack is a place to go every day to find out about like-minded people. So in that way it is connecting me - to people I may be too shy or whatever to speak to at Geekup (not too shy to leave a long rambling comment on their blog though).
I think twice about what I’m writing on my blog, knowing that it’s not just faceless hits I’m getting but actual people who I will meet in a couple of weeks at the next Geekup (or Leeds Ruby Thing [plug]).
So I have to disagree. Yes Northpack is shameless self-promotion but it’s well done and I’ve got something out of it too.
B.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:45 pm (#)
Not that it really matters but I’m just a NorthCrew contributer nowadays and not a fully paid up member
March 5th, 2008 at 11:38 pm (#)
Hey Tom, first of all, thanks for taking the time to analyse NorthPack.
I’ll have to try and stay objective here, as i feel i’ll have to read your blog a few more times in order to really gauge the tone you’re trying to convey. As my first reaction is to be fairly miffed (a polite choice of word).
Having only read this once, you seem to try and bodyslam us for not having every feature you want out of a service like ours from day 1. We could easily farm out the dev work to overseas developers and rapidly increase our feature turnaround, but for us, we’d lose the inherent “northern-ness” and connection with the community which we are trying to foster and maintain.
We are a small team, with full time jobs and private lives, what little free time we have we commit to coding madly on new features for NorthPack and NorthCast. As Dom has mentioned, there’s just lil ‘ol me working on NorthPack at the moment.
For example, you ask “My data is contributing, so come on guys why not make my/the data available to everyone who promotes NorthPack with their content?”… because we’ve never been asked to! again i might need to re-read your log to judge the tone, but it seems you’re asking why we’ve not read your mind and provided the features you list.
The ownership issues are an interesting take on things, something which we’ll be discussing at length no doubt!
As mentioned, the archive feature was pushed out last week, indexing entries back to 2006 and a “very very beta” search feature was pushed out yesterday. rest assured, new features are being worked on, we are listening to the community, and we are working as fast as we can!
March 6th, 2008 at 12:04 am (#)
Interesting post (and wonderfully contraversial title - certainly had me clicking through!!). Its slightly different for me because I am employed on a permanent basis so the northpack people serve as brilliant networking buddies for me and not as competitors. As a result I hadn’t really thought about this in any detail, so thanks for bringing that up! In particular the directory of contributors is a nice idea.
> There aren€™t enough women.
I would love to see more women in the industry but other than the existing women being visible and everyone being supportive, I don’t know there is much more that can be done in the short to medium term.
No but we’re quite noisy
March 6th, 2008 at 11:25 am (#)
Hi stanton, I don’t think you quite get me either…(and the tone was “playful” by the way)
It’s got nothing to do with feature-lists or being feature-psychic…
Put simply, what do I get out of NorthPack? And by “I” I don’t really mean me… I mean everyone who is not you?
March 6th, 2008 at 1:08 pm (#)
Interesting debate guys.
On the whole I think NorthCrew should take it as a compliment that people are asking such probing questions
Obviously started something useful for the North. Ownership is a key issue though.
I don’t necessarily think making the code opensource is a great idea but members do need involvement to help drive it forward. Otherwise there is a danger it could be viewed as tool for NorthCrew benefit rather than the community as a whole. Correct me if I’m wrong Tom but I think this is where it gets a little icky for you?
Adding some features that involve members in driving it forward that are also of benefit to them is probably key for me. I’m sure you’ve got some of these in pipeline - as a freelancer I can see NorthSkills could develop into something that would turn out to be really useful for me.
March 6th, 2008 at 1:30 pm (#)
Lol, what perfect baiting
On the one hand, you’ve raised an important point - North* would benefit from greater transparency of intentions; but like Stanton said, it’s hard to know what people want to know before they ask. The best outcome of this could be as simple as some kind of roadmap & FAQ, and maybe a statement of intent.
