Comments on: This isn’t what I meant by social software http://www.openparenthesis.org/2006/12/29/this-isnt-what-i-meant-by-social-software Because these are the early days of a long revolution . . . Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:07:44 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: John http://www.openparenthesis.org/2006/12/29/this-isnt-what-i-meant-by-social-software#comment-23203 John Tue, 02 Jan 2007 17:03:13 +0000 http://www.openparenthesis.org/2006/12/29/this-isnt-what-i-meant-by-social-software/#comment-23203 Francois - thanks for your comment. Certainly your English is better than my French. (I was going to write that sentence itself in French but even that I was afraid I would butcher.) I understand the idea is to offer various themes, which is great. I guess what I was reacting to is the whole concept of a visual avatar - even the more serious theme you pointed to still strikes my eyes as a bit cartoonish. I think once you have even a handful of other weezu users on the same page as you that interface will hit cognitive overload, as avatars take up too much space in that horizontal bar. I love the idea of making presence awareness (who from my friends list is on this same page) part of the experience of surfing - but I'm not convinced yet that another horizontal bar across the bottom of my web browser with visual avatars is the way to accomplish it. Francois – thanks for your comment. Certainly your English is better than my French.

(I was going to write that sentence itself in French but even that I was afraid I would butcher.)

I understand the idea is to offer various themes, which is great. I guess what I was reacting to is the whole concept of a visual avatar – even the more serious theme you pointed to still strikes my eyes as a bit cartoonish.

I think once you have even a handful of other weezu users on the same page as you that interface will hit cognitive overload, as avatars take up too much space in that horizontal bar.

I love the idea of making presence awareness (who from my friends list is on this same page) part of the experience of surfing – but I’m not convinced yet that another horizontal bar across the bottom of my web browser with visual avatars is the way to accomplish it.

]]> By: Francois at Weezu http://www.openparenthesis.org/2006/12/29/this-isnt-what-i-meant-by-social-software#comment-23057 Francois at Weezu Mon, 01 Jan 2007 14:43:23 +0000 http://www.openparenthesis.org/2006/12/29/this-isnt-what-i-meant-by-social-software/#comment-23057 Hi, I am a member of the weezu folks Many thanks for sharing what you think about our service. Please let me try to comment a little bit, and sorry for the poor english (you may have guessed we're not native english speakers...) Design: weezu is skinnable... the first release is very cartoonesque, the current default is Christmas themed, and we have a more serious look almost ready (curious people can peep <a href="http://weezu.com/weezu/themes/squareBrackets.gif" rel="nofollow">here</a>). Why should one talk to strangers : mmm... beats me :) Seriously, there are so many use cases out there, and we trust people to invent new ones! Instant Messaging for instance was reduced to ICQ for a long time, before it became MSN- or Yahoo- or... based mainstream applications. We are convinced that some people will enjoy communicating through weezu. FireFox: we are definitely working on it, that's a promise. Growth of community: you are spot on the problem faced by such a service, there has to be a big user base for it to become interesting. However too big a community is not expected to be a problem, since you only see people visiting the same websites, at the same time, and not all connected people whatever the site they're on. Moreover, friend list and filtering the people one sees are features we plan to embed, along with many others. Interaction with the visited site seems also a very good idea, could you please elaborate on this ? Finally, since you mention Me.dium, let me list the similar services that we know about: Itzle, Gabbly, Geesee, Chatsum, Yakalike, Quickchat, Peekko chat. It seems like it's just the begining :) Thanks again -- Francois Hi, I am a member of the weezu folks

Many thanks for sharing what you think about our service. Please let me try to comment a little bit, and sorry for the poor english (you may have guessed we’re not native english speakers…)

Design: weezu is skinnable… the first release is very cartoonesque, the current default is Christmas themed, and we have a more serious look almost ready (curious people can peep here).

Why should one talk to strangers : mmm… beats me :) Seriously, there are so many use cases out there, and we trust people to invent new ones! Instant Messaging for instance was reduced to ICQ for a long time, before it became MSN- or Yahoo- or… based mainstream applications. We are convinced that some people will enjoy communicating through weezu.

FireFox: we are definitely working on it, that’s a promise.

Growth of community: you are spot on the problem faced by such a service, there has to be a big user base for it to become interesting. However too big a community is not expected to be a problem, since you only see people visiting the same websites, at the same time, and not all connected people whatever the site they’re on. Moreover, friend list and filtering the people one sees are features we plan to embed, along with many others.

Interaction with the visited site seems also a very good idea, could you please elaborate on this ?

Finally, since you mention Me.dium, let me list the similar services that we know about: Itzle, Gabbly, Geesee, Chatsum, Yakalike, Quickchat, Peekko chat. It seems like it’s just the begining :)

Thanks again — Francois

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