Hello Fellow Qlubbers!
This past Monday we put out a new release with some minor improvements we hope you'll like.
GROUP EMAIL
On the heels of our recently released email functionality, we added a few usability improvements based on user feedback.
OPT-OUT: We added an "opt-out" option for group emails. Members are by default opted into the [qlubbname]@qlubb.com email list however they can take themselves off the list at any time from receiving group emails.
HEADERS: We modified the email headers so that emails come from [qlubbname]@qlubb.com. Our email system used to parse the member list individually and sent each member an individual email. This new update helps prevent confusion as to who the message is directed to.
SEND TO LIST: Members can send email either by sending an email to [qlubbname]@qlubb.com or by going through the Qlubb interface and sending an email from the Messages tab. Messages sent from the Qlubb interface are now defaulted to not be sent to the email list and only posted to the Qlubb website.
RSVP
This is actually where we took a feature away in order to be as easy to use as possible. In the past we used to offer the ability to keep sending invitations for pending events to new members who join after the initial invitation was sent out. (Even describing the situation is hard ;-)). Well, we removed this feature for now. While it is certainly a useful feature, it caused confusion for some members. Members can easily resend invitations by using the "reinvite" button.
Along the way we did the usual bug fixes, some wording and usability improvements, rearranged a few screens like the RSVP box, widened the input/edit box for "Useful things", stuff like that.
If you have any questions about any of the features or recommendations for new capabilities, please do not hesitate to contact feedback@qlubb.com.
Thanks!
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Where Does Qlubb Fit in the Social Network Space
While the "social network" space is still not fully clearly defined, we thought we'd take a little diversion from our usual blog posting to discuss our thoughts around this space and where we think Qlubb fits in. There are a number of companies in the so-called social network space offering lots of interesting and great approaches to the age old problem of connecting groups of people together, particularly people with similar interests across wide geographies. Qlubb's focus has always been on helping real-life groups connect and share and to help real-life groups do the things that they usually do but better.
What is a real life group? It's any group of people who regularly interact not just in the virtual world but also in real life. A real life group might be centered around interests, activities, a common missions. Groups that can and do use Qlubb come from all walks of life, such as parent playgroups, classroom room parent groups, families, sports teams, book clubs, charitable/volunteering groups, civic and political groups, faith and religious groups, etc. These groups represent a large part of people's lives outside work and direct family. Unlike many "virtual" social networks which tend to be focused on online socializing and connecting, Qlubb is centered more on getting stuff done (such as activities, events, volunteering) in the real-world.
How can the Internet help these groups? A LOT. Through our own direct experience of years of managing clubs and groups, the Internet can be a wonderful way to help your group be more organized, be more fun and also increase participation rates like never before. Qlubb has assembled what we think are some of the most useful and important features for Qlubbs and made it so simple to use that nearly anyone can use it quickly and easily. If you are planning an event, publishing a shared calendar, sharing photos, creating a public page of accomplishments, sending a group email, keeping a contact list updated - Qlubb will help you accomplish your tasks easily and quickly, with no fuss, no training and no long complicated list of choices and clicks that make most nontechnical people (and yes, that's the majority of the world) tune out.
While there are many tens of millions of real-life groups out there, there are very few solutions geared for this specific market - and even fewer that are easy enough to use for all members of the group. Most busy people (particularly people who are the organizers and leaders) don't even have time to evaluate a solution let alone use one on a regular basis. We hope at Qlubb, we have significantly reduced that barrier with features such as no user registration required, 2-click registration process (soon to be one click ;-), automation that will do things like send reminders out at the right times for you so you don't have to, elegant easy-to-use design that requires no training, an open environment that encourages participation and a seamless integration of features that just make common sense.
We know there's a long way to go too and we are adding many features on a regular basis. There are many types of groups out there with lots of different needs that we hope to fill in the near future. We think this is an exciting, underserved space and we look forward to providing a useful solution so that groups of all sizes can benefit.
What is a real life group? It's any group of people who regularly interact not just in the virtual world but also in real life. A real life group might be centered around interests, activities, a common missions. Groups that can and do use Qlubb come from all walks of life, such as parent playgroups, classroom room parent groups, families, sports teams, book clubs, charitable/volunteering groups, civic and political groups, faith and religious groups, etc. These groups represent a large part of people's lives outside work and direct family. Unlike many "virtual" social networks which tend to be focused on online socializing and connecting, Qlubb is centered more on getting stuff done (such as activities, events, volunteering) in the real-world.
