A Few Days Later....
** Instead of erasing I will add to this thread so anyone who is curious can see the entire conversation. Guillaume and Scoop.it passed an important test with flying colors. They MUST continue to evolve their magical tool or its success will kill it. We, the rabid fan base, need to be heard. Both goals were achieved. Scoop.it recovered cherish features and connection to power users and the community was restored recovering any lost trust. My 3 concerns were successfully resolved:
* Loss of the leaderboard - http://www.scoop.it/leaderboard/users (thanks to Stewart Marshal) is resolved.
* Loss of Daily Counts By Topic - True to his word Guillaume recovered this feature within hours of reading our thread. Daily counts have been added to the topic billboard.
* Not feelng valued or heard - Guillaume was eloquent and full of grace even when I wasn't, the true test of great customer service.
Well done Scoop.it! Well done Scoop.it Powerusers! Well done Scoop.it Community. Thanks to all.
Marty
***** Wow, what a fun day. If you want to see a great example of real time customer service and branding in the dgital age read the comments on this post. Appreciate Guilliaume, Robin, Michele, Stewart's magical leaderboard link and Brian's input. You guys rock so much I tossed a post up on my ScentTrial Marketing blog with my comments (in blue) for what may be the first near real time customer service branding operation ever (lol).
http://scenttrail.blogspot.com/2012/07/likes-and-dislikes-about-new-scoopit-ui.html
Great comments all. Thanks. Marty
***** Note: I started this thread before sunrise Wednesday a day after Scoop.it's UI Changes. I haven't heard from anyone on the Scoop.it team, but some of the most followed and talented curators I know, trust and follow have weighed in with frustration and the kind of frustration not being included creates. I was more optimistic this morning than now at midnight, but that is the nature of most days (lol). I hope Marc's team responds soon with some desire to connect with the community that is trying to help Scoop.it become a critical tool, a magic wand with staying power. After 12 years of Interent marketing and almost 30 of marketing for companies including P&G and M&M/Mars I know that the best way to create real brand PAIN is arrogance combined with being deaf to feedback. I hope, and pray since that seems appropriate before going to sleep, Scoop.it has a better day tomorrow :). The most recent post on this thread is at the bottom. Marty
AM. Wednesday
Scoop.it is a favorite curation tool. It has rapidly become my social media hub, the place I organize the rest of my social media curation. This week Scoop.it changed their UI and won some important battles and lost a few. Here is a recap:
Winners
* UI - The new User Interface is more visual and engaging another example of visuals beating textuals and well done.
* Presentation Layer - The Scoop.it magazine format didn't change so what the customer of your curation sees remains the same also well done since changes there could rock the boat.
* SEO Layer - Scoop.it has real SEO strength. I've owned absolute #1 on Curation Revolution for over a year and you thankfully haven't changed anything there (that I can see on a quick pass). Kudos to understanding SEO as well as you do! The SEO advantage of a platform is lost on many, many are selfish about its benefits (FB and Twitter) and you aren't either SEO Stupid or selfish. KUDOS!
* Tool Layout - The functional layout of tools such as the Rescoop button is better, more clear and more visual. Harder now to get one button confused with another.
Overall I would say the behind the curtain admin experience improved with these changes.
Losers
* Trending Topics - No Visitor Counts On My Profile Anymore
Thought this was resolved, but it is not. The number is aggregate and what we need, and used to have, is today's visitor numbers by topic. That number helps manage across the 10 different topics I curate. Without knowing what is trending I might step on my own curation or not know when something is a laggard and I need to move on. Wish you would bring back the Today visitor count.
* Leaderboard - Don't See My Curator Set Anymore, Those With Visitor Numbers Around Me
http://www.scoop.it/leaderboard/users (thanks to Stewart Marshal for finding this magic link so we can all visit old friends)
One of the most motivating things was to see my immediate curation set, curators above and below my current viewer numbers. When you first launched I could see the top of the stack and that was DEMOTIVATING. Seeing how many visitors Robin or Michele have before I woke up can be intimidating and made my curation efforts feel small. I know that is goofystupid, but the human mind works in strange ways espcially regarding numbers. I used the leaderboard as a form of feedback loop too. If my day was down in viewers I checked to see if others in my set were down too. Sometimes the answer to that question was yes such as on a holiday weekend and sometimes I was lagging behind and needed to get going. I thought one of the most intelligent gamification move was showing me the views of the curators above and below as that helped motivate me to get moving without a sense of intimidation or the futility of it all. Removing that feedback has us back to the same place as when you started since My Community now shows the top of the Scoop.it stack (not where I am by far) and so it feels like the community is for uber-curators like Robin and Michele and not the little guys (like me LOL). Hope you can bring back one of the most intelligent leaderboards I've ever seen.
