Has the wis.dm community the will and strength to survive?

Hey everyone- we’ve had a blast over the past two years dreaming up and building wis.dm and we’re continuing our mission- no fear there. We have built one of the most innovative social platforms online and we are applying the technology into a variety of use cases and we are in conversations with many of the major media companies.

As far as the wis.dm site is concerned, it’s been successful in so may different ways - but it hasn’t (so far, at least) grown to sufficient scale that we can consider supporting its cost by advertising, simple or exotic.

Just to be clear, we think about the various departments of the business of Soflow Inc., (owner of wis.dm) independently, the wis.dm site is one of these and I want it to begin to stand on its own two feet. In essence, I want the wis.dm community to become self-sustaining and I think that's healthy!!

We’ve started this process by asking you for a donation toward the cost of running the wis.dm site. The good news here is that the costs are not that great... perhaps in the region of $18,000 per annum or $1,500 per month. I’m happy to hear your thoughts about how we (collectively) can raise that money- would you prefer a subscription site for example? If so, what do you think is a fair price?

Please note, that this is not about finding an investor- we’re not looking to raise cash for our business- this is about building a sustainable community. It’s really a question of the evolution of wis.dm and determining whether or not the wis.dm community has the will and strength to survive! As I say- I think that's healthy.

A broadcast from Team wis.dm

It's been a while since Team wis.dm last reached out on our blog, and it's high time we gave an update! In the past few months, wis.dm has been rolling along nicely and continuing to grow (albeit slowly). The level of participation of the core community continues to amaze us and for many we recognize that wis.dm has become a way of life.

We are proud of the product we have built and the community of core users- but unfortunately wis.dm’s not quite big enough to survive on an independent basis. There are many ways wis.dm can make money – but it requires a certain critical mass that, as yet, we have failed to reach.

Given sufficient time, we are confident we can get there- but in the meantime wis.dm (the business) needs to derive revenue to make a contribution to the costs of building and maintaining the site and we are thinking about and planning a range of initiatives which we’ll be telling you more about in coming weeks and months.

In fact, the first of these kicks in today with the introduction of of a new experimental wis.dm scene. "Broadcast You", a Television scene. Why Television? Well, some of the people most impressed with the discussions on wis.dm are big media companies. Traditionally, big media works one-way-only: broadcast. They pump great content into the void, and we all talk about it around the water cooler, over dinner, and on discussion sites like wis.dm. These companies are very interested in seeing how communities like wis.dm can close that loop, provide feedback, and improve the quality of entertainment, news, journalism, and opinion. (All the stuff we love talking about on wis.dm!)

As wis.dm focuses on driving revenue, we want your help. We want to prove to these big media companies that their model should include great commentary and question-powered discussions. We want to show them that news is more fun when it's being talked about. We're in close contact with a number of these organizations, and far from being evil corporate giants, they're actually quite intent on watching how social sites can play a role in their world. So show them! Start filling up the new Television scene with all sorts of content about current events, news, entertainment, media, and life. Stand Up + Air Your Views. Broadcast YOU.

My wis.dm - Have It Your Way

Today we've introduced a whole new "my wis.dm".  In many ways, this is the realization of what we intended my wis.dm to be all along: a place for you to have a dashboard, a console view, customized with pointers to all the content you care about.  To borrow a classic fast-food slogan, now you can finally "Have it your way."

What does this mean in practice?  Well, you'll see two areas of the my wis.dm feeds view, an "inbox", which will include personally-relevant info like questions from your friends, and replies to your comments.  You'll also see a "subscriptions" area, where you can control all sorts of other info you might want to keep tabs on.  In both of these areas, you can see just "new" stuff, that you haven't clicked on or answered.  Or you can see "all" items.  To keep you and our databases sane, this will give you a 7-day backlog of items from your feed.

So how do you use it?  Here are some examples...

