Heading for SkaDate December Upgrade
November 17, 2007 – 10:32 am, by Emil @ SkalfaOne of our customers found a couple bugs recently. I mean a couple real program code bugs, not common misconfigurations or interface shortcomings. A rare thing to catch nowadays since at the solid sixth version (SkaDate Unity) we seem to have figured out most of them, current updates are all about minor interface tweaks, existing features rearrangement for better usability and more powerful administration tools.
The fixes are going to be included in the upcoming December revision, as well as a new portion of micro-enhancements. If you have a useful new feature to add, feel free to suggest it after learning what’s already there and how they work.
37 Responses to “Heading for SkaDate December Upgrade”
suggested feature: to allow new user signups to upload an optional photo during the registration process.
By david on Nov 20, 2007
suggested feature: displaying all text content areas of a profile in the admin, so that it can be approved before being posted. ie: photo descriptions and custom html’s.
By david on Nov 20, 2007
David,
Uploading photo during registration is a valuable suggestion, thanks. In fact we have it in our TODO list, so you’ll enjoy it in December revision.
I’d like to clear it up a bit about the second feature. Approving all kinds of user generated content is a sophisticated task. It’s going to be integrated in every single feature allowing users to create any arbitrary content.
We don’t have records of anyone asking that before, maybe because in modern community sites pre-moderation is a rare thing. It’s more about post-moderation and/or letting users to report or flag questionable content. What do you think?
By Emil on Nov 20, 2007
i understand the post moderation aspect of having users flag questionable content, and that is good for sites that remain FREE for its members. However, we have encountered users putting their personal contact information in text areas thus alllowing FREE members to never having to pay for a subscription.
By David on Nov 20, 2007
it is an obvious feature to you guys as well, otherwise you wouldn’t have incorporated a profile message filter nor had an approval feature to begin with.
By David on Nov 20, 2007
Approval feature was implemented for purely dating sites. This is what online dating was back 5 years ago, when a free dating site was an exception. A user can create their profile in the form of a page with a number of questions. This profile is going to be strictly censored before being approved, using features you mentioned.
Since then things got democratized greatly. Now sites allow users to create content of different types like video, tags, comments and such. We developed new features because they are in demand.
I’d say those hybrid (dating and social networking) sites follow the principle of not limiting their users in sharing their contact details but creating value for them to stay around. Those sites generally go after free/ad-supported business model. A paid social networking site is a pretty much rare setup, or at least it charges much less, like $20/year, to have the pressure off.
No, it’s not an obvious feature for the main product branch but it may be possible on individual basis. So far we didn’t have requests for that because our customers generally target one market or another. I think it’s a tough task to combine the best of both worlds, so far we didn’t see any successful implementations.
By Emil @ Skalfa on Nov 20, 2007
i understand where you come from and yes many social sites do rely on their revenue based on display ads. However with so many stories in the news concerning predators and illegal activies on the FREE social sites, we have decided to make it a paid for play venue in order to weed out that element and have more control in keeping our site a clean and pleasant atmosphere for people to meet and mingle. That is why i request certain features.
By David on Nov 20, 2007
suggested feature: in order for site owners to effectively track their marketing campaign dollars i suggest a coupon code field in the new user signup registration section, to monitor where new user traffic comes from. The admin should be able to create a coupon code that entitles the new user some kind free feature or discount, and that coupon code should appear in the users profile (visible in admin section only)
By David on Nov 20, 2007
David,
I suggest you then to contact our sales department for quote or resolve this issue by allowing only paid members to create content. With SkaDate you can do that in administration panel.
Coupon code is a good suggestion, I’m going to discuss it with our product development folks today. Thank you.
By Emil @ Skalfa on Nov 21, 2007
suggested feature: in the admin affiliate section, there should be a “send message to affiliate” box alerting them of new promotions and such.
By David on Nov 21, 2007
SOUND FOR IM
all other sites have this but skadate only wants to charge for this.
By Terri on Nov 24, 2007
Shout box for paying members only to be placed on their profile page
By Terri on Nov 24, 2007
More affordable video chat
By Terri on Nov 24, 2007
Guys, keep suggesting, we’ll review everything.
By Emil @ Skalfa on Nov 24, 2007
Why do you count users who get kicked off chat, or get errors problems and have to log back on as a session when it is not their fault. You have it configured so that people have to log back on and off. You sent TEST people to our chat and counted that as a log in session against us. You essentially blackmailed us to keep Chuppo chat. Why does your company do this?
