Okay. I’ve have not yet done this during the voting stages, only because I don’t want to appear too defensive. I believe whole heartedly in Hijack, and I just want to be sure everything is as clear as possible to those that might be on the fence.
[quote=Austin Sarner (AppZapper) - Development Team][i]
People are going to hate me for saying it but I’m not really a fan of this idea. The obvious is that it’s going to be nigh impossible to actually make it work with a majority of forums out there. Assuming it’s possibility to pull some magic and get the compatibility to a decent level, I still see no benefit to browsing through your forums in this interface. I’m all for Front Rowing things but if you can’t reply and be part of the community with it, what’s the point? The standard browser looks just like Mail and fails to inspire me at all. I realize the core idea is decent, but it just seems like it all relies on some non existent forum web service. And really, even if it appeals to a bunch of readers here, how many people actually read that many forums? I don’t see how a dream app can have such a small target audience.[/i][/quote]
First of all, allow me to say AppZapper rocks. Second of all, I think you’re truly underestimating the sea of humanity that make up regular message board goers. For myself, it’s the one aspect of the internet that I find myself spending time doing the most. It’s a fantastic way to foster discussion among a large group of people, and across a large segment of specialties. There are many who have professions or hobbies, whereby forums become a key ingredient for getting help, sharing ideas, and learning from each other (in a usually unbiased and but constructive manner. It’s indelible and easy, and it’s been around since the dawn of the internet. I don’t really need to go into the validity of MBs, I just wanted you to know that while there are those that do not partake in that side of the internet, there is a huge population that do, on multiple boards across multiple interests, daily.
[quote=Jason Harris (ShapeShifter/Chicken of the VNC) - Development Team][i]
Jason, you rock. I believe you know what you’re talking about, you’ve got the chops, and you wouldn’t post anything on these boards unless you gave it the due thought and believed you could truly pull it off. Plus, it looks like you don’t back down from a good challenge. A quality that separates the boys from the men. I’m gonna buy you a (case of) beer by the end of this!
[quote=John Casasanta (iClip) - Development Team][i]
I don’t really have much to say about Hijack mainly because I don’t regularly go to a lot of forums. Don’t take this as me being negative toward it…I think for the people who do, it’s a great concept.
The reason I’m commenting here this week is because of Austin’s comment. Reminiscent of how George Bush has repeatadly tried to convince us of the US’s justification for preemptive war, Jason spent the past several week trying to convince us of the feasibility of Hijack. So I found it pretty funny that Austin comes in this week and basically shoots it all down.
But the one big difference between Jason’s argument and Bush’s is that I actually believe Jason.[/i][/quote]
Thanks for coming around, John. While I cant really speak to the feasibility aspect, I have to put my faith in the opinions of the true pros in software development, so it’s good to know that I have your support, even though you’re not a forum goer.
[quote=Jason Snell (Macworld)][i]
Consider me among the disbelievers. First, I’m not sure there’s really a strong need for this app. But more importantly, I just don’t believe it would ever work reliably, and it’d be a bear to keep it up to date. (I realize that Jason Harris says it’ll work, but I’m just not convinced that it can be made to work and be a good user experience and be maintainable by a development team.) If the makers of forum software packages adhered to some sort of standard for publishing their data, that would be one thing. I’d love to be proven wrong, but right now I think this is a disaster waiting to happen.[/i][/quote]
While it wouldn’t happen overnight, if the app was strong enough, and made a huge difference, I think a standard could evolve. There might be a ground-swell. A large user community. A demand even. Who knows. But there is a strong want/need for it, I assure you. I realize it’s hard to see for those that don’t spend much time on boards, but we are out there. And there’s a better way to post. It’s just another form of communication, but it’s been time-tested. And it’s time for a better, faster, more elegant, more powerful solution.
[quote=Leo Laporte (This Week in Tech) - Tech Media][i]
As someone who posts in several message boards and watches many more, I like this idea, but you’ll never get it working. There are a dozen different popular message board programs, and every installation is slightly different. To make things worse, there’s no standard for message board RSS feeds, either. I’d hate to have to be the developer who has to scrape all the data from these boards, let alone try to keep up with the changes. This is a app that will fail far more often than it will work.[/i][/quote]
Maybe so. But I have a dream. If everyone could get on board with RSS, why not something similar for message boards. Gotta start somewhere. Anyhow, I leave it in the hands of the developers. Hijack is in this contest, because there are those who think it can be, and should be done. I’m on the side that thinks it’ll work more than it’ll fail. There’ll be a threshold for sure, but let’s give it a shot!
[quote=Peter Cohen (Macworld) - Tech Media][i]
I think Hijack is an awesome idea. I spend my day trolling or contributing in about half a dozen different forums and would love something that would make that process easier. The main problems I have now is that the features and capabilities of each forum software are different — some I can use HTML, others I need to use BBcode to format text and URLs. Some offer better tracking for threads or collections of messages posted since my last visit than others. Something that helps consolidate and manage that process of reading and contributing has significant value. I’m not totally sold on the mockups I’ve seen, but the concept is a winner.[/i][/quote]
Hear, hear. And the mockups are just that. A possibility. It is my hope that Hijack 1.0 will look 10 times better than what I’m able to put together in a couple days.
[quote=David Pogue (New York Times) - Tech Media][i]
Wow, I would really like to have this one. Forget feasibility—that’s not my job. The idea is delicious. Just one thing: how will you feel in 2008 when Apple rolls it into Safari?[/i][/quote]
Dame Skippy! I’d feel at first honored, then horrified. Then I’d enter denial. Anger. Self-loathing. Then would come the silver lining of acceptance. Then, a lot of sobbing. Or something like that. ;)
[quote=Jim Dalrymple (Macworld) - Tech Media][i]
I would buy this app the minute it was available. I’m on so many forums ranging from Macs to Guitars that I forget half the places I’m a member. The layout is great — familiar to those using RSS applications with a very Apple-like interface. I also like that it has so much of a focus — while I’m a little concerned about how it would support so many different forum packages, I’d like to see this one in development.[/i][/quote]
You and me both. I’m on forums ranging from Mac to CG to Design to General Technology to Fighting Ignorance… It’s too bad that after this long, a standard hasn’t been developed for communicating this way. I think things can change though. “Let’s do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard.”
