Bargain Alerts - About to be stolen as another boards.ie revenue stream?

my3cents

Sorry for the uncompromising title but I do wonder if the idea behind the current survey about Bargain Alerts usage and a possible new app will change the way Bargain Alerts currently works.

I would be interested to know if there are any plans to take it in the direction of the previous community effort that was Adverts?

thesandeman

What survey?

my3cents

thesandeman wrote: »

What survey?

good point Take our 2 min Bargain Alerts survey: €100 One4all voucher to be won

Assumed everyone was seeing it?

As far as I know Boards.ie is a privately owned for profit enterprise - I don't see why they shouldn't try to capitalise on popular parts of it.

my3cents

Deleted User wrote: »

As far as I know Boards.ie is a privately owned for profit enterprise - I don't see why they shouldn't try to capitalise on popular parts of it.

I don't mind if they do if the current Bargain Alerts forum is left alone.

thesandeman

Interesting that we can't post on that thread.

Boards.ie: Sean

Hi all, following on from the questions and comments in this thread, just wanted to clarify the thinking behind the Bargain Alerts survey and plans for Bargain Alerts. So:

• Bargain Alerts will remain as it is, there are no plans to change it
• Bargain Alerts will remain as it is as part of the main Boards site, irrespective of whether we decide to develop an app or not
• We are not trying to move Bargain Alerts or any other part of the site in the direction of an Adverts type service
• If we do develop an app (and that's a big 'if' at this stage) it will provide exactly the same user content as the main Bargain Alerts forum - the app will connect to exactly the same Bargain Alerts table in our database and retrieve exactly the same content, any posts made on the main site will also appear in the app version and vice versa
• Exactly as we do now on the main site, we will continue to allow a limited number of promoted and sponsored posts in the Bargain Alerts forum

So why the survey?

Native apps on mobile can offer additional functionality not readily available when accessing content via a mobile browser such as optional notifications/alerts and geolocation (for example, if a Boardsie posted a bargain and was able to add a shop location then using an app other users could see where the bargain was and how to get there). Having an app may also open up some possibilities to get special Boardsie discounts and vouchers to offer to our members, we're having a look at this as well.

Building a Bargain Alerts app would require a reasonable investment in our part and we want to see if there's an interest in the extra features that an app would offer. Hence the survey, it's as simple that! There's no sinister motives behind the survey or great plans to change, kill or otherwise mess with Bargain Alerts.

We don't want to spend a lot of time and effort building something that users then turn around and say "you're grand, think I'll just stick with using my browser when accessing Bargain Alerts on mobile" - that would be a bit of a waste of time on our part which could be better used doing some of other things our community have been asking for.

Hope this helps clarify things,
Sean.

my3cents

Great reply Sean, thanks.

btw you might have more success asking what the users want here then firing off a survey that at least relates to something that users have a notion about before they answer a survey?

You might also get some good ideas as feedback. Hmmm now let me think what the name of this forum is

hullaballoo

If there's one thing the world needs more of, it's webpages being rolled into "apps."

You should also force people to download the "app" when they visit BA on their phone by shunting them off to the App Store/Play Store whenever they try and view content.

Those two practices make visiting websites in 2016 an utter joy.

Atari Jaguar

hullaballoo wrote: »

If there's one thing the world needs more of, it's webpages being rolled into "apps."

You should also force people to download the "app" when they visit BA on their phone by shunting them off to the App Store/Play Store whenever they try and view content.

Those two practices make visiting websites in 2016 an utter joy.

Them sarcasms

Boards.ie: Sean

hullaballoo wrote: »

If there's one thing the world needs more of, it's webpages being rolled into "apps."

You should also force people to download the "app" when they visit BA on their phone by shunting them off to the App Store/Play Store whenever they try and view content.

Those two practices make visiting websites in 2016 an utter joy.

Sounds like you're angling for a place on the Bargain Alerts Strategy Planning Committee, App Development Section - welcome on board!

degsie

Is this is a play for a HUKD.ie type of solution? Well that was tried and bombed....

Atari Jaguar

Boards.ie: Seán wrote: »

Sounds like you're angling for a place on the Bargain Alerts Strategy Planning Committee, App Development Section - welcome on board!

Excuse me, Sean, sir I have a suggestion

hullaballoo

Boards.ie: Seán wrote: »

Sounds like you're angling for a place on the Bargain Alerts Strategy Planning Committee, App Development Section - welcome on board!

Just to clarify, I wasn't jibing. I was just pointing out a couple of things that drive me nuts about apps generally, with a view to highlighting them!

Like, if you have a business page on Facebook, you need 3 or 4 different apps to do anything on your phone. Similarly, they've gotten rid of being able to message from browser for non-business use. Drives me bananas.

