Dear Gina

Dear Gina (gina@ning.com):

If you want to promote social networks built upon the Ning platform, and communication is at the heart of what makes a social network, why would your product development team elect to make changes to the platform's most direct form of communication - the chat?

Gina, making changes without consulting users is tantamount to Software Developers being placed in charge of interface design - and I'm not talking about architecture. The recently implemented chat box changes epitomize Weinberg's Law: If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.

Not only do I believe this new chat box is heading in the wrong direction but it is also buggy beyond what I would expect from Ning. Reminds me of Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: There's always one more bug.

In the end, remember the maxim, "If it ain't broke don't fix it."

Gina, please bring back the old chat box.

Steve

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jerry Albright on March 5, 2009 at 11:07am

I'm with you Steve. But I no longer see the crappy new chat either. So it's gone entirely.

Reminds me of a recent event.

Our kids go to a private Montessori school. They have their winter fundraiser at a very fun spot with great food, excellent silent auction and plenty of great people. The band, however, left much to be desired.

So there we were. Dinner was wrapped up. The band was playing crappy song after crappy song. Not a single person had been on the dance floor all night and we were half way through the 3rd set. Ladies will dance to just about anything so you know these guys were not hitting it too well!

Finally one woman got up and grabbed a few of her friends. Then another small group of ladies hit the dance floor. By the end of that one song there were probably 12 or 15 ladies up dancing. The band had won us over!

But guess what they did? At the very end of the song the singer says "We're gonna slow it down for you a little bit. Time to grab your partner" and the crowd IMMEDIATELY vacated the dance floor. It was the lamest move I've seen a front-man do in quite a while. He FINALLY had some momentum. The girls were up and having a great time. But his set list must have been carved in stone - cuz he just HAD to play a slow dance when his "customers" were ready to R.O.C.K.

They will not be asked back.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Steve Levy on March 5, 2009 at 11:23am

Wonderful allegory... Gina are you reading?

Jerry Albright said:

I'm with you Steve. But I no longer see the crappy new chat either. So it's gone entirely.

Reminds me of a recent event.

Our kids go to a private Montessori school. They have their winter fundraiser at a very fun spot with great food, excellent silent auction and plenty of great people. The band, however, left much to be desired.

So there we were. Dinner was wrapped up. The band was playing crappy song after crappy song. Not a single person had been on the dance floor all night and we were half way through the 3rd set. Ladies will dance to just about anything so you know these guys were not hitting it too well!

Finally one woman got up and grabbed a few of her friends. Then another small group of ladies hit the dance floor. By the end of that one song there were probably 12 or 15 ladies up dancing. The band had won us over!

But guess what they did? At the very end of the song the singer says "We're gonna slow it down for you a little bit. Time to grab your partner" and the crowd IMMEDIATELY vacated the dance floor. It was the lamest move I've seen a front-man do in quite a while. He FINALLY had some momentum. The girls were up and having a great time. But his set list must have been carved in stone - cuz he just HAD to play a slow dance when his "customers" were ready to R.O.C.K.

They will not be asked back.