Hump Day: Announcing Invision Community's new swag store!

[Daniel F]

I have my cup, so if you want, 

 

[Matt]

We need a name for this new boyband. Suggestions?

[Charles]

The Geriatrics

[Nathan Explosion]

Devy Metal

3 minutes ago, Matt said:

We need a name for this new boyband. Suggestions?

The "IPS MirrorImage" app needs a bit of work...

[Chris Anderson]

IPS has implemented a variety of different integrations with third-party sites that are better funded and employ folks well-versed in solving particular pain points.  There are so many pain points IPS can address internally based on their development budget, talent and time.  Being transparent up front when encountering such pain points better addressed by others will go along way in engendering customer loyalty. 

With the announcement of a swag store it would have been nice to have a blog posting highlighting all the pain points you would have encountered in implementing such a turnkey solution in-house and the steps you took to address it via an external third-party. 

It's quite possible that "some" of your customers would like to offer a similar solution themselves. Why didn't you think to provide a step-by-step tutorial on how we could implement such functionality ourselves? That would have provided a nice value add for those that could benefit from your experience.

 

 

Edited March 10, 2022 by Chris Anderson

[Nathan Explosion]

Well, I've just grabbed a beanie seeing as I now wear them

[Matt]

🚨Breaking: Andy and Jim join the band.

[Nathan Explosion]

Boyz n the Hoodies

[Greek76]

Wtf guys no invision underwear??? LOL

 

 

[Marc Stridgen]

30 minutes ago, Nathan Explosion said:

Devy Metal

Completely missed that LOL Love it

[Jordan Miller]

14 hours ago, Ramsesx said:

Yeah, my dreams finally come true I'm waiting so long for

 

Invision SOCKS

Haha. I know you're being sarcastic, but I actually bought a pair and they turned out dope. 

[Jordan Miller]

11 hours ago, Chris Anderson said:

I think more than ever sites are looking at any means they can to help monetize their sites as expenses to run their sites keep increasing.  <Here's looking at you IPS>

Are any "new features" in the pipeline this year likely to appreciably help us to further monetize our sites?  We can't effectively compete against Social Media companies by "trying" to replicate their feature set so why are we chasing down that path?

A conversation we should be having is what unique features could we collectively come up with to entice people to spend their precious time on our sites and cover our expenses more readily and maybe make a few dollars for ourselves. 💰

Hard to give a definitive answer whether these new features will further monetize your sites, but I'd like to think yes. They will definitely add value and create a better user experience. 🙂 

[Whiskey Bizness]

3 hours ago, Matt said:

🚨Breaking: Andy and Jim join the band.

Their new album, Straight Outta JSON, is lit.

[Chris Anderson]

44 minutes ago, Jordan Miller said:

They will definitely add value and create a better user experience. 🙂 

Social media companies are constantly adding value and creating better user experiences for "free" for their users to partake of.

How will any upcoming features (or improvements to existing features) being planned for release in the next year "really" tip the balance in our favor for current or future users to pay us for what they can readily get free elsewhere? 

59 minutes ago, Jordan Miller said:

Hard to give a definitive answer whether these new features will further monetize your sites, but I'd like to think yes.

"Your" heart might be in the right place, but the lack of clarity from IPS makes it difficult to plan, grow and monetize a site that will be around for years to come with just a vague hint here or there of what might be upcoming in the months to come.

As it stands today, there is no way to plan for the long term, how can one do that based on vague hints here or there? 

The only real chance of being a successful site is to plan for the future so that one can implement a new feature in such a way as to minimize disruption to the existing community and to maximize its overall value, and maybe, just maybe figure out how one might monetize it.

Having new features sprung on us on a monthly basis with little to no forewarning that they are on the way prevents their introduction to the community in a planned fashion.  Often times a new feature or refinement of an existing feature has an impact on the community forcing users and admins to be in constant reaction mode.  Many folks like platforms with a modicum of stability and notices of upcoming changes, unfortunately with you as our software platform provide, we can't offer that to them. 

