ThumbStrips

I’ve started thinking about what future versions of ThumbStrips will be, and it’s always fun to brainstorm about the possibilities with the iLab team. But a big impact on our thinking is actually coming from your posted feedback. There have been so many different ideas rolling in from all over the globe (woo hoo!), some things we guessed might happen, as well as some great ah-ha’s we hadn’t thought about before. And, although nothing is set in stone, I wanted to give you a little peek into what we are thinking / talking about right now:

>> Building a website. What if there were a place for people to save and find their ThumbStrips, or look through other people’s? Could people view a ThumbStrip without actually having the add-on installed? What else would people want to do here?

>> “Do-Not-Record” list. There are certain sites when I’m online that I will never share or need to go back to in my history. Based on the feedback, many of you guys feel the same way. Giving people a way to set that list themselves would add a level of privacy and customization.

>> Reducing CPU usage. There is a lot of information packed into a ThumbStrip - graphics, content, timing - and while we have taken measures to minimize the impact to memory / CPU, there are some times where it spikes. I know that Scott is always looking for ways to improve this piece, and it’s just a matter of time before he solves the puzzle, imho.

>> ThumbStrips for IE. Always something that is in the back of our minds. If Firefox users are finding this useful, what about all those IE users?

Like I said, by no means is this a fixed list or even an exhaustive one, but it’s a glimpse into what we are thinking about. So, what do you think?

It’s a strange thing to see a product you’ve worked on hit the “social” web - blogs and such. The Thumbstrips Firefox extension has been out for a few weeks now. Its download count quickly surpassed the other roughcuts here.

I shared my first filmstrip today. I live near a lake, so of course I have a canoe that is a bit tippy (aren’t they all?). I wanted to get a stabilizer to make it easier to add a motor and zip about the lake to fish. I bought it a couple of days ago, but it occurred to me today that others might be interested, so I quickly revisited a few sites with canoe outriggers to show where I’d been.

When I logged into this blog, I could see the links coming in from other places via technorati, and it is cool to see Japanese and German blogs talking about thumbstrips.

I did encounter this weird feeling of being out of control when I wrote some free radio monitoring and EAS logging software and put it up on a blog. A studio in American Samoa told me “thanks” and asked some questions. I know there are at least a dozen radio stations using some of my stuff, but I don’t actually know who they are.

We really don’t want to control the destiny of the the roughcuts on this site - rather we want to learn and let the people who use them control their destiny.

Which roughcuts have you tried? What do you like or not like about them? Give us some feedback and help control the destiny of a roughcut.

- Matt