By Terri on Nov 24, 2007
suggested feature: in the match template of the activity scheduler, allow the admin to set the amount of matches to be sent, and to randomize the match list each time an email is scheduled.
By David on Nov 25, 2007
A feature that I would like to see in the next version would be that usernames (not the text they write) are colour coded in chat rooms so that people can quicky assertain the number of males, females or groups in a room.
It would be nice if the chat window would open in a seperate window. I find that people click links on the main page and end up getting kicked from the chat room.
By Joe on Nov 26, 2007
Terri, I replied about chuPPo in another post. Please, post strictly on topic.
By Emil @ Skalfa on Nov 26, 2007
*deleted*
Sorry, Terri.
By Terri on Nov 26, 2007
suggested feature: affiliate registration should go thru an email verification process just as a new user signup does.
By David on Nov 26, 2007
How about using Google Maps for location? I’ve seen this feature on 4ppl.com and it works pretty well.
By Steffen on Nov 26, 2007
suggested feature: since most users access the internet thru web hosting companies that have an allocated grouping of ip addresses, the feature of having an ip blocker becomes useless for blocking an individual user without blocking other customers of the same host. it would better to block either the users email address or username instead thus forcing the user to contact customer service for reinstatement of their account.
By David on Nov 26, 2007
Thanks guys, keep posting. Tomorrow we’re going to have final features discussion for the upcoming update.
By Emil @ Skalfa on Nov 27, 2007
Users should be able to send an invitation to their Gmail, Messenger, Yahoo contacts.
How about photo/video albums? I think it’s much more easy to handle your pictures if you could create different albums.
I know it’s a dating script, and a pretty cool one too, but how about a “Groups” feature?
Think thats it for now.
By steffen on Nov 27, 2007
Oh one last thing. I don’t think it’s a good thing that users can insert HTML code into their profile. Would it be possible to turn off that feature in the admin panel?
By steffen on Nov 27, 2007
My Suggestion:
- User password in DB are encrypted
- More than one Administrator
- Microsoft LIVE ID integration
- Email Template text editor with preview
- Profile HTML disable function
- Automatic upgrade user account level, if (ex. He invite 10 other users) Affiliates
By hoschi on Nov 27, 2007
suggested feature: on your social networking sites such as “vista date”, “web party” and so forth, you need to make the displaying photos the same size as the profile thumbnails becuase the displayed photos on the sites splash screen look compressed and unnatural. the displayed photos should also be set by the admin as some photos are inappropriate for public viewing.
By David on Nov 27, 2007
Instead of user HTML, let them choose predefined widgets set up by the admin (there’s a ton on widgetbox.com).
Mouseover displays user profile.
By steffen on Nov 27, 2007
My Suggestion:
- User can select if the get “news emails” or not ( upload photo email …)
- User can select if the get HTML or txt emails (admin can disable this)
By hoschi on Nov 27, 2007
- User can “link-up” parts of a photo to other users profile (see http://www.studivz.net)
By hoschi on Nov 27, 2007
- textfield to edit site meta data in Admin menu. (for search crawler)
By hoschi on Nov 27, 2007
AJAX name and e-mail check during sign up.
It’s annoying to find out that your chosen user name was already taken once you have filled out the entire sign up form.
By steffen on Nov 27, 2007
Hi
I encourage the regular developement of the product - however I do think that your QA needs to be improved. After EVERY upgrade we have had site problems lasting from 1 to several days … I would gladly help with any BETA testing if it meant a trouble free migration ….
As far as suggestions go … make all functions standard across all templates - there are things in some of the new templates that I cannot get for my template …. this is frustrating as I do not wish to change my template ….
A gallery of photo album function would be good …..
the ability to make topics sticky in the forum …..
click thrus against advert banners and by which members
From a serious point of view - it worries me that there are no transcript records for the Instant Messenger function - also access to internal email records … also …..
Thank you !
the ability to make topics sticky in the forum …..
By scallywags on Nov 27, 2007
It would be nice for your customer service to answer questions clearly, not change their answer or provide you with different answers to the same question.
By tzinner on Nov 28, 2007
Terri,
Thanks, we always strive for best customer service possible. Your co-operation and patience is appreciated.
By Emil @ Skalfa on Nov 28, 2007
- A User name Block List ( not allow to register as ex. Admin, office, support, …)
- PHP5 support
By hoschi on Nov 28, 2007