Here's an update on some recent changes we've made to the 63red News app, and our website, based on your feedback and suggestions.
We've add a "Hottest" view to the 63red News app, allowing users to see the most active articles. This has turned out to be a very popular feature. Update your app through the Apple AppStore or Google Play Store to get the latest.
On the back-end, the server recalculates and assigns a "hotness" score to every article of the last 6 hours, based on the number of times the article's been read, liked, and commented upon. Weights are applied so that "likes" and "comments" receive greater value. The score is then used to determine what is "hot". These scores are then used to create the new view.
In addition, we've completely re-written the website, which you can view at
http://63red.com.
The site now looks much more "Drudge"-like, and includes the top "hottest" articles, as well as the latest, and the most read. The site is functionally complete, though we'll continue to fix "beauty" issues over the next week.
The primary purpose of calculating the "hotness" scores, however, is to create an Alexa Skill for delivering the top five 63red News articles to your Alexa devices in your news update. We'll be finishing the Alexa Skill this week, and will let you know here once it's complete.
After that, it's back to 63red Safe, our app for allowing conservatives to rate restaurants and businesses based on their acceptance (or rejection) of conservative principles and customers. We put that project on hold during the holidays, and because we needed a break from what is turning out to be a very complex effort. Look for 63red Safe to the available in early February. We'll let you know here once it's online.
We've set for ourselves the goal of being a factor in the 2020 elections. We want conservatives to have the best mobile and web tools available. We started with the idea of creating (yet another) Social Network, but have abandoned that idea, because we didn't want to go to the trouble of writing for a genre that we know is dying.
Instead, we want conservatives to be well-informed (63red News), able to reach out to each other (63red Talk), safe in their shopping and spending (63red Safe), and able to notify each other of, and preserve pictures at, events and rallies (63red Gather). We're half-way through our goals, and believe we'll meet our target of helping conservatives in the upcoming presidential election.
See our current and planned apps at
http://63red.com/apps.Again, we welcome your feedback and suggestions. We're building this for you, and money, but mostly for you, our fellow conservatives.
Thanks for your help.
Sw.