ChinesePod has a private messaging system which allows users to get in touch on the site. I’ve gotten some very encouraging, urgent, and helpful PMs from ChinesePod users over the years. It’s definitely been a useful feature.
Since it’s a part of my job to help prioritize and fix problems on ChinesePod, I’m also aware of the issues the PM system has had, and of the features users would like to see. Essentially, the closer the PM system is to a full-featured e-mail system, the happier the users are.
At Praxis Language, we all use Gmail. It’s one of our vital channels of communication, as well as a source of inspiration in some ways, such as organization and usability. And so when I look at the PM issue, I have to wonder, “Are we trying to recreate the wheel? Are we just working toward a tiny, inferior version of Gmail within ChinesePod?”
The Gmail comparison is also apt because it touches on an issue I’ve had many times in the past: searchability. I search my e-mail all the time, and it’s immensely useful. I can’t do the same with my ChinesePod PMs, even though I have hundreds archived.
So the question I have for our users is, wouldn’t it be more useful if PMs were sent directly to users by e-mail? It could work this way:
- User Henning clicks on “send message” in user Changye‘s profile page.
- The PM text box appears, Henning writes his message, and then he sends it.
- Changye, rather than receiving a message in his inbox on ChinesePod, receives an e-mail from ChinesePod delivering the content of the PM from user “Henning.” (The “from” address is ChinesePod; Henning’s e-mail is not displayed.)
- To reply, Changye clicks on a “reply” link in the e-mail, which takes him to a page on ChinesePod with the PM text box where he can reply.
A system like this has some clear advantages over the current one:
- PMs from ChinesePod users can be searched, filtered, and organized just like the rest of your e-mail.
- ChinesePod users’ privacy is preserved; their e-mail addresses are never disclosed.
- ChinesePod development can focus on lesson management and other tools instead of PMs.
We feel that it’s important to consult with our users before making a change like this, and of course we would also need to give our users a way to download all their PMs currently stored on ChinesePod. (Your PM data is not at risk!) We would love to hear what users think of this idea.
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
John,
I think this would be a big step up from what exists at the moment. Sounds very similar to the Facebook system.
That said, and I know this is technically difficult, it would be nice to use the reply button in the email client. Otherwise you only index/save one half of the conversation. I find it really frustrating when I have to visit a website and log-in just to reply to an email in my inbox (one of the reasons I don’t use Facebook messaging).
Would be interesting to hear the thoughts of others on this.
I was about to say the same thing as Bill…
If searching is the main benefit then you want to search the sent items too.
I guess you need to figure out a reply-to address (dynamically generated but in the chinesepod.com domain) which allows the user to be emailed without risk of opening them up to spam. Maybe this dynamically-generated address encodes both the sender’s and receiver’s username (or some shorter id) so that this address can be disabled at a later date should it be misused.
Also if a user does get spammed then the chinesepod police could trace which user was to blame
Does any of that make sense!?
I was also thinking it sounds like what facebook does by default… ebay, too, when someone requests ‘more info’… it sounds like a harmless change to make, as long as you give users the option to turn it off.
Sounds very Facebooky, but it would be irritating if I simply ended up spam. I get more spam than real pms.
Hi John,
I agree with Bill and it is something we are considering in our roadmap to allow ChineseTeachers.com students and our Chinese teachers to communicate while protecting their full privacy and giving extra convenience (I fully agree about having to login to see a message is a pain).
I recommend you check and try http://16bugs.com/ – this is a great (because simple) bug tracking system that we use and it allows responding by email, making all communications searchable, while also being visible on that site.
Hope this helps,
Nicolas
I think the system being proposed here is similar to Facebook in some ways but has a one significant difference: Facebook notifies you of new messages, but also stores them all in your inbox on Facebook. What I’m suggesting is the delivery of messages by e-mail only — it’s not simply notification.
Hi John,
Geocaching.com has a pretty nice email interface. When you send someone a message, there is a checkbox you can click, “Send my email address”. If you don’t click it, then your email address is kept private, and the person can only reply to you by going through the website. But if you click it, your email address is put in… probably the Reply-to field, and the recipient can reply to you directly from their mail client.
I also think it’s important for us to be able to reply to delivered chinesepod user-to-user email the same we reply to ordinary email. This means the “from:” field or the “reply-to:” field has to be set to something that works. You don’t have to worry about filtering for spam, because we all already have to do that ourselves, anyway. But you do have to remove various “Received:” headers to preserve our anonymity. Probably the free email anonymizing services on the web do this already, so again, you’ll be re-inventing the wheel.
PS: I should be able, while logged into chinesepod, to post to this blog without entering name and email address above.
John,
the idea is something I am looking forward to. I would appreciate an option, taht I can turn off sending messages to my email (e.g. when I am going travelling). search is important and I guess, I would like to search through the sent items too.
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