Open thread for community feedback

My connections don't seem to be working and I can't seem to access my mail...says I have new mail but there is nothing to click on in my in box. Is this a glitch or am I looking in the wrong places? Thanks. J

One of the reasons Ive had huge problems with the system, is that the progress meter of the upload does not move. For days I thought it was stuck.. actually I think it was stuck. Fix the meter please.. it doesnt change from 0%.

Also, it is absolutely essential that your system support mp4, m4v, wmv. mov and the mobile movie format. avi is cute but way too limiting.

I would like to know more about the pods, which are not covered in the "how to use this site" video.

I know that on the last site the creator was paid $500 dollars if the pod made it to tv. Is that the case?

And also, I noticed that there are assignments, are those for the pods or are those just little assignments? Can we make a pod about something else or do we have to stick to the assignments? And if I make a pod that's not an assignment how will it be seen because it won't be under and specific category??

I agree the site is hard to navigate. There is so much information, and I don't know where to find anything. I feel cut off from the current community. I want to watch pods, but I don't know where pods are, blogs are, v-cams, promos.....help!

At first, I was blown away by the site. It was so interesting as a way to see what is going on in such a cluttered landscape.

Now that it has gone live, my approval of the site has disappeared. I dont enjoy it whatsoever. I used to spend at leat 4 hours a week on the site, now I avoid it if possible.

--no leaderboard, means talented new filmmakers will not be noticed as easily
--no more greenlighting, which means less participation
--no community: even though now we can message each other, I feel disconnected from the community
--open source development: great idea, but I feel as if Current has changed to rely on pitching pods rather than also just uploading with the hopes of being selected by the community.

It seems as if Current is morphing into one of its big-media brothers, where the community choosing videos for TV has been replaced by a gate-keeper mentality.

Im just not so sure what this all means. All I know is that I cant see all my videos in one place and there is so much more text and not enough video.

Cant wait for Current.com 2.0. Hopefully some changed will be better.

N

PS - Go back to black!
PSS - This site stresses me out, talk about info overload!

@citizenreporter -- what size file are you having problems uploading? if you try to upload a file that is too big, it will get stuck on 0%. (there's a bug to have better messaging on that) If you want to upload a bigger file, you need to click on the "advanced upload" link and use videoegg. (videoegg is a download plugin that does client-side compression for faster upload.) As for formats, pretty sure we support most of not all of the ones you listed. Where were you having problems?

@usumacinta ~ the "my videos" section is still planned, and what we are planning is a way cooler experience than the way that things were listed in the current.tv site. (IMHO.) There's only so much our development team can do in any given day though, so we appreciate your patience as we get the core site stable and then we can get the MY VIDEOS experience in order. COMING!

@jpoterbin -- http://current.com/s/faq.htm#faq35, and the rest of the faq. Yes we still pay for pods, yes you can upload anything you want, and yes we have ways of finding and watching all of the uploads!

@jengo -- sorry you're having problems. can you give a few more details?

Hey Worldi,

I couldn't agree more!

Dan

Well Im glad that yall have a way of finding and watching all of the uploads, because from everyone that I am talking to, it seems that yall might be the only ones!

We appreciate all the hard work everyone puts into this; its just really tough when you have so much invested in something and then priorities shift so quickly...

N

PS - The home page from Current.tv is also sorely missed. You log in, and then right there you have everything: blogs, Leaderboard, polls, On TV...it was one-stop-shop. Now you have to search to get what you want.

If you make this initial interface easier to use, it will make current.com that much more user-friendly.

here is my 2 cents from another thread://////The biggest problem I see with this new website is that the VC2 producer section has taken a back seat to the constantly added online links and comments. This website does everything the internet already does. Is that good? It feels like The internet within The internet. Now we actually do have...the internets.

Here's my post from another thread: I'm trying to stay positive here, but I also haven't quite got the hang of this. It seems more like "whack a mole" than Greenlighting. The Redlight issue is now officially over, because now some of the content is so crappy that I can't hit that "NOPE" button fast enough. Just now I thought I'd give it one more chance before posting to this thread and I discovered content so violent that I may have nightmares. My two young nephews are now officially not allowed to surf Current.com unattended. It's too bad also, because they first discovered current.tv while I was working on the "Seeds of Tolerance" contest and they learned a lot, asking to watch the finalists over and over again, empathizing with me in my agonizing decision on who to vote for. I decided to vote for "Ghost Tribes," I can't remember who the boys wanted me to vote for, but they both became hooked on "Supernews" and discovering POD's worthy of my Greenlight. More recently, while I was working on my Submission to the 60 Seconds to Save the Earth contest, "NO NUKES", my younger nephew came to me with a poem that he wrote, which he thought would be perfect to do a current promo out of. His poem was original and I agreed to work with him on it when I get the time (plus, how many eight year olds come up with something like that?) While I'm confident that the violence I just saw will never make it onto Current TV, It did make it onto the website and I will have to notify my brother in law not to let his boys surf current.com. I miss the old site. I was even considering starting a current.tv POD workshop a my local school. Now I don't know.........

