New community-driven Beta Labs website graduates, check it out!!
Fri, 2009-01-23 12:45Ladies and gents, we are proud to present you the new, community-driven Beta Labs website - take a look around!!
What's new:
- Community driven site: everything has been designed with the community in mind
- Better and "more alive" user experience: sorting and filtering the application list, screenshot and video galleries, reviews and ratings, new look&feel, etc.
- From private feedback to public conversations. Each app has its own discussion forum, categorized into (1) Reviews, (2) Bug reports, (3) Suggestions, and (4) Discussions.
- Nokia Account sign-in and reputation system for contributors: your contribution history is saved in your user profile
- Very easy to keep improving the site iteratively, thanks to the new technical platform (= Drupal based)
So how did we end up here? Well, we started designing and building the new site early last summer, and after a couple of unexpected sidetracks, detours and cul-de-sacs, the bits and pieces things started to finally fall into place, and we were able to publish the new site as a beta just before Christmas. And today, after one month of piloting the site through itself (creating a strange loop Douglas Hofstadter would have been proud of), we were confident enough to do the full transition.
Of course, there are still a lot of things to be done:
- Ironing out the rough edges (together with you = the user community)
- Redesigning the front page and user profile pages (we haven't designed these properly yet)
- Mobile browser optimization
- Etc.
For every Beta Labs app that has not been archived / graduated, there is always at least one responsible person from the R&D team committed to follow the respective discussion forum. For the forum dedicated for further improving this Beta Labs website, the responsible person is my mate Ilkka Peltola*. I hired Ilkka as a thesis worker last year, and he proved to be a perfect guy for the job. And now, he has taken the product manager role of Beta Labs website and related systems. Please join me in congratulating Ilkka for his new role!!
* = as with all other Beta Labs projects, Ilkka doesn't have time to reply to everyone - don't get mad :-)
Comments
The title of this page is stil Blog | Nokia Betalabs, gotta know your brand's spacing! Plus you guys can do a better description then just shaping the future together, in the box to the right.
aaand I just noticed BetaLabs in camel case on the page's footer.
Super-informative site! I am loving it!! Will come back again - taking you feeds also, Thanks.
Of course a congrats is in order for Nokia Beta Lab Team ;)
Tommi would you please care to explain what kind of interaction will be for "Graduated" Projects.
In your announcement, to me it feels it discourage users to relay their feedback under this category.
I would not dismay it so quickly. As off my knowledge graduated projects are a still a work progress for continues growth. Beta Labs team may not be directly involved with its improvements, but it seems beta labs forum is the only door way for feedback that may be directed to the correct parties.
Just to name a few, Nokia Messaging is no where of being complete and i recall further growth in the works. The same applies for Nokia Music PC client, Nokia Photos....etc.
There is much feedback, suggestions, and bug reports that should continue with direct interaction to whom are responsible .
I do understand as quoted "or every Beta Labs app that has not been archived / graduated, there is always at least one responsible person from the R&D team committed to follow the respective discussion forum", you do mean beta lab team member will follow the forum topic.
Inform us if such open channel is plausible also informing the correct parties involved with the graduated projects.
Consider it an early rough draft of feedback. I would go further to announce if such a project returns to beta labs, announce ahead of time for user input before a beta launch.
Congrats team! It was fun beta testing the betalabs forums ;)
Hope the improvements will still be rolled out.
Starting with the first suggestion for the new "graduated" betalabs, please integrate the Nokia Accounts for the blog comments too! Right now, we have to enter the Name and Mail for commenting and since we will be logged into the forums, we might as well comment using those credentials too!
I love many of the extra services/programs nokia offers, it heightens the practical value of my nokia many times.
*however* to give or get feedback from nokia is almost impossible. I mean look at the forums (old or new), alot of questions no answers or responses. If you are building a community you have to do it all the way otherwise your customer will choose other products on the market.
just my two cents...
Congratulations Ilkka! Great to hear that with the hiring freeze going on, you're lucky!
Woo!!!
Happy new layout :D:D
Like thie version!!
Thanks Stefan :)
> please integrate the Nokia Accounts for the blog comments too!
We will. Currently, the blog is a Wordpress based one, a totally separate system. We'll investigate if we could migrate to a Drupal based one, after which everything would be under Nokia Account in the same system.
I'm a big fan of Nokia Betalabs but i've always hated the way your site works with the phone's own browser. It didn't scale very well but it was still manageable and i could install new software trough it.
Now that you're using Drupal (I'm a HUGE Drupal fan) could i suggest you running a nice Multsite-install where you have all the same content and user login's but you just use a different theme, you could run it in betalabs.nokia.mobi or similar.
Because really, who wants to use a PC to install all of theyr software. :)
Interesting blog post. What would you say was the most important marketing factor?
Nice Site. I will be visiting more often as you have done a good job.%d%a