• Want to see a flood of every question being posted, anywhere on wis.dm? (we know this has been a popular request from a minority set of true wis.dm power users)  Just subscribe to every Scene, and you'll see all new Bits consolidated in your my wis.dm subscriptions tab.  Or be more discerning, and stick to the scenes you care about most.
• Have a favorite Bit type?  Subscribe just to Polls, or just to "Would You Rather" questions, if you like!
• Want to keep tabs on a favorite topic?  Maybe you are an expert in photography, and want to be sure you get ahold of all the content on wis.dm with topic "photography".  Just subscribe to that topic, and it'll be delivered right into your feed.

Simple, eh?  There's a lot going on to make all this happen, but we think it'll be a far superior way to consume great wis.dm content, and to keep tabs on all your discussions happening around the growing wis.dm world.

As always, your thoughts are most welcome, email feedback@wis.dm.  Most of the changes you see today have come from trying hard to accommodate all the varied requests we get from you!

Keep wis.dming, and enjoy!

Usability is a tough nut

Team wis.dm is always listening to feedback from our members.  And the feedback comes in at all different levels.  Veteran users, new registrants, site visitors; internet power-users, and people using their first web-connected computers!

Providing the best usability for all these groups is a real challenge, and it's ongoing.  In efforts to strike the right balance, you probably saw some changes on wis.dm today.

Start a Discussion - We've consolidated the location for posting your own content.  You can now ask questions using the "start a discussion" button permanently under your login information.  Easy, always available, and clear for all the new users who want to know how to get involved!

Comment System - a big overhaul to the comment system also went live today.  By implementing true threaded comment behavior, we've cut down on the noise factor from people quoting each-other's comments, and allowed you to better keep track of discussion within a post.

Formatted Content - finally, in the comment system as well as around wis.dm in general, you'll see a new way to format rich content (bold, italics, links, etc.)  We've picked an industry standard for forums, BBCode, as our formatting language.  For some users who have been using HTML to format, this will be a change.  We went this direction for two reasons. 1) Basic formatting just works better.  A number of hacks necessary to cleanly format non-HTML content were removed, so users just looking to leave their simple thoughts will have more reliable results. 2) We want to protect our site and you all from malicious content that can be put in the page to reformat it, spam, or spread viruses.  The best way to do this (and the way that almost every other forum/comments system out there works) is to keep control over the types of formatting allowed.  We hope that it meets almost everyone's needs for self-expression, and that it helps keep an atmosphere of sanity to the great wis.dm discussion threads!

Usability is a tough nut to crack.  So as always, send your thoughts to feedback@wis.dm.  What's better, what's worse, how would you solve these problems best for all the diverse members of the community?

Keep wis.dming!

Feeding the wis.dm addiction

Two things will come as no surprise to those of you who love answering the huge breadth of Bits on wis.dm, and who've been around for a while.

1. wis.dm members have been clamoring since the beginning for a way to respond to wis.dm Bits when they're on the go, at the airport, in a cab, or dare I say it...sitting in class.

2. Team wis.dm goes to great lengths to listen and deliver on the crowd's desires.

With those two items in mind, today we introduced a simple mobile application.  Check it out on your mobile device at 

http://wis.dm/m

Let us know your feedback.  If it's a hit, we're ready to take it to the next level!  For now, happy wis.dm'ing on the go!

A Wis.dm Worth Waiting For

Good things come to those who wait, or at least to loyal wis.dm'ers.

The new wis.dm will be here any day now! As a nod to those who have been carefully following our wis.dm future questions and comments, waiting in anxious expectation of "what's next", here is a sneak peek.

Stay tuned . . . the next time you visit wis.dm, it could be a whole new world where you can explore even more!

Get in on the Actions

Sometimes, what we do conveys more than what we say. Like the time when my dad gave my mom a vacuum cleaner for Valentine’s Day, and she broke into tears. Or when he (later) presented her with two airline tickets to Italy, and she danced around the room, elated.

Well, what would a scene be, without props and stage direction? The new wis.dm Scenes will include fun props that let you set the stage to explore people and friendships further one-to-one.

When you’re spending time in a scene you will be able to select an action to show how you’re feeling. You can drink a beer at the bar, protest at a forum, or eavesdrop at a café. These actions will be visible to the rest of the community, and there are some you can even provide to other members, like buying a drink.

