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EnTerr
Roku Guru

Re: New channel version notification?

"TheEndless" wrote:
"EnTerr" wrote:
I don't see the point of such notification and it will also be an easy target for abuse. Somebody can bump the version every day (or week, as often as that registers) and submit the app as "new" thus staying featured perennially in the "Recently updated" list.

Public channels and their updates have to be approved by Roku, so I don't think there's a danger of someone abusing the update process.


So Roku will have to define an objective criteria of what makes an app "new", which is impossible. Does change of the icon or font constitute new? Reformatting of the source? Adding a new content inside (which you may or not do by updating your feed but still looks like "updated channel" to the users)?

And since there could not be objective criteria, it will be subjective. There will be undue pressure to push channel "renovations" just to be featured in this way. Roku will have to hire people to review and try to adjudicate if channel is "new-worthy" or not. Judgement will cause bad blood between Roku and some developers, because as i said, there is no objective way for all sides to see the same.

And i still fail to see how an update to a channel makes it noteworthy. Most updates are not worthy of attention, the need of some we in fact don't want to point out. Say there were silly misspellings in some of my text labels and I fixed them - should I tout that? Don't want people to abandon your app - DIRFT (Do It Right the First Time) 🙂

And speaking of Roku judging what is worthy and what not... oh wait, they DO have that already, it is called "Featured" category. Someone thinks they've made major upgrade to a channel that changes the world - eh, just email Roku and persuade them to feature you.

ps. corrected DRIFT -> DIRFT
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SuetyStanes
Visitor

Re: New channel version notification?

"EnTerr" wrote:
"TheEndless" wrote:
"EnTerr" wrote:
I don't see the point of such notification and it will also be an easy target for abuse. Somebody can bump the version every day (or week, as often as that registers) and submit the app as "new" thus staying featured perennially in the "Recently updated" list.

Public channels and their updates have to be approved by Roku, so I don't think there's a danger of someone abusing the update process.


So Roku will have to define an objective criteria of what makes an app "new", which is impossible. Does change of the icon or font constitute new? Reformatting of the source? Adding a new content inside (which you may or not do by updating your feed but still looks like "updated channel" to the users)?

And since there could not be objective criteria, it will be subjective. There will be undue pressure to push channel "renovations" just to be featured in this way. Roku will have to hire people to review and try to adjudicate if channel is "new-worthy" or not. Judgement will cause bad blood between Roku and some developers, because as i said, there is no objective way for all sides to see the same.

And i still fail to see how an update to a channel makes it noteworthy. Most updates are not worthy of attention, the need of some we in fact don't want to point out. Say there were silly misspellings in some of my text labels and I fixed them - should I tout that? Don't want people to abandon your app - DRIFT (Do It Right the First Time) 🙂

And speaking of Roku judging what is worthy and what not... oh wait, they DO have that already, it is called "Featured" category. Someone thinks they've made major upgrade to a channel that changes the world - eh, just email Roku and persuade them to feature you.


I don't think a Recently Updated category would promote any channel; I'm still able to find all of the available channels. And if I were subscribed to a channel that, abusively, seemed to show up in that category all the time, I would start to ignore it and probably get annoyed with the developer.
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TheEndless
Channel Surfer

Re: New channel version notification?

"EnTerr" wrote:
DRIFT (Do It Right the First Time)

I think that would be DIRFT, which I think might be the number between 5 and 6 (that may be an obscure reference, unless you're a parent)... 😛

And I think it'd be pretty easy for Roku to objectively state that you're only allowed one update per x many days, unless it's a critical bug fix. And again, we're not talking about being featured.. we're talking about having some indication that the channel has been updated.. for the end user's benefit, not the developer's. If a developer starts abusing that, I think it'd be pretty obvious, and something Roku could prevent.

I guess I just don't understand your opposition to it. You seem to be convinced that such a feature would be abused, and are focusing on that rather than the utility. Heck, they could even put the row at the very bottom of the channel store for all I care. I'd just like the ability to easily check to see what channels have been recently updated.
My Channels: http://roku.permanence.com - Twitter: @TheEndlessDev
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kbenson
Visitor

Re: New channel version notification?

"EnTerr" wrote:

So Roku will have to define an objective criteria of what makes an app "new", which is impossible. Does change of the icon or font constitute new? Reformatting of the source? Adding a new content inside (which you may or not do by updating your feed but still looks like "updated channel" to the users)?

And since there could not be objective criteria, it will be subjective. There will be undue pressure to push channel "renovations" just to be featured in this way. Roku will have to hire people to review and try to adjudicate if channel is "new-worthy" or not. Judgement will cause bad blood between Roku and some developers, because as i said, there is no objective way for all sides to see the same.


I think it's a bit simpler than that. If the app has been updated, it goes in the recently updated list, sorted by the release date of that version. Since Roku has to review these all anyways, if someone is constantly on the list for small changes, Roku will probably get annoying, and find a way to make their annoyance known. That could be as simple as delaying review and publication of the channel for a week or two, to dissuade too-frequent updates and reduce load on Roku reviewing process.

This might need to change or be removed at a later date if the number of updated channels grows too large, but I don't think that's a major concern currently.
-- GandK Labs
Check out Reversi! in the channel store!
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EnTerr
Roku Guru

Re: New channel version notification?

"kbenson" wrote:
I think it's a bit simpler than that. If the app has been updated, it goes in the recently updated list, sorted by the release date of that version. Since Roku has to review these all anyways, if someone is constantly on the list for small changes, Roku will probably get annoying, and find a way to make their annoyance known. That could be as simple as delaying review and publication of the channel for a week or two, to dissuade too-frequent updates and reduce load on Roku reviewing process. This might need to change or be removed at a later date if the number of updated channels grows too large, but I don't think that's a major concern currently.


