Graffitio

It’s kind of like a State of the Union, except about Graffitio, hence Art. Umm, nevermind.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted. I’ve been heads down on Release 5, and I just sent out a release candidate to beta testers. A lot of work has gone into Release 5, and I’ll put together a screencast for a later post. Right now, let’s talk about Release 4.

Release 4 has been out for eight days now, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. The two big features with Release 4 were usernames and regional walls. Both of these have turned out to be huge hits. My vision for Graffitio was all about conversations around places. It turns out it’s pretty difficult to have a conversation when you can’t tell who you are talking to. Usernames have fixed that and had an unexpected bonus: When users don’t have to worry about being impersonated, they post more, drowning out all the noise. 99% of the offensive content on the Infinite Wall has disappeared simply because artists interested in posting quality content are having real conversations, and it’s so much easier to ignore the vandals. Overall, I think usernames are the best single feature added to Graffitio since its release. For those of you that liked being a number, don’t forget that even if you sign up, you always have the option of not including your username when you write on a wall.

Regional walls had a rocky start. Due to a failure of the service that Graffitio uses to generate the regional walls the day that Release 4 hit the App Store, I had to quickly throw together some workarounds on the server. Once that was taken care of, it’s been smooth sailing. So far, Release 4 of Graffitio has been used in over six thousand regions across seventy-five countries! The United States wall has become an ongoing discussion of the presidential race. In countries where iPhone users are fewer and further between, country walls have served as a place for users to connect with other users who speak the same language. Dropping in on city walls, I see people announcing concerts, complaining about traffic, and even discussing Hurricane Hanna. Overall, I think regional walls are a great addition to Graffitio.

Looking forward, Release 5 is all about increasing the utility of Graffitio. You’ll be able to precisely locate new walls you create, see where a wall actually is on the wall detail screen, and flag walls that are inappropriate, mislocated, or simply not places. You’ll also be able to delete your posts! Release 5 completes the original vision of the iPhone half of Graffitio. Now I can see some of you scratching your heads at that last sentence wondering, “The iPhone half?” The other half is the web portion. For the next few weeks, the web portion will be receiving most of my attention. I’m not ready to get into details, but I will say that the mobile application will always be the primary gateway into Graffitio. The web portion will be a complement for tasks that are easier to perform with a big screen and keyboard.

Look even further into the future and you’ll see Release 6 off in the distance. This is going to be a very significant update to Graffitio. If I used traditional versioning, Release 6 would be Graffitio 2.0. Once again, I’m going to hold my cards close to my chest. One thing that you can count on is that it will look a helluva lot better than what Graffitio looks like now.

Finally, a big thank you to all of my users. I really appreciate everything you have done to make Graffitio a success. You all are awesome.

*WHEW* That’s it! I expect Release 5 to be finished and sent to the App Store over the next few days. I’d love to hear your comments and criticisms on Release 4 and also what you’d like to see happen. In addition to the comments here, you can connect with the Graffitio Community at the forums or in #graffitio on freenode.