OT: Mgoblog notifications to your phone
I think many share the same sediment as I, Mgoblog HD was terrific. Far out, man. The app was well done and of course, provided push notifications. When the app was dissolved I was about able to set up notifications through the @mgofeedfull twitter handle. Every time a board post hit, it would tweet out and I’d get the tweet notification for the handle. This hasn’t been working for some time. Any other tricks/ways to get notified when new posts hit? Did I miss something?
PS: hire Juwan already.
I may have missed it, but was it ever explained on the reasoning why an App wasn't rolled out with mgoblog 3.0?
For iphone users it was basically, "I use Android"
I get your sediment.
Because the website was mobile optimized (IIRC).
Yep that was the explanation given. I still preferred having an external app.
Even though it would look the same? If the site is mobile-friendly, there is no purpose to wasting time and money creating an app.
if they built quality apps with more advanced functionality, I'd happily pay for them. even just having the basic functions like the OP was requesting of notifications of new board posts or even something like notifications when someone responded to your comment etc would be useful and im sure lots of folks would "contribute" by paying for the app. $1.99 * a couple thousand users might make it worthwhile?
I don't remember the specifics anymore but I thought the net net via Seth was that the HD app (nto made by them) was a big part of the instability of the old site and caused it to crash because it was downloading the whole site everytime it was pinging the server. Then they underestimated how much people would prefer an app as the responsive design of the new site would have worked for most mobile users. And at last update they were considering developing an app down the road, but obviously, that has its own complications with developing and maintaining different apps for each mobile OS. If i got that wrong, please correct but I think this was the latest re: apps.
The app wasn't registering your clicks for the purpose of monetizing traffic. It had to be eliminated to maximize revenue. Which is now even more important due to decreased traffic resulting from poor implementation of the new site.
People keep saying the site's traffic is down, and yet I remember you some time ago Seth saying that traffic hadn't really changed since the redesign beyond your usual cyclical form from the season.
The mobile apps were nice but they couldn't monetize them properly and they were incredibly resource hogs. I don't blame them for wanting to move past them, at least in the short term.
Many people have reported visiting less frequently since the launch of the new site. I can tell you that my visits are way down. I would be shocked if traffic didn't take a monster hit. Of course, if most of that pre-launch traffic was through the apps, the site admins wouldn't be able to measure it accurately anyway. But the quality of the posts and discussions could have been impacted--which impacts the value of the site. I'm sure we all have an opinion about that.
John Beilein heading to the Cavs has to be one of the best things to happen to this site in a long time. If nothing else, this site provides a consistent community where you're sure to find a discussion about most things happening in Michigan athletics. Unsurprisingly, we've gotten more content out of Brian the past two weeks than we had over the preceding months. My visits are up as well. And now you've got someone wondering how to get notifications--something that apparently wasn't worth asking about until today.
In any case, the elimination of the apps was a misguided business decision. You don't take away a product or feature that your customers enjoy because it's not making you money; you keep delivering it and find a way to monetize it. When the problem was that too much traffic was coming through the apps and the apps weren't owned by the site or set up to monetize traffic, the solution should have been to take ownership of the apps and monetize the traffic. Instead, Brian chose to eliminate a valued feature thinking his customers would keep putting money in his pocket regardless.
I generally visited the site more with the app, but since I never saw ads it wasn't helping them. So my visits are down overall now but they're more valuable, and my guess that is what they were referring to. Again, not sure.
Honestly, I just have a recurring Beveled Guilt payment to the site because it provides a lot of solid content and I want to support the site. If anything, Brian some of the site to Patreon-style service wouldn't be a terrible idea. Hell, make it cost people $5/mo to create a thread and then see how often Maizen creates a new account.
