NoiseRiver is 1 month old! And it goes Beta!

Oh yes!

One whole month of delightful developping. I remember the first day it was released and the plug that Louis Gray and many people gave it! Phew! It's simply phantastik!

What started as a little challenge after some discussions I've had with some people on FriendFeed like Robert Scoble, Louis Gray, Duncan Riley and many others, suddenly became a very nice app with so many features that are not even present in FriendFeed itself! Sorry folks, but I really feel proud :)

Not only proud but so much grateful for many people that helped me by issues reports, ideas, fixes, opinions and tons of nice and kind words everyday. And that's the real magic of this experience! I was so encouraged by friends on FriendFeed that I was able to deliver at least one (if not two) features daily! So I'd like to say a BIG, no, no, a HUGE thank you!

Thanks to them, NoiseRiver is humbly the most complete FriendFeed App out there! It includes almost every possible feature that the main FriendFeed's UI includes plus a dozen of new ones.

People don't believe that NoiseRiver is "alpha", and some even wonder what will it be when it goes "beta" or even a final product. I sincerly don't know, but one thing I'm sure of, is that I'm fueled by people. By nice ones and even harsh ones too :) Nice People inspire me, encourage me, and I never feel tired in doing what I'm sure will please them.

Thank you folks for making a coding life that nice!

Explaining the new "Watch" feature of NoiseRiver and How it will cure the "Comments Clusters" disease

Hello folks,

Today, I'd like to tell you about one of latest features of NoiseRiver that has been released since my last update.

Last Monday, Robert Scoble started an intersting discussion about how comments clusters maybe confusing and redundant sometimes on FriendFeed. For example, we start a discussion about the latest Louis Gray's blob post, because we saw that URL shared on Google Reader by someone, and then someone else shares the same thing on del.icio.us, and so on... we may end up with dozens of comments clusters on the same subject. This is "comments fragmentation" inside FriendFeed itself.

What would be intersting is the ability to gather all the comments clusters about the same subject, group them in one place and see how people react, and have a better opinion, be more informed etc.

This, in fact, is the mission of the "watch feature" of NoiseRiver! You want to follow discussion on a subject? Click on the "eye icon" of the entry to watch it, and whenever you meet or another NoiseRiver's user meets an entry about the same thing, the entries get grouped and you may see similar entries (and comment clusters) in one place just by clicking a link (Show Similar).

The feature was coded in about 4 hours, it's still experimental, but from my own tests it works just fine and it really helps me group comments clusters easily!

NoiseRiver: 6 days later, 8 new features!

Hi folks!

I'm crazy when it comes to programming! But, I must admit that I'm really lazy and not that good when it comes to writing blog posts --while I really should do it. In fact many features were added to NoiseRiver since my precendent post (a week ago) and I think that it's time to give people some updates here on the blog --even if I was posting Live Dev' Updates in FriendFeed.

So here we go:

Feature 1: Hide by URL

Say you've seen a blog post (or any url) posted on FriendFeed, and that you're done with it. And you want to hide any further posts about the same URL. FriendFeed doesn't offer this kind of hiding, so I added it to NoiseRiver. Now you can see a URL only once if you want.

Feature 2: Little reply icon

You want to reply to someone in the comments cluster? Simple, click on the green little arrow and it will bring you with a comment box already filled with this person's nick.

Feature 3: On the fly interests settings

Many people admited that filling their interests by giving them all at once in the "Your interests" page was a little bit annoyong. Ok! Now you click on a little icon (a heart with a tag) beside each entry and a little pop-up shows with some keywords. You decide how much you like/hate them. Click and with some ajax magic, you're done!

Feature 4: On the fly neighborhood settings

The same idea as in "on the fly interests settings" was implemented for people. And this is really nice! Trust me. All you have to do is hover a user's name in the page, a tooltip shows, you select from a dropdown box how much you like/hate their entries and tada! Ajax makes your settings saved on the fly. And your whole flow will be filtered/highlighted with these settings in mind.

