Busy Official Public BETA Release: Release note, Known issues, What's next ?
We’re happy to announce that Busy.org has entered Public Beta. Invitations are no longer needed in order to get access to our platform.
It's official ! The Busy.org Closed Alpha is about to reach its final day. Before opening the gates to the public Beta, more than 200 people were invited to test our Alpha since November, mostly developers and active Steemians. As for today, we have an announcement to make:
This is the beginning of our Public Beta!
Here's an excellent opportunity to test Busy Beta release and help us make the next release the best ever.
JOIN BUSY.ORG NOW!
Polishing the platform and preparing it for mainstream adoption does take a lot of time. We took our quality standards to the highest levels to bring this public Beta release for the 1st February, the announced Date, our D-Day. This is just the beginning and the best is yet to come!
This release is the culmination of several months of work and reflexion to build a very strong and scalable platform architecture for this next-gen social media, communication platform but also for the marketplace to come. The most difficult part is done: build a strong team, start a robust and scalable software architecture, to honor our mission.
The Beta goals
Remember, this is a Beta version. There are still several works in progress and not everything may work 100% correctly.
We’ll be monitoring feedback from users closely, and making improvements as quickly as possible.
The Public Beta is a pre-release product which is openly distributed and allow our team to gather data to improve the product and fix issues.
During February and March we will work on a full User Interface/Experience redesign, with the help of the community feedbacks.
Special Thanks
We’d like to thank everyone who participated in the Closed Alpha. We gathered a lot of feedbacks. This allowed us to gain valuable insight into how our systems perform, to help us fixing several issues and to be confident about moving to Public Beta.
We’d also like to thank all of our donors/sponsors for their support. We’re happy to have announced earlier this month that @jamesc and @cass are our new Gold Donors, joining @smooth. @steemit is now Platinium Donor.
Check the Busy Donors page: https://busy.org/donors
Here is what you can expect from this beta:
Features:
- Identity managed by SteemConnect
- Favorite user or category with quick access on sidebar
- Bookmarks
- Editor: in-post image upload, direct markdown, options on text-selection
- Drafts: Autosave multiple drafts
- Private message: 1to1 Chat
- Category Chat: each #category (#photography, #steem, etc.) has its own channel Chat
- Emoji
- Different Layouts: Card and List views
- CoinmarketCap Steem rate
- Responsive interface (Desktop, plus mobile and tablets friendly)
- Youtube, Twitch and SoundCloud direct embedding from URL
- Internationalization: UI translation 6 languages (partial)
Known issues:
Listed on GitHub (https://github.com/adcpm/busy/issues)
Users of the beta release are encouraged to report any bugs, issues or errors directly on GitHub issues, providing accurate naming and screenshot or animated Gif or the bug.
Please check previously posted issues on GitHub to find good examples.
Missing features:
- Notifications
- Other Layout view (Grid like Pinterest, Custom Busy Layout to come after redesign phase)
- Resteem Tab/Filter: for a while, it was a community request, and it's coming in our next commits. For now, we only removed Resteemed posts from your Feed to show only Author posts for cleaner feeds
- Replies Tab: to display your replies
- Improved Wallet/Transfer
- Improved Voting details on Posts/Comments
- Improved Internationalization: display language Flag on post, more language filters, and settings to come
Roadmap 2017
Sign up and log in
Improve the flow with SteemConnect and enable a log in with email and password directly on Busy with optional 2FA security. Sign-up process would also be done on Busy.org to avoid any friction
On-boarding process
Help user that are not familiar with Steem/Steemit or cryptocurrency to signup and release their first successful post, follow their favorites topics via categories, authors, and communities.
KPI management and user-retention
We want to spend a lot of time to track and improve user retention on the Busy platform.
Branding and UI/UX rework for mainstream adoption
We are looking for a logo with more identity. We're following different leads and Designers that will eventually contribute to our new branding.
