The Overnightscape MetaFeed

What if there was software with the elegance and extensibility of WordPress but all the features you’ve come to expect from social networks like Facebook? Now there is: check out BuddyPress.

BuddyPress is an official sister project of WordPress. The idea behind it was to see what would happen to the web if it was as easy for anyone to create a social network as it is to create a blog today. There’s been an explosion of social activity on the web, it’s probably the most important trend of the past few years, but there’s been a dearth of Open Source tools that enable the social web.

In WordPress we have a robust and extensible base that can scale to many millions of users, and BuddyPress is essentially a set of plugins on top of WordPress that add private messaging, profiles, friends, groups, activity streams, and everything else you’ve come to expect from your favorite social network, like a Facebook-in-a-box.

I don’t think BuddyPress will be something you use instead of your existing social networks, I mean all your friends are already on Myspace, but if you wanted to start something new maybe with more control, friendlier terms of service, or just something customized and tweaked to fit exactly into your existing site, then BuddyPress is a great framework to use. Maybe even someday you’ll be able to connect your BuddyPresses to each other and to the existing monolithic social networks.

This is just a 1.0 release and it’s not for everybody yet, for example it currently requires using MU which is a bit trickier to get set up than regular WordPress, but regardless I’d recommend diving into the community at BuddyPress.org, which is great example of the software in action.

Here’s Andy’s official announcement post.

The Rampler #283 (4/30/09) 11.35 (1:20:57 / 74.3 MB)
The Overnightscape Underground - April 2009 - Track 35
“Your Late Night Broadcast” online at onsug.com
Created by Frank Edward Nora (frank@theovernightscape.com) in New Jersey, USA
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Frank in NJ and NYC in the morning. Starting at the bus stop in NJ, auctions of hollywood memoibilia, Planet of the Apes, Dr. Zaius, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Forbidden Planet, Au Bon Pain at Port Authority, chocolate croissant, rat caviar dream, Bryant Park, LaQ Japanese building toy - dice and cube, NetHack, American Idol, Lost, and a whole lot more.
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License for this track: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). Attribution: by Frank Edward Nora - more info at onsug.com

The poll is closed, the votes are counted, and the results are interesting. The table below shows the actual breakdown of the poll votes, of which there were 2,651. As you can see, there were four main contenders: Dean J. Robinson’s Fluency-based submissions (two variations), the existing 2.7 interface, and Matt Thomas’s comp (MT), which exists somewhere between them in terms of style. Note: GB was a late entry, and was posted after over 900 votes had already been collected.

As several people have rightly pointed out, the Fluency-style designs not only took the top spot, but in combination added up to a higher percentage than any other. We’re not focusing solely on that statistic, though, because had other designers submitted multiple versions, the numbers might have looked different. What was most interesting for me was checking in on the votes over the course of the two days the poll was open. The top three (Fluency-dark, Current 2.7, MT) kept beating each other out for the #1 spot as they cycled back and forth through the top three slots, and had the poll closed on time (left it open a little longer in case anyone translated the time zone incorrectly), the order would have been a bit different.

What’s more interesting to me is the overall style that seems to be preferred among voters, as Matt’s comp has some stylistic similarities to Dean’s (see image at left). It also would be interesting to know how many of the votes for the current 2.7 interface were based on thinking it looked the best vs. how many were votes against changing the interface at all so soon after the 2.7 redesign. If you want to comment on what you liked best and/or least about any of the designs, this thread is a good place.

So what happens now? However we look at it, the Fluency-style designs clearly have a lot of fans. Then again, so do the designs of Matt Thomas (he’s behind the current style of 2.7, remember, in addition to the comp labeled MT). To give the interface the attention it is due, and to take seriously some of the interface feedback around usability and accessibility, we’re going to leave the looks alone for 2.8. It’s our guess that a revised style will make into 2.9 early in the development cycle to allow us plenty of time for user testing and revision. How close it winds up being to the comps submitted in this design tweaks challenge will depend, but in the meantime:

Congratulations, Dean J. Robinson, on winning the vote!

The Rampler #282 (4/29/09) 11.34 (1:32:08 / 84.5 MB)
The Overnightscape Underground - April 2009 - Track 34
“Your Late Night Broadcast” online at onsug.com
Created by Frank Edward Nora (frank@theovernightscape.com) in New Jersey, USA
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Frank in NJ and NYC in the morning. Starting at the bus stop in NJ, with washing machine and ants, then on the bus, the green hat guy moves, then in NYC, some mix up at Starbucks, then the long distance dedication, then Bryant Park with Crazy Cores Skittles, and then walking, through Grand Central and much more.
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License for this track: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). Attribution: by Frank Edward Nora - more info at onsug.com

The Rampler #281 (4/28/09) 11.33 (1:10:33 / 64.5 MB)
The Overnightscape Underground - April 2009 - Track 33
“Your Late Night Broadcast” online at onsug.com
Created by Frank Edward Nora (frank@theovernightscape.com) in New Jersey, USA
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Frank in NYC in the morning. Puppet Armageddon. The Fuzzy Daupner Experience #1, Swine Flu, Illuminati, True Blood poster, Air Force One, time loop, LaQ Mini Kit Shark, Muji notepad, seltzer craving, the bus from hell, sheep, seeing and not seeing, chemtrails, Miss Piggy Flu, Puppet Armageddon, The Muppet Show, Muppets Tonight, Kurt Cobain, Lordi Films, A Cigar Mania, Naruto, bus incident, Martin Short on WFMU, Shelley Duvall is hot, and a person is real.
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License for this track: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). Attribution: by Frank Edward Nora - more info at onsug.com

