IM chatroom

[Fei]

Ok so this is one of the new ideas that we will be trying:

We will have a IM chatroom that is always available for everyone in
this class to join in. The purpose of this chatroom is somewhat
similar to the twitter site, but in a different approach. Right now we
are using the AIM chatroom. Since not everyone in this class will be
using AIM (e.g. MSN), we will be trying the more flexible IM meebo
later one. (wwwe.meebo.com)

[Nathan Britton]

The problem I see with using Meebo is that the whole point is to reduce hassle to people.  It seems easier to me to ask those who don't have AIM to get it
 than to ask everyone to switch to Meebo.  What does everyone else think?  AIM or Meebo?

[Fei]

Up to the moment that I am writing this reply, I am still not able to
register a new account from the AIM website. If this lasts till
Monday, we might as well use some other account or change the IM.

On Feb 8, 12:18 am, "Nathan Britton" <nathanb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The problem I see with using Meebo is that the whole point is to reduce
> hassle to people.  It seems easier to me to ask those who don't have AIM to
> get it
>  than to ask everyone to switch to Meebo.  What does everyone else think?
> AIM or Meebo?
>

> On Feb 7, 2008 11:38 PM, Fei <jianfeil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Ok so this is one of the new ideas that we will be trying:
>
> > We will have a IM chatroom that is always available for everyone in
> > this class to join in. The purpose of this chatroom is somewhat
> > similar to the twitter site, but in a different approach. Right now we
> > are using the AIM chatroom. Since not everyone in this class will be
> > using AIM (e.g. MSN), we will be trying the more flexible IM meebo
> > later one. (wwwe.meebo.com)
>

> --
> Nathan Britton
>
> The only impossible task is to find an impossible task.

[Fei]

Ok, at this moment, the AIM still doesn't allow new account
registration. Therefore, we will be changing the chatroom to a flash-
based chatroom which is provided by a friend of mine. This chatroom
doesn't require registration and it should be easy for everyone to
use, as long as people willing to spend some time to actually stay in
the chatroom and talk about stuff.

The downside of this chatroom, as far as I can see, it's that it
doesn't keep the chat log, so it would be disappeared once the user
leave the chatroom. The current compromise is to have an account of IW
to stay in the room 24/7, which is also required for the chatroom to
stay alive.

> > The only impossible task is to find an impossible task.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Nathan Britton]

Sounds like a plan.  That one's pretty too.  I'm going to see if we can arrange to have a list of rooms, one for each group and one for the class so the IW board can display whichever is appropriate at any given moment.  Do you know off the top of your head if the IW account can be logged in to 5 rooms at once?

[Jianfei Liao]

The chatroom we using right now, can create different chatrooms under a same account. You login the lobby-like room first, then choose which chatroom you would like to go in.

 

However, I am not sure is this gonna be a good idea. Since we only have about 10 people at this class, and consider that people will not be staying in the chatroom for very long time, I wonder how much actually conversation we will have. Another problem would be the log again. Since the conversation log is not saved, and if people chat in room 1, and the IW stays in room 2, when we switch the IW to room 1, we have no record of the conversation. I don't think that's very helpful.
 

What do you think?
 

[Nathan Britton]

True.  I was imagining that everyone will be chatting all the time, but that's unlikely.  I suppose it'd be best to just have the 1 room, and if anybody has a need for another one, they can just make it and tell us so we can log in with the IW account.  It's nice that we have the option though.

[Fei]

I think it's about time to send out the survey for evaluation, even if
it's not really being used. I think the following questions should be
asked in the survey:

* rating of 1-10, 1 being worst and 10 being best
* what they like
* what they dislike
* if there's better chatroom, but requires external installation/
downloading, are they willing to use it
* what IM do they use most often
* should we keep the chatroom or take it out
* additional comment

These are what I can think of for right now, add any if you have more.
Let's finalize the questions before we send out the survey.

On Feb 11, 3:14 pm, "Nathan Britton" <nathanb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> True.  I was imagining that everyone will be chatting all the time, but
> that's unlikely.  I suppose it'd be best to just have the 1 room, and if
> anybody has a need for another one, they can just make it and tell us so we
> can log in with the IW account.  It's nice that we have the option though.
>

> On Feb 11, 2008 3:07 PM, Jianfei Liao <jianfeil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > The chatroom we using right now, can create different chatrooms under a
> > same account. You login the lobby-like room first, then choose which
> > chatroom you would like to go in.
>
> > However, I am not sure is this gonna be a good idea. Since we only have
> > about 10 people at this class, and consider that people will not be staying
> > in the chatroom for very long time, I wonder how much actually conversation
> > we will have. Another problem would be the log again. Since the conversation
> > log is not saved, and if people chat in room 1, and the IW stays in room 2,
> > when we switch the IW to room 1, we have no record of the conversation. I
> > don't think that's very helpful.
>
> > What do you think?
>

> > On 2/11/08, Nathan Britton <nathanb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Sounds like a plan.  That one's pretty too.  I'm going to see if we can
> > > arrange to have a list of rooms, one for each group and one for the class so
> > > the IW board can display whichever is appropriate at any given moment.  Do
> > > you know off the top of your head if the IW account can be logged in to 5
> > > rooms at once?
>

[Fei]

Oh man, meebo chat room maybe is just the right thing we are looking
for!!!

Check it out here Nathan, what you said in the room might decide is it
going to work or not!

http://www2.hawaii.edu/~jliao/chatroom.html

> > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

[Fei]

I think it's about time to send out the new evaluation. However, there
are only actually 2 questions I want to ask this time:

1. What is the reason for people actually NOT using the chatroom?
2. Do people think they will use the chatroom if there are specific
room for each team?

These are so far what I concern based on the usage of the new
chatroom. The other things don't seem to matter much to me, if people
are not even willing to use the chatroom.

Are there anything else you like to add?

[Nathan Britton]

I'm thinking we should first ask:

1) How often do you chat with your teammates on any system?
0 x per week
1-2 x per week
3-4 x per week
5-7 x per week

2) What percentage of that time is spent on the IW widget?

then your 1 and 2

I like the question about the dedicated chatrooms.  I think the next phase should be an embedded chatroom for each team on their overviewer page.  I doubt they'll use that either, though.

[Jianfei Liao]

For the question of "What percentage of that time is spent on the IW widget", isn't obvious that they never spent any time on it? According to the chatroom log that is.

[Nathan Britton]

Oh, good point.  I guess what I'm trying to figure out is how much they actually use chat to communicate and if they were either just not chatting or using another tool.  But I guess the first question takes care of that.

How about

<1 hour
1-2 hrs
>3 hrs

or leave a blank for them to input themselves?

[Jianfei Liao]

Something that has the frequency of chatting and the length of each chat, so something like: 3 times a week, 30 minutes each time. Leave it a blank and give some intruction of what we expect should be good enough. Also, another thing is, we have to make it clear that the chatting must be project-related, or else it doesn't make any sense.

[Nathan Britton]

Yeah, we don't care how often they chat with their grandmothers.  So do you mean like __ x per day and __ minutes each time?  Or just leave a text field and let them describe it?

[Jianfei Liao]

Either way would work I think, but I actually wonder can the google docs survey able to do the first one?

[Nathan Britton]

No, it can't - I thought you could do multiple single line text boxes, but it only lets you do one per question.  We'll just go with the second route.