jducoeur: (Default)
jducoeur ([personal profile] jducoeur) wrote2008-06-05 01:10 pm
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BTW, the project is *far* from dead -- looking for a few more users

I haven't been posting about CommYou all that much here lately. That's mainly because I don't want to bore you all too much. But the fact is that I'm still deeply immersed in it, practically to the point of obsession, and there's still lots of discussion going on. It's just that, now that CommYou is seriously up and running (and rapidly getting reasonably usable), I'm holding most of those conversations over there instead. We have a small core of folks actively talking, but I'd love to get a few more viewpoints in.

So if you're interested in the topic, I do encourage you to come check it out. It's still early days, and it's not *nearly* as full-featured as LJ yet, but it's mostly getting past the early suckage. (My objective for May was "usable"; the goal for June is "cool, part 1".) And it's relatively easy to follow even if you only check it out once every day or two, due to the "Read New" feature that is at the heart of CommYou: this keeps track of everything that's changed, so you can simply Next through conversations to catch up. (This is the first major difference between LJ and CommYou -- it's easier to stay current with conversations, and keep them going.)

Yes, it does still require getting a Facebook account -- I'll be dealing with that in the course of things, but it'll still probably be a month or two yet before you can simply use it with your LiveJournal login. That said, there's nothing all that horrible about Facebook: it's just another social network, and there's no reason to be allergic to it. So if you're interested, just sign up for Facebook, friend me there (optional, but that's how you'll see my personal postings), and add the CommYou application. Once you do that, you should get the CommYou app in your application list, and can simply Read New to see what's been going on, and Post to start conversations yourself.

It's still early days, but it's pretty damned exciting: I'm dropping releases about once a week, and it's fun to watch the system coalesce. The community over there is heavily involved in shaping it -- most features get some discussion before I implement them, and the commentary there is making a huge difference is helping me make the right decisions. So I invite you to come play, and help me create something really cool!

I'll continue to talk about it here occasionally, and once I think the core features are solid and cool enough, I'll be talking it up a *lot*, and more strongly trying to get folks to use it. But for now, it's mostly for those who want to be part of the creative process. Spread the word to those who you think might be interested.

Oh, and on a related point: I'm thinking of starting a new blog, probably to be titled "The Art of Conversation", on the subject of online text conversation, how it works and how it interacts with communities. That would be more of a public professional blog than an LJ-style one, highly focused on the topic, so it might or might not be hosted here -- it's possible that it would go on Blogger or commyou.com. (Eventually it will move over to CommYou itself, but it'll be a while before I have the right feature set for blogging: that isn't the primary purpose of the system, so those stories are further down the list.) Would you be likely to read that if I created it and set up an LJ feed for it? I'm trying to get a feel for how worthwhile that would be...

[identity profile] liamstliam.livejournal.com 2008-06-05 05:44 pm (UTC)(link)
I would read the blog.
dsrtao: dsr as a LEGO minifig (Default)

[personal profile] dsrtao 2008-06-05 06:55 pm (UTC)(link)
If it has a full-text RSS feed, I'd read it no matter where you put it.
laurion: (Default)

[personal profile] laurion 2008-06-05 07:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Ditto. Although I would point you towards wordpress.com over blogger for an externally hosted option.

[identity profile] wispfox.livejournal.com 2008-06-05 07:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Ok, I can certainly see the new things... but is there a 'catchup' option so that I don't have to scan through old posts in order to see what is _actually_ new?
laurion: (Default)

[personal profile] laurion 2008-06-05 07:24 pm (UTC)(link)
There's an 'ignore' function for ignoring some conversations completely, but nothing that says 'mark all read'.

[identity profile] metahacker.livejournal.com 2008-06-06 03:19 am (UTC)(link)
Careful...you might get her *interested*. :P Then you'll have feedback for days! Months, even!

[identity profile] wispfox.livejournal.com 2008-06-06 02:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Hey!

That's... totally accurate! ;) (modulo wrists, of course)

[identity profile] wispfox.livejournal.com 2008-06-06 03:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Best part? That was from a real bug report. Back when I was doing bug triage. :)

[identity profile] wispfox.livejournal.com 2008-06-06 02:15 pm (UTC)(link)
FWIW, I would suggest:

catchup on all, catchup on a specific user, catchup on things before or after a certain date. Possibly more, but those seem most applicable.

(You do know I do QA in my day job, yes? :)

Also, yay for adding it to your list!

[identity profile] wispfox.livejournal.com 2008-06-06 04:01 pm (UTC)(link)
I understand that it's buggy; I have lots of experience in new products, because those are the most fun! (I am one of those weird people who actively enjoys writing test plans/cases/instructions on how to use things).

No worries; I have it in my head as 'everything is a feature request' for this. :)

[identity profile] miraclaire.livejournal.com 2008-06-05 07:22 pm (UTC)(link)
I would read it.

[identity profile] metahacker.livejournal.com 2008-06-05 09:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Funny question: what would you think of a collaborative blog, with multiple authors? You've got a bunch of verbose and interesting people around; I think it could work...

(It seems like most of the blogs I really like are written by multiple people anyway, even if I often forget to read the by-line.)

[identity profile] metahacker.livejournal.com 2008-06-06 03:22 am (UTC)(link)
Well, then, the mind meld is already working!

I certainly like the idea of you as lead editor and me as occasional guest; I'm bad at being consistently interesting, or coming up with new conversations, but ask me questions and I'll answer/discuss/ramble at length...

[identity profile] bkdelong.livejournal.com 2008-06-05 11:06 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm making this comment on a train home so I apologize for lack of looking at CommYou but PLEASE make sure there is a mobile friendly interface. I'm not asking for a separate app but perhaps a basic XHTML plus CSS interface it gets shunted to when it detects a mobile mime type.

Too many people thought web accessibility was about older browsers and didn't think about scalable web guis for the multitude of mobile devices and futuristic interfaces.
So frustrating - break from the pack! ;)