Feature 5: Permalinks to single entries

I was really eager to have this feature in the API. I asked for it in the FriendFeed's API room, and I didn't got an answer, so I went to the google group and asked for it again! And there, Bret Taylor told me that it's actually available and that the doc was not up to date. In a matter of 10 minutes, the feature was in NoiseRiver! Now you can refer to single entries in NoiseRiver with permanant links (permalinks) --Expect other cool features with these permalinks ;-)

Feature 6: Share pictures and sounds!

Yes, not yet available in the FriendFeed's UI. You can share pictures and sounds directly from NoiseRiver and people will see them and listen to them in friendFeed or NoiseRiver easily! Look at this: on NoiseRiver or on FriendFeed.

Feature 7: View Seesmic, youtube and vimeo videos directly in NoiseRiver

I always somehow delayed that media thing because of the lack of complete doc and the big variety of media content that are shared on FriendFeed, but now i'm starting to make it available in NoiseRiver! This is very very complicated, believe me. But I'll fully integrate it! :)

Feature 8: Improved filters

During the week, there was a big fuss about the new iPhone and NoiseRiver was the cure for some people who didn't wanted to see anything about it! It worked fine and the filters were much improved than anytime before thanks to people reproting issues! Thank you Tim, Alexander, Dread, Brian and everyone who helped! :)

Well that's it folks, it has been a real pleasure to code these things, it was a real fun and some people are already enjoying them! So I'll cary on, and I really welcome all your suggestions and questions! Come and join us in the room!

NoiseRiver: Two weeks later, many features added

Howdy! 

Phew! What an exciting experience! Two weeks of happy coding on NoiseRiver and many features added. What's more joyful about this was the "watch me cooking" style of coding I've adopted lately. In fact, there was a happy crowd in the NoiseRiver's Room reporting bugs, suggesting features and improvements. And me sending "Live Dev' Updates" from time to time and having feedback instantly!

So, here we are, two weeks later and a bunch of new features like:

• Integrating rooms to NoiseRiver (with the ability to show rooms contents, and share in rooms)
• Hiding and deleting entries: NoiseRiver was the first FriendFeed App to integrate these features.
• Reshare entries
• Added comments timestamps (even before FriendFeed did ;-) )
• Added a nice tooltip that displays a user's information (including an expanding list of his rooms)
• Added likely comment's replies highlighting (comments that include one's nick or name)
• Added Social proximity to the tooltip that shows how close is a user to you depending on your and his interests (this is the first step toward "smart social connections")

That's it, with many bug fixes, support and happy talks in Friendfeed in general, I'd say that this was (and still is) the most entertaining coding experience I've ever had. People were in the kitchen, and I was da man! :)

Wait, wait, that was just ONE feature of NoiseRiver! Here's "Smart Social Connexions"

What a stressfull day! I worked on some NoiseRiver's backend improvement and I'm strating to build with only javascript and JSON some new UI elements. But the hardest of it all, was the loss of the domain name and then the re-registring of it again... Story discussed on Friendfeed --of course :)

Anyway, today I wanted to talk about the one feature that, when implemented, will make all the friendfeed gals want to mary me! True! :)

Many people are complaining about the fact that almost all social websites recommand allways the same people as friends (understand A-listers: Scoble, Loic, Arrington...). They're right, being popular doesn't mean that we share intersts! Period.

So here's the idea: Imagine, that given Paul's Interests and neighborhood settings, we may compute and find the most resembling people, those who share the maximum of these with Paul. The more people share these things with Paul, the more they're likely to be/become friends. Isn't it?

NoiseRiver's Friends Recommendation - Smarter!

So, mathematically spoken (don't shudder!) The biggest the intersection (red zone in the pic) of two persons sets is, the most likely they're to be real friends in a social context. This is what I call so pompousely: "Smart Social Connexions". And when implemented on NoiseRiver, this will bring a new, and fresh meaning to social interractions. Where our "intersts and neighborhood" define us. Watch out :)