Jon S's dashboard

Jon S asked a question in Blendapps on October 28, 2009 23:25:

How Will Userplane's discontinuation of ad supported API integrations affect my blendapps chat?

How Will Userplane's discontinuation of ad supported API integrations affect my blendapps chat? http://news.userplane.com/2009/10/all...

Since they just announced it and it's less than 2 weeks away, I'm just being proactive in case i need to look for a different solution.

Jon S shared an idea in Cartfly on October 25, 2009 15:22:

Social Network "Wishlist" Feature

A "Wishlist" feature that lets a user click to wishlist an item rather than buy it. The item then appears in their activity feed on Facebook, Ning, or Twitter. A friend could then buy it for them. Maybe ths is something to suggest to Sellit, im not sure exactly where cartfly ends and sellit begins

Jon S replied on September 23, 2009 17:32 to the question "Long "connecting" times seem to be getting more common..." in Blendapps:

not only the same issue, but i have verified they have the same issue at the same time. And all my users have it at the same time. They are spread out throughout the world (asia, europe and usa) so this suggests its a systemwide issue. Hope this helps with your troubleshooting

A comment on the problem "Authentication errors" in Blendapps:

hey andreas... im having this issue more and more frequently. feel free to contact me one on one if you need help troubleshooting it. my chatroom is always busy and is affected at least once every hour for seceral minutes... thanks – j.wings, on September 23, 2009 17:20

j.wings replied on September 23, 2009 16:29 to the question "How do I add my profile picture?" in Blendapps:

i have this issue too, as do some of my users.. it seems to stick to a person. my avatar is a graphic as well, like ningmaster. i wonder if userplane has a filter for that?

j.wings replied on September 10, 2009 22:10 to the question "Long "connecting" times seem to be getting more common..." in Blendapps:

By the way, Im on a few ning sites that have blendapps, and they are all having the same issue.

j.wings asked a question in Blendapps on September 10, 2009 22:07:

Long "connecting" times seem to be getting more common...

... to the point that I'm now receiving virtually universal complaints from users.

I checked Userplane Directory during times when I couldn't get in, and chats there were working fine. I'm now assuming this is a Blendapps bandwidth issue or a Ning issue. but maybe its Userplane capping it.

The reason this is an issue is that after working hard to create a user experience that gets a constant flow of people clicking the button to go in the room, this last bottleneck loses more than half of the people trying to enter (they simply don't have the patience to wait around.) When people enter a chatroom with 10+ people they stay. When people open a slow or empty chatroom they leave.

Once you fall below the critical number of people in a room, its very hard to get things started again.That creates a lull in the conversation that is felt long beyond the duration of the connection issues.

I know it's a free service, and the ads haven't come back, which is great, but having people be able to reliably log in is better, even if there is a monthly fee.

Thanks

j. Wing

j.wings started following the problem "Error Message--can't log into chatroom OR blendapps" in Blendapps.

j.wings replied on April 24, 2009 19:34 to the idea "Test New Releases Properly Before Putting Them Live" in Ning:

I agree with you there. I like to think of them as "sidegrades".
Rather than giving NC's options to customize our networks, they tend to just decide "here's a new way to do it" and break anything creative that had been done based on the old system.

j.wings started following the idea "Test New Releases Properly Before Putting Them Live" in Ning.

j.wings replied on April 24, 2009 16:12 to the question "Userplane for Ning Q&A" in Blendapps:

oh that's an interesting idea... launching the popup chat for all logged in users. but remember, with ning, a lot of times you dont need to log in again. still, i can see that has a lot of potential on a site where the chatroom is neglected by the users. it would really raise the awareness.

j.wings replied on April 24, 2009 15:57 to the question "Adverts Kicking Chatters OUT." in Blendapps:

i havent had this problem with blendaps version, but it was a frequent issue on the userpain directory version. Andreas, i noticed that since ads are sometimes served with geographical restrictions, sometimes i couldnt see the ads my users were complaining about because i lived in a different country. Just a thought to help out.

j.wings replied on April 24, 2009 15:53 to the question "inappropriate blueadvertise ads" in Blendapps:

yeah andreas, thanks for being responsive to that. I had a lot of complaints before about userplane's ads on their "directory" version, especially in regards to overly aggressive ads selling smileys and antivirus software. Also ads with aggressive popups. Many users complained that they got malware from these ads. When i complained to useplane, i got no answer.

Note to everyone reading... this is not a complaint about the Blendapps version of the product, as i have not had that problem with it. Im just noting it as something for everyone to keep a lookout for. Malicious advertisers can slip things into today's semi-automated ad streams and it takes a bit of community policing to keep it all clean. This is a great place to report strange activity if you notice it.

j.wings replied on April 24, 2009 15:44 to the question "how do i delete ads in the chat window?" in Blendapps:

I'd be in for a monthly fee if it was reasonable, and if you guys developed stronger moderation tools.

j.wings replied on April 24, 2009 15:41 to the question "Resize the chat ?" in Blendapps:

no, i think what he means is for the USER to be able to re-size the popup chat window and have it scale to fit. This is a feature of other implementations of userplane (the userplane directory version for instance behaves this way, check it out).

The reason this is important is that its hard to make a chat window thats right for all screen resolutions. Someone on an old PC (1024x768) or a netbook (800x600) needs a very shallow chat once all the browser chrome is accounted for. This size chat is really annoying though if you are using a desktop with a nice monitor. Its impossible to make both users happy with the same size.

j.wings replied on March 24, 2009 16:07 to the question "sound notifications?" in Blendapps:

meebo yes userplane no.

j.wings replied on March 24, 2009 16:05 to the problem "Chat embed code on Ning main page" in Ning:

usually this is just a caching problem. try adding the userplane then looking at it on a different browser or computer. Its a common javascript issue on ning, and its only affecting you right after you add the code, because your browser thinks it knows what javascipt should be loaded where. Restart your browser or clear the cache and it will probably go away.

j.wings replied on December 16, 2008 23:52 to the question "Dock A/V more than one user?" in Blendapps:

looks like you got this solved now. thanks. the next thing would be to make window resizeable by the user

j.wings replied on December 01, 2008 23:17 to the question "Dock A/V more than one user?" in Blendapps:

as you can see, with one person in the dock, when i go to another user, the dock button is shaded back and i get a "dock is full" warning.

j.wings replied on December 01, 2008 19:14 to the idea "multiple chatroom instances with different dimensions" in Blendapps:

yes, but now that you mention it, the instance could also include settings for any skinning information as well (for mebo) once you got that implemented, so the chat could be different color schemes on different pages.