Re-development of Interests [#556236]

A redevelopment of Interests module is in the works... I've come up with some ideas below, completely ignoring what the current version has and going back to the root idea.

The original hope for the Interests module was to integrate with a defined taxonomy category (or free tags, but it'd be less 'smart') and to be able to suggest new content to you. It would also learn based on the pages you're visiting.

Additionally the interests should be part of a users profile, however I think it should move to CCK Content Profile for a D6 release preparing for D7 with an easier upgrade path.
A dependency here would be on Content Taxonomy.
I also think it should have a 'interests select' very similar to Stumble Upon having columns and heavily JS based, not a big tree list or select box. If you use Free Tags then you are left with using an autocomplete here.

There could be a contextual views part of this module where it could filter based on interests. As an administrator you would point the Interests module to the correct CCK Profile Taxonomy field, then choose which views the filter applies to. You can then toggle it on/off on the views page. I have code working for this already and it's pretty cool and seamless. Also written is a view for users with similar interests.

Let's discuss and work out what we want to achieve.

Comments

Comment #1

d0t101101 CreditAttribution: d0t101101 commented 29 August 2009 at 20:42

I'd agree that it makes sense to plan for a D7 release and use Views/CCK extensively. About the StumbleUpon type of interest selection, take a look at the taxonomy_browser module. The display can be setup to be very similar, and used on a page or block, so you might be able to borrow some of its code for the UI.

Here are some key features I hope it will include. Luckily if you go the Views/CCK route it should be fairly trivial to implement most of these:
-Ability to display teasers or titles for matching items
-Ability to display customizable user profile fields beside avatars for matching users
-ImageCache support
-Block to display other items with this content type you might find interesting, based on the view context

Really looking forward to a release!

Thanks,
.

Comment #2

kirkcaraway CreditAttribution: kirkcaraway commented 19 September 2009 at 21:00

I posted an idea in the forums a few days ago about some similar functionality, when I ran across this module. Perhaps it might help you as you move ahead with this task. Here is the post:

I am a recent escapee from a long career in the newspaper industry, and seeking to find better ways to serve up news for local communities (using Drupal, of course, which is something I couldn't talk my old bosses into using).

One of the problems for newspapers (just one of many) is the inability to present members of a diverse audience the news they want to see. We are still in the "one-size-fits-all" stage of content distribution.

One thing I would like to explore is creating an evolving personalized news system, where registered users are presented with new content that is related to the past stories they have read/flagged/created/commented or voted on. But is there a way to do this?

Basically, what I would like to do is to build a news feed (or view) that is based on the taxonomy terms of the nodes that the user has read/flagged/created/commented or voted on. When a user interacts in these ways with a node, those terms are stored with their user profile (not visible to anyone but them) and new nodes that match those terms are presented to him on a personalized news page, or via a feed or other type of notification. The user would be able to edit those terms, as there will be some items the don't care about, and others they might want to add.

That would be the basic functionality. To add to that functionality, the taxonomy terms could be weighted based on a variety of factors. For instance, one factor could be the user's interaction with the associated node. If a user just reads a node, that would score a 1. But if they flag it as a node they like, that would score a 5, a comment would score a 6, and a node they create would score a 9. Those values should be able to be adjusted, but you get the picture.

Another factor could be frequency. If a user reads 20 nodes with a certain term, that term will score higher than a term they only read once. Also, the length of time should be taken into account, kind of like the Radioactive module works. A term visited today should have more weight than one visited six months ago.

Now, the real question is can this be done? Are there existing modules that can be made to function this way, or could this be a new project? I would appreciate any feedback on this idea. Thanks.