Steve Lyb on what he perceives to be the “problem” with Stamped:
>The problem with this approach is that you will make the conscious effort to stamp only things that you think others might give you credit for.
I completely see what he means here because that was my initial assessment: what happens when I run out of stamps? I am addicted to Stamped, and as of right now I have 603 stamps available to me. I started with 100. I have stamped 28 things.
Now you may say: well that’s easy because you have more followers. But think about the way the service works. If you stamp something and another person stamps that thing, giving you credit, then you get 2 stamps.
Even if you only have a dozen followers you likely will never run out of stamps so long as you stamp one thing that someone else wants to stamp — that’s not very hard.
I stamp obscure things because I love seeing people adding those things as a “to-do” — what a great way to share something with people that they otherwise didn’t know about.
I am guilty of stamping things that we all love, but I am also trying to balance that with things I think you may have never heard of (my favorite Seattle locales and favorite whiskeys). Lyb’s concern isn’t unfounded, but come back in a month and I bet all the common things in your timeline (Instapaper FTW!) will not be the things you see in your Stamped list.
As the service matures so will the stamps, and as the stamps mature they will get more specific and obscure — if for no other reason than the popular things will have all been stamped.
No, the *real* problem with Stamped is the business model — or lack there of.