When we first set out designing Opuss we wanted to make sure beautiful words were front and centre. Celebrating the power of the written word and placing creativity at the very heart of the app. This we hoped would encourage users to write rather than just passively read. 

It came as somewhat a pleasant surprise to find just how enthusiastic and willing people are to post. 

Discovery is key

Finding great work is one of the most important aspects of making Opuss an enjoyable experience. How could we achieve this without curating content?

Rather than us defining what we consider you should be reading we wanted the service to be self-curated with a sprinkling of competitiveness. The best writers and the best work promoted by peers liking and following.

The Top Opuss Today/Week/Month/Year showing the charts of individual opusses and the rank showing where an author is regarded by their peers overall.

The ranking algorithm we first employed to do this was very primitive and we always knew this would need a continual refinement rather than being a fait accompli.

The need to tweak

As more and more people have joined the service there seems to be a clear distinction between three types of poster:

• People who post words that inspire them.
• People who post their own original work.
• People who have mistaken Opuss for Twitter. Yes, you know who you are! ;-)

Rightly so, original authors have been finding that “competing” against inspiring quotes from the likes of Einstein, Churchill et al slightly unfair.

You may have noticed recently that your rank might have changed. This is due to some tweaking we have been making to make things a bit fairer. There will be winners and losers but the key thing to be aware of is the algorithm is rewarding people for posting great work that is enjoyed by others. This includes likes, followers and also the amount of time spent reading it. 

We’re not done yet - there will be more changes coming soon so expect a degree of turbulence while we work on the “secret sauce”.

So how does a good poet or author stand out from the crowd? Keep on writing great poems and stories! Let us worry about distinguishing you - because we have every intention on doing just that!

Coming Soon…

We’re putting the finishing touches to the next release of Opuss. It’s a minor update but addresses some of the bugs that have been annoying you and also one or two of the most asked for features. 

Feedback

We welcome all feedback (yes even the criticisms) so please post comments below.

We’re extremely proud to announce “Opuss by Email”.

Until now options for submitting work to Opuss have been a bit limited. As Opuss is currently only available on iPhone/iPod, this has been a bit of a headache when trying to submit longer works. We’ve been feeling that pain too!

So we’ve started “Opuss by Email” with the intention of making things just a little bit easier all round.

With “Opuss by Email” you’re not restricted to composing an Opuss on your phone. Instead, you can write in an email app on your desktop, laptop or even at an internet cafe using webmail such as Hotmail or Gmail and post it directly into your Opuss feed. The email subject maps to the Opuss title and the email body to the Opuss body.

Get started NOW.

 These days I often find myself drawn in by comments, sometimes more than the content of the original article itself.  I was reading a great piece by Nicolas Carr on why ebooks should be given away for free.  This article was written from the perspective of the incumbent.  Yet in the comments, I found this gem from a Bill H.:

“As publishers try to learn the lessons of the music and media industries in the shift from print to digital, anyone with some sense and an understanding of economics will seek to implement new strategies where pricing is based on usage, not asset sales.”

This strikes me as the heart of the issue, and I believe intelligent answers come from asking tough questions.  Today we have hybrid models for stores and books, but let’s really go to an extreme:

“How can a brick and mortar establishment showcase a virtual asset and be viable financially?”  

Whether or not we realise it, we’re being forced to answer this question.  I’ve seen countless people go into stores, use bar code scanners to look up the same asset online for a cheaper price.

I love the ability to discover stuff and browse in person. Financially I have to ask what can be done so this is viable.  I do think affiliate schemes, of some form or another are the answer.  But discovery - that’s also very important.  And I think a possible solution is to allow people to look at exhaustive content while connected to the stores wireless access point with a protected gateway.. maybe that would do it?

Opuss is a social publishing and discovery platform.  We want to make it easy for you to write and share your words with the world, online, in cafes and at stores.

What makes us unique is that we’re working hard to make it easy for mobile users to create content.  Mobiles and tablets are not just consumption devices anymore.  We’re hard at work building Opuss for additional platforms.   Which means we’re offering the ability for people to create more, not less, digital assets and allowing budding authors to engage with their fans.

There are so many great opusses written every day with only a fraction shared to the wider world of the interweb. Each opuss does however have a share page and a permanent short link to share it. 

We decided there were too many great opusses being written that just aren’t getting seen. So we’ve created a small tweak to our website and added a “Read More” bookmarklet button. 

The “Read More” button on the right hand side of every share page will deliver a random opuss. Great words on tap!

Get started by dragging this button to your bookmarks bar:

A word of caution: It gets quite addictive

We’d like to welcome you to Opuss™.

A platform for creating and sharing your inspiration for the written word.

When we looked at most apps out there we realised they were about sharing opinions, thoughts and statuses – but none around a passion for words. Opuss is for people who like to create and share their love of words: Jokes, quotes, short stories and poems.

Creativity happens – just not always in front of a desk. Opuss is a way for you to capture and share your inspiration on the go.

 

We started this project out as a proof of concept initially – we were huge fans of Instagram’s mechanics for user engagement. Then we realised just how many photo sharing apps there were, but none were focussed around words. We’ve since been shocked at the level of demand and engagement on the platform – but also the length of content. People have become much more comfortable writing on the go. We’re seeing a steady trend to longer content and this is evidenced by early betas of our iPad version due soon.

This is our first prototype and we’ve got big plans. We’re working hard on releasing a universal app to include iPad users – check out the demo here.

We’re also putting the finishing touches to an open API so other app and website developers can plug into the platform and grow the Opussverse.

We would love to know your thoughts, ideas, feedback and most importantly, your words.

Find out more at Opuss.com