Existory

Existory is a very small team with very limited resources. We’ve been working as hard as possible to respond to user feedback and improve our application. Although we’re confident that we know how to adjust our Facebook application to improve your experience, we haven’t been able to respond as quickly as needed. As a result, we’ve been searching (…and searching) for the right group of people to bring in and help.

After talking to many, many developers and development groups, we’ve decided to work with CitrusByte.

CitrusByte is a growing RoR development firm in Los Angeles. They’ve been producing fantastic websites [i.e. CauseCast] while regularly contributing to the open source community [i.e. PoolParty]. They’re a small, intimate team making a name for themselves one product at a time.  [expect their website to be updated soon with a slate of new projects]

CitrusByte immediately rose above the rest because of a strong recommendation from Engine Yard. I randomly reached out to Engine Yard and asked if they recommended any firms. To my surprise, they responded and specifically recommended Citrus Byte. Thank you Engine Yard for going beyond the call of duty… 

Going forward, we will also be working with Digital Onion. They specialize in scrum project management. Thus far, they’ve been a tremendous help getting everyone up to speed and on the same page. We look forward to their help reducing overhead and more rapidly realizing our dreams.

With a new and larger team in place, expect Existory to re-release its Facebook application soon. We’ve already made significant progress with CitrusByte. You’ll see an entirely reworked design, a more intuitive and simple interface, and more powerful ways to view and filter content… and this site/blog will get an upgrade as well. 

Although the future is entirely uncertain, we’re driven knowing we’re building something we ourselves [and our friends] want to use. Wish us luck… we’ll keep you posted.

We were down for a few days. The app runs on Amazon Web Services and it simply crashed. We apologize to everyone who tried to access the application. Should this ever happen again… we should be able to respond much faster next time.

Thanks to everyone who sent in their thoughts (and bugs).

Overall, the feedback to version 0.2 has been positive. It’s better than its predecessor, but still needs significant work.

Most feedback has focused on performance and clarity. Pages often take too long to load and don’t inform users that something is happening. Users just wait unknowingly. A few of the links are broken, the messaging is a little buggy, and the process of building your timeline is still confusing. We hear you… (and agree).

Before we roll out additional functionality, we’re going to hunker down and work on some of these essential processes. The queue of outgoing messages is still growing and we aren’t sending them immediately. With a few bugs in the messaging system, it’s still not worth annoying people. In some browsers, uses can’t merge events. Etc. We’re aware of these issues and are working on the.

We’re very grateful the feedback that we’ve been getting and appreciate your patience. As v 0.3 becomes more clear, we’ll write more about the specifics. Overall, expect better performance and clearer processes.

Thanks!!

We’re excited about version 0.2 and should be releasing it sometime later this week. Rather than rush something out the door, we’ve taken the time to make some major changes that should result in a much better application.

Based on everyone’s feedback, we’ve focused on letting you in and out of the application much more easily, giving you greater control and improving some of the essential processes.

Choice

In version 0.1, Existory automatically built your timeline for you. Now, you may choose how and when Existory accesses your data. Browse timelines, manually create events, write stories, add photos…until you choose to build your timeline.

In & Out

Log into Existory knowing that we won’t access your private data.

Until you build your timeline, all we access about you is your User ID and Friends List. With this information, you can log in and out of Existory.

Zero to Timeline in Half the Time

Going from a new account to a completed timeline and map is priority #1.

In the first version, you were required to edit the full details before you could place events on your map.

You can now fly though the process, entering just the locations for your events so they appear on your map. You can still enter all the details for an event (location, description, tags, etc)… but that can wait.

Wider = Better

Facebook’s new design gives us another 114 pixels. While this might not sound like the biggest deal, it lets us spread things out in a cleaner design. The timeline’s wider, more photos are shown, and there’s more space between different elements.

Bugs

We’ve gone through the application… page by page… killing the bugs everyone sent in.

Editing event details: new venues can be added, calendars are fixed, better help dialogues, more responsive map, deleting tags, and saving in all browsers.

Messaging: no more messaging yourself, clearer messages, fewer sent overall.

Page flow: broken links to load your friends timelines are now working, start at home rather than your timeline.

Merge: duplicate events easily joined

Timeline: sets center on location, wider view, error messages if no location set.

And much, much more…

After the application first launched, we worked around the clock to fix all of the critical bugs. Given the feedback we were getting and people’s inability to complete some crucial tasks in various browsers, we elected to pull back on the messaging and notifications until we got things fixed.

We’ve since turned our attention to improving the application. During this time we’ve still held back on the messaging and notifications- we want to put our best foot forward when we start to send out notifications and messages.

We should be releasing version 0.2 in the coming days. Once it’s live, we’ll send everyone a Facebook ‘announcement’ notification asking them to come check it out. We’ll also be explaining our thinking behind the updates and any changes to the performance and use of the application.

Thank you to everyone for submitting such detailed feedback. We hope version 0.2 addresses everyone’s suggestions and we look forward to hearing your thoughts for the next release.

The details form came under attack from a few bugs. The calendar popup wasn’t working and the tag auto completes weren’t working. These issues should now be fixed.

Thanks ‘JBiz’ for submitting this bug.

We launched with some pretty serious JavaScript bugs on Macs. The timeline wasn’t loading correctly, several links weren’t working, and the notifications were leading to blank pages that informed users “this page does not exist.”

Most of these bugs are now fixed.

If you are still having issues accessing the application on a Mac, please let us know what software you’re running (OS and browser). Thanks!!

We’ve updated the location entry field and many of the issues should be fixed.

People were reporting that they couldn’t enter foreign addresses. After looking into it, we realized that any address with a foreign character wasn’t saving correctly. There were a few other bugs and they should be taken care of as well.

Thanks for informing us of these issues…

We’ve updated both the application and profile timelines.

In the previous version, San Francisco was the default location for events and the map was set to initially position on your most recent event. Thus, the application always showed San Francisco when loaded. The initial zoom level was focused closely on the city. Many people have emailed asking why they were looking at a map of San Francisco that claimed their entire life had taken place there (when it may or may not have)… clearly not ideal.

We’re still working on all of these issues, but we’ve made a round of improvements. Log into the app and check them out… Existory Facebook Application

We’re working around the clock to make improvements based on everyone’s feedback. However, we’ve had to prioritize some performance issues. We were generating an enormous log file, some server settings needed to be changed, the messaging was buggy, and some people were getting duplicate photos in their events. We’ve made changes that should address these issues. That being said, we’re still on the hunt…