We want to rework the interface based on the feedback we gather since we've started the project and add more illustrations and fun on the site.
A new user experience will be proposed as we start to add other apps like Marketplace for good and services
Scalable Translation solution and Busy Community Help Center using the blockchain
Steem blockchain gives the ability to store content and let users value it. We want to use this ability to create a solution for Busy interface translation. Users would be able to add translations for any language and/or vote for the best translation on a custom interface.
We want to build a custom interface as an internal Busy app, that would allow users to contribute to the platform by posting suggestions, feedbacks, translations, etc. and vote for the best choices.
Wisdom of the crowd/Power of the community
Search
Give the possibility for user to search for a post, community or an author, with several filters
Busy Apps and Marketplace
Open a marketplace for goods and services. Allow user post for a product or service to sale on a specific and redesign interface, including Escrow with private/encrypted messaging.
Allow different apps integration on our Busy platform
iOS / Android and desktop applications
Deploy Busy on all platforms using most of the current website codebase with some gestures and user experience improvement
Crypto exchange, FIAT Deposit, Debit Card
We want to make it easy for users to change any crypto to Steem and reverse or buy on the marketplace with another crypto using and integrating for example ShapeShift or BlockTrades solution.
New users should also be able to deposit/withdraw from/to FIAT sources. We want to make this as easy as possible
Busy Token and funding
On December 2016 we announced an introduction to our Donation Terms and had a nice response from the community. We decided to implement the Busy Donor badge on Profile, and Busy Donor list.
The Beta release is only the first step of the Busy project.
Our goal is to prove that we have the appropriate, qualified resources and vision to bring new value-adding, with the strength and responsiveness that our ecosystem needs to succeed.
Busy is still discussing different possibilities to get the required funding. It will allow us to work on our 2017 Roadmap and complete platform. (need at least 200K SBD)
The team is still deeply discussing the idea of having greater benefits for our Donors and is working towards this end. As we mostly rely on Donations, for now, it's important for Busy to find the best way to incentivize it. This type of "crowdfunding" could work for Busy.
Creating a Busy token (for example with Bitshares UIA User-Issue Assets) and give it to our donors and the Busy team could be a solution. Using reward repartition pool, the funds received from this blockchain enhancement would be redirected into a our development fund that can help bootstrap new features and services and cover Busy expenses and development. But it will also be redirected to backup the Busy token value. It will allow Busy to become viable and autonomous, and help our Donor and the Busy team to have monetary incentive for their faithful commitment to the Busy project.
We took the decision to start discussing it with our Donors and different Advisers and will take a final decision during February after the Beta release.
All rewards from the @busy.org account and donations will be used to fund our projects
Links
- Busy Public Beta release: https://busy.org
- January News
- Busy GitHub, source code, issues, contributors: https://github.com/adcpm/busy
- Busy Donors
- Busy Team
- Busy Help/FAQ: we will provide from tomorrow a full FAQ for new users! Helping them to understand Busy and Steem
Free Busy.org Beta preview/demo
Login
Editor / Draft
Private Messaging
Channel Chat
Bookmark
Switch to List view/layout
Enjoy !
To support the Busy team, vote for our witness @busy.witness
Congratulation to the busy team for this beta version. You really worked hard to bring this facebook steem kind to the community. Expect us to bring this to our steem local chapter here in Montreal (Canada). I support this project and will be bringing feedback and suggestion for the future. Again congratulation. you desserve my support.
EDIT: Most relevant comment
I guess my problem is not really the busy token. I admit that this is probably a good idea to get you guys started.
My problem is the mandatory ( non opt out) multiple beneficiary payout because this feature means that companies could quickly grow out of control, issue more and more shares and undermine the whole investment proposition for steem power holders.
You've mentionned that this is just for bootstraping the project and I have no reason to believe otherwise as I trust the team.
