What is Huddler?
We think of Huddler as the next generation of online product review and research. We want our Huddles to be valuable to you if you're researching options before making a purchase, but we also want it to be a great community to consult when learning how to install or optimize the performance of stuff you have or new things you buy. Some beliefs that we've applied while building Huddler:
There are only two Huddles now...what comes next?
Why take a shot in the dark when our users are a perfectly good indication of how and where we should grow? The next Huddle will be chosen by you, the founding members of our first two Huddles. The fourth Huddle will be chosen by users of the first three, and so on. We want to accommodate your interests.
Why not just launch 100 Huddles to cover all areas of interest?
We believe in quality over quantity. For each Huddle we go to great lengths to provide a comprehensive data set of relevant products before we launch. We like to pre-populate some compelling content to give you something to think and talk about. We want to make subtle tweaks to the interface to make each Huddle unique. We want to mine the far corners of the almighty interwebs to find other interesting people that may want to take part in our great community. All that takes more than a few hours.
Will Huddler always be free?
Our developers are like Kobe Beef cows - they require very high end food and hourly massages so we may not be able to afford being free forever (kidding). In all seriousness, we may eventually charge for premium services in particularly active Huddles, e.g. when we start allowing users to buy/sell/trade products with one another, we may charge nominal fees to avoid spamming and other forms of abuse.
I have a great feature idea for you guys - who should I talk to?
We have our Feedback Forum open 24 hours a day, or if it's so good you don't want anyone else to know, you can private message user "Support" and we'll throw it in our development road map. If you think you're the right person to come up with lots of awesome features and implement them, you should be at our Jobs (link) page, not here :)
I never got my email validation email!
That's a fair complaint and one we definitely want to help you with. First, if it has been more than fifteen minutes, check your Spam folder in your email client to ensure that it was accidentally quarantined, then add "@huddler.com" to your Safe Senders list. If you're experiencing additional issues, please contact us.
How do I change my user name, email address, and password?
When you're viewing your own Profile page, there should be a link by your user name that says "Edit Account." From there it's very easy to reset your password and change other account details. At this point, you cannot change your email address or user name.
Why does Huddler require my Zip Code and Birthday for registration?
First off, we're not off selling your personal information on the black market (or any market for that matter). We're legally required to make sure you're over the age of 13 (hence the B-Day question) and for the Zip code, we have some ideas for really cool features later on that will make it all worth while, but rest assured, your information will be kept private.
Forums, wikis, product reviews...which one do I use?!
There are countless stand alone discussion forums online as well as several prominent review engines and Wiki sites, but never before have these mediums for content generation been so effectively integrated as they are in our Huddles. With so many options, which medium is appropriate for what type of content? While we believe it's ultimately up to you, the users, to decide, here's a bit of guidance:
What's the story with subscriptions?
Huddler has a subscription model for all of our different content types. You can subscribe to specific threads in forums, to specific wiki articles, or to whole products or users so you receive updates of all of their content. We don't want to inundate anyone, so you can determine the frequency with which you receive these updates. When you're logged in, go to your home page and click the "Manage Subscriptions" link - here you can set the frequency to Instant, Daily, Weekly, or Never. Later on we will add granularity so that you subdivide your subscriptions and receive different types with different frequencies.
Can I remove someone else's post to my bulletin board?
Of course - if you're logged in and looking at your own Profile, each Bulletin Board post should appear with an "X" next to it. Clicking that link will delete the unwanted post immediately.
What's the deal with tags? They seem important but how exactly do they work?
Tags are a vital component of our system - they are the means by which we can tie together the forum, wiki, review, product profile, and other content. If you've used tags before, skip to Paragraph 2, if not, read on. A tag is simply a label that you can affix to content that is broadly descriptive of its contents. In this way, similar content can easily be linked due to mutual association with a given tag. In our system, we have 2 types of tags: Product Tags, and Miscellaneous Tags. Product Tags are unique identifiers for a specific product, whereas Miscellaneous tags are broader and can reference a Product Category (e.g. Electric-Vehicles or LCD-Televisions) or an interesting topic (e.g. 2008-Presidential-Election or Format-Wars).
