My Thoughts on the New Dandelife  − 8 January, 2009

The Streams

One of the biggest changes, and one that I agree with. For the most part. While I would like to see Twitter return, most everything was just fluff. While it was neat to see what kind of music a person listens to, or what sites they frequent, or what movies they were renting, it never really came across to me that I was looking into that person's life. It didn't tell me much about them. What I would like to see is maybe a built-in video uploader. You could limit the kinds of videos to strictly ones that contain the user and their life. So instead of a flood of useless videos about anything and everything, you would see clusters of vidoes associated with each dandelifer. In conjunction with the stories and pictures, this would make a wonderful window into a person's life.

The Timeline

I've always liked the big list, but the list in the new DL seems broken up almost. I can't quite figure out what the intendentations represent. I don't know, it just seems like it needs to be cleaned up a little. One thing that I've missed is the original timeline, what would show up on each users personal page. I understand that once you've submitted so many stories it tends to lose its effectiveness, but I would like to see an improvement on the old design. Make it more dynamic, let users decide which time frames are represented. It's what drew me to Dandelife in the first place, and it would be a shame if it didn't have some place on the site.

Things I'd Like to See

A profile page for each user.

It would act as a sort of hub between them and the content they've added to Dandelife.  It would show their picture, their birthday, location, things of that nature (it could be up to the user to decided which things show up). From this page you could perhaps see their most recently uploaded pictures, or maybe click a link that would take you to a photo album created by the flickr streams. Something that would let you see them all in one place. I've always liked that Dandelife is no myspace, so the profile page should be kept simple. Don't allow users to customize the page. What I've learned about myspace is that, ironically, when so much choice is left in the user's hands, in their quest to be different and to represent themselves, they blend in more than anything else. So DL's profile pa ges should let the content speak for itelf, be no more than it needs to be. Because after all, pointless graphics and scrolling text doesn't represent who you are, but your stories do, and that's what Dandelife is about.

Page views and other statistics.

One thing I loved about Dandelife that never made it out of beta was the little lists at the bottom of each user's personal page, detailing which of their stories were most popular, which were favorited, and which had the most comments. Of course, since the veiw counts for each story don't reset, I think you should be able to decide which stories were more popluar on a given week, month, year, etc., so that the same ones don't sit at the top of the list forever.

Another thing I'd like to see back is the user's pictures off to the side who have veiwed a particular story. It serves little purpose, I suppose, but it did make it feel like real people were reading your stories, instead of some impersonal number.

Call me petty, but I like to be able to see how many collective veiws I've recieved. Even if no one else gets to see it, I think it should be on there somewhere. Or maybe you could go the other way with that one. Differentiate users based on how much content they've submitted. After all, those who participate the most and really care about the site should be rewarded, or at the very least have something to show for it. 

Moreover, I think members should be given the option of donating money to recieve certain titles or to be able to take advantage of certain features. There is one site that I frequent like this that I gladly paid the twenty bucks to become a key member, though the site was just as enjoyable without. This would allow the more commited members to help the site grow. I personally would jump at the chance.

Things I noticed

I like that clicking on someone's name takes you to a blog of their stories. I'm not sure of the order. It seems to me that they're in order of the date the story took place and not when it was written. I think it would be handy to have both options available.

I can't seem to find a list of stories I have favorited. That could just be me, though.

Stories under "wander" don't show the author of the post. Not sure if this was intentional.

Doesn't seem to be much to it yet. Looking forward to new features.

Comments:

kga245 (January 8, 2009. 11:36pm)

Thanks, Josh.

peahayes (January 9, 2009. 02:46am)

I, too, would pay for extra features. I would pay a monthly fee at this point, just to make sure I could always have it! I also agree with Josh -- I would very much miss the collective counts that you can now see by clicking on a person's name.