BabbleBlog

We redid our front page last week and today is the first day I’ve had time to blog about it, despite being really excited about the changes. I’ve gotten some feedback from some of our users, but we definitely want to know what more folks think.

Babbledog's latest front page

The cosmetic difference is probably fairly obvious. Once you log in, Babbledog will show you some of your recommendations. We’ve dropped the column of top users. Causes are on the right. We’ve changed the navigation a little bit to make it easier for you to get to the causes and the stories. What’s happening on the site is now displayed in a box at the top of the page instead of being a column on the front page.

What do you like? What do you dislike? What is there that should always be on the front page? What would you like to see on the front page?

OneWebDay logo

Today is OneWebDay, a celebration of the Internet. Kind of like Earth Day, it’s a way for us to ponder the role of the Internet in our lives and how it has changed things. We certainly wouldn’t be building Babbledog were it not for the Internet.

How has the Internet impacted your life? What things do you do now that you wouldn’t be able to do without the ‘net?

Babbledog in pirate bandanas

Avast! We here at Babbledog like to have us a little fun, especially on Talk Like a Pirate Day. Yar! We’re no landlubbers, knowing we’ll have to walk the plank if we don’t toss out an “Ahoy!” or a “Matey!” or a jolly good song. A few of me hearties might head out for some grog. We’ve kept Babbledog shipshape for you today. Weigh anchor, hoist the mizzen, and head over there to pilfer what the old seadog has pillaged for you today.

Monday’s Oprah focused on child predators. The first part of the show taught me more than I ever wanted to know about what kinds of things child molesters and people who like kiddie porn could find online. It makes me angry to think that people use the Internet to harm others in this fashion. We take this kind of content very seriously here. We won’t allow it on Babbledog. We don’t want items that are illegal or harmful to others. If we find it, not only will we delete the content, but we will disable the account of the contributor. If you find it on our site, please let us know: supp...@babbledog.com.

Flex time is one of the things I love about my job. With the weather as beautiful as it was today and it being September already, I couldn’t resist going swimming—an activity I love, but don’t get to do very often. I hit a point today that was a great time for a break. I had just gone through one important, but time-consuming, task and wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to knock off my to do list next. The team didn’t need me for anything and wouldn’t mind me being gone for a while, so I headed for a lake.

I love these late season swims. Only a few people are at the beach. I don’t have to dodge all the children and people playing around in the roped off area while I try to swim some laps. There’s a greater chance of seeing more birds, especially ones that won’t go near a crowded beach. In general, it’s so much more relaxing than swimming during the popular times of the summer.

Despite me trying to take a break from work, my mind wandered over all aspects of Babbledog, from what I had been doing this morning to what’s coming up in future weeks to various testing I should do. Sometimes I have really good thoughts while I’m in water, but I didn’t have any really terrific brainstorms this time. The headache I had this morning vanished while I was out there, though. My mind was definitely in a better state for work after the swim.

When you think tech in Texas, you usually think Austin, Houston or Dallas. San Antonio isn’t on most people’s radar when they think about technology. That’s why I was excited to see San Antonio get their inaugural BarCamp last weekend!

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised at how successful the BarCamp was. People came from all around the central Texas area to share ideas and projects that they are working on. I was also quite surprised at how many people work here remotely (as I do for Babbledog). It turns out there is a lot more going on in San Antonio tech wise then most people give it credit for.

I gave a talk about using CSS grid frameworks and used Babbledog’s new cause page as an example. It seemed to go well, and I was even quoted in a San Antonio Express-News newspaper article about the event.

A big thanks goes out to those that organized and sponsored this year’s Barcamp San Antonio, and I look forward to more meetups in the future!

Do you hate typoess as much as we do? No matter how many times you proofread something, do you notice one more chainge after making it live? Babbledog can now help you with those problems when you create a cause!

Before anyone else supports the cause you’ve just created, you can edit or delete it, as appropriate.

Blue Star Banner cause with red pointers to the Edit and Delete buttons (click on the image to view a larger version)

Simply click the Edit and Delete buttons that appear below where the supports and founder of the cause would be and follow the form on the next screen.

We don’t allow editing or deleting after someone supports the cause because it would be unfair to radically change or remove a cause once people are supporting it.

“Oh, in case you hadn’t heard yet, here’s a new browser for you to test on ;)” begins an IM to me from a friend, referring to Chrome, the web browser that is the latest Google release. At least one of my coworkers has already downloaded it and begun playing with it. I have not. According to my contract, I only have to test Renesys’ products. I’ll wait a while before looking at anyone else’s new releases because I usually end up finding issues with other companies’ software. I’m happy to let other people do the initial sweep so I don’t have to do that.

To answer what some of you might be wondering, we do not plan to start testing on Chrome yet. While we know a few of you might be eager to switch to a new browser and take a look at Babbledog in it, we generally choose browsers on which we focus and test based on market share. We imagine it will be a while before Chrome becomes as popular as, say, Safari, and even longer before it becomes as popular as Internet Explorer.

Because of differences in the browsers, making sure Babbledog works in the browsers we actively support (Safari 3, Firefox 2 and 3, and Internet Explorer 6 and 7 on Windows XP and Vista and Macs) can take some time. While it can be as simple as looking at a page in those browsers and platforms, checking functionality can take some time. We don’t think we adding more browsers to our list of supported browsers would be a good use of staff resources without that browser having substantial market share. If we’re lucky, Google will have made a browser that works perfectly with Babbledog. I’m feeling lucky, Google.

One of the advantages to working for Babbledog is that I know what great new features are coming down the pipe. One of the disadvantages is that I can’t tell anyone until they’ve been released. Well, today is the day!

*runs to the nearest hilltop and hollers*

WE’VE ROLLED OUT A NEW DESIGN FOR THE CAUSE PAGES!

Click on a cause to visit its page. The cause’s image, blurb, and any URL are in the top left corner. Below those items are buttons for the actions related to causes, like supporting and dropping a cause, inviting someone to join a cause, putting a widget on a website or blog, and posting a story to the cause. The cause’s founder is pulled out from the cause’s supporters. Next are the tags, the words briefly describing the cause. Below all of that are stories, discussion, and causes related to the cause you’re presently browsing.

The most notable new change on this page might be what we call the bubble bar at the top of the page. Like the bubble wall, it highlights current actions happening on Babbledog: who’s commenting, who’s registering, what’s popular, etc., but it only shows one item at a time. This way, when you’re viewing causes, you won’t be completely disconnected from what’s going on.

Enjoy!

I recently reread an article from The Economist about businesses in the Web 2.0 world and their prospects for making money. The bit in the article I keep chewing on are the few lines that deal with closed web tools versus systems offering integration with other sites and services, like how AOL’s messenger service used to only let you talk to other AIM users. People want services that are open, talk to each other, integrate, acknowledge that people probably also have accounts elsewhere, whether its on a competitor, like reddit, or a completely different site, like NetFlix. We ourselves use lots of different Web 2.0 sites. We get it. We understand the importance of being able to have them talk to each other.

Does Babbledog seem like an open system to you? Why or why not? What do you think we can do to ensure that Babbledog is and remains open? With what other services do you think we should integrate? What other tools do you use?