If you are adding legitimate and useful features in your app over and above what is available on the full site, then absolutely, it should work out.

If it is something that is bridging a gap between features that are available on the full site but unavailable for the various iterations of mobile versions, then I'm not interested. Just upgrade the mobile version to incorporate the features.

Boards.ie: Sean

hullaballoo wrote: »

Just to clarify, I wasn't jibing.

....

If you are adding legitimate and useful features in your app over and above what is available on the full site, then absolutely, it should work out.

If it is something that is bridging a gap between features that are available on the full site but unavailable for the various iterations of mobile versions, then I'm not interested. Just upgrade the mobile version to incorporate the features.

Thanks for the feedback and clarification. So, at the moment the main features we see being available on an app that would not be available on mobile via a browser would be notifications and geolocation.

In terms of bridging the gap between desktop and mobile versions, there are some differences between the classic desktop version of Boards (www.boards.ie) and the mobile version (touch.boards.ie). These two versions are built on different architectures and different code bases and so the current differences will persist. However, the new responsive site that we soft launched this year and which will see a major update in 2017 has, by design, the same functionality on mobile and desktop

my3cents

Boards.ie: Seán wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback and clarification. So, at the moment the main features we see being available on an app that would not be available on mobile via a browser would be notifications and geolocation.

In terms of bridging the gap between desktop and mobile versions, there are some differences between the classic desktop version of Boards (www.boards.ie) and the mobile version (touch.boards.ie). These two versions are built on different architectures and different code bases and so the current differences will persist. However, the new responsive site that we soft launched this year and which will see a major update in 2017 has, by design, the same functionality on mobile and desktop

Most of the bargain alerts I'm interested are online so why would you need to know where I am?

If I thought for one minute Boards.ie wanted to track my location to that degree I wouldn't want the app anyway.

Boards.ie: Sean

my3cents wrote: »

Most of the bargain alerts I'm interested are online so why would you need to know where I am?

If I thought for one minute Boards.ie wanted to track my location to that degree I wouldn't want the app anyway.

Not only would we not track your location to that degree we wouldn't track your location at all!

The functionality we were thinking about was the ability for a Boardsie, when posting a bargain on Bargain Alerts, to be able to indicate the location of the Bargain on a map (for example, the camera shop that was offering a great deal on Canon cameras that week). Users of the app could then not only read about the bargain but also be notified if it is nearby (if they have notifications turned on, which remember would be optional, not mandatory) and see its location on a map on their phone. And then their clever phone could plot the quickest route to said shop if they so wished. The whole idea was to make things more convenient for our good users!

In no concept of the app have we contemplated sending any user location information back to Boards. To be crystal clear, in all scenarios the only location information we would have on our side would be the location of the bargain itself (and only if the original poster wanted to include that information), we would not know (nor care, might I add) where users of the app are, have been or are going. Believe it or not, we're actually on our users' side (or try to be as much as we know how).

And remember, any content available on the app will also be available on the main site (both desktop and mobile versions) so it's completely are users choice whether they'd like to use the app or not (that's if we build it, of course ).

Sean.

J.pilkington

Hi Sean that's a good detailed reply, however I would be nervous that the sites existing t&cs (and likely apps) which are so wide (and in fairness most online t&cs also are) that they allow boards to do effectively as much as they want and should there be a change in heart of boards management users would not not need to be notified of tracking / storing and sharing of users locations.

We have seen this with the skimlinks issue.

Boards.ie: Sean

J.pilkington wrote: »

Hi Sean that's a good detailed reply, however I would be nervous that the sites existing t&cs (and likely apps) which are so wide (and in fairness most online t&cs also are) that they allow boards to do effectively as much as they want and should there be a change in heart of boards management users would not not need to be notified of tracking / storing and sharing of users locations.

We have seen this with the skimlinks issue.

Fair enough, I'm not going to argue with you on this one. I would, however, make a couple of points:

• As previously mentioned, we have no plans at all to collect or track any location data from any app we build
• If there was ever to be any change in future then we would let you know (as we did for Skimlinks)
• And as far as I know, any changes to track location data would require us getting explicit user consent via the Google/Apple permissions screen when you install/update apps so we couldn't slip anything under the hood even is we wanted to (which we don't)
• All user posted content would still be on the main forum so people can always use that if they'd prefer / they don't trust us, which would be absolutely fine with us

We're exploring this because we think it might lead to a better user experience for at least some of the users of Bargain Alerts and we'd like to find out if that is the case. If we did end up building an app I hope it wouldn't upset anyone as it will be completely up to them whether they want to use it instead of the main site or not.

Cheers,
Sean.