Digg Copies MR!

[lexus]

http://www.digg.com/spy

This is pretty similar to the forum spy.

[Blue Velvet]

http://www.digg.com/spy

This is pretty similar to the forum spy.

I think theirs was there first. Sorry.

[Warbrain]

I think theirs was there first. Sorry.

Yea, it's been there quite a while, but digg sucks regardless.

[WildCowboy]

Digg Spy has been around since at least summer of 2005...I don't know when it was first introduced, but since Digg only launched in late 2004, it was sometime in that timeframe.

[lexus]

So MR copied Digg?

[Kwyjibo]

technology is all about imitation and improvement ... Bill Gates made billions that way ...

that being said the Digg Spy is almost nauseating because it moves so quick with all that traffic.

[lexus]

technology is all about imitation and improvement ... Bill Gates made billions that way ...

that being said the Digg Spy is almost nauseating because it moves so quick with all that traffic.

Very true, but the they use the same name.

[Unorthodox]

That thing moves so fast it's almost impossible to click anything!

[WildCowboy]

That thing moves so fast it's almost impossible to click anything!

Hence the pause button... ;)

[Unorthodox]

Hence the pause button... ;)
Or I could just go to digg.com, that's paused too.

[arn]

actually, in some ways, digg was inspired by mr, at least according to this interview

http://www.philoneist.com/50226711/interview_with_diggcom_founder_kevin_rose.php


Digg started in September 2004 as a personal project. At that time, I was working at TechTV and I always had interesting side projects that I was running out of the house. I was a big fan of MacRumors.com and how some of their "Page 2" stories that didn't quite make the home page, were still really interesting. That got me thinking about all the great content out there that no one could see. That's really where I started thinking about how it would be cool to give that control back to the community.


But yes, the Spy was inspired by Digg.

arn

[adrianblaine]

Very true, but the they use the same name.

I don't mind they use the same name. I can't think of a better word to use. It'll become the term that describes anything like this.

[lexus]

actually, in some ways, digg was inspired by mr, at least according to this interview

http://www.philoneist.com/50226711/interview_with_diggcom_founder_kevin_rose.php



But yes, the Spy was inspired by Digg.

arn

Wow that is pretty cool.

[Doctor Q]

Other names were discussed, but the consensus was that "spy" was a word people would easily understand, especially those familiar with Digg's.

[wmmk]

I was under the impression that the spy was simply a feature of vbulletin that had previously been disabled. Am I wrong?

[tech4all]

I was under the impression that the spy was simply a feature of vbulletin that had previously been disabled. Am I wrong?

I think it was written by a moderator here. AFAIK it is not a feature of vBulletin.

[spicyapple]

I believe Knox coded Forum Spy using AJAX(?). arn also has a background in computer science with knowledge of a few programming languages. I'm not sure Digg released their own source code to do the same thing. It's definitely a nice feature. :)

[WildCowboy]

I was under the impression that the spy was simply a feature of vbulletin that had previously been disabled. Am I wrong?

It's not a part of vBulletin. A number of people have developed their own hacks that have similar functionalities, but MR was one of the first after Digg (that I know of) to really deploy a functioning product.

[Blue Velvet]

I was under the impression that the spy was simply a feature of vbulletin that had previously been disabled. Am I wrong?

Yes, you are wrong. It was customly cooked-up by Knox, and perhaps others, and road-tested by a motley crew. ;)

Edit: I yam too slow. :D 'night all.

[bigandy]

i haven't seen Digg Spy before, mainly because i hate digg. however the way it fades out at the bottom of the page is cool. and the pause button could be sooo nice to have on MR Spy :rolleyes:

[wmmk]

I think it was written by a moderator here. AFAIK it is not a feature of vBulletin.

I believe Knox coded Forum Spy using AJAX(?). arn also has a background in computer science with knowledge of a few programming languages. I'm not sure Digg released their own source code to do the same thing. It's definitely a nice feature. :)

It's not a part of vBulletin. A number of people have developed their own hacks that have similar functionalities, but MR was one of the first after Digg (that I know of) to really deploy a functioning product.

Yes, you are wrong. It was customly cooked-up by Knox, and perhaps others, and road-tested by a motley crew. ;)

Edit: I yam too slow. :D 'night all.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!

[Buschmaster]

actually, in some ways, digg was inspired by mr, at least according to this interview

http://www.philoneist.com/50226711/interview_with_diggcom_founder_kevin_rose.php



But yes, the Spy was inspired by Digg.

arn
That's cool that you guys work off of each other. :) That really makes for the best experience all around.:cool:

[spicyapple]

That's cool that you guys work off of each other. :) That really makes for the best experience all around.:cool:
Even better with Lube™. (wow, a lube joke. even i surprise myself)

[ChrisBrightwell]

digg sucks regardless.Amen.

[rogersmj]

It's not that hard to do, and if someone here actually wrote one from scratch for this site then they might have spent a little too much effort. This functionality is built into the jQuery library and I implemented it on a site a few weeks ago with a grand total of about 10 lines of code.

And it kind of annoys me when people make threads like this with sensational titles like "Digg Copies MR!" without bothering to do any fact-checking first.

[Flowbee]

And it kind of annoys me when people make threads like this with sensational titles like "Digg Copies MR!" without bothering to do any fact-checking first.

...Just like Digg!

[Knox]

It's not that hard to do, and if someone here actually wrote one from scratch for this site then they might have spent a little too much effort. This functionality is built into the jQuery library and I implemented it on a site a few weeks ago with a grand total of about 10 lines of code.

Can you post (or PM me) the URL to your site? I'd be interested to see how much it can provide. The basic 'get new posts and add to table' is fairly simple, but there's a bit more to it than that :)

[rogersmj]

Can you post (or PM me) the URL to your site? I'd be interested to see how much it can provide. The basic 'get new posts and add to table' is fairly simple, but there's a bit more to it than that :)

I'd love to but it's an internal-only page for Purdue University's knowledge management system. The directors wanted to see what people were searching for at the present moment on the public site, how many results they were getting, and which articles they were clicking on.

You're right, there's a lot to it under the hood, but my point is that if you take advantage of a great library like jQuery then there's not a whole lot you have to do. I just looked at the MR Forum Spy for the first time and it looks very similar to what I built. It would be very simple; use the spy functionality in jQuery to get the post IDs since the last update, pass those to your ajax handler page, loop through the post IDs and for each one run a query to get the poster, the name of the thread, how many replies it has, and what forum it's in, and then echo all that out (which is handled by jQuery and does a nice fade-in). Except for the information you're getting, it's the exact same as what I made for Purdue and it only took me about 15 minutes. I'm not trying to diminish your work at all, I'm just trying to show how easy it can be if you use tools already available and don't try to reinvent the wheel.