But come on, either the proposition genuinely means nothing to you, or you’re intentionally stirring. I am curious to know what you actually *want* from Northpack - as in what measurable gains you want to extract, for you - but you can’t escape the fact that this discussion would not be happening, or at least I would not have read it, had you not put your blog forward to Northpack. Even had we met at some local event, the chance of me then checking out your blog is tiny - I’m only here because your headlines have caught my eyes on Northpack several times.
The question you’re asking is tremendously self-orientated. I prefer an alternate view of Northpack. I don’t care what additional hits I get from putting my blog into Northpack, I do it as a gesture to participate in the community, because that is what I love about it.
I don’t fully understand why - it certainly shouldn’t be this way - but there is something appealing about knowing all the blogs you’re reading are geographically within a few miles of you. Prior to Northpack I would never have known if such a system has value, they are slowly proving it does.
Most tellingly, for me, is that I now check Techmeme and Northpack in the same breath, one to get global news, one to get a local voice.
But yes, I second the request for a more people-orientated feel (people directory, links to other networks, etc.).
One thing we had planned with Meecard that would be cool to see is the ability to click a name next to an article (like this one), and see what (U|u)pcoming events that person is attending, and highlight which ones we’ll both be at.
March 6th, 2008 at 1:54 pm (#)
Just coming round to the idea that your article might be trying to provoke discussion rather than having a go
I do think you’re missing a point though, NorthPack has done a fantastic job of “bigging up the North” whilst bringing the community together at the same time. Yes, the NorthCrew may on the surface appear to be self-promoting, but I think this is non-intentional and more of a side-effect inferable from the “big personalities” in the NorthCrew. Would you change ‘em? I know I wouldn’t.
I agree on your point that some of the site stats could be made available and that there are features that could be added… but on one hand you say rss aggregation has been done before then go on to say that community features are needed - but this is nothing new either? Sure, Northpack in terms of technology has been done many times before, but it’s the NorthPack concept and the drive that it brings that is new. The rest will follow in time.
As for opensourcing the code, alas it would be reasonably pointless to opensource the RSS aggregator (as, it has, as you say, been done umpteen times before):
http://rubyforge.org/projects/feedtools
http://rubyforge.org/projects/daemons
March 6th, 2008 at 4:43 pm (#)
I’m not having a go, or being “tremendously self-orientated” either.
This all started when Dom twittered about how many hits Northpack was getting… which got me thinking …
… about the “crisis of the commons”, game theory and about how exactly do you do something “community-oriented” without owning it?
So, I really wasn’t having a go, but I was baiting… (in a nice way)
March 6th, 2008 at 5:09 pm (#)
I think i’ve twittered about how many hits blogs on northpack were getting (which is now over 6200) and how many downloads northcast has had (almost 1TB)… carn’t remember twittering about NP visitor stats…
That Is All
March 6th, 2008 at 5:35 pm (#)
I see that you weren’t having a go (see my previous comment) and that you were using NorthPack to make a point… it just felt a bit direct at times (i.e. that your point was “why NorthPack sucks” rather than “crisis of the commons” as you are suggesting)… admittedly, this is the nature of a bait!
Kudos for your use of NorthPack to bait on the topic of NorthPack, something must be working right
March 7th, 2008 at 10:43 am (#)
Thanks. I love Northpack!
Here’s what REALLY got me thinking. On the NorthPack site I added another RSS feed to my profile and I thought…
What’s to stop me adding 100 feeds to the NorthPack site (apart from the fact I appear too much anyway…can you fix that?)
Of course, you’d ban me, but I’d be back with a fake email and a different feedburner URL.
In short, what’s in it for me not to spoil it?
(By me I mean someone/anyone)
Ebay has reputation, Digg lets unpopular stuff sink, Slashot has moderation… etc. I know it’s early days but someone is going to spoil everything for you guys, trust me… maybe not even deliberately, but good stuff just gets spoilt. Look what Page Rank has done to the web!
So, apologies for the link-baity title, but one way to prevent abuse it to make it of real value to the people involved.
Most people don’t poo on their own doorsteps but the grass outside my house has a HUGE dog poo on it.
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