Skype is real convenient, but wow can it suck. We had a few crashes and dropped sessions during our call today. Which was attended by Daniel, Adam, Joey, Miles, Andrew, Lauren, Vanessa and excitingly, Bryan.
We’ve been using our new system of breaking down topics to be covered into 3 priority levels and endeavoring to keep the calls to 30 minutes. The system isn’t perfect, but it’s working well. We’re always sure to cover the important stuff, and get off the phone much faster than our old hour and 30 minute standard.
Site Design (fixing the 2am half-assing)
Today’s call started off with a full acknowledgment that our hosting page, while updated, is not nearly what we need it to be. Feedback provided:
- It’s not entirely clear that by signing up for hosting, the client should also be signing up for Priority Support. I don’t think we should manage hosting accounts if they don’t have priority support
- Signup form needs to be updated a bit so that we make sure we capture required information.
- In the school size calculator, Staff Size, can be mistaken for University staff, as in faculty, staff, etc. not newspaper staff.
- We should review why we limit database restores to 3? If the DB crashes or breaks after that we won’t do anything? It might become unlimited, as its a service that people are likely to never use, hopefully will never have to use, but should always be there for safety’s sake.
- Include a badge with “Prices starting at $50/month” that leads into the pricing page
- We should consider raising the basic setup cost to $200. $150 seems low
- Maybe make the graphic only over the left column, and move the links to the top of the right column.
Adam is going to take the lead on mapping out what we need to do, and Daniel will help with execution if needed. Any other feedback? Let us know in the comments.
Continue reading ‘August 30, 2009: We can haz Skype fail?’

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From our agenda at the last conference call, I think there are several things it would be sweet if we could add to the website this week. They’re open to whomever wants to take a crack at them, and I’ll probably take the leftovers when I’m done traveling. Speaking of, I’ve got an overnight bus ride tonight to Lima, and then a red-eye flight to Portland tomorrow night. I’m hoping that the airport in Lima has free wifi, but no certainties.
Here’s what we’ve got:
- Metadata in the header is configured incorrectly. I tried sharing a link on Facebook and it doesn’t pull a summary, the title tag, or any images. This might be a problem with our theme or with the SEO plugin we use.
- Switching out PodPress (if possible). I think PodPress is breaking with the theme too, and it might just be simpler to embed the MP3 file as an enclosure and use an audio player.
- Make the blog headlines more prominent on the home page. I’m open to ideas as to how this might be done.
- Revising the about page. I’m going to do some work on the bus on the copy, but we still need team bios and photos.
- Adding to the blog sidebar. It would be sweet to have a list of our most recent links, and a player with the most recent version of This Week in CoPress. There might be a plugin that does this, or it might be a little bit more difficult.
I’m also thinking that we should change the URI structure of the website a bit (so that our blog lives at copress.org/blog and we remove the “category” slug). We can wait until Sunday for this tho.
Anything I’m missing?
I’ve got this thing about Facebook: I really don’t like it.
I guess I just don’t see the utility, to restrict my interaction with it, I make it a rule to only friend people that I actually know and I let ‘em all know that FB is not a good way to get in touch with me.
But… I’ve had a few people (contacts, clients, etc…) that I’ve met through CoPress send me a friend request. I feel bad rejecting them… but I also don’t want them to be able to find me on FB. I guess I sorta view FB is as too much of a personal thing.
Thoughts? Am I just crazy?
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