User Love June 12, 2008

This week, I am at the Voices That Matter Web Design Conference here in Nashville.  During the Wednesday luncheon, we were given the option to sit at any table that was labeled with a topic.  The idea being, you get a nice lunch but you get to discuss and exchange ideas about how to make the web better.  I chose to site at the Socializing the Social Web table.  The next table was labeled “Learning to Love Your Users”.  Nobody sat at this table, so I couldn’t resist.  I had to have my picture taken by this sign because I love our users!
A lot of ideas were exchanged over the past few days and some of these ideas will come to SoberCircle at some point in the future.  In the near future, SoberCircle will be on the leading edge of websites and your involvement with us will make you more web savvy users without you having to even work at it.  This is the nature of the web.  People who are more web savvy tend to use sites that are on the leading edge, thus they are cutting edge themselves.  Its exciting to have the opportunity to bring this website to the recovery community.

New technologies are coming that will change how we know of SoberCircle, and it will all be for the better.  As we often say on SoberCircle, more will be revealed…

SoberCircle 2.0 Prototype Screen May 24, 2008

We are currently developing a new sobercircle website, with a broad range of new features, including better security, better functionality, and better management of your friends network. There is one feature that we can’t discuss until the launch that is so innovative, SoberCircle will be the only website on the internet to have it.  Here is a screenshot of the early product…

Meeting Followup & Reconnecting April 6, 2008

Hey everyone.  Sorry I havent updated recently.   Its been a crazy couple of weeks for me.  I spent most of last week in California hammering out the details for our new version of SoberCircle.  You will see me repeat this over and over again, but it is really going to be groundbreaking.  I can’t elaborate on it anymore than that because it really will be a unique deal and we don’t want to give others the ideas so they can steal them and make them their own.  Its strictly confidential.

One interesting thing I did while in these planning sessions was record most of the activity on video.  I will soon be adding small excerpts of this to the blog.  We will also be releasing a newsletter soon to everyone’s email that will go into some more detail about what is coming in the future with SoberCircle.

There will also be a blog that I will contribute to in addition to this blog that will help communicate changes and other important information to the members.  I just finished setting this up and we should be live with it within a week.

Big SoberCircle Planning Meeting March 27, 2008

I am out here in Cali for the last half of the week for an intense discussion on the future of SoberCircle.  Its early in the day and I can already tell these meetings are going to go a long way toward making SoberCircle 2.0 a really unique and useful place for online recovery.  Up until now this niche of recovery has been a bit behind the times in relation to whats going on in the tech world.  We were fortunate to get into this early and were not as far behind, but I will admit we have fallen behind the times with some of the website’s features.  All that is about to change.

I am recording video from all our work here today and I hope to post some excerpts from it soon.  Until then, everyone have a great day!

Trust your instinct and compromise March 22, 2008

Recently we implemented a community opinion system on our blog posts for SoberCircle.com.  Needless to say when I announced what we were doing, feedback was somewhat negative.  I think some of it had to do with misinformation.  Its been almost a month since we instituted the change and since then, there has been very little negative feedback.  As the lone moderator of the blogs, my need to monitor the blogs continuously has lessened and the number of times when people have complained about the speed in which blogs posted in poor taste have been removed has dropped considerably as well.

So, the question is:  what have I learned from this experience?  The slogan for your social networking community should match that of Burger King – “Have it Your Way”. While I couldn’t blame members for being up in arms over the radical change to the blogs, I felt it was the right thing to do.  The next obstacle to overcome is home to implement the change without in alienating an entire section of the membership.  The only solution I could come up with was to create a new option within the navigation where members who really didn’t care for the new system at all could go to a page that showed the list of recent posts without being affected by the recent change.  This was the compromise.  And while I don’t know if this compromise really was the difference maker, after we released the alternative listing page all the dissent really subsided.  If you have any intention of making radical changes, be prepared to offer an alternative or at least ease your members into it.  This is what we intend to do with our 2.0 release later this year, by easing the membership into the new version with a beta release.