How can the Internet help these groups? A LOT. Through our own direct experience of years of managing clubs and groups, the Internet can be a wonderful way to help your group be more organized, be more fun and also increase participation rates like never before. Qlubb has assembled what we think are some of the most useful and important features for Qlubbs and made it so simple to use that nearly anyone can use it quickly and easily. If you are planning an event, publishing a shared calendar, sharing photos, creating a public page of accomplishments, sending a group email, keeping a contact list updated - Qlubb will help you accomplish your tasks easily and quickly, with no fuss, no training and no long complicated list of choices and clicks that make most nontechnical people (and yes, that's the majority of the world) tune out.
While there are many tens of millions of real-life groups out there, there are very few solutions geared for this specific market - and even fewer that are easy enough to use for all members of the group. Most busy people (particularly people who are the organizers and leaders) don't even have time to evaluate a solution let alone use one on a regular basis. We hope at Qlubb, we have significantly reduced that barrier with features such as no user registration required, 2-click registration process (soon to be one click ;-), automation that will do things like send reminders out at the right times for you so you don't have to, elegant easy-to-use design that requires no training, an open environment that encourages participation and a seamless integration of features that just make common sense.
We know there's a long way to go too and we are adding many features on a regular basis. There are many types of groups out there with lots of different needs that we hope to fill in the near future. We think this is an exciting, underserved space and we look forward to providing a useful solution so that groups of all sizes can benefit.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
New Email Features (It's Time to Throw Away Your Yahoogroups and Evite)
Hello fellow Qlubbers.
We added a number of features early this morning which we hope will help your group. Have you ever used Yahoogroups? Have you ever used Evite? Well we've added these features to Qlubb so that you can get them all under one roof. How will this be useful to you?
1) One Stop Shop -- No need to manage a multitude of separate services. How many logins do you have to manage for all of your services for group emails and for invitations? With Qlubb, we try to fit all the things you need in one easy to use application.
2) No need to manage email addresses -- Qlubb just grabs all the email addresses directly from the member roster when you want to send out an email message or an invitation to an event. And because the member roster is self-updating, it really minimizes (or in some cases eliminates) you having to constantly keep your member list and email addresses updated. We like to call our Evite feature as "Evite with continuity". When you have multiple events you don't have to type in all of the invitees again and again -- all you have to do is send an invite or an email address and it goes out to all members.
3) It's all integrated -- The cool thing about the Event invite is that everything you need for the Event is in one place. You can put in one central place all of the event details, put on the shared to do lists, manage RSVP's, promote the Event on a public website, all in one place.
Both features are in beta which means that we'll probably do a few more minor tweak to them. We'd love to hear your feedback on them. Of course, Yahoogroups and evite have more features in their specific areas -- after all, it's their business. If you feel that there's something we're missing that prevents you from switching over, please let us know.
A Further Explanation
And now onto the details. If you want to learn more about what these features do specifically, please read on. We invite you to play around with them and let us know what you think. Please send feedback to feedback@qlubb.com.
New Group Email
You now automatically have an email address. So if your Qlubbname is called "Playgroup" then you not only have your own Website (http://playgroup.qlubb.com) but you also have an email address: playgroup@qlubb.com.
It works similarly to a Yahoogroup or a googlegroup. If you send an email to playgroup@qlubb.com it will automatically send it to everyone in the Qlubb (according to the member roster).
We've also added a new "Messages" tab. If you click on the tab, it shows all of the emails sent (so now you have an easy to get to historical archive). You can also send new email messages and reply to email messages from the Messages tab. You can also post a message without sending it out as an email to everybody.
We hope you enjoy this new feature.
Invites (or Evites)
We had a lot of requests from our users to add RSVP functionality. So we added this feature to help you out. Anytime you go to an event, you can send out an invitation via email to Qlubb members. Currently, you can only send invitations to all members of the group. When sending out an invitation you have two options:
* RSVP - if you turn this on, then when users go to the event page, they can say whether they can attend or not. People can say how many guests they would like to bring as well. Once you turn on RSVP for an event, it is on until that event ends.