My concern is that many companies will abuse this feature especially if they grow big, they will start charging customers higher taxes, they might censor content not coming from their site to force people to pay a comission and they will also distribute more and more tokens as the company grow which will take a huge chunk of the investment that could have gone into steem.
My conclusion is that a token sale to bootstrap your project is probably not a bad idea but the multiple beneficiary payout feature should definetely be opt out because the feature gives way too much power to companies and could potentially undermine steem power holder's investment.
I don’t really like the busy token thing,the idea behind steem was that investors who wanted to invest in steem projects would have to buy and hold steem. But if busy allows investors to invest in busy by just exchanging their steem for a token then the steem will be dumped.
I much rather see people who want to invest in busy buy and hold steem . If the demand for steem was high already this might not be such a big deal but that’s not the case, today we badly need to incentivize people to buy and hold. The Multiple beneficiary payout enhancement will give busy necessary funds to pay for salary/developement. I don’t see the need for a token. What if every steem apps start issuing tokens?
This token thing function much like a traditional company where shares are given and dividends paid out, nothing wrong with that apart from the fact that we've all been told steem power is the actual share...
If anyone can convince me this is a good idea I'm all ears!
How does the 1 on 1 private chat work ? Is something about it stored in the blockchain ?
not yet on-chain, still off-chain. But as many other social networks, saved and encrypted on the Busy database.
we are waiting for private message implementation on the blockchain itself (it's there and almost ready to work) to maybe switch or allow on-chain message
I tried to use it (sending private messaging via steem blockchain), and I also encounter problems. I was able to sent a message, but I wasn't able to read it by
get_inboxmethod. Is this the same case for you?Do you have any ETA, when this will be fixed?
The blockchain is saved forever on many computers. Your DMs are relevant only to two people (because encrypted), and only for a relatively short period of time. This disparity makes the blockchain a suboptimal place to store private messages.
I think using blockchains to hold encrypted data is sort of antisocial. It's "hey stranger, store this data for me forever, but you can't read what it is."
exactly the same case is with posts about news.
Correct. So conclusion should be... that others should benefit somehow for storing those messages for you for eternity. My project prio recognized that... that is why we want to introduce private paid priority messaging, and at the same time our public messages will be always free, because those messages contributes to common knowledge.
I really love your comment Sneak. I'll keep it in mind.
same here mate ;)
and no clue.. hope soon
I totally agree with your view
wondering this myself..
This is what happiness looks like!
Hope you like it :)
Great work guys!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
I would rather donate you SBD that buy another token. Busy is a great enhacement of the steem ecosystem and I would like the STEEM token to increase in value because of it. Why do you think you would get more donors issuing a new token? Beeing a private token stored off-chain in a database does not help to gain investors trust.
If we decide to start something like that it could definitely be directly linked to donations. Donor (in SBD) will receive the token without having to actually buy these token.
Do you prefer donating and receive a token or donating and receive nothing ;) this is the inventive i'm talking about
Understood. My recomendation. Try it and lets see how it goes!
Awesome guys =)
It's been a great experience test riding the alpha and I'm incredibly thankful for all of your hard work! Looking forward to a brave new year with you guys around!
Cheers!
Thanks ! you and @snowflake were awesome too! Thanks to other people who helped us on the alpha. Honestly it looks a special day for many of you but for us it's nothing special, just the beginning of something even greater. There're a lot to come in the next few weeks, and some major updates/changes :rocket: We're proud of the work done so far by the team though.. time to celebrate a bit
Posted via busy :)
Hehe nice touch there with the :rocket: :)
I made sure to link this post in the activism channel on Steemit.chat as well.
You're making real change that matters!
Be well
/Thomas
maybe we will discuss with them on our #activism channel on Busy Chat also :)
https://app.busy.org/messages/activism
For sure! =)
This is looking so awesome!!!
Amazing work guys! Grateful to be part of this! 2017 is going to be a great year for steem
Very impressed! Great job!