#104 - Going down the right path?

#104

                October 11, 2021

            #104 - Going down the right path?

                Reflecting on our upcoming community updates, solved progress tracking bugs, and a mini update on customer interviews!

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#104 | 11 October 2021

Going down the right path?

One minute it feels like the right thing to do...and the next minute I'm worried that we're making a big mistake.

What am I talking about?

The impending community updates to the product! 😬

Part of the work we want to do includes improving how the news feeds work and making the general community feed more interesting and useful. 👀

One of the ideas we're exploring is introducing the concept of friends.

As opposed to the one-way relationship of following, having a friend on The StoryGraph will be a mutual thing and will unlock extra functionality, like perhaps being able to comment on updates.

There'll also then be a "friends only" setting for any extra community features we introduce, like buddy reads and book clubs.

Whatever ideas we discuss, it's always with the understanding that everything will be opt in and configurable. If you love StoryGraph as it is now, in all of its peace and quiet, then nothing will change for you on this front.

Anyway, we definitely need to flesh out our proposed updates and then seek feedback from our Instagram and Twitter communities — so if you follow us there, stay tuned!

Since last time...

I've carried out 11 customer interviews with people who have completed a Plus free trial, didn't subscribe, but still love the product and use it regularly. 

What I always find fascinating about these are the common behaviours or pain points that these very different readers all exhibit. I hope to share some more of my findings in a future issue!

Development-wise, there were a handful of bugs with the progress tracking feature which have all been taken care of now! 🙌🏾

Historically, users tracking progress against multiple books ran into issues.

Hopefully everything should work smoothly now! 🤞🏾

I've also started work on a brand new marketing site. We're going to be launching the ability to gift a Plus subscription soon and...well...this needs to be updated before then:

For one, the product just doesn't look like this anymore... 😅

Next two weeks

I really hope I can finally wrap up my work on Android in-app purchases so that people all over the world can take out a subscription using their currency and payment method of choice (as those using the iOS app can do).

And perhaps we'll have a clearer idea of what the next stage of 'Community on The StoryGraph' will look like!

What I'm reading right now

20% left of The Eighth Life and then I'll be picking up Lote by Shola von Reinhold.

I don't know what it's about but I have to read it for mine and Abbie's Jacaranda challenge and I've heard amazing things!

Have a great week,

Nadia

P.S. Know somebody who's an avid reader or would enjoy following along with this journey? Please do forward this email to them! Thank you. :-)

Haven't tried The StoryGraph yet? Check it out today!

Love the app? Consider upgrading to our Plus plan!

Want to volunteer? Apply to be a Librarian!

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