Intrigued by someone in particular? You will be able to take action by sending a gift or asking for a personal chat. After all, actions speak louder than words.

This week’s winner of a fLip digital camcorder in the Win a Wii with wis.dm contest is Michale. The grand prize winner of a Nintendo Wii is Corey_D. Congratulations to you both!

Member Call Audio, & Keep the Invites Coming!

Thanks again to all of you who participated in the 2nd wis.dm member conference call. We took note of your comments and feature suggestions. One of the suggested features, the filtering of "Questions for Me", is expected to appear within weeks.

For those who missed the call, the audio file is here for your listening pleasure. If you missed this call, not to worry, we hope to have another soon.

Grog is this week's winner of a fLip Digital Camcorder. We are in the final stretch of the Win a Wii with wis.dm contest, and it is not too late to dive in and invite new members. You could win a camcorder, or even a Nintendo Wii!

Wis.dm a Webby Awards Official Honoree!

The Webby Awards are oft-described as the online Oscars. Well, we are too proud, as wis.dm was recently designated as an Official Honoree in the Social Networking category.

Just 15% of a whopping 8,000 entries merit this recognition, and a mere five achieve nominee status per category. This year’s social networking category nominees includes such big fish as Facebook and Bebo.

We feel confident this is a sign of great things to come. As the Webbys say, “This honor signifies an outstanding caliber of work.” So let’s work together to make wis.dm one of those top five nominees in 2009. Oh, and if we did have an emotional acceptance speech to give, we would offer special thanks to Modus Associates!

Playthings

The rapid-fire interaction among wis.dm'ers on a compelling question can lead to a meaningful conversation and lasting friendships, or add fuel to a longstanding feud. It's often entertaining and almost always a compelling learning experience.

We've learned from you in unexpected ways. You've taught us how ingenious you can be at taking the simple tool that a yes/no question is, and using it in a unique way to boldy go beyond a binary response. We can't help but look forward with anticipation to what you will do when we throw a few more toys in the play space.

As the scenes and settings at wis.dm expand, so will the tools at your disposal. You will have new ways to kick-start a conversation or connect one-on-one. The fun will be in what is offered where, so choose thoughtfully based on your mood and motivation. With change comes some new (fun) challenges . . .

P.S. Last week's winner of a fLip digital camcorder is Corey_D. Why not get in the game and Win a Wii?

Introducing Scenes

Change is just over the horizon! Here are a few more details to whet your appetite for the upcoming adventure.

Later this month wis.dm will expand to feature many new and different “Scenes”, offering you room to move and connect with others depending, perhaps, on your particular mood or motivation.

wis.dm Scenes will have their own distinct flavor, which, we hope will set the stage for the type of conversations that might take place in each one. Scenes will be based on real world metaphors, including: bars, cafés, clubs (ID required*!$!*), galleries, forums and markets and we'll launch with at least two distinctly different Scenes from each category. But it won’t stop there, in the weeks to come everyone will have the opportunity to build and own their own Scenes... but more on that to follow.

If you would like to play a role and help us to architect Scenes, friend wisdm_future now, we will use this avatar to seek wis.dm's opinion on some of the important defining details.

Want to chat more about wis.dm's future? Join us for a conference call Thursday April 10 at 4:00 pm EDT.

Phone number: 712-432-3900
Passcode: 8544406#

A Change of Scenery

When wis.dm is really hopping, it can feel like a popular party, with everyone crowded in the kitchen, yelling to be heard over the din. Maybe you never even make it past the front door, you are so busy debating the finer points of presidential primaries with a friend of yours on the front step. Who knows what is going on inside? You are too busy to even find out.

These kinds of conversation are what make wis.dm great, but lately we have been thinking the cacophony of the crowd might not be all that welcoming to newcomers. Besides, there is plenty of space inside, and we think you’d like your own comfortable corner so you can continue that conversation with friends.

So that is exactly what we are working on—expanding wis.dm to give you more room to play. In the coming weeks you will be able to explore a bigger wis.dm world, with more places with decidedly different feels and moods. So whether you have a hankering for political debate or pillow talk, there will be a place for you.

and this week's winner is . . .