We heard what is the use to "you", the developer - but what is the use of such category ("newified") to "me", the end user?

The argument was that this was supposed to inform users that already have the channel it has been updated. Ok, so there are a bit under 100 public channels there and as a user I have 10-20 channels installed, more than half of which private. So only the public, only ~10/100 = 10% of the channels that be listed under "Freshly updated" are of relevance to a particular user and considering only 4 are show on screen at a time, one will have intentionally to scroll screens to find relevant to them channel, that defeats the purpose.

And if your channel is private, you are totally out of luck - it will never show up in that section.

So how is this useful to the viewers?!
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gonzotek
Visitor

Re: New channel version notification?

"EnTerr" wrote:
"kbenson" wrote:
I think it's a bit simpler than that. If the app has been updated, it goes in the recently updated list, sorted by the release date of that version. Since Roku has to review these all anyways, if someone is constantly on the list for small changes, Roku will probably get annoying, and find a way to make their annoyance known. That could be as simple as delaying review and publication of the channel for a week or two, to dissuade too-frequent updates and reduce load on Roku reviewing process. This might need to change or be removed at a later date if the number of updated channels grows too large, but I don't think that's a major concern currently.


We heard what is the use to "you", the developer - but what is the use of such category ("newified") to "me", the end user?

The argument was that this was supposed to inform users that already have the channel it has been updated. Ok, so there are a bit under 100 public channels there and as a user I have 10-20 channels installed, more than half of which private. So ~10/100 = 90% of the channels that be listed under "Freshly updated" are of no relevance to me, I don't watch them anyway.

And if your channel is private, you are totally out of luck - it will never show up in that section.

So how is this useful to the viewers?!
Let's look at this problem from a different angle. What if, instead of a 'recently updated' category, the categories that exist now(including 'my channels') could be sorted. Say the sort options could be by: release date (including updates), # of installations, star rating, alphabetical, or 'featured'(Roku's subjective, but arguably valuable, opinion).

As a user, I find those kind of options very valuable in many other contexts, for instance, app stores and file management.
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TheEndless
Channel Surfer

Re: New channel version notification?

"EnTerr" wrote:
The argument was that this was supposed to inform users that already have the channel it has been updated. Ok, so there are a bit under 100 public channels there and as a user I have 10-20 channels installed, more than half of which private. So only the public, only ~10/100 = 10% of the channels that be listed under "Freshly updated" are of relevance to a particular user and considering only 4 are show on screen at a time, one will have intentionally to scroll screens to find relevant to them channel, that defeats the purpose.

That was not my argument at all. In fact, my argument was just the opposite. In-channel notification work fine for channels the user already has installed. You actually, inadvertently, touched on exactly why this is useful with the current system. With limited resources, user's are fairly regularly required to trim down the number of channels they have installed. Often times, a channel may be cut because it's not quite useful enough, yet. With a recently updated list in the channel store, I could quickly and easily identify when one of those channels that didn't quite make the cut has been updated, and may actually be worthy of a spot in my channel lineup again. There is much more utility in such a feature for the end user than for the developer.
My Channels: http://roku.permanence.com - Twitter: @TheEndlessDev
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kbenson
Visitor

Re: New channel version notification?

"EnTerr" wrote:

And if your channel is private, you are totally out of luck - it will never show up in that section.


Sure it can! The installed channels list shows channels you've installed that are private. Why couldn't the newly updated list also show the private channels that are updated that you have installed?


So how is this useful to the viewers?!


I think it's evident, but even if you don't buy that argument, how about this: Anything Roku does to make the developers job easier makes people developers want to target the platform more. That means more channels, and hopefully better quality channels. That's a gain for users. I'm not proposing anything radical, just a small part of the channel store that notes what's updated recently (well, TheEndless proposed it, but it's definitely in the direction I was looking). There are ZERO negative aspects to that for users in my opinion, and it seems like it would be easy to implement.
-- GandK Labs
Check out Reversi! in the channel store!
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EnTerr
Roku Guru

Re: New channel version notification?

"TheEndless" wrote:
That was not my argument at all. In fact, my argument was just the opposite. In-channel notification work fine for channels the user already has installed. You actually, inadvertently, touched on exactly why this is useful with the current system. With limited resources, user's are fairly regularly required to trim down the number of channels they have installed. Often times, a channel may be cut because it's not quite useful enough, yet. With a recently updated list in the channel store, I could quickly and easily identify when one of those channels that didn't quite make the cut has been updated, and may actually be worthy of a spot in my channel lineup again. There is much more utility in such a feature for the end user than for the developer.


Interesting but this contradicts what kbenson has in mind (see his reply).

So do you have in mind something like "Why don't you watch again" category, consisting of channels that
a) you tried and deleted from lineup AND
b) have been updated recently AND
c) you did not hate it (gave rating>2 or did not rate)

The rudimentary (c) tries to cater to personal preferences in the way Tivo learns your taste.

If the Roku channel lineup grows up substantially, I imagine a learning component like Tivo's or Netflix like/don't like will be in order to give suggestions.
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EnTerr
Roku Guru

Re: New channel version notification?

"kbenson" wrote:
"EnTerr" wrote:
And if your channel is private, you are totally out of luck - it will never show up in that section.

Sure it can! The installed channels list shows channels you've installed that are private. Why couldn't the newly updated list also show the private channels that are updated that you have installed?


Ah, I see your point. But wouldn't that lead to two lineups of "My Channels" next to each other (it won't be any better if they are away from each other):
- one in the order the viewer likes them (the one currently presented, which they can re-order manually to taste)
- and one in the order we developers (or at least kbenson) want him/her too see them, by last update timestamp

That will weird me out. I mean, from usability point of view, same things reordered on the same screen, eeeeh...
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