Maybe IPS could create a new user group for those that would like to be kept a little more in the loop.  Anyone that opts into such a group would be kept more apprised of your long-term development plans and changes you might make to said plans or upcoming deprecation of features. Inclusion to this group would come with the promise to not mention anything discussed with those not a member of the group without express permission from IPS management.

This group wouldn't necessarily be tasked with providing input in favor or disagreement of any upcoming feature. That should be left to the customer base as a whole and should happen more often than you currently do. IPS management and developers have pretty good instincts but could benefit from other pair of eyes on occasion.

I'm particularly vocal of late as I've had to start and stop a large project as you have deprecated certain features or added or changed features that completely altered various planned implementations.  I think that I've hit upon a platform that would work but I have zero expectations that by the time I set up the platform suite and third-party apps that it will still play well with each other in the months to come.  I don't expect 100% clarity on the part of IPS (at least overnight), but a significant improvement would certainly be welcomed by the community I'm sure.

[Matt]

We generally release news of features way in advance of their release, and even then you are not pushed into upgrading immediately. I can't think of a situation where you'd see "surprise" features arrive in your community unannounced unless you choose to not engage with our blog, newsletter, forums and release notes and upgrade blindly.

[Whiskey Bizness]

20 minutes ago, Chris Anderson said:

Social media companies are constantly adding value and creating better user experiences for "free" for their users to partake of.

"Free" is a very misleading term when it comes to social media platforms.  Users of social media voluntarily become the product in exchange for being able to use the "free" things that social media companies make available to them.

I would rather pay Invision for the continued evolution of IPBoard, and pay extra for premium features that go above and beyond what the basic platform provides, than have Invision incorporate Facebook-esque marketing algorithms into the software and monetize my community's members for Invision's gain.

 

[Chris Anderson]

7 minutes ago, Ziggs said:

"Free" is a very misleading term when it comes to social media platforms.

I mentioned that myself in my initial post but deleted it figuring it would be akin to preaching to the choir.

[Chris Anderson]

39 minutes ago, Matt said:

We generally release news of features way in advance of their release, and even then you are not pushed into upgrading immediately.

@MattI will give your team kudus for talking about some of the substantial features in advance.

But often times less substantial features don't get mentioned when they are to be added or changed ahead of time. 

When they are mentioned the details are often lacking to make an informed decision as to whether or not to implement it or the likelihood that it will undergo additional development based on customer input. I strongly advocated for a comprehensive release notes and I applaud your efforts to track adds, changes and deprecations. You track a lot but there are some that don't get addressed or could benefit from a "little" more information here and there.  This would be especially helpful to those individuals that don't yet have a great understanding of the platform or particular feature usage.  

When is a feature complete (for all intents and purposes) and when are you open to further development?  Further development might bring the feature to a point that it would be useful on one's site, or it could make it unsuitable.  There are dozens of features that make up the software suite.  They all are intertwined together.  When meshed together in just the right way you have the makings of a real "community".

A feature that is in continual development with no clarity of when said development is "feature complete" one can't reliably know when it makes sense to implement it (or if it will ever work for your unique environment). An example of this would be Member Achievements. Member Achievements is a feature you can toggle on or off but that isn't the case for all features.  Some features you are forced to use whether or not they are really fully developed (for your purposes) and bug free. A feature could work for your site with just "one" change or addition to it. Are you the only one that wants it or is there actually significant pent-up demand for its inclusion?  

When is it prudent to hold off updating your board, one month, two months or six months? Without better clarity from your team its next to impossible to make an informed decision. Also, you have to live with all of the unpatched bugs or security vulnerabilities that are discovered and corrected in the interim. Skipping too many monthly releases in a row increases the likelihood of encountering unrecoverable upgrade issues.  You aren't actually pushed to upgrade but not doing so could come at a price. 

