My Attendi Blog

Version 2: Group functionality

The technology behind Attendi is working well. We are close to launching the build with full functionality, but one of he major things we need to go live is the ability to form groups. We have spec’d it out and are moving forward. This is important on two fronts… first of which being, we need to market and get people into the system. The second is that group functionality means we can provide value to organizations immediately.

Marketing will begin in earnest in January, and one of the areas we are looking to push is enabling organizations, non-profit and health care concerns full access to attendi, ownership of keywords and categories, free sponsorship positions and content aggregation. This means that if you type in “Crohn’s Disease”, we would like to be able to “presence enable” a Crohn’s sponsoring organization. This would include free sponsorships, creating a “group” presence and controls for the spearheading organizations. It’s a great way for people to get involved, share ideas, and grow online activism.

Speaking about activism, here are some of my thoughts on sharing ideas and conversations over the internet. Also, you may have noticed we have removed the “sign up” area, so now anyone can join, immediately. Check out the invite section… one of the best things we have added is the ability to follow the growth of your “influence”, graphically.

December will be group building functionality. January will be very interesting…

New Attendi Build: 10/10/07

Nice. We have added 2 important features and a slew of improvements to our search engine.

First, the notification. Beta testers complained, rightfully so, that if someone wants to talk to you, the notification can go un-noticed (“X wants to talk to you about Y”). So, we’ve added a bright red drop down reminder that not-so-subtly lets you know. In a day or so, it will follow you around till you click the close button, and not dissapear as you move to a new page.

Second: The first pass at tag management. Power to the People! Attendis can now remove tags. They can also re-add those tags as usual. Shortly, you can rename tags, and control sizing of the tag within the cloud. This gives you the power to control your “aboutness”.

Search works much better now… relevance and availability are quite accurate now.

In the following weeks, we will launch what I call our “Live-ability” Alpha… the point where I feel comfortable doing a full-scale add. We’re good to go. These include massive improvments in Availability options, so Attendis can control their own presence. Where, and when would you like to be active? Community and bridge building options… so much more…

I will detail those as the specifics are documented. Questions?

As always, feel free to contact me!

A Case Study

So here it is, nice and easy: I got “tapped on the shoulder” the other day. alexxxa wanted to ask me about “animals”. hmmmm. Ok.

alexxxa: Sorry to bother you, but I have a question about dogs.
drew: …i have a golden and have had other breeds, whats your question
alexxxa: Ah. Wonderful. Well, I’m about to adopt an akita/chow..
Only thing is, I have a significant other who is worried about the smell of the dog..do you find that your dog give a certain smell to the house?
drew: some worse than others, but here is what my wife suggests. first, wherever he/she sleeps, buy these scented sticks, they are fantastic, it is a liquid in a bottle, and you add these scented sticks to it
drew: try these type of diffusers, they help a great deal
alexxxa: Ah. Ok

Not much it seems, right? But here’s the interesting point. First, not easy to find on any other search engine. Could I have looked for a “dog” type forum? Sure. Other sources of info, absolutely. But here, a question was asked, and an answer gotten to, IN 15 SECONDS. I tried this on other search engines like google. Dog odor or Dog smells, and I do get some quick, relevant stuff, but nothing gave me the diffuser. And nothing gave me the interaction.

The value of discussion is what separates “engines” of fact based data from relationships of commentary. Even wikipedia looks for facts and stats. In fact, if you inject color or opinion, you are flagged. We are not google. We are not wikipedia. We are the other kind of search, color commentary, opinion and human insight.

And you’re right. Odds are, we won’t become a big alternative engine for the masses. We’re about to fight a war that is nearly impossible to win. It takes a certain type of youthful exuberance and the added downright bull-headed-ness we all had in our 20’s. Personally, I’m in my Forties. And while it’s true that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, it’s good to remember that you sometimes can’t teach new dogs some of the tricks that old dogs know. And like they say:

“It ain’t the size of the dog in a fight… It’s the size of the fight in the dog”.

