Weeks 11/19 - 12/4
Time has flown these past two weeks here at DoStuff HQ! And it's only going to speed up for all of us as the holiday vortex - the week of Christmas through New Year's - nears. Despite time for travels, turkey, and taking it easy last week, we've still been pushing hard. Read on for all that DoStuff has gotten done and some of what we plan to do regarding redesign, new metros, and programs!Redesign Rally
We are in the final stretch of finalizing the redesign and getting everyone transitioned to the new platform. Do512 and Do312 soft launched this past Monday and will hard launch this coming Monday. That's 75% of our sites nearly transitioned and includes our pioneer metros! This is HUGE and would not be possible without the hard work that everyone has put in to make it happen.
Thanks so much to everyone for their ongoing efforts to make the site the best possible site it can be. We appreciate your insight in our Opportunities project. This past week, we prioritized all fixes and improvements to push for closure on the majority of redesign related work.
Some of the most recent improvements that are currently live include:
- The band lineup now appears at the top of the event activity feed and links to all band pages.
- We clarified "Follows" in the event activity feed.
- HTML descriptions now work only for users set as Promo Users for site security reasons.
- We improved event descriptions to be slightly more customizable and include line-breaks.
- Day + date are now shown at the top of the homepage, and day + date headers appear in search results.
- Promo User's can be set to "Auto-redirect" so the user will bypass the Promo User page and be taken directly to the most recent upcoming event voted on by the Promo User.
- Mobile UI has been streamlined, and you can upload a mobile-specific logo.
- COMMENTS from Featured Reviewers (scraped comments) are now visible. Check out how this looks on DoLA.
- POSTER images now display below the event description. See this example on doNYC.
Some of the most recent fixes include:
- The Spam Bot question now appears on the event creation form so that users can successfully add events!
- When opening to "View More" events on a user page, the page no longer displays repeating events.
- When editing your user profile, you can now change your password.
- Promo User lists now can be set to sort events by popularity.
- We've optimized the backend for your site to run even more smoothly with more traffic.
Important note regarding IMAGES:
- Since we slimmed down the hero area, the ideal height is now 450px.
- We are defining the image designation and will clarify any current confusion soon!
As mentioned in the last Redesign UPdate, we are A/B testing certain design elements given your feedback and user feedback. We are currently testing slimmer events on listing pages. See the comparison:
We'll judge which is preferable based on time spent on these pages, bounce rate, and user actions.
We also continue to update documentation with what you need to know regarding these improvements and the redesign overall. Check out our latest addition of AD SPECS guidance.
New Metro News
Do617 (Boston), Do416 (Toronto), and HazDF (Mexico City) are rapidly moving toward early 2014 launches with progress made on the partner, content, and design fronts. Do617 continues to break early Twitter follower records. Check out Do416's social efforts on Facebok and Twitter. Stay tuned for HazDF's social debut.
On December 16th and 17th, DoStuff will host Do206 (Seattle) and Do214 (Dallas) for their training bootcamp!
Conversations with new markets are happening with potential partners in Philadelphia, Vancouver, Montreal, Calagry, Denver, Detroit, San Antonio, Milwaukee, and Portlands - that's Oregon as well as Maine!
Programs and Partnerships
The Macallan campaign wrapped reporting and the Eric Andre Adult Swim promotion came to a close. Nokia is running smoothly ahead.
On the potential programs side, we've been having good discussions with brands from Pabst to Pandora. More info to come!
SX! Start thinking about it if you have not already. We sure are.
Miscellaneous But Noteworthy
- We're working to finalize more documentation regarding Promo User page customization.
- We are also working on Tortuga and Big Ears festival.
- The new newsletter template is nearly finalized.
- Guestlist app is moving toward completion!
DoStuff Stuff
Our funding conversations went well the past few weeks and will continue after the holidays. We are moving forward in conversations to expand our current team so that we can better support you all and continue to grow.
We are planning on transitioning from Episode 4 to Episode 5 in early January. We're pushing through all tasks under the "This Episode" heading in the Opportunities project and also on all of our ongoing projects. We will definitely be informing you all how the final stretch goes and what our priorities are the upcoming episode.
We hope you all had wonderful Thanksgivings and are enjoying the start to the holiday season!
*Hearts and Merriment*
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