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Editor | Scotland
  • posted Aug 7th 2008...
Hello everyone,

in response to an excellent question from Kenneth we've set up this forum as a space where we can do two things:

  1. Keep the community up to date with any new features on the site, any ongoing developments to the site, and any proposed developments on the site.

  2. Let the community have their say on what new features should be introduced to the site and comment on ongoing site developments.

We know we haven't built the perfect site yet, and part of being in the online space is focusing on continually improving the space for the users.

So we're really pleased to be able to discuss the developments we have planned for the site in the future, and we're especially excited to hear from you about what you'd like to see on the site.

So what are you all waiting for?

Get stuck in and tell us what you want.
Kenneth
  • posted Aug 7th 2008...
Then I have another request:

As marketers, we all have busy days. Make it easy for us to browse trought the new posts on the forum by having a link or something where we can list all recent threads there have been activity in since my last visit. That would make things a bit easier.

Maybe some RSS as well :)
Editor | Scotland
  • posted Aug 7th 2008...
Update - 07/08/2008

So, to get the ball rolling, here is a list of developments to the site that I have been throwing around in my head for the last little while. I'm not including Kenneth's great suggestion for a signature for each user just yet, but that one is for another post and is certainly not being shelved. Let me know your thoughts on these though:

  1. Calendar pages - we're working on bringing a more functions-rich calendar to the site, including the ability to subscribe to the calendar and receive updates on when new events are added to the site. We'd also like to have an easier way for our users to submit their own events for inclusion in the calendar.

  2. Inline images - this refers to the way the site displays images. We'd like to be able to include small thumbnail images in the body of the articles, which expand when you click on them to display a larger overlay image. If you're wondering what this effect would look like, it's already on the site - just try clicking on an existing image at the bottom of one of our articles to see it in action.

  3. Podcasts - we're working hard to bring regular podcasts to the site. It's a big task, but we really think that these could be great for marketers. We're planning on making them available through iTunes, to make it easier to subscribe to them and get updated as soon as a new one comes out.

So, what are people's thoughts on these potential developments?

What other functionality would you like to see on a calendar page? What would help you to keep track of the events you want to hear about?

Do you think it would be helpful to have the images on the site display in the body of the text? What about the video on the site?

What length would you like podcasts on the site to be? We've tried to keep the video content on the site down to around five minutes max, but what about audio podcasts?


Of course, if you have any other suggestions we'd love to hear them too. Looking forward to getting a conversation started around this.

Cheers,

Scotland
Editor | Scotland
  • posted Aug 7th 2008...
Another great request Kenneth and one I will be running by our amazing developers in the morning. In my mind it would be a sort of 'What have I missed...' functionality. You could get an update appear in a pop-up window (I know, I know, pop-ups are much-hated, but in this instance might be a good idea) that basically lists all posts (forum, blog, calendar, etc) that have been added to the site since the last time you were logged in.

Now, I should add, that I have no idea whether this is feasible for us or possible. From a user perspective though, I couldn't agree more - would be a great feature. I'll run it by Jon, James and Luke (the dev team) to see what their thoughts are.

It sounds like a potentially large project, but one definitely worth looking into. I'll report back on this when I know more.

As far as RSS goes, we have been busy adding RSS capability to the site over the last few weeks. If you take a look at the image below, you'll see that aside from some rather ugly design, we currently do have RSS feeds for most of our sections and for most of our authors. Right down at the bottom you'll see I've highlighted our Forum RSS feed. Is this what you were looking for?


Let me know if you have any more thoughts on the RSS feeds we do have Kenneth, and again, thanks so much for taking the time to tell us what you want. It's the best way for us to make sure that the Australian marketing community get the site they deserve.
Kenneth
  • posted Aug 7th 2008...
1. Calender
Good idea! Specially if you break it into different states (I wouldn't really care what's going in Sydney, unless I'm going there. I live in Perth so everything is far away).

2. Inline images
Images is ALWAYS a good thing. It's easier for the eyes and makes the reading less boring. You should also include some more functions to the forums for "pimping" out entries a bit. Links, bold, underline etc. Being allowed to add pictures would also be a good thing.

3. Podcasts
Before you invest time and money on this I would conduct a research to see if people really need it. Personally I never listen to podcasts. I would rather watch a youtube video. Do people really care about podcasts?

4. "What have I missed" function
I see absolutely no reason for why this should be in a pop-up. Make is simple. Have your dev-team make a quick function that lists all active threads for the last 24 hours or something. It's a reall simple query.
Kenneth
  • posted Aug 7th 2008...
I would also like to add that there should be a quote function, so we can quote other people on the forums.

Another great function would be some kind of reputation system. If someone writes a really good post on the forums, other should be able to give them a reputation point or something.

Edit:
How about some notification tool on threads I'm active in?
Kate
  • posted Aug 7th 2008...
Whilst we are at it... here are some ideas, which btw, are all related to the forums.

One of my most used functions of my other forums, is the 'find more posts by...' function, where you can see what other posts a user has contributed. Is that possible?

Also as Kenneth mentioned above, part of building a community involves getting to know others online, and by building a 'reputation', so I find that seeing how much each member posts is a good way to evaluate comments and so forth.... therefore an 'individual post counter' could be an idea.

Another thing I like on other forums is how you can click on a person's post and then link back to a small 'public profile'. This increases the social aspect and also relates back into the whole thing about source and authorship - so posts can be read in context. This is also the place for self promotion (like the Blow Your Own Trumpet thread), which marketers surely love!

A simple 'text editor' is a further idea - allowing users to automatically italicise text, make text bold, insert links (that open in a new browser), insert emoticons (if not too lame!), and so forth.

A visible 'thread replies and views counter' is also a possibility - for instance when you are on the forum home page, having the threads listed as they are is fine, but perhaps, then have the thread views and thread replies available so a user can determine whether or not the thread is worthy of their current attention (after all irrelevant/non-active threads die through demotion)!

Finally in answer to some of your questions - yes I think video and images should be inline with the text. For Podcasts I think they should be no longer than half an hour max - I image everyone is time-poor so fitting in additional podcasts can be difficult (unless you take all the best content from the Podcast rounds and make one ultimate Podcast, which in that case make it around an hour!). I can't really comment on the calendar as I'm not sure if I would use it much (I prefer to hear about events through e-newsletters).
Editor | Scotland
  • posted Aug 8th 2008...
Awesome comments everyone and great feedback. Looks like we've got a bit of work to do on the forums :-)

It's all good - we really appreciate the time you've taken to let us know what you think. I will be putting these comments together into a working document for James, Luke and Jon, and when I have word back from them on the feasibility of the changes and a possible timeline for them to happen, then I'll be reporting back to you all here on a blueprint for how we move forward.

Thanks again, and keep the comments coming!
Kenneth
  • posted Aug 13th 2008...
I assume you guys want suggestions for improvements outside of the forum as well? I would love to have some more options when it comes to the articles. First of all you should have some kind of trackback feature. That might encourage other bloggers to link to your articles. That could mean more traffic to your site and at the same time it will bring more value to your users who are interested in reading more about whatever topic the article is talking about.

Also, since were able to make accounts here on MM (where are the extended profiles, btw?), it would be fun store articles as favourites. That way I can go back in the future to read the articles I like again.

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