Features that include a lot of different configuration choices are likely the ones that could benefit the most from additional clarity. Changing just one of those choices "could" materially change a feature's behavior, especially if toggled on or off by default.  That behavior could be beneficial or not.  Being made aware of such would be useful to know prior to deciding to upgrade and give customers an opportunity to say, "Hey wait a minute", let's rethink this feature prior to release.

 

 

 

[Clover13]

7 hours ago, Matt said:

Anyone that does by an Invision Community hoodie may look as cool as me (but I doubt it tbh) 😆

TIL I learned Phil Hellmuth works for IPS and goes under the pseudonym of Matt

[Chris Anderson]

@Jordan MillerI'm not advocating for radical change in clarity but incremental improvements here and there that one day will lead to something substantially more useful to the community as a whole.

Edited March 10, 2022 by Chris Anderson

[Clover13]

2 hours ago, Ziggs said:

Their new album, Straight Outta JSON, is lit.

F the PHP is also lit!

Do you guys ever consider sharing your feature roadmap and bouncing it off the clients in a private forum/blog/whatever?  Seems like there's a lot of interest in what's on the horizon, and clients being in the dark about it waiting for the surprise.  How does IPS determine relative value of a feature as it relates to their clients' needs without establishing that feedback loop (PS the comments here aren't a good feedback loop)

[Matt]

@Chris Anderson I completely understand your point, but I can't think of many software apps that give an incredible amount of detail during the build of any new version. There's just too much that can go wrong. We move around projects and delay others all the time.

I always appreciate your thoughtful insights. 

[Jordan Miller]

Just want to drop in and say I appreciate all of the feedback (both positive and negative) as well as the support from the team! 

The shop was a fun little internal project for our team to buy Invision-branded swag. I suggested sharing it with Invision clients as well (since the shop was already made) because I assumed it'd be fun for some of you to buy swag (thank you to those who have ordered btw!). 

I know there's always a bit of a knee-jerk reaction when announcing things because there is so much that can be done to continue to improve the platform. Ultimately, I know the passion comes from a good place. 🙏 

We aren't in a position to share a public roadmap because there are too many moving parts and change of plans. When we're ready to announce something, like our new block submission feature, it's got to be fully thought out and tested. We then absorb feedback so we can improve upon it. 😊 

All that to say: we definitely hear you, appreciate you and are continuing to work hard for ya. Now, if you're down to rock an Invision T, sweatpants or mug, please hit that purchase button. 😎 

[Ramsesx]

6 minutes ago, Jordan Miller said:

The shop was a fun little internal project for our team to buy Invision-branded swag. I suggested sharing it with Invision clients as well (since the shop was already made) because I assumed it'd be fun for some of you to buy swag (thank you to those who have ordered btw!). 

Fine for me, if you all have fun at work with branded clothes it's benefiting too for us customers I think.

[Clover13]

48 minutes ago, Jordan Miller said:

We aren't in a position to share a public roadmap because there are too many moving parts and change of plans. When we're ready to announce something, like our new block submission feature, it's got to be fully thought out and tested. We then absorb feedback so we can improve upon it. 😊 

I definitely understand not wanting to prematurely share an initially targeted feature only to find it's not viable/possible and won't ever be done and having to deal with the fallout from clients (in which case you should be reconsidering if there is enough client interest [$$$+] there).  However, when you share at least roadmap candidates (not definitive/approved) you can establish a feedback loop with active clients to garner value which drives investment and development priority.  Without that, you're reliant on parsing through comments on your forum in unrelated topics or in piecemeal to try and conceptualize what may be valued by your clients (without actually tracking it well, although you could have something behind the scenes that is tracking it in some way already).  Likewise without that, you could wind up investing in and developing something that you envision is high value but turns out not to be highly adopted or accepted.  There's definitely a balance to be had, and it's somewhere in the middle of transparency and secrecy.  Being on either polar end is likely not optimal.