Very cool, Kaius. forwardslash is presently working on the API which will make such things much easier. Definitely share any feedback/ideas you have.
Thanks. It was pretty easy to do in fairness with a little bit of regex to extract the values I needed. If it was a REST api or similar done with JSON it would be even easier still. When routing around in the html I did come across some id duplication (lots and lots of elements all using the same id) but that's a small thing. One thing that would be useful, and also one of the reasons I tried to visualize the connections between users, would be some indication of the amount of time that a connection has been in place. For example X has followed Y for 60 days. I have a sense that even though hubski is built around following others, the rate at which we add or remove those follows is quite low if not almost static. The biggest changes seen in follower count is when we get an influx of new users and I'd like to see if we can visualize that in order to get a sense of how often we connect with others. I don't know what the ideal rate of change would be. If the number is too low then we have static cliques formed long ago with no desire to change, perhaps we could gear things to prompt them to follow others. If on the other hand we see lots of add/removal of connections then perhaps people view those connections as meaningless and we could look at changing that. Or maybe there isn't a problem with follows at all and all we end up with is a nice bunch of circles and lines :)
I'd like to see it a bit less static, and I am open to suggestions. One thing that I find problematic, is that some good posts slip though global without me seeing them. I spend most of my time in my feed. Some time ago, there was no distinct global feed, but only the option to see 'few', 'some', or 'many' global posts in your feed. Their font was lighter, so you knew that they were global. One thing that we are going to introduce soon is the ability to get email alerts for certain tags. In addition to supporting community efforts like the #weeklymusicthread, #grubski etc., I think it might so some way to helping new users to get some attention.I have a sense that even though hubski is built around following others, the rate at which we add or remove those follows is quite low if not almost static.