In summation, observe the situation, evaluate and determine a solution and stick to your guns when you implement it… but be ready to offer up alternatives if possible.

SoberCircle 2.0 status report: March 21, 2008 March 21, 2008

2.0 is starting to look really good.  We are taking a long hard look at what works and what doesnt on the current SoberCircle website.  One thing I can say right now is that 2.0 will look and feel quite a bit different than 1.0.  There are new technologies and standards that weren’t built into 1.0 that will be a part of the new version.  We will also take advantage of the plethora of social media/networking APIs to a new SoberCircle that is better connected with the rest of the web.

I want to give more details about the project and I will start throwing hints around soon, but for now I can’t disclose more because believe it or not there are other websites out there working to eat into our share of the marketplace.  We want to remain the leader for online recovery communities.

We are wrapping up our first email newsletter since December of 2006 and will be sending this out very soon.  We intend on making more frequent email messages about the progress.

New Logo & SXSW March 9, 2008

Well, I recorded a 4 minute video about what were doing with SoberCircle and I left my software and adapter to transfer my video from the camera to my laptop at home.  So, no video.

Here is our new logo.  I hope you all like it…

I’m here at SXSW Interactive in Austin, TX.  For those of you that don’t know, South By Southwest has become a landmark event for us within the web industry.  All the major industry players are here.  Its also an opportunity for us designers and programmers to reconnect with old friends and make some new ones too.  If you are in the web industry, it is a must do at least once.  And chances are if you come once, you’ll come back again.

The highlight so far has to be a lowlight in some respects. The keynote speaker today was Mark Zuckerberg, the 23 year old creator of Facebook.  Rather than a traditional speech, it was presented as an interview.  The interviewer, Sarah Lacey is an author of a soon to be released book that focuses largely on Zuckerberg.  The interview was a disaster.  It was really not enlightening whatsoever.  It was so poorly presented that the interviewer was heckled for the greater part of the last 20 minutes.

On the road again March 7, 2008

I just arrived in Austin for SXSW Interactive, sitting in the lobby waiting for my room.  I’m here to pick up on some of the cool new things going on in the Web World, so we can bring those things to everyone at SoberCircle.  I will also be posting a video to SoberCircle very soon and tonight we will unveil our new logo.

Til then, have a good day everyone.

New SoberCircle logo March 4, 2008

Here are our 4 final logo concepts for the new SoberCircle logo.  You care to share your opinion?  Please.

Yea/Nay system installed at 3:15 PM CT today… March 4, 2008

It has been an interesting day to say the least. This afternoon I installed the rating system (commonly referred to on SoberCircle as the Thumbs). Feedback was mixed. Several people liked the idea. Others were really upset. As you can read from my previous post Regulating open blogs in a social networking community, the intentions are good and pure.    So many people see this type of system as a popularity contest, when in truth the Post Read total we post next to the blogs in the list post a much greater representation to popularity than this “thumbs” system ever would.  We aren’t even displaying the number of positive responses for a blog to prevent this beauty pageant.  Most members felt that there was a high probability they would be excluded from the public eye because of this and they immediately felt threatened.  The truth is, it will take a lot of negative opinions to get bumped from the public eye.

Inevitably, someone will have a post get bumped off the list.  This is the equivalent of forcing a person to sit down and pass the mic after going off on a rant  about something that to the group is irrelevant.  Its the harsh truth about public exchange of communication, every once and again you have to put someone in check for their carelessness or indiscretions.  My responsibility as a community leader is to facilitate free communication and empower the user base while insuring the vast majority of members and visitors get the most out of the website.  I take this responsibility seriously.  So, I had to go back after the system was launched and add a page back that shows all the blogs regardless of whether they get bumped off the main list or not.  What this does is allows the members to have it their way, just like Burger King.

Ah, the life of a social network developer, always listening to your membership, making changes and assessing the effect – both positive and negative.   It’s not a lot of fun to have to answer questions from your members in an open chat after you make a dramatic change to such an important section of the website, but you have to step up and be accountable.  Otherwise, you lose the faith of the people….