_Courtney_ is our first weekly winner of a fLip digital camcorder.

For those who were keeping a careful watch on the contest page today, you may have seen a change of name for the declared winner. Oops, we made a mistake, but we worked quickly to fix it. Human, frustratingly so, we are.

It is a tight race for the pole position as we roll into the second week. Who knows if those currently in the top spots will prevail?

Remember, each week’s race to win a fLip digital camcorder is based on accepted invites that have at least 5 yes/no responses to a question during that specific weekly contest time period. You can win a fLip digital camcorder only once, giving others a chance to share in the winnings.

The race to win the grand prize Nintendo Wii game system is based on cumulative accepted invites that have at least 5 yes/no responses to a question over the entire four week contest time period, so keep the invites coming! You just might find yourself crossing the line in first place.

Talk to me

Recently we had our first wis.dm member conference call. Those of you who participated had some interesting things to say! It was great to hear you talk about the friends you’ve made on wis.dm, and the unique nature of relationships that have been forged over questions both profound and pedestrian.

You told us about the features you would like to see and the changes you would make. It was good feedback, and reassuring to hear things mentioned that were on our list, too. We hear you, and are working on making wis.dm everything you want and more.

If you did not get a chance to join us, don't fret. Here is a link to the transcript for your listening pleasure. You can read some post-call member comments at this question posed by Kelly or this question asked by Simone de Beauvoir.

BTW, we expect to have another call in the next few weeks, so stay tuned, and thanks!

Meet team wis.dm : new arrival

While many of you know me, the wis.dm CTO, I'd like you to meet Dexter, my 16-hour old first son.  I expect to have him working in the wis.dm code base by this fall. ;-)

Addressing Community Challenges

Team wis.dm prides itself on listening carefully to our valuable users. We take into account the awesome feedback you all send us, as well as watching closely the activity and sentiments on the site. For quite some time, we've been hearing some sour notes with respect to how people earn points and status within our world, and wanted to provide some perspective.

We offer thumbs-up and thumbs-down on our questions. Not a new concept, and it fits nicely with the binary simplicity we all love about wis.dm. In an ideal world, this feature is used to surface valuable content for the community. We leave this entirely in your hands. We trust you. We also believe that those users who create the best content in the system should get recognized for it, so in that sense, it's perfectly natural to reward users as their questions are given a thumbs-up, and also to cascade negative feedback to users who are spamming, creating inappropriate content, or generally being bad citizens of wis.dm.

We have employed this tactic for quite some time, because we believed ultimately that the sense of our users would prevail, and we would all benefit from such a system. Unfortunately, the egos of some users and the complaints of others have spoiled this experiment. The points "game" took over from the "value" for too many users, and as often happens with these things, a popularity contest emerged.

As of today, the behavior of the site has been changed. Marking a question up or down will only effect its weight in the world, but not have any bearing on the user who spent time to create that question. We're not proud of this change. We also aren't naive, and understand that all communities face challenges like this. We hoped the crowd would work this one out on its own, but have come to the conclusion that they will not. Disappointing, but we'll move forward.

To those folks who've been abusing this feature to either help out your friends or "punish" other members for whatever reason, hopefully this will refocus you on more productive pursuits within wis.dm. To those who have spent lots of time complaining on the site and to Team wis.dm directly, we hope this satisfies your issues so we can return to our regularly-scheduled wis.dming. And to those who don't care at all, we hope this brings back a wis.dm that is less dominated by discussion of wis.dm itself, and brings to the surface more of the great life discussions we enjoy here.

As always, please send us your thoughts, feedback@wis.dm. We continue to listen and our job is to help create a place for everyone here at wis.dm.

Friends Tell Friends About wis.dm (and win)

Busy, busy busy. While we have been busy with the wis.dm expansion project, it occurred to us that you might want something to keep you busy, too.

So we cooked up the Win a Wii with wis.dm contest, so you could compete to be the top dog at bringing new blood to wis.dm.