Summary
The fact this post is weighted toward losers is only because it takes more explanation to cover dislikes NOT because the new UI is more negative than positive. The new UI is net positive for sure, but the real time analytics and leaderboard encouragement have been harmed. Hope you can build back since my curation will be less effective and less motivated.
***** Midnight Wednesday
Robin and Michele have both checked in now and they are NOT happy. If Susan weighs in soon that it the trifecta of several of Scoop.it's top curators. I think Scoop.it is learning a tough but valuable lesson. When you create a community curation tool YOU don't own it - WE DO.
Believe me I know how confusing this can be. Sitting in your offices watching your traffic counts esclate is heady stuff, but don't be fooled. The only place Scoop.it exists is in the hearts and minds of people like Robin, Michele, Susan and me. If you make such sweeping changes without consulting the top of the stack, your power users, then the message to me is beyond clear - I matter not at all.
I pay for Scoop.it myself. My company has offered but I don't want a conflict if I leave to ride a bicycle across Canada in a year (I left my last job to ride a bicycle across America raising almost $30K for cancer research :). I view Scoop.it as important and valuable enough to pay for it myself. The $1,000 I pay you PALES in comparison to my most valuable treasure - my time. I can make more money, but making more time is impossible. As a cancer survivor when you disrespect my time, Robin's time and Michele's time you have done the equivelant of slapped me (and them) hard across the face.
I've been punched in the face before (http://scenttrail.blogspot.com/2008/06/punched-in-face.html ) and it smarts and I got over it. This slap seems more painful because I'm so invested in something that apparently doesn't give a hoot about me :(. I pay you money I would otherwise donate to cancer research. I give you my most valuable non-renewable resource - my time. How is it Robin, Michele, me and others have no say, no membership worth consideration and care?
Come on Marc and Guillaume you are better than this, your team is better than this and we the users of this magic wand you've created deserve better than this. We live in a time of magic wands. The surest way to lose our hearts and minds is to slap us across the face. I would do less of that starting with NOW. I recommend creating an advisory group made up of the Robins and Micheles to help guide actions like the one you took a few days ago, guide future community revisions better going forward.
Marty
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FYI, I just did something I've never done before - I drove a link into my profile page because it is a thing of magazine-like beauty. Figuring out how to get what I wanted in the window took a little figuring (largest image), but now I have it tuned AND I'm changing several aspects of my curation to support your new UI including:
* Shorter headlines as shorter works better in that space below the image (they work better anyway so your new UI helps do the right thing.
* Better visuals and in that 400 x 200 range. At first I was having trouble getting the image positioned where I wanted. Kept testing and found the sweet spot.
* Changed my titles to create an umbrella since now that I can see my Scoop.it sections like a magazine it makes sense to treat each section like a subsection of a larger idea (in my case Revolution).
Two things I wish I could do:
* Wish I could move boxes or create a more clear hierarchy by changing the size of 2 to 4 boxes. When everything is equal in size and the default order is yours then I can't react to the feedback loops I'm getting. This slows down my thinking of my Profile as the master magazine and the subsections, the revolutions, as pliable blocks capable of responding to what I see and what the community tells me. Today I had Mobile Revolution blow up. If I could have moved it to top left I would have pushed traffic to the profile in the hopes of helping it blow up bigger (lol).
* I tied two scoops about Facebook together today by physically moving them. Problem is that doesn't last past the next update. These two scoops form an A and B version of an "article" and need to move together across time. Curation will split them and I have to use tags to pull them back together and I haven't figured out how to use the tags yet (though I suspect there is real power in there). This ability to tie scoops together into linked groups kind of like you can do with a PowerPoint presentation or with a graphics program would help create the threads within the subsections such as:
* Apple or Android within Mobile Revolution.
* Storytelling within Curation Revolution.
These threads form the magazine within the magazine and may, at some point, earn their way out of the subsection to become a section of their own. I would use analytics to know when such a move would increase reach not split it into too many disparate pieces.
Great job with bringing back our beloved features and with this new UI. The benefits are amazing and we are just getting started. Thanks for fixing the issues with your CDN too (those can be a pain, been there, done that). Marty
Instead of setting the world record for words in a comment box I posted my thoughts to ScentTrail Marketing: http://scenttrail.blogspot.com/2012/07/internet-marketing-secrets-taxonomy-seo.html .
I got into some things I've been thinking about HARD since your new UI. As a Ecommerce Director I always had trouble creating smooth transitions between content and commerce. Facebook is having much the same issue. I think Scoop.it's magazine approach could bridge the commerce / content Rubicon. Shared those thoughts as best as I could this late. Hope they help use see a piece of what I see since ye who solves this particular problem and makes it easy for content and commerce to play together stands to make a few bucks (lol). Night, Marty