Archive for July, 2007
(On this date in 1954, Ardito Desio’s expedition became the first to summit K2, the world’s second tallest mountain.) Today’s update (and the few smaller ones since the last update) brings a ton of new features, stability improvements and bug fixes. I’m not going to list them all, but one of the big ones addresses some problems I found with the photo viewer. That’s a pretty important area, so I spent a bit of energy on making sure it works really well. Now it’s a nice Flash component which will degrade to plain ol’ HTML should Flash not be available. So this ought to work well for nearly everyone. I’m really happy with how this first release of Dibs turned out. It’s got everything I had planned, plus a few other great features. So, since everything looks stable, I’m starting to sell my own stuff on my personal site, kevin.dibs.net. You’re welcome to sign up and start buying and selling, too! And don’t forget to subscribe to The Treasure Map’s RSS feed. I will be announcing some fun “scavenger hunt” style events soon. Leave a comment to tell me what kinds of prizes I should give away! Today’s update, which I hope is less controversial than the major leaguer whose birthday is today, brings some needed improvements to the posting process, with helpful steps along the draft -> upload photos -> publish path. It looks great and works great; I’m really happy with the improved usability. The other major change addresses message functionality. Mainly, viewing all messages related to an item is much, much nicer — but there were a pile of smaller improvements here, especially focusing on organization and navigation. Also, messages now get chunked off in an email: since messages can’t be sent until an offer is accepted, this is one area where dibs.net reduces email volume. All of these recent changes have made dibs.net a solid and feature-full app. After one or two more solid days of bug fixes and testing, I think I’ll be ready to slow down the release cycle and begin the maiden voyage with a local sale.
With the latest batch of updates and fixes pushed out to the servers and our first week in the bag, dibs.net sure is looking great. I spent a huge amount of time today on image uploading improvements. What was in place just didn’t work very well. The new image uploading process is vastly improved and really fun to use, if uploading images could be considered “fun.” Uploading now requires Flash 7 or higher, but that’s a trade-off I decided was worth it: uploading images is a notoriously painful task on the web, so efforts to make it easier have a great return on investment. As a small side-effect of this improvement, the workflow also changed slightly in that you can save a draft of your listing as you add your photos (so you aren’t forced to post an item without photos and then add them later). This also turns out to be a handy feature if you want to work on a draft listing over a few sessions. There are a just a few things left that I’d like to get in before I start really promoting the service and attracting users, which is looking like it will be some time next week. While the service is entirely usable right now, there are several places that need some paint and one or two that need some reorganization (Messages, I’m lookin’ at you).
Things are looking great so far. I really appreciate all of the feedback I’ve gotten already. There were far fewer critical bugs than expected, which I like to think reflects well on my development skill. Some small changes on dibs.net tonight include:
I’d also like to say thanks to my Mom for her feedback today I’ll be rolling out nightly bug fixes for the rest of the week. Send feedback and problems to support@dibs.net, motivating and congratulatory personal notes to kevin@centropy.com, beer and pizza to my home address.
After a burst of effort and very little sleep this weekend, dibs.net began its life as of about 3pm yesterday. Of course, it will be of marginal use until there are listings, so go forth and sell! What’s dibs.net? At its core dibs.net is an online, regional classifieds site for non-commercial buyers and sellers. But that’s a boring description, because “classifieds” doesn’t even begin to describe what we do. Visit about dibs.net to learn more about how it works. Here is a limited list of what is implemented at the moment.
I also have big plans for the future, including:
If you notice any problems, please open a ticket on support.dibs.net.
I uncovered a few critical bugs and deployment issues while attempting to get dibs.net online this past weekend. As a result, I begrudgingly decided to delay the launch until this coming weekend. It will be another frantic, work-filled weekend, but that’s how it goes. As I re-roll frequent fixes onto the site over Saturday and Sunday, service will be spotty. By Monday I plan to shift to daily releases to hit any big bugs that appear. I would recommend waiting a week or so before relying on the site for anything important. Wish me luck… launching is only the first step, of course. Attracting and building the community will be the next challenge after dibs.net exists. |