Bruce Springsteen: “No Surrender”:

Well we busted out of class
Had to get away from those fools
We learned more from a three-minute record
Baby, than we ever learned in school
Tonight I hear the neighborhood drummer sound
I can feel my heart begin to pound
You say you’re tired and you just wanna close your eyes
And follow your dreams down

Well we made a promise we swore we’d always remember
No retreat, baby, no surrender
Like soldiers in the winter’s night with a vow to defend
No retreat, baby, no surrender

Well now young faces grow sad and old
And hearts of fire grow cold
We swore blood brothers against the wind
I’m ready to grow young again
And hear your sister’s voice calling us home
Across the open yards
Well maybe we could cut someplace of our own
With these drums and these guitars

‘Cause we made a promise we swore we’d always remember
No retreat, baby, no surrender
Blood brothers in the stormy night with a vow to defend
No retreat, baby, no surrender

Now on the street tonight the lights grow dim
The walls of my room are closing in
There’s a war outside still raging
you say it ain’t ours anymore to win
I wanna sleep beneath peaceful skies in my lover’s bed
With a wide open country in my eyes
And these romantic dreams in my head

Because we made a promise we swore we’d always remember
No retreat, baby, no surrender
Blood brothers in the stormy night with a vow to defend
No retreat, baby, no surrender
No retreat, baby, no surrender

Attendi "Founders"

Once we enable “badges”, the first thousand or so Attendis will be given Founders Badges (image to follow) for display on their Profile Page.

Before we do a large-scale blow out, we are taking all the interaction and user data we can, and making improvements. That’s the key reason for the small beta. Right now, we are cleaning up display and database issues. Making the tag cloud more user defined, and giving more control over the “aboutness” cloud to the individual. That means we are scaling back the “derived tags” and pumping up the user defined tags. Email me if you have any questions.

We are also looking for ways to:

a) make the content (posts and conversations) more “sticky” and useable.

b) improving the Attendis “awareness” of pending conversation requests.

Thank you to all the Founders involved in the beta for your insight, optimism and input. You can look forward to many major improvements in the next few days/weeks.

Calling All Communities

After we fix some bugs, we’re inviting any and all communities to join the conversation. I am discussing the strategy on Monday, but I hope to be able to take some content, extract the best tags, and give them to all community Attendi’s as a starting point. I think one of the best things Attendi can do is allow companies and communities to create valuable content using discussion, inside and outside the enterprise.

If you are interested, contact me. It’s a free way to get some exposure, archive some valuable dialog, and reach out beyond “who you know”. 

Back Home, Reflection

Now it’s about scale. Can we get the numbers? As many have said, “Great Idea” if people use it. So far, the beta is going well. People are using it and learning about Attendi.

The idea of “public” discussion/chat… It’s a bit like learning a new language. Was able to get some very good information from diverse and knowledgable people. So for that, it’s working. Still fixing bugs. Get in touch if you have any thoughts… Email me.

Demo: More Thoughts

Lots of decisions to make. People keep asking for ways to control the “tag-cloud”, which over time will give a good representation of your “about-ness”

I am thinking that we will allow some clean up, but I have to remind Attendis: the tag-cloud gets much cooler and more relevant over time… and with use.  At first, it’s going to be off, and need clean up. But as you post more, interact and talk, it will only get better. Check back after a couple weeks of use and see.

Graphically, we need to improve word distinction too. We will.

From the DEMO show

Well, I did a FAIR presentation this morning. I got some good response after, but I think I am lucky the product is good. The show has been busy. We are live and doing great. Learning a lot about how users are dealing with setting up profiles, issues and changes.

Most importantly, we need to refine our list of Attendi 2.0: What comes next. I’ll report back soon…

Welcome!

If you haven’t gotten an invite, leave your email at Attendi. I promise you I will be pressing the Team to the limits trying to accommodate all requests.

You can still do a lot at the site. Get used to the environment, search and dig deeper. Few things you’ll notice: We’re light on content. Expected, we started with less than 30 users at the very first beta (pre-launch). We have landing pages for those terms that don’t match a search, inviting you to post some thoughts if you have any.

We’re going to open it to more than 1,000 over the next week. But the content is limited. It will grow. The goal is to get to six digits quickly. I would love to see one million active users by the end of ‘08. We need time to work out all the bugs, add functionality and services, and build links to/from other sites, but eventually the goal is “Millions of Attendi’s storing billions of insights”. Mmmmmmm.

We are adding functionality, and hope to cycle enhancements every 1-3 weeks after launching. Here’s a few in progress:

1) Better tagging and tag management

2) Facebook / Social integration

3) In-discussion Ratings (currently, ratings work on profile page only).

How people use the site over the next month will drive future enhancements. If you have ideas, feel free to post, email me or get in touch. We’re reaching out. Your feedback is critical.