Big Picture - Natively Upcoming Features (2023-2024)

Natively
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Hey all -

Since we’ve finished what I view as ‘v1’ of Natively, I wanted to take a brief moment to chat on what I’m thinking our big picture product roadmap is for the next year, since it may be a bit less clear.

Below is the current, big item, product roadmap:

  • Favorites (July) - Finished!
  • Book Providers (Aug) - In Progress
  • Content Tags (Aug)
