BookCrossing.com 2.0
May. 26th, 2010 08:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skyringI was one of the first on, late last night, and while there are some things that disappeared, there were also some nifty new features. Looks like a lot of the bits that aren't working properly are database issues, and they will be fixed over time.
Likely over the next month we'll be seeing bugs fixed and new bits appear (or old bits reappear) on a daily basis.
The old site must have been an absolute basterd to maintain, with bits dating from 2002 and steadily patched ever since. A complete rewrite using modern software and methods was always going to be needed, and given the limited resources available, a difficult task to implement.
BookCrossing is not some vast empire like Microsoft or Google. Not even a medium or small empire. It is the sort of thing a programmer could whip up in an afternoon and develop in spare time and then get stuck when the userbase grew and the bandwidth bills came in. Which is exactly what happened.
Frankly, I am astonished that it has lasted this long without bankrupting the principals. I know Ron had some tough times along the way, and without the volunteer support team it would long since have vanished. TexasWren, Bookczuk, Antof9, GoryDetails and a few others are the shining stars in my BookCrossing heaven.
There's a few glitches. They'll be fixed. The database queries will be refined and access to data reappear. As Elhamisabel noted, there wasn't the resources to keep old and new sites going at the same time, so the switch had to be flipped at some point, and again, I'm astonished that it was so painless. The fact that the process lasted a few hours, rather than several days is encouraging.
As to the look, well, it's not the old BookCrossing, but it's been the subject of a lot of thought. The essential elements are still there.
My main beef is that there are a lot of features that are hidden, and you have to click on little grey arrows and stuff to find them. It's not obvious.
Bottom line for me is that it isn't the books, or the site, or even the thrill of releasing and catching. It's the BookCrossers I love most of all.
Likely over the next month we'll be seeing bugs fixed and new bits appear (or old bits reappear) on a daily basis.
The old site must have been an absolute basterd to maintain, with bits dating from 2002 and steadily patched ever since. A complete rewrite using modern software and methods was always going to be needed, and given the limited resources available, a difficult task to implement.
BookCrossing is not some vast empire like Microsoft or Google. Not even a medium or small empire. It is the sort of thing a programmer could whip up in an afternoon and develop in spare time and then get stuck when the userbase grew and the bandwidth bills came in. Which is exactly what happened.
Frankly, I am astonished that it has lasted this long without bankrupting the principals. I know Ron had some tough times along the way, and without the volunteer support team it would long since have vanished. TexasWren, Bookczuk, Antof9, GoryDetails and a few others are the shining stars in my BookCrossing heaven.
There's a few glitches. They'll be fixed. The database queries will be refined and access to data reappear. As Elhamisabel noted, there wasn't the resources to keep old and new sites going at the same time, so the switch had to be flipped at some point, and again, I'm astonished that it was so painless. The fact that the process lasted a few hours, rather than several days is encouraging.
As to the look, well, it's not the old BookCrossing, but it's been the subject of a lot of thought. The essential elements are still there.
My main beef is that there are a lot of features that are hidden, and you have to click on little grey arrows and stuff to find them. It's not obvious.
Bottom line for me is that it isn't the books, or the site, or even the thrill of releasing and catching. It's the BookCrossers I love most of all.
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-25 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-26 01:23 am (UTC)I find the new look a lot easier and less cluttered - apart from the strange thread ordering, which I assume is a glitch they'll be able to fix. I'm not sure I'll stay on the site though - not because the changes bother me, but because a change of site creates a sort of natural opportunity to take a break - to evaluate whether or not you want to stay. For me, the site has always been about the people, and people-wise, it's really not as it used to be.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-26 02:07 am (UTC)Apparently not. It seems that there are a great many problems with registering and releasing books, which are the essential elements.
I don't know. I know there were good reasons for pushing the site live early, but there are so many glitches that I'm afraid people won't wait to see if they're fixed. (I'm a bit more concerned about newbies. "Oldies", like you and me, have been down this road before! But newbies might just scratch their heads and give up.) I do think the switch was flipped too soon.
I will say that the new site is far too graphics-heavy for my taste, but that is a matter of taste. In my view, the fewer graphics a website has, the better, particularly when the graphics are of the cartoon-ish quality that BC uses, though I know this is probably a minority opinion. Somewhere (of course I can't find it now), one of the powers-that-be touted the shift of emphasis from text to graphics as a good think. I can't agree. If readers don't like text, we're done for.
Of more concern to me, though, is that the search mechanism I use most is now unavailable. I can't search for a book on my shelf, which means I can't journal or release a book unless I know the BCID. Easy enough to browse for it if you've got only a couple of dozen books on your shelf, but not if you have much more than that.
Where I'm at now is thinking that, if I renew my wings at all, I'll only do so for a month, rather than the Wings-for-a-year that I usually do, to give them time to fix the problems. Because if I can't find my books, and if I can't register and release books, what's the point?
Yes, it's the Bookcrossers I love most, too, but I can't even connect with them easily on the forums now!
no subject
Date: 2010-05-26 04:18 am (UTC)I remember reading that, but I, too can't remember exactly who said it or where. I do remember commenting that Bookcrossers are readers, after all (or something to that effect).
no subject
Date: 2010-05-26 06:42 am (UTC)Readers like text, but websurfers are generally allergic to it and the latter seems to trump the former, even on a site such as bookcrossing. Too much text is a good way to get rid of new people wondering what this site is all about...
So I can see where that change came from. I do wonder if they've thought about the increased server load and bandwidth costs though, but we'll see about that.
I am currently considering giving BC a miss for the next few weeks, as for my regular way of reading the forums are nearly unusable in their current state. Oh well.
I think Matt's going to be quite busy for some time still. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2010-05-26 04:12 am (UTC)Yes thats true, here it is Wyando who runs the german support site as not everyone is fluent in english .
I like to go to our meetups here in Braunschweig or in Cologne.
The new site is fine but I think we have to wait a week or so till it can be used as normal again. We have a thread with about 200 reported bugs.
The most ennerving is that I cant release a book and cant mark the posts in the forums all read.
But time will tell I "just" jave to be patient.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-26 05:47 pm (UTC)site
Date: 2010-05-27 10:58 am (UTC)And I managed to register a handful of books today. And do a release.
It all was slick and an improvement on the old.
They'll (we'll?) get there