Comps for the header/nav design tweaks are in, and the results are mixed. Some people just moved a few things around, while others proposed a new style altogether. We won’t make any major changes to style in 2.8, but if the vote leans toward a submission that proposes it, we’ll do some user testing and make a decision for early 2.9 (which, now that we think of it, is probably the right thing to do anyway. )

Below are the links to the screenshots that were submitted. Please review each one (I’d open them all in tabs so I could look back and forth while they are all large size, because the voting poll just uses thumbnails), then choose the one you think looks the best/is the most usable.

This poll was supposed to close at 8pm NY time on Tuesday (today), but we’re going to leave it open for an extra day. The voting poll will now be closed at 8pm NY time on Wednesday (that’s 2am Thursday, UTC). If you want to discuss the entries’ pros/cons, this thread would be a good place.

Current: The existing interface, for reference

KM: Current nav, header elements moved

AN: Current nav, file folder style header

KD: Current nav, modified header style

JJ: Swap blog title and favorites menu

DR1: Fluency style, dark

DR2: Fluency style, medium

DR3: Fluency style, light

IK: Nav layered over dark background

MT: Modified nav and header

<br /> <a href=”http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/1575922/” mce_href=”http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/1575922/”>Which style do you prefer?</a><span style=”font-size:9px;” mce_style=”font-size:9px;”>(<a href=”http://answers.polldaddy.com” mce_href=”http://answers.polldaddy.com”>answers</a>)</span><br />

Results will be posted the day after the polls close.

While we do offer telephone-based technical support in the form of callbacks, we don’t have a public phone number that customers can dial for technical support.

We do have a phone number, but it’s reserved for vendors and other specific applications - not technical support.

From time to time customers may find this number and they often leave irate/angry/pleading messages for assistance. We haven’t had one in a while, but this morning we received a voicemail that melted our hearts and moistened our eyeballs.

(We’ve obscured his domain name to protect his identity.)

Please, Sir, help me out!
903k, .wav file

This customer of ours had their domain registration transferred away from DreamHost to another registrar (in this case, GoDaddy.com) without their consent. This can only happen if an unauthorized party gains access to our customer’s account control panel to authorize the transfer, and we’ve indeed logged the actions and IP address of this individual.

The customer may have used an insecure password, been infected with a password-stealing keylogger, or may have simply fallen prey to a phishing scheme.

We’ve done all that we can do in situations like these - we’ve advised our customer to begin the dispute resolution process with the domain’s current registrar.

In the end, he should be able to get his domain back. Unfortunately it’ll take time and a fair amount of money, depending on how receptive the current registrar is to his situation.

To help soften the blow we’ve sent him a huge bouquet of flowers to help get him through this difficult time.

The Rampler #280 (4/27/09) 11.32 (1:07:22 / 77.4 MB)
The Overnightscape Underground - April 2009 - Track 32
“Your Late Night Broadcast” online at onsug.com
Created by Frank Edward Nora (frank@theovernightscape.com) in New Jersey, USA
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Frank in NJ and NYC in the morning. Talking about a lot of stuff. LaQ.
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License for this track: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). Attribution: by Frank Edward Nora - more info at onsug.com

Tap-A-Mall (7/2/01) 11.31 (2:51:33 / 157.3 MB)
The Overnightscape Underground - April 2009 - Track 31
“Your Late Night Broadcast” online at onsug.com
Created by Frank Edward Nora (frank@theovernightscape.com) in New Jersey, USA
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Frank attempts to go to 21 shopping malls in New Jersey on Monday, July 2, 2001, and “tap” each one with his brass “Jukewand”. This is the audio record of the adventure. In the end, Frank gets to 17 malls:

Cherry Hill Mall, Deptford Mall, Echelon Mall, Quaker Bridge Mall, Princeton Market Fair, Princeton Forrestal Village, Brunswick Square Mall, Freehold Raceway Mall, Ocean County Mall, Monmouth Mall, Woodbridge Center Mall, Menlo Park Mall, Bridgewater Commons Mall, Short Hills Mall, Livingston Mall, Wayne Towne Center, Willowbrook Mall

This was the one and only time Frank ever did Tap-A-Mall. Though of course a Tap-A-Mall 2 is possible in the future…

See all the pictures Frank took with his digital camera during Tap-A-Mall below…

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License for this track: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). Attribution: by Frank Edward Nora - more info at onsug.com

The Rampler on WFMU #3 (4/25/09) 11.30 (4:00:19 / 220 MB)
The Overnightscape Underground - April 2009 - Track 30
“Your Late Night Broadcast” online at onsug.com
Created by Frank Edward Nora (frank@theovernightscape.com) in New Jersey, USA
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The third broadcast of “The Rampler with Frank Edward Nora” on WFMU. Frank fills in for Bill Mac from 2:00 AM to 6:00 AM on Saturday, April 25, 2009. Featuring a mix of NYC recordings, studio monologue, phone calls, reviews, etc.

Here is a link to the show’s page on the WFMU website:
http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/31212
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License for this track: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/). Attribution: by Frank Edward Nora - more info at onsug.com