New Prompt Problems

Tuesday, November 8th, 2022

I have a really interesting problem on PromptBase.

When a new prompt goes live, it appears in the "newest" section.

Currently it gets 3-4 hours of exposure there before it goes horizontally off-screen because even newer prompts have taken its place.

How new prompts flow off the page on PromptBase
How new prompts flow off the page on PromptBase

Every category across PromptBase is ordered by most popular of all time, to showcase the best prompts to a potential buyer.

All PromptBase categories on the marketplace are ordered by most popular.
All PromptBase categories on the marketplace are ordered by most popular.

However, this means after a prompt has left the Newest Prompts section, it's almost impossible for that prompt to get exposure, even when it might be really good! It's lost to the oblivion unless you search for it.

This is really bad, because if a user creating good prompts isn't getting sales, they're not going to keep submitting prompts, and the site will die.

My current solution is this new "trending" section, which is all across the site now.

New trending prompts section
New trending prompts section

It uses a modified version of the Hacker News algorithm for surfacing new prompts that receive lots of views and sales.

The Hacker New algorithm.
The Hacker New algorithm.

After that, I've built a sort-of funnel. There's a section for top prompts of the week, then top prompts of the month that good new prompts should hopefully flow through to increase their exposure.

I think it's sort of working. A minor benefit also is the homepage feels less stale - prompts are constantly changing so a user might check back more often (like checking the front page of Reddit).

I'm tempted to change the whole marketplace page to use the trending algorithm, but there's a risk it will show worse prompts to a potential buyer which will reduce demand, and then I'm back in the same position of prompts not getting sales.

But, at the same time, are the most popular prompts only popular because there's not a trending algorithm everywhere?

It's a real chicken-and-egg problem!

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