{"id":11048,"date":"2008-02-06T06:24:55","date_gmt":"2008-02-06T03:24:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/02\/06\/odnoklassnikiru-the-way-to-do-site-messages\/"},"modified":"2008-02-06T06:24:55","modified_gmt":"2008-02-06T03:24:55","slug":"odnoklassnikiru-the-way-to-do-site-messages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/02\/06\/odnoklassnikiru-the-way-to-do-site-messages\/","title":{"rendered":"Odnoklassniki.ru – the way to do site messages"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After all the comments I received for my\u00c2\u00a0 other post about Odnoklassniki.ru<\/a>, I decided to expand a little bit on the positive parts of the web site.\u00c2\u00a0 The biggest success of it, except of course for thousands of people registering spreading the word of a mouth, is the messaging system.\u00c2\u00a0 And the whole messaging system, but the notification part of it.<\/p>\n

For me personally, the proof of the success of the notification system lies in the fact that I actually like it myself.\u00c2\u00a0 Because I am usually in the opposite camp.\u00c2\u00a0 I think that we have enough messaging and notification systems as we are, for web sites to develop their own ones.\u00c2\u00a0 But, in this case, I have to say that it was done very well, and that it works possibly better\u00c2\u00a0 than any other alternative could have.<\/p>\n

If you are not familiar with it, here is a screenshot (NOTE:<\/strong> the green border on the left was added by me, I’ll explain why in a moment<\/em>).<\/p>\n

\"Odnoklassniki.ru<\/p>\n

This is my profile page<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Or, more accurately, a part of it.\u00c2\u00a0 This is what I see when I login.\u00c2\u00a0 There is the main navigation menu at the top (orange color), with sub-menu (in light gray) for the currently selected tab.\u00c2\u00a0 There is my picture, and some basic information, such age, last login time, etc – something other users can see when they visit my profile.\u00c2\u00a0 And, there is the notifications section on the left side (I put the green border around it).<\/p>\n

Users of Odnoklassniki.ru<\/a> can send each other messages.\u00c2\u00a0 As far as I know, they can’t do mass mailings or group discussions or anything like that.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s purely one registered user to another.\u00c2\u00a0 There is a limit on the size of the message – 1,000 characters.\u00c2\u00a0 There is a rich text editor with some formatting controls, such as text alignment, foreground and background colors, copy and paste buttons, and font face and size selectors.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course, smiling images and some commonly used icons (money, beer, etc) are also available.<\/p>\n

The nice parts of the notification system are as follows.\u00c2\u00a0 Firstly, it shows incoming messages and status notifications in full.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t tell you something like “you have 1 new message, click here to read it”.\u00c2\u00a0 It just shows it you right there and then.\u00c2\u00a0 Secondly, it queues all notifications and messages and shows them to you in turn one by one.\u00c2\u00a0 Not all at once or in a digest form, but one by one, in chronological order.\u00c2\u00a0 Thirdly, the system doesn’t hide the message after it showed it to you.\u00c2\u00a0 And it does not insist on you dropping whatever is that what you were doing and acting upon the message.\u00c2\u00a0 No.\u00c2\u00a0 It keeps the message in its full length on the left side of your screen until you act upon it.\u00c2\u00a0 For this you have two buttons underneath the message – close it and reply to it.\u00c2\u00a0 If you close it, the next message appears if there is one, or the notification area folds, so that not to occupy your screen space with nothing.\u00c2\u00a0 If\u00c2\u00a0 you do a reply, then a popup window appears with the name and picture of the person to who you are writing the message, and a rich text editor.\u00c2\u00a0 You can type your message there and press submit button.\u00c2\u00a0 Once your reply is submitted, the popup window is closed and the notification for the message that you were replying to is closed.<\/p>\n

The way this notification system works is totally intuitive and out of the user’s way.\u00c2\u00a0 There is no way one could miss the notification while browsing around.\u00c2\u00a0 And, at the some time, it is easy to ignore it if you are in the middle of something.\u00c2\u00a0 Considering that many users of Odnoklassniki.ru are middle aged people and older, with somewhat limited web experience, I think the system does them a big favor by not being too stealth or too aggressive.<\/p>\n

Back to the wider system of messaging, there are a couple of other nice bits to it.<\/p>\n

First of all, it’s the archives.\u00c2\u00a0 Message archives are easily accessible through the top menu.\u00c2\u00a0 You can go through incoming and outgoing messages separately. And again, there is always the name and image of the user with who you communicated, and the full text of the message right there – no need of extra clicks and deep navigation.<\/p>\n

Secondly, the way email notifications are done is also nice.\u00c2\u00a0 The system is tracking if you are online or not.\u00c2\u00a0 If you are, it won’t be sending you email notifications.\u00c2\u00a0 And, if you are not, it will still give you a chance to come back before abusing your mailbox.\u00c2\u00a0 It does not send notifications right away as they happen, but keeps them in the queue for some time.\u00c2\u00a0 If you aren’t coming, you will eventually get those to your email.\u00c2\u00a0 But I have to say that the balance of immediate notifications without emergency email abuse hits right on.\u00c2\u00a0 Perfect.<\/p>\n