you guys might want to consider alphabetizing the "my topics".

@jpoterbin ~ right now topics are ordered with "most recently added to" at the top. yah, guess that's not very clear. fyi, we have a major update planned for later this year to improve my topics browsing and managing -- what you see now is very much a phase one implementation as we focused more on user connections for the launch.

@vavavicky ~ sorry you're having issues. we'll look into it.

@covelogibbs & everyone with constructive feedback ~ thank you for sharing your thoughts and ideas!

danlevine ,

But why do you publish a site which is only half-baked?

This was the problem with the original site too.
"Being planned" will not attrack people.

That producers could see their pods at one place is a no-brainer. How could you leave that out?

And what happened to the leaderboard?

What a mess this place is. I'm sorry to say Current holds absolutely no interest for me anymore. The re-design is aesthetically pretty forgettable, but the willy nilly addition/subtraction of various features paired with the hunt-and-peck quality of trying to find anything has rendered it utterly worthless. The old site wasn't fantastic, but the information and content was at least arranged logically, and could be navigated without headache.
Sorry guys, but I'm pretty much out, and I won't be back.

All of us are just going to have to accept the inevitable growing pains..Current TV is getting bigger than its britches can hold and its gonna take some adjusting.

Lets just hope it gets done soon enough, before the core audience is gone. I know that, while I still post things to the site, I have stopped watching videos altogether. Its too complicated to find 'em, unless I run into one here or there. I do it more out of work and less out of play.

TWODEE: Hey, its like the Hyper-Internet...more real than real, we have created a space that, well, reflects itself! Rockin, indeed...

N

Well, I spend more time here now than I used to during the current.tv era.

It's kinda addictive but it does not serve VC2 producers well because amid all these topics and random browsing visitors do not watch their videos
and the make TV section has no leaderboard.

I think the thing that upsets me the most about current.com is that the leaderboard is gone. I feel that my pod is lost for everyone (including myself...it's so difficult to access my own pofile...) I won't make another pod before the leaderboard comes back because it is useless to do so now. It was very motivating to be able to go up in the ranking and see the progression of other pods. I used to spend a lot of time on current.tv. Since the new website came out, I spend 10 min max and leave fed up. I don't know why current.com was imposed to us instead of asking us the way we wanted the updates since Current is made by us.
I hope to see some change soon.

The old site had more of a "community of producers" feel to it. You felt like you were participating. I couldn't wait to submit a pod. Now I feel like I'm just searching...

Even the look of the site, the color, the warmth, full pages devoted to producers--now even the pictures of the producers are miniature, hmmm...is that reflective of something?
sometimes I would check out other pods of producers who left comments on other pods, or greenlighted.

The "like" "nope" voting options seem too simplistic.
To be moved by a pod to the point that you wanted to "greenlight" or to have an opinion that the pod was just "not ready for tv" were better voting options for producers.
the leaderboard added extra excitement, as well as following a pod on it's upward trail.

And what's up with that "currently on tv page" I don't know what that's about!

I'm a visual person...show me images, colors, clips, pics--not a lot of white space & text

and pods are now harder to find!
the only thing easier now is uploading, but why upload if no one is looking.

oragetropical and jaygeeoh hit it. the old site was sooooo much better.

and how about sound? half the pods in "viewpoints" have recorded sound so low you can hardly hear them.

and too many links to outside sources. i don't come to current just to follow story links to third party sites.

@ danlevine:

- I click on my account. It says I have X number of messages. I click on messages. And there is no mail in my inbox.

- I click on person's profile. Then click "Add as a connection", but the click doesn't work/register. No connections are showing up on my profile page.

Anyone else not able to play any videos at all here any more?

While I'm here, here are some suggestions I emailed to Current - before I discovered this area of the site...

