There are still some things to be done, so please bear with me and be patient. We’ve been in beta for a few weeks now, but there are still outstanding issues and probably a few bugs to work out. I figured getting them up and running for the entire site sooner rather than later was probably in the best interest of everyone here, as opposed to waiting until I worked out every little detail and tiny feature.

Phase two will feature group creation and management, and phase three will let you add stories to groups. I may merge these two phases into a single release, depending on how things work out over the next couple of weeks.

To give you an idea of where we’re at currently, here are some of the things that are still to come for phase one (i.e. I’ll be adding these over the  course of the next week or so):

• Notifications: these aren’t turned on for groups yet (!)
• The ability to report topics (and eventually groups) isn’t enabled yet
• The main site activity feed doesn’t display anything group-related (for now)
• A list of groups you belong to on your profile, and in the main groups listing somewhere
• The group’s activity feed summary needs to be added to the Group Overview tab
• Group announcements aren’t editable just yet (group managers, this will be ready ASAP)
• The ability to watch/favourite a topic in a group
• RSS feeds on groups
• Search for a topic

Please don’t file bug reports for anything in the above list — I’m still working on this stuff so you’ll see it show up progressively over the next week or so. And as with all major site updates, you may need to clear your browser cache to get all of the changes.

In the meantime, enjoy groups. Feel free to send me feedback directly, or post suggestions or ideas in the fancy new Protagonize Pub, while you’re there. :)

If you haven’t been checking the homepage, I posted a note to Twitter earlier looking for 10 beta testers to try out our new groups implementation. It’s not quite ready to go yet (hence the “beta” moniker”), but a good chunk of it is usable and our testers have been been quite busy in the beta discussion areas.

So, in addition to the ten (10) first responses I get on Twitter (which isn’t quite “sold out” yet), I’ll take on the first ten Protagonize members who respond here (on the blog!) as new beta testers, too. As there are a good dozen or so groups that need testing, the more, the merrier. Interested? Just post a reply here and include your handle on the site, and I’ll add you to the beta group as soon as I can tomorrow.

Only the first ten responses will get in, so if you want to try out new features before they go live (and you’re not already part of the beta… err, yeah), now’s your chance!

(And hey — if you’re not in the first ten responders here, feel free to respond to @protagonize on Twitter and you might luck out there, instead!)

You may be aware that the beta team and myself have been quietly testing discussions inside groups for the last couple of weeks and I think it’s making pretty awesome progress. It’s taken a little longer to get this going than I had hoped for, due to a variety of local events I’ve had to contend with and prepare for over the last two weeks. However, I’m excited to say that we’re getting close to having phase 1 ready to go (hopefully by the end of this week), so I thought I’d give you a little heads-up about what to expect.

What you’ll be seeing in this first phase is basically a handful of groups you’ll be able to participate immediately after this initial launch:

“System” groups that are open to anyone:

• Protagonize Pub (primarily for public/general chat, basically)
• New Members (new members will be auto-joined to this group)

I’ll operate both of these system-wide groups, and they’ll be open to everyone. While group creation by Protagonize members is the major portion of the phase 2 release, I thought it would be extra awesome to have several of our beta testers lead a few additional starter groups that’ll be available right out of the gates. Several of our testers have been kind enough to volunteer to take on this additional mantle, which I think will really add to the experience for the rest of our users. These groups, and their leaders, are:

Member-led groups for Phase 1

• Mentoring => CheshireGrin
• World-Building => JackRubashevskiy
• Young Writers => Sareneth
• Fan Fiction => Faltarego
• Poetry Workshop => FogCat
• Poetry for Fun => aryst0krat
• Character Development => Rac7hel
• Editing, Rewriting and Polishing => Tasha_Noble

I’d like to thank all of our beta users for the testing they’ve done to date, and for their awesome participation in the beta forums. I’ve gotten a metric ton of great suggestions and feature ideas from them and I’ve tweaked the discussion areas pretty heavily based on their feedback. They’ll be testing out the new groups landing pages and sub-sections this week before I push all of these changes out to the rest of our members.

Watch for these new features to be available late this week or early next week. Cheers! :)

Here’s a screenshot of the new look. All of the old functionality (sharing with fans and via email) is still there. Just a little upgrade for those of you who frequent other large social networks. Enjoy. :)

Here’s the slide deck from my presentation. Video should be up within a week or so. Enjoy!