Have we not figured out "Newsroom" yet?

[rockstarzzz]

This is becoming an annoying trend. I don't know if its same on all sister sites. As much as I appreciate a new initiative and all the hard work our new writers put into writing about things they haven't written before but why not have a guide as to how to do it? In last one week, I've noticed short 10-12 lines of articles that don't have links to apps in the WPC app, or links to embedded videos in the app. It makes me feel like the app is as good as useless if we were to keep continuing the trend.

Are there things going on behind the scenes that may soon change this? Probably Daniel can write up a guide on how article objects are correctly populated within the app? This is the way most people interact with front page news, including me. I am not always on the front page via web but keep an eye on interesting news via my toasts and tile. Then you go inside the app and see no links embedded!

I know it is a small thing but makes such a big difference. Laura could you please draw attention if its within our merit to let frontpage team know?

 

[Daniel Rubino]

Can you give me some specific examples of these articles for reference?

I know we had some issues early on, but I'm not aware of any in the last few days.

 

[rockstarzzz]

For example there was one today - about video for live tiles and Microsoft research. I am not sure if that video is non-embedding type or so. But me and another user noticed it. Other was from yesterday, Bing apps and removal of "Bing" branding. I will get on a PC in half an hour and grab direct links to these. I will be heart broken to see a toast next week about hands on with WP8.1 dev preview and no video link in app!

 

[Daniel Rubino]

For example there was one today - about video for live tiles and Microsoft research. I am not sure if that video is non-embedding type or so. But me and another user noticed it. Other was from yesterday, Bing apps and removal of "Bing" branding. I will get on a PC in half an hour and grab direct links to these. I will be heart broken to see a toast next week about hands on with WP8.1 dev preview and no video link in app!

The MS Research post had non-Youtube videos. They're Silverlight, so can't work in the app or on the Phone. So that doesn't count. (Even more, Microsoft has now pulled that page and those videos). [Update: We managed to get YouTube version(s) and are embedding those now]

The Bing apps post is a better example, although TBH, I'm not sure linking up what was a lot of apps (Weather, news, finance, travel, food, sports, etc.) was necessary. Doing that, along with embedding QR codes is very time consuming and not trivial, for what WAS a trivial post (they removed 'Bing' from the app listing, that was literally it).

Honestly, I think you're making a big deal out of some little issues. No one else is complaining and as far as I can tell, most issues have been worked out in regards to formatting. Look, you guys don't see behind the scenes of writing, but it's super complicated with all the formatting, embedding and linking. There's a lot going on with our Drupal upgrades, new writers and getting all out sites on the same backend. There will be kinks, but I'm not in the least concerned.

If you have other recent examples that I can take a look at, I'd be more than willing. I do appreciate the feedback, but I'm just not seeing a lot of problems going on with the site.

 

[rockstarzzz]

I totally appreciate the complexities behind the scenes Daniel, no second opinions about that. It just feels like what routinely we are "as a reader" able to see in quality when you, Sam, Rich or Mark writes with all links, apps, videos just perfectly out there, isn't there with newsroom. Again, totally understand how hard it may be for a new writer to come along and meet the overzealous WP community. But most recent one - Amazing spider, has a video link in app, but doesn't work.

It may just be the case that my brain wants to keep finding things because it doesn't like the change of seeing new writers on front page. Maybe accustomed to certain styles and standards on front page?

Ps: Are we still on for that challenge of first shout out from you and not Verge?

 

[Daniel Rubino]

I totally appreciate the complexities behind the scenes Daniel, no second opinions about that. It just feels like what routinely we are "as a reader" able to see in quality when you, Sam, Rich or Mark writes with all links, apps, videos just perfectly out there, isn't there with newsroom. Again, totally understand how hard it may be for a new writer to come along and meet the overzealous WP community. But most recent one - Amazing spider, has a video link in app, but doesn't work.

It may just be the case that my brain wants to keep finding things because it doesn't like the change of seeing new writers on front page. Maybe accustomed to certain styles and standards on front page?

Ps: Are we still on for that challenge of first shout out from you and not Verge?

Yeah no doubt there will be some hiccups. For instance, formatting Store links to be universal? MS doesn't give you an easy way. Most links people pass on are regional, not universal. But that's not obvious to most who click'em.

Some videos not embedding is actually a quirk in the app, not the writers. Our app doesn't parse markdown properly, when it should. So the writers embed videos using markdown, thinking nothing of it, and then the app doesn't make sense of it. In that regard, writing on WPC is very unique compared to iMore, AC, etc. These "exceptions" need to be learned by the staff and most have, but I'm sure there will be exceptions on occasion.

We're working hard both to standardized the back end and get the writers all up to speed. It'll be a few weeks before we're up to speed completely. On the plus side, site traffic is at an all time high.

Re: The Verge vs Us, I'll just say both sites have the same info, so it'll be very close. We all know the embargo times, it's just not public knowledge.

 

[rockstarzzz]

As much as I appreciate your explanation and am excited to see the changes that will bestow upon our site, I do still want you to feel a tiny bit pressured to get Dev Preview announcement out before any site that (legally) announces it! We want to be the first to tell all those fans, we need it!

I am sure we are all well prepared for the influx of threads your news will cover soon and cant wait to see what our site visitors stats look like!

Have a good weekend everyone. I am off to see footy with a few rowdy pints! Be back tomorrow morning

 

[Laura Knotek]

This is becoming an annoying trend. I don't know if its same on all sister sites. As much as I appreciate a new initiative and all the hard work our new writers put into writing about things they haven't written before but why not have a guide as to how to do it? In last one week, I've noticed short 10-12 lines of articles that don't have links to apps in the WPC app, or links to embedded videos in the app. It makes me feel like the app is as good as useless if we were to keep continuing the trend.

Are there things going on behind the scenes that may soon change this? Probably Daniel can write up a guide on how article objects are correctly populated within the app? This is the way most people interact with front page news, including me. I am not always on the front page via web but keep an eye on interesting news via my toasts and tile. Then you go inside the app and see no links embedded!

I know it is a small thing but makes such a big difference. Laura could you please draw attention if its within our merit to let frontpage team know?

It looks like Daniel already has addressed this issue.

I'm not the best person to check for bugs in video links, since the last video I actually watched using the app was the one of the skier recording a video with his Lumia in the Alps.

And no, it's not anything against WPCentral videos. I don't watch many tech related videos on other sites either. The only videos I watch from tech sites tend to be the ones of military weapons on Gizmodo or the funny cat/dog/baby videos on Mashable.