<

I love the new site, but think it'd be nice, when viewing people's profiles, if we could sort "activity" by "Submitted/Responded to/Greenlighted" etc rather than (or at least in addition to) by Date...

Perhaps also on the Current Picks/New/Currently Popular area we could choose to "Show only Videos" etc -- all these Links are diluting the original purpose of Current's site, but it's okay... just would like the choice to only see videos sometimes...

It'd also be nice if we could see "stats" on our uploads (views and ratings) from our account page.

PS - if you want feedback so much, you really need to PROMINENTLY put a "feedback@current.com" link on the top of each page...

>

Video playback is okay now - thanks :)

"Your item has been created but couldn't be added to following private interest(s): Feedback
If you want to add this to any alternative interests, click here"

What's that even mean? I simply tried to add the tag "Feedback" to this page. :/ And "click here" doesn't go anywhere....

How's this an "Open thread" then? :/

...and... it'd be nice if I could bookmark this thread within the site for easy access later. It's a miracle I found it to begin with... let alone trying to find it again later -- "Bugs and Monkeys"?? WTF does that even mean? Anyone here ever learn about "Usability"?

There is absolutely no visual hierarchy on this new site... no "bread crumbs'... nothing to put anything into perspective except the "tags" apparently... and it seems even those are "off limits" in some whose creators haved mistagged their threads, yet, don't allow any other users to add helpful *appropriate* tags....

There's a lot of constructive feedback here, DanLevine. But I'm down with this new interface and whereas I had no idea what I was looking at before, this site is much easier to nagivate. You keep rockin' and I'll download Flash :)

Absolutely love current.tv - entertaining, informative. Very happy to be a part of current.com! Great idea - all the best!

I agree with jgeoff on filtering and bookmarking.

I was making similar points on another thread along with some observations about the strange nature of search results. Please look at those issues:

http://current.com/items/85004901_current_com_tutorial

The one on the right looks like Mini Me, Vern Troyer, just ompare their eyes, and even doing the Doctor Evil finger on the lip


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Evil

I am response 34 amazingly

Are promos gone?

Jgeoff,
I really hope they take your suggestion as far as sorting.

I'm more interested in checking out someones work rather than what they responded to.
Pages now are so cluttered. If you visit someone's page to see their uploaded pods, you have to filter through tons of other stuff, and if the person is real active--it's a lot of pages.
Now this response will be something else to clutter up my page.
I even think this may discourage people from responding, because their own work gets lost in the mix.

Could one of yu guys address the issues of upload problems with video egg. As a previous producer on the old site I'd like to put some new stuff up but can't get your new site to take my uploads.

On the old site we had a community of producers, you've thrown us to the wolves for the general public. Is another YOU Tube what you really want? That's least common denominator quallity. I thought Current was going to be more.......
disapointed "bsundancer"

As a producer of pods that I would like to get seen on TV, why don't you tell us staight up, how do we get green lights and get are pods seen. No games.

I can't seem to see any of the new drambuie v-cams. When will they be up?

Amandazee, Danlevine there is an absolutely ambarrassing absence of dialogue with the community on this most important of issues. The energy and time of these community members is apparantly being wasted as not one of you has the time or concern to respond to these valid and useful questions and concerns. It is shameful. Is the 'democracy' here just a marketing tool?

I understand that the new site is in beta and that the current staff is well aware of the flaws according to an inside source. Site navigation is very disjointed. As an active VCAM producer, I surely miss the leader-board format per the current.tv site. It's also a producer buzz kill to find a recently uploaded production grey screened while staff "is looking at it" for an indefinite amount of time. I too am hoping for a reasonably quick fix before we lose any more valued community members.

i miss watching new pods and greenlighting them..... sniff snifff :(

When I go to a producers profile page it doesn't list the pieces they've submitted. I really have to hunt to find out what else they've done. Any way to make this easier? ,,,,putting all the work submitted on the producers profile page would really help.

Are you partnering the openSocial platform

I've noticed that there aren't any videos in the Drambuie section. Will this change soon?

Thanks,

H

anyone get the sense no one is listening?

for shame... for SHAME!

Yes, I am beginning to get that impression. Now where the uploaded Drambuie v-cams should be is the how to make a drambuie v-cam page. Where did those uploaded v-cams go????

On the current tv promo page there are a couple of promos people have uploaded but where are all the others?

So I still can't see the drambuie v-cams. Still getting a grey box that says that current needs to look at the clip first. But I see that others are able to leave comments. HELP!

Hey Crank!

Drambui