Well - I think we’ve all agreed that I do my best work at 4am. This doesn’t bode well.

As I write this, the previous post about the mb3Digg Engine has received 1729 diggs and the blog post has been viewed 10516 times (even considering this server was “dugg” into oblivion for half of that first day)! Having been a great fan of digg.com and the diggnation podcast for over a year now, the success of this project and the response from the community has been seriously motivational and as a result, I’ve been deliberating (with your help) where the next steps should take us…

First - please indulge me as I share with you one of this week’s more poetic moments:

Seeing the post within itself (how beautifully recursive!):

So as for where I think I’ll go from here… firstly let’s talk about where we can improve and the shortcomings that people have highlighted:

• Orientation problems: Users are finding it a little difficult to figure out where they are at any particular moment within the grid.
• Meaningful distributions: Currently the stories are just randomly scattered and it would be more useful if the patterns/clusters had greater significance.
• Control problems: Mouse interaction/scrolling was an issue for some people and they’d like to see this reviewed.

In response to the above points, let me firstly say that I hear you and I totally agree! Here’s how I plan to overcome these:

• Where am I? - To make it easier for the user to figure out where they are within the grid I will include a “minimap” component. The user will be able to choose between (or use a combination of) views (top/side/front) to provide contextual cues as to their location. These maps will also be interactive and will allow the user to zoom to an arbitrary location on that same viewing plane.
• “Pretty but useless” - The application needs to adopt an approach that gives relevance to the use of the three dimensions. Some commentary has noted that whilst it’s fun and novel, the fact remains that it’s comparatively harder to sort through the information than the traditional one-dimensional, linear approach - I agree. This aspect of the application is the most complicated for a number of reasons: Firstly, most variables (such as number of diggs, number of comments, article age) are represented by positive numbers which means that if I were to interpret these literally within the grid, everything would be positioned in the top-back-right sector… hardly using the grid properly and subsequently defeating the purpose. Secondly, the nature of 3D environments is that you inevitably encounter an occlusive effect - objects closer to the viewer mask the information that is further away in a similar direction. The plan to combat this situation is to allow the user to assign any of a number of variables to any one of the axes - thereby rearranging the data in real-time. I’ll also provide an option for the user to arrange the information into predefined patterns - grids, spirals, linear etc - which will provide at least some structure when everything is getting a little messy. An important side note: One of the great things, and indeed one of the core goals of digg.com is to provide and encourage a democratic environment where each story is promoted on the strength of it’s credentials and the opinions of those that critique it. In order to preserve these values, the mb3D engine must not reward any particular article with more attention than it provides the others (unless requested/designed by the user).
• Hard to handle - It turns out that using the mouse alone is still an inadequate method of interacting with the engine. I will revise this so that movement is more refined and controlled. It certainly doesn’t make it any easier that Flash hijacks the right mouse button - but I guess this just encourages innovation?!

As for version 2, I have many more ideas. Not only that - I’ve got plans to take this beyond digg. I’m not going to tell you everything just yet (like Kevin Rose, I don’t really want to give away all of my plans) but I assure you that if you like this initial prototype, you are sure to enjoy what I’ve got on the drawing board.

Finally - let me encourage you to keep sending in your comments. It’s been really great hearing your thoughts and following the commentary on blogs around the world.

Thanks again for all of the kind words.