For each new confirmed member that you invite that asks a question and gets at least five “yes/no” answers, you receive one “wii” point. Earn the most wii points in any week of the contest and you will be the proud owner of a fLip digital camcorder (uhm, perfect for posing those spur of the moment video questions). Earn the most wii points over four weeks, and you’ve earned your ticket to gaming addiction with the Wii grand prize.

The link to enter is here: http://wis.dm/corp/contest, as is all the fine print about inviting real people with real email addresses. More people means more unique points of view at wis.dm, which means more wis.dm all around. So now you have added incentive for telling others why wis.dm is so entertaining (addictive) for you.

Meet team wis.dm: Jen

Hi Everyone!

I'm Jen, wis.dm's newest team member. You'll start to see me around the site asking and answering questions with the rest of you. I am looking forward to helping wis.dm introduce new products and tools to help enhance your experience of the site! Keep a lookout for fun new features in the near future!

Aside from the graphic design and web development I'll be contributing here at wis.dm, I also spend my time performing my original music in the local Boston music scene and doing small tours around New England. If you start to see lots of questions about indie music, they're likely from me ;)

Lately, I have been in a real Leather Tuscadero phase, hence my avatar. I don't know why, I think maybe it's because I recently got a bad haircut and she helps me feel like I can still rock out even with a partial mullet! (slaps thigh twice and shoots... only true Happy Days fans will get that)

I hope you'll add me as a friend (my dream is to one day have more friends than Will). I look forward to exploring life's questions with you all...

"Oh, the Places You'll Go . . ."

. . . as Dr Seuss said. And we have some grand places cooked up in our heads. And the things that you'll do, you'll think they are cool, but we need your feedback and feelings about these new tools.

With all apologies to Theodor Seuss Geisel, wis.dm will be offering new ways to explore people, places and things in the next six months. This is your community. We need help building it. Pick up the phone and pitch in.

Join us for a call (a real live chat in the Gazebo!) Tuesday March 18th at 1:00 PM EDT. Email future@wis.dm to confirm your participation and receive the phone number and passcode.

So what's on your mind? Where would you go and what would you do, if you ran the zoo? The call will be limited to the first twenty wis.dmers. In the meantime, be on the lookout for something new next week.

Building Blocks

Things have been a hectic sort of quiet on wis.dm in 2008. A few new features have rolled out, a number of small enhancements. But mostly, we've let the community thrive. You all have been cranking out just about every Yes/No question you can think of to spark discussion, find others to chat with, and learn a bit about yourselves in the process.

In recent days, Team wis.dm has made some under-the-hood updates that will act as building blocks for amazing upcoming changes. In the coming few months, you'll be seeing a lot more changing around wis.dm, and we're pretty sure you're going to love it. In the meantime, keep using wis.dm, keep pushing the boundaries of the questions you ask, the games you play, and the people you meet. We'll be back in touch soon with some bits of wis.dm on where we're headed!

Happy New Year!

Team wis.dm hopes everyone had a great holiday season.  In between sips of egg-nog and rousing choruses of "Auld Lang Syne", our team has been busy with a few improvements to wis.dm.  In no particular order...

You'll see a new block on the main question pages that calls out some of the best questions we're finding on wis.dm, as well as helpful tips on using the site.  If you already know these tips, just click "don't show me this again", and we won't!  But for new wis.dm members, this should help get them oriented to the site.  All you veterans know the ropes, but wis.dm can be an intimidating place for first-timers!

Hidden behind the scenes, you'll find the new wis.dm Idea Lab.  Check it out, give us feedback!  There's a link at the very top of the page.  We'll let you all explore...

Finally, we've begun to make some important improvements to searching on wis.dm.  You'll find that our search functionality works more like a real search engine now.  You can search for multiple words, use combination searches with AND/OR, and you should get back more relevant results near the top.  Searching is important on wis.dm now that we're approaching half-a-million questions.  So watch for even more functionality to come in that area.

We hope you enjoy these changes.  As always, I'm sure you'll let us know.  And have a happy healthy 2008, on and off of wis.dm!