Thought Streams Road Map

So end of last year, we got to:

• bookmarklets
• easier embedding of videos, audio, etc from external sites
• per-user firehoses
• keyboard shortcuts

We've started work on notifications and branching and launched the first part of the notifications work, namely the unread count displays.

Our goal is to finish up notifications and a couple of other things in Q1 and finish branching in Q2.

Because these are crucial to effective team use, we'll continue to run the ThoughtStreams for Teams Beta during that time with a view to launching teams publicly in Q3.

Lots of great things planned for the rest of the year, including:

• bookmarklets and OS X extensions
• easier embedding of videos, audio, etc from external sites
• per-user firehoses
• keyboard shortcuts
• notifications
• branching

Last week I mentioned possible cryptic tag lines for ThoughtStreams releases like Apple Events sometimes do.

Last month we did "There's No I in Team" (although it's still in private beta) but today we completed the likes and favorites epic , "I Like the Sound of That".

We're also still doing frequent enhancements on a weekly basis but the next big epic (and it is a big one) is "Branching Out" and is planned for the next two months.

If we had a little event for each epic we're working on over the coming months and had cryptic tag lines like Apple Events do, those tag lines might include:

• There's No I in Team
• I Like the Sound of That
• Branching Out
• Notice Anything Different?
• There's a Theme Developing

Intrigued?

The first release of this feature might just be a 'post to inbox' and then we can add stream-identification-by-subject in a second iteration.

We've definitely been doing a mix of phase two and phase three items lately. They still seem good high-level themes:

• make it easier to author and organize
• make it easier to find good people and content
• make it easier to collaborate and converse

and each new feature idea should probably be assessed based on which of the above it achieves.

We jumped ahead a little on a phase three idea and now allow people to repost other people's cards to their own streams as a way of engaging a little more in conversation.

We still plan some improvements to the repost UX.

Re previous card:

• ability to publish/unpublish stream from stream detail is done
• ability to preview markdown before card creation isn't really necessary with editing before publishing being possible
• ability to edit a card is done and it's possible even if the card has already been published (although you have to "unpublish" it first)

Few bits of low-hanging fruit for phase one:

• ability to publish/unpublish a stream from the stream detail page
• ability to create a new stream from the repost page
• ability to preview markdown before card creation
• ability to edit a card (if it's never been published, which means introducing that notion internally)

Phase Themes

Phase One: making it easier to author and organize
Phase Two: making it easier to find good people and content
Phase Three: make it easier to collaborate and converse

might be better to call these "phases" rather than releases as we're releasing a lot more often

Another form of twitter import should be "import your favorites". It should be done automatically under the covers. A built-in, unpublishable stream (like Inbox) that just contains any tweets you've favorited, ready for you to report to a stream here.

release two should have the notion of featured/popular streams/cards and feed (and twitter account) for them

Actually, basic profiles is probably more release two. Release one should focus on making it easier to author and organize. Release two should be about finding good people and content.

I feel like release zero is basically done and we're in to release one now.

Release one should also have:

• basic profiles

Release Two

• atom feeds
• "liking" (both posts and streams)
• some notion of subscribing? would that mean an activity stream?

release one should also have:

• forking to other streams
• twitter import (ability to select tweets to turn into posts in streams)
• maybe "typed" posts and streams (links, projects)
• ability to tweet a stream or individual post

Release One

• markdown preview
• wysiwyg (optional? redactorjs?)
• image attachment
• reposting to other streams

• release zero: lay the basic foundation
• release one: create a great experience for authors
• release two: create a great experience for readers