… and how not to.

The web has long been seen as a tool for finding and reading information. As a tool, readers have been asked to learn the tool, and how to best use the tool to get what they want. Search engines like Google are an excellent example, where you learn how to use search terms to get the information you’re looking for.

Thoof turns this on its head. When we designed Thoof, we wanted to make it a tool alright, but a simpler tool that does what you want implicitly. Strangely, this may take some getting use to, as sites like Digg require you to rate stories (digg/bury, +/-, etc) to hopefully get what you want, you may find yourself wanting to do the same on Thoof. You may be looking for the buttons and knobs to affect your experience. This may require some unlearning, but in the end reading Thoof should be a pleasant, leisurely pursuit.

Without further ado, how to read Thoof:

1. Like a newspaper, just read, top to bottom. What Thoof thinks will most likely interest you is at the top, and less interesting at the bottom. Thoof always searches all of its stories for interesting ones. You will never ‘miss out’ on a story like you will on a site where posts change hour by hour. Stories are only taken away from you after you’ve already seen them.
2. If something is interesting, click it! This is the positive reinforcement. Don’t click to try and steer Thoof though, if the story really is interesting, and you really want to read it, read it. Thoof’s statistics are set up to predict what you want to read, not what topics you like necessarily.
3. If you think a story is uninteresting, don’t click it. Merely ignoring the story is negative reinforcement, and matters almost as much as reading stories.
4. If you click a story that turned out to be ‘bad’ in some way… poorly written, about a different topic, etc, use the “Not Interesting” button to tell Thoof this wasn’t worth your time. If you have some time, consider improving the story, adding relevant tags, or improving the summary.
5. As Ian mentioned in the last post, you can Search for more topics that interest you. Click a tag to see more of that tag, or search for key words.
6. Finally, send stuff you like to others. Not only will this let them see cool stuff you just read, but it’s also a hint to Thoof that your friend may like similar things as you.

That’s it! As you read, Thoof will digest more and more about what you like and dislike, and make better and better choices for you in the future. And it’ll do this best if you just read what you enjoy and skip what you don’t.