So one of the things Zoji's old IM system had that the redesigned one didn't was multi-party (aka group) chat.  Well, it's back. :)

Check out the "Start group chat" link in your Now Online box.  And while you're at it, also try clicking the little black arrow in the upper right of the IM window.

Note, as I mentioned in my previous post, the new IM has had very little bake time, so there are still some issues we're working out (among them, a few reported cases of multiple popups for the same chat).  Please be patient and if you see an issue, we'd appreciate it if you could report it to support@zoji.com.

Thanks,
Kevin

Friday night we rolled out the new and improved Zoji Instant Messenger (aka ZIM).  It's been completely redesigned and rewritten from the ground up, and we addressed pretty much every problem we knew of in the old IM with the new design, including the following:

• Better chat initiation process: when you receive a new message, Zoji will now make a noise and automatically pop up the IM window.  If you have a popup blocker, it'll display a message in the Now Online box notifying you of a new message until you click on it.  This makes it much less likely that you'll miss an IM assuming you're at the computer, and not actively browsing Zoji at the time, which was one of the big bugaboos with the old design.
  
• Audible and visual new message notifications: we now play a sound and flash the title bar when you receive a new message in an IM window that's not the active window, so you won't need to keep flipping to the IM window to see if there are new messages.  Naturally, you can turn off the sound if desired.
• Unobtrusive refreshing: the old IM used to use a hidden frame that refreshed frequently to pull in new messages.  It could be a bit distracting because most browsers would display a progress bar for each refresh, and IE might even make a clicking sound for each refresh.  The new IM uses Ajax to silently poll for new messages.  You shouldn't even notice it happening.
  
• "Bob is typing..." status updates: When your IM partner is typing a message, we display a handy message to that effect at the bottom of the window.  We also tell you what time you last received a message.
  
• Visual redesign: we've prettied it up and compacted the window and conversations by pulling out the users' pictures and putting them off to the side.
• Emoticons! Because who doesn't love emoticons? (Hi Deborah ;-)
• Single IM log-in: Zoji now only lets you log into IM in one browser session at a time.  So if you log in to Zoji at work while still logged in at home, it'll automatically log you out of IM at home.  This ensures that your new messages go to the right computer--the one you're sitting in front of.
• Robust message delivery: with the new design it should be theoretically impossible to ever lose any messages.  Even if you IM someone when they're not at their computer, the IM popup gets blocked, and they log out without having read your messages, the next time they log in they'll receive your IMs.  And accordingly, if they reply to you when you're not even online, you'll get them the next time you log in.  The new design gracefully handles all sorts of scenarios.

Thanks goes to Dan for designing most of the new database schema for the new IM system!

There's still a decent chunk of work remaining on ZIM, the biggest of which is group chat, which we used to have but needs to be reimplemented using the new system.  Some performance and error handling improvements are also in the queue.

And also note that I labelled the new IM "Beta", meaning that there are likely some kinks that still need to be worked out (we found and squashed an ugly one yesterday as a matter of fact).  So definitely let us know if you encounter any issues or have any suggestions by emailing us at support@zoji.com, or by posting to the Zoji Talk group.

Also rolled out in the last few days (Dan gets credit for all of these):

• MySpace and Facebook users who import their profiles now have their pictures automatically grabbed and posted on Zoji.
• We now have an account setting that lets you disable viewing of your profile, pics, and blog to non-Zoji users.  This will also stop your profile from appearing in web searches.
  
• Several bug fixes dealing with email attachments, blog/pic/comment notifications, and event information.

That's all I can think of.  Now I want all of you to IM us and tell us how much you like the new ZIM. :-)

-Kevin

With last night's rollout you now have the ability to create Bulletins.  What's a bulletin?  If you've been blogging on Zoji at all, you can think of a bulletin as a kind of friends-only blog, technically-speaking.  The plumbing works identically to blogs, actually:  You create a bulletin, your friends get notifications on their home page, they can read your bulletin and respond to it, and you'll get notified when comments arrive.  The only technical difference is that bulletins never show up on the public Blogs tab.

 

So when should you blog and when should you post a bulletin?  If you're writing something funny, interesting, or witty that you think the whole world should have access to, then blog.  Technically I believe blog posts are supposed to have a theme tying them together, albeit loosely-defined, like if you have a string of daily musings, or a public journal.  Bulletins are more one-off in nature.  If you want to ask all your friends a question, or want to tell all your friends about something, you should post a bulletin.  They're handy to use if you keep a somewhat serious blog and don't want to pollute it with random shout-outs to friends.  Well we'll see how much use this gets, and how useful it is.  Since Myspace and Friendster offer this feature, we figured we should too.  Can't fall behind those guys, so here it is.

 

Other minor features/fixes:

 

• Duplicate e-mail message problem fixed (for the 7th time, I think).  When you message mulitple groups, you shouldn't get duplicates anymore (thanks Michael).
• Attempt to improve Zvite look: Newbies will now get a more visible prompt to select a first name, whether they want to be your friend, and a more prominent upsell to upload a pic.  We figured this should hopefully improve the quality of the responses, so you're not just staring at a bunch of grey default images.
• Zvite invitees can now clone an event (Jet).
• Revamped the way blog notifications work.  You now get a notification for every blog you subscribe to, even though they're from the same person.  Previously if your friend blogged twice, you'd only see a notification for the latest one.

 

Hope everyone's having a great summer!  -Dan

 

 

With tonight's rollout you now have the ability to import your contacts from:

• Gmail
• Yahoo
• Hotmail
• AOL
• Evite

Just another way we're trying to make it easier for you to communicate with people who are not yet on Zoji, whether it's through e-mails, Z-vites, or friend invitations.  Give it a try and see for yourself, you can import from all the sites if you want, or just one, it's up to you.  Also, if you're an Evite user, you'll be happy to know that all your Evite contacts as well as groups can be imported.  We really want to make it easy for Evite users to transition to Zoji!

 

Also fixed is that pesky e-mail bug where you lose the body of your e-mail if you forget to choose a recipient.  This was a very annoying and destructive bug that was brought to our attention, and I'm almost embarrassed to say how little time it took to fix it (like 10 minutes?).  But it's squashed now.

 

thanks and good night -Dan

Last night (or this morning, actually) Team Zoji rolled out a couple new goodies:

• New event response views.  Click on any Z-vite you've been invited to, scroll down to where the invitee responses are, and you'll notice 3 new options: "full view", "no comments", and "no comments or pics".  Kev-bo cooked this one up.  This provides you with alternative compact views of the event roster, which is nice if you've ever looked at a Z-vite page, grabbed your monitor and shook it yelling "SHUT UP!!"  because you don't give a rip about people's stupid comments ... uh, hypothetically-speaking of course ...
• Contact List for people not on Zoji.  If you go to the compose e-mail screen or create event screen, next to the e-mail box you'll notice a new checkbox "add them to my contact list", with a link to popup the contact list.  Any e-mail addresses you enter on the contact list will appear in your friends picker, just like your normal Zoji friends.  You can associate a first and last name with an e-mail address too, for easier recognition.  This basically helps you interface with your friends who are not yet on Zoji, it may help so you don't have to keep typing their e-mails over-and-over.  Why are we spending effort to accomodate your friends who are too cool for Zoji?  I'm not exactly sure, but I guess that's just shows how much we CARE.  Anyhow this feature is just the start, it's really the foundation for some other upcoming goodies... Stay tuned, don't touch that dial...

Happy Summer everyone, I think it's officially here ... -Dan