Now, why am I so detailed and picky about this messaging and notification system of Odnoklassniki.ru?\u00c2\u00a0 Because, I believe that much of its popularity lies within just this part of the site.\u00c2\u00a0 Many of the registered users don’t know how to use other messaging systems (ICQ, Skype, IRC, etc).\u00c2\u00a0 Many don’t want to share their email address.\u00c2\u00a0 And many try to avoid any extra email.\u00c2\u00a0 Also, there is a large diversity in age, current location, and computer skills among the users, so finding another common medium for all these people to communicate might prove rather difficult.\u00c2\u00a0 But with this one, it’s not.\u00c2\u00a0 Anyone can send a message, get a message, and reply to a message.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s all that matters.\u00c2\u00a0 I know some people who use Odnoklassniki.ru as an instant messenger.\u00c2\u00a0 They chat with a whole bunch of people at the same time, using really short messages of plain text (no rich formatting), and they send them back and forth a few times per minute.\u00c2\u00a0 These people stay online for hours at a time!<\/p>\n

Can the existing system be improved?\u00c2\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00c2\u00a0 Firstly, I think it should use left-aligned or justified text whenever the text of the message is shown.\u00c2\u00a0 Now it uses centered text for some reason.\u00c2\u00a0 Secondly, I think formatting should be a little bit smarter.\u00c2\u00a0 Paragraphs and links should be recognized better.\u00c2\u00a0 Text *like this* should be bold.\u00c2\u00a0 Text _like this_ should be underlined.\u00c2\u00a0 There should be better support for quoting.\u00c2\u00a0 There should be a way to refresh your memory about older messages.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe something like phpBB has.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe group discussions will make some sense… Some of the possible improvements should be thought out and planned carefully not to make interface heavier or user interactions more complex.\u00c2\u00a0 But there are many potential improvements on the intuitive side of things – something that will minimize the annoyances and unexpected behaviors.<\/p>\n

I’m eager to see how this part of the site will evolve in the future. What will be improved, what will be added, and what removed… What do you think?<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n

After all the comments I received for my\u00c2\u00a0 other post about Odnoklassniki.ru, I decided to expand a little bit on the positive parts of the web site.\u00c2\u00a0 The biggest success of it, except of course for thousands of people registering spreading the word of a mouth, is the messaging system.\u00c2\u00a0 And the whole messaging system, … Continue reading Odnoklassniki.ru – the way to do site messages<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,18,62,1334],"tags":[250,90,1220,1152,1158,92],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-11048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-programming","category-technology","category-web-work","tag-analysis","tag-communications","tag-notifications","tag-social-networks","tag-user-interfaces","tag-workflow"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11008,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/01\/05\/odnoklassnikiru-russian-classmates-but-abroad\/","url_meta":{"origin":11048,"position":0},"title":"Odnoklassniki.ru – Russian classmates, but abroad?","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"January 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"My last post about Odnoklassniki.ru became the most popular post on this blog. 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The idea behind it is nice - to provide a place for youngsters\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11604,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2009\/06\/23\/google-wave-vs-adobe-wave\/","url_meta":{"origin":11048,"position":2},"title":"Google Wave vs. Adobe Wave","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"June 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I know that smart people tend to think the same and that naming collisions happen once in a while, but is this just a mere coincidence or is there more to the story? Here is a description of Google Wave as per Wikipedia: Google Wave is \"a personal communication and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11370,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/10\/02\/social-networking-do-you-know-that-you-do-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":11048,"position":3},"title":"Social Networking – Do you know that you do it?","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"October 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I came across a brief blog post titled \"Social Networking - Do you do it?\".\u00a0 While the context of the question in that post was more along the lines of \"Do you use social networking to promote your products and servers, and drive more traffic towards your site?\", it got\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11155,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2008\/04\/16\/30-here-i-come\/","url_meta":{"origin":11048,"position":4},"title":"30, here I come!","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"April 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday I celebrated my 30th birthday.\u00a0 That was a blast!\u00a0 I received congratulations and best wishes from more people (and bots) than I ever did.\u00a0 In fact, there were so many that I can publish some statistics (numbers are approximated): Automated greeting messages from forums and social services: 35 Phone\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18193,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2013\/05\/21\/exclusive-inside-hangouts-googles-big-fix-for-its-messaging-mess\/","url_meta":{"origin":11048,"position":5},"title":"Exclusive: Inside Hangouts, Google’s big fix for its messaging mess","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"May 21, 2013","format":"link","excerpt":"Exclusive: Inside Hangouts, Google's big fix for its messaging mess How Google built its new messaging platform for Gmail, Android, iOS, and Chrome... and what took so long","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11048\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11048"},{"taxonomy":"keyring_services","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyring_services?post=11048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}