It's not a "misguided business decision" to remove a feature that costs you a ton of money and is, frankly, hard to monetize. This site isn't some massive organization with a ton of resources; having to pay an AWS bill per month in the 4 figures isn't fun for anyone, and on top of that spending additional resources to figure out how to make some money from it might not be viable. It's why the site was updated to be "mobile friendly". It's not overwhelmingly so and people have complained as a result, but it's a logical response to this problem.
My guess is that at some point they'll roll out a mobile app again, likely created using something like React Native or some other "thinly wrapped HTML pages in a native look" product that they can better monetize. But you're doing a TON of speculation about the inner workings of this site and how it's run.
Hey, Man, if you've got enough extra scratch lying around to make regular donations to another man's paycheck, good for you. I'm off to set up my Patreon account. I'll hit you up once it's ready.
Yes, mine visits are way down because I don’t have the notifications driving me to the site.
The people who say that they visit less, are probably counting their visits on the app in the "Before" part of the calculation.
The fact of the matter is, there is no reason for a blog to have an app anymore. What functionality would an Mgoblog app have that can't be handled by a website with modern design? There is none. Now is Mgoblog fully optimized to replace having an app? Not really, but it's a hell of a lot better than it used to be.
The apps, which really weren't much different from pirated copies of the site, didn't just not provide revenue. They hurt revenue. The website crashed every time something big happened because there were thousands of users using up bandwidth through the apps. This prevented all of the legit views accessing the site and seeing ads.
Charge .99 for the app and collect all the cash you need. Not one person would give it a second thought. Heck at $2 nobody would. 10-15-20k app users?
The app was not built by MGoBlog, and did not serve any ads. The new site is not compatible with the app, and I'm sure they don't want it to be for this reason.
That said, the app had a better UI and the new UI is really disappointing given how long it took to roll out.
Doesn't work for the message board, but I still use blogrottr to get the main page content pushed to my email. https://blogtrottr.com/ the formatting isn't always great for embedded video and images but I mainly just use it as a notification and go read the post on the site. it can be helpful for offline reading as well since you get the full post there if you'd jumping on a plane or something. I wonder if something similar would work for the board but never had any luck.
Thanks, even getting the main page stuff kicked to my phone via email is helpful.
You have to have a rotary phone to be compatible with the current technology....
I'd love to see a Super 8 of my generation using a Telegram.
That would be nice, but at this point I'd gladly settle for being able to use mgoblog on my phone without having to log in each time. Oh, and finally banning Maizen/1201.
You can save your login info on the browser and it should keep you logged in permanently.
It's lunch time! Bone apple tea!
For the uninitiated, visit reddit.com/r/boneappletea when you have 15 minutes to kill
I share your sediments.
I too share your broken up rocks at the bottom of a river bed.
Nope.
You are NOT getting the last sip out of my bottles of ale/stouts.
It would appear whoever set up the feeds on Twitter needs to fix something as neither MGoFeedFull or MGoFeed have worked since April 17th.
Not sure if it's been suggested yet, but I have Twitter alerts set up for the @MGoBlog account. When a new post occurs, there's typically a corresponding tweet within minutes. I admit it might not be an ideal solution because it tweets more than just posts, but may be a good workaround for now.
Edit: forgot to add - yes, hire Juwan.
Sediment - what layer are we talking?
The MGoBlog twitter handle posts a tweet when a new post on the site is available. All you have to do is enable a push notification from Brian's twitter feed.
I’ve thought about that as a last resort but hesitate since I’d get a notification every time Brian tweets.
#sediments
I'd like to have a notification for each thread letting me know that Ed Cooley is not coming to Michigan
In a lot of cases lately, especially in the middle of this coaching search, it's probably for the best that you don't get updates from @MGoFeed. Trust me.
custom notifications would be great - i'd love to know when 1201 / maizen / mgomasturbate posts so i know to ignore his shit.
i'm kidding, obviously. notifications from literally any app on god's green earth are a blight upon humanity, whether they're telling me about a post by maizen or by the very soul of bo schembechler.
just. say. no.