Indy.com
Today:
Who do I whine to about Indy.com features? A short rant.
Posted: Feb 21, 2008
Tags:
It's 2008...Web 2.0 concepts have been around for several years now. So why is it that on a major site like Indy.com, I can't embed a simple url in a post? Why can't we use basic HTML embed codes?
What if I want to share a cool video in a post from Youtube or Google video? Can I embed it in a post here? No.
If I shoot a video at a local even, can I upload it here? No. Photos are so..1995...the web runs on Flash and videos these days. Let's get with it, Indy.
Now if this is supposed to be a social networking site, how about giving me a little more freedom to customize my profile with my own design and links? Why not let me embed widgets? How about letting me start my own blog and maybe adding a blogging section to the main page that pulls in the latest blog posts from all the site bloggers?
Don't get me wrong, the site is cool and has some great features, but I think a lot of us would like a little more freedom in what we do here.
Hi. I'm one of the guys to rant to ... :)
URLS: You can embed urls in posts. We auto-link urls or you can use the syntax for it: [link text](http://www.your_link_goes_here.com)
As for embedding videos: It's on the to-do list. We have to strike a balance between freedom for users and not opening up any security holes. Trust me, we want to do it and we'll get back to working on it shortly.
Uploading videos: Sigh ... that's a crapload of bandwidth and processing ... we'd like to do it, but it'll likely be part of a bigger video-specific project somewhere down the line (no idea when).
Customization: Again, want to do it. On the features list. We just want to try to avoid turning this into MySpace and it's all about finding that right balance again.
Blogging: For right now, Indy is entertainment-centric. That said, in the coming months, we'll start beefing up the more social-network aspects of the site. This is one of those things we'll look at.
We're in a small lull as far as developing new features for the site (while we try to bang out another project in early March). We've got big plans for when we get back to it, though.
Anybody else have anything they want to rant about or suggest?
You sort of auto-link urls. You can paste a url into a post and half the time it will be clickable, as long as the url doesn't have a / or other funky character in it, then it will chop the URL in half and it won't be clickable. Let me see if I can post an example:
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080220/BUSINESS/80220030/1003
If you have some sort of proprietary BB code for putting urls in posts, you need to make it clear in the FAQ how this works. Also, the ability to embed outside images via HTML or bbcode would be nice.
The first thing I did when I signed up for this site was attempt to throw some HTML in my profile.
As for embedding videos and widgets, I think it would be fine if we could only embed videos. I don't think you need to become a video host if you don't want to worry about the bandwidth. People are more likely to upload their videos to Youtube or Myspace and then embed them here anyway.
Blogging and entertainment go hand in hand. Blogs are entertainment and they can be about entertainment.
Glad to hear you are beefing up the social networking aspects of the site in the future, and I'm curious to see this new project you're working on.
You are using Pluck's Social Media Suite, correct?
One quick hint as far as tricky links ... because the text filter we use turns phrases wrapped in _'s into italics it borks on links with underscores in them (not sure about the indystar ones, but this trick should fix those, too), one way to get around that is to wrap the link in angle brackets (\< and \>) or use the link syntax mentioned in the Style and Formatting Guide.
As for Pluck ... the new project uses it ... Indy doesn't. We're currently working on getting everything nice and integrated, though.