* Automatically invite new members -- this feature enables you to forget about having to invite new members that may join after the invitation has been sent. For example, let's say you set up an event for next month and send out the invitations to everyone in the group. Say 2 new members join the following week. If this checkbox is turned on, then you don't have to remember to send out the invitation to the event to the 2 new members who just joined. The invitations will continue to go out to all new members until the event occurs.
Again, if you have any feedback on all about how we can improve this, we're all ears!
Reminders
We improved the Event reminders to include a few additional options. Before the reminders (if turned on) for an event would go to everybody. Now you can be a little more selective. You can have it go to everybody of course, but you can also send it to only the members with tasks. Or you can send it to members who have RSVP'd that they are attending. This should help cut down on email traffic.
We hope you find these features useful. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please send to feedback@qlubb.com.
We added a number of features early this morning which we hope will help your group. Have you ever used Yahoogroups? Have you ever used Evite? Well we've added these features to Qlubb so that you can get them all under one roof. How will this be useful to you?
1) One Stop Shop -- No need to manage a multitude of separate services. How many logins do you have to manage for all of your services for group emails and for invitations? With Qlubb, we try to fit all the things you need in one easy to use application.
2) No need to manage email addresses -- Qlubb just grabs all the email addresses directly from the member roster when you want to send out an email message or an invitation to an event. And because the member roster is self-updating, it really minimizes (or in some cases eliminates) you having to constantly keep your member list and email addresses updated. We like to call our Evite feature as "Evite with continuity". When you have multiple events you don't have to type in all of the invitees again and again -- all you have to do is send an invite or an email address and it goes out to all members.
3) It's all integrated -- The cool thing about the Event invite is that everything you need for the Event is in one place. You can put in one central place all of the event details, put on the shared to do lists, manage RSVP's, promote the Event on a public website, all in one place.
Both features are in beta which means that we'll probably do a few more minor tweak to them. We'd love to hear your feedback on them. Of course, Yahoogroups and evite have more features in their specific areas -- after all, it's their business. If you feel that there's something we're missing that prevents you from switching over, please let us know.
A Further Explanation
And now onto the details. If you want to learn more about what these features do specifically, please read on. We invite you to play around with them and let us know what you think. Please send feedback to feedback@qlubb.com.
New Group Email
You now automatically have an email address. So if your Qlubbname is called "Playgroup" then you not only have your own Website (http://playgroup.qlubb.com) but you also have an email address: playgroup@qlubb.com.
It works similarly to a Yahoogroup or a googlegroup. If you send an email to playgroup@qlubb.com it will automatically send it to everyone in the Qlubb (according to the member roster).
We've also added a new "Messages" tab. If you click on the tab, it shows all of the emails sent (so now you have an easy to get to historical archive). You can also send new email messages and reply to email messages from the Messages tab. You can also post a message without sending it out as an email to everybody.
We hope you enjoy this new feature.
Invites (or Evites)
We had a lot of requests from our users to add RSVP functionality. So we added this feature to help you out. Anytime you go to an event, you can send out an invitation via email to Qlubb members. Currently, you can only send invitations to all members of the group. When sending out an invitation you have two options:
* RSVP - if you turn this on, then when users go to the event page, they can say whether they can attend or not. People can say how many guests they would like to bring as well. Once you turn on RSVP for an event, it is on until that event ends.
* Automatically invite new members -- this feature enables you to forget about having to invite new members that may join after the invitation has been sent. For example, let's say you set up an event for next month and send out the invitations to everyone in the group. Say 2 new members join the following week. If this checkbox is turned on, then you don't have to remember to send out the invitation to the event to the 2 new members who just joined. The invitations will continue to go out to all new members until the event occurs.
Again, if you have any feedback on all about how we can improve this, we're all ears!
Reminders
We improved the Event reminders to include a few additional options. Before the reminders (if turned on) for an event would go to everybody. Now you can be a little more selective. You can have it go to everybody of course, but you can also send it to only the members with tasks. Or you can send it to members who have RSVP'd that they are attending. This should help cut down on email traffic.
We hope you find these features useful. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please send to feedback@qlubb.com.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)