Following someone on most social platforms means following a person. On The Inspiration Tree, we think there could be much more worth following.
You might discover a creator whose work you want to keep up with. But you might also become fascinated by one particular Seed, Collection, discussion, or even an entire branch of the Inspiration Tree and want to see where that idea goes next.
Following would give you an easy way to do that.
Follow What Interests You
We envision allowing members to follow several different parts of the community:
- Creators — Keep up with someone whose contributions interest you.
- Seeds — Follow a particular creation or idea and see what develops from it.
- Collections — Follow a novel, album, exhibition, playlist, themed Collection, or other larger creative experience.
- Discussions — Keep up with a conversation you find interesting.
- Genealogy Branches — Follow an idea as new generations and branches grow from it.
Following a genealogy could be especially interesting. You may discover one Seed that fascinates you without necessarily wanting to follow everything its creator makes. Instead, you could follow that idea and the creations it continues to inspire, potentially across many creators and creative disciplines.
Your Following List
Your Member Profile could include a Following tab containing the creators, Seeds, Collections, discussions, and branches you’ve chosen to follow.
You could decide whether your Following list is public or private. A private list simply becomes your own way of keeping track of things you care about. A public list creates another form of discovery.
If you find someone whose interests or judgment you respect, looking at what they follow might introduce you to creators, Seeds, and ideas you would never have discovered yourself.
Creators, Seeds, Collections, and other followable items could also show how many people follow them. A Follow doesn’t necessarily mean “I like this.” Sometimes it simply means:
“I’m interested. I want to see what happens next.”
Later: A Feed You Actually Chose
A second phase could turn Following into a personalized Activity Feed showing meaningful activity from the things you’ve chosen to follow.
That distinction matters.
Most social-media feeds are heavily influenced by algorithms trying to predict what will capture your attention. They may recommend content you never requested, prioritize posts based on engagement, and mix in advertising or other material selected for you.
That isn’t what we envision here.
Your Inspiration Tree feed would be based on the choices you deliberately made. Follow a creator and see relevant new contributions. Follow a Collection and see when something is added. Follow a discussion and see new activity. Follow a Seed or genealogy branch and discover when the idea grows in a new direction.
You create the algorithm by choosing what to follow.
Exactly what activity should appear is something we want the community to help determine. Following a creator probably shouldn’t mean seeing every tiny thing they do, and following a Seed doesn’t necessarily mean you want every interaction surrounding it.
The goal would be a useful way to catch up on what you chose to care about, not another endless feed competing for your attention.
Following Isn’t the Same as Notifications
We are also considering Notifications as a separate Roadmap Candidate.
The distinction could be simple: your Activity Feed helps you catch up on what’s happening among the things you follow. Notifications alert you to events that may specifically deserve your attention, such as someone replying to you or a new Child Seed being inspired by your work.
Keeping those separate could let members follow many things without turning every bit of activity into an interruption.
What Would You Follow?
This is still a Roadmap Candidate, and we’d particularly like your help deciding what would make it useful.
Would you follow creators, individual Seeds, Collections, discussions, or entire genealogy branches? What activity would you actually want to see in your feed? And what would you definitely not want cluttering it?
Most importantly, would a feed based entirely on what you chose to follow, rather than what an algorithm decided you should see, make The Inspiration Tree more useful to you?