The difference between our tagging infrastructure and others you may be familiar with is that we restrict tagging to tags that exist in our system. Many other sites enable you to freely enter any tag of your choosing. The difficulty is that you may tag a forum thread with "Apple-iPhone" and someone else may tag with "iPhone-8GB" and suddenly this similar content is not linked. By enforcing more rigidity in the tagging system, the hope is that we are much more effective at aggregating ALL content relevant to a given product or topic.
In order to accommodate this rigidity, we have tried to make it as easy as possible to find the tags you need. Whenever you click the "Add a Tag" button, you are prompted with a tool to help you find what you need. There are two options: if you're looking for a Product Tag, you can browse to it using a series of drop down menus to narrow the options until you find your selection. Optionally, you can use the "Tag Search" to help you find what you need. If you don't see what you need, you can click the "Add Product" button to create the product you're looking for (which will create its tag) or submit a recommendation for a "New Miscellaneous Tag."
If I read something that violates the Community Guidelines or just isn't helpful, what should I do?
Most all content in the site has the option to Vote it Up or Down. This is the first level of defense. In the forums, if a post is Voted Down more than 3 times, it appears in the thread, but is minimized and can only be viewed on clicking. In the case of reviews, those Voted Down often will always appear at the bottom of the list and will likely be removed by administrators. Beyond that, you can post a request with the link to the offensive content in the Feedback Forum, or private message user "Support" and we'll get to it ASAP.
I am a manufacturer. Is there anything special for me?
Not just yet, but we're working on a number of ideas for a symbiotic relationship between our users and representatives from the manufacturers of the products they love. If you have suggestions, private message user "Support" with your contact information and we'll be in touch ASAP.
I love Huddler! How do I invite my friends?
Great question - you gotta share the love. On each Huddle's home page, as well as on your own Profile Page, you should see links that say "Invite my Friends". Simply enter their email addresses in the "To:" box (multiple email addresses separated by commas) and we'll shoot off invites from you to your friends. Other than that, most pages have an "Email this page" link on them that will allow you to quickly and easily send your friends links to content you like.
What's a Product Profile?
Your product profile is a way of organizing the products you Own, Want, and Had. When you want to add a product to your Product Profile, simply go to that product's home page, and click "Own It", "Want It", or "Had It". You'll be prompted to put the product into a specific tab of your profile and that's it! Continue Huddling.
The Product Profiles are a means to connect you with other Huddlers with similar interests and experience who you can hopefully learn from or at least enjoying talking to. We also compile everyone's Product Profile data to provide you with really cool, unbiased statistics about what products the Huddle is actually using.
Products I "Had"? What does that mean?
So you used to drive a 2002 Toyota Prius, but have now moved on to a 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid. That doesn't mean you don't know everything there is to know about that Toyota does it? The "Had It" category allows you to reflect this knowledge to your fellow users.
I have a bunch of stuff that I want to add to my Product Profile, but it's not in the system.
There are several areas in the site where you can add additional products to the system. It is, however, very important that you don't add a duplicate of something that we already have. If it's just a different color of something else in the system, please don't add it. If we really don't have it (and it meets our category criteria), then please add it. Clicking the "Add Products" links throughout the site will prompt a wizard that will take you through the process of adding it to the correct product category, adding the Manufacturer Name and Model Number, then allow you to add images and specifications of the product. If this is confusing in any way - head to the Feedback Forums to let us know!
But the stuff I want to add doesn't fit in any of your current product categories
If we are not covering a product category that you think is vital to this Huddle, please let us know in the "Feedback Forum". If we receive multiple requests for something, we'll likely add it or let you know that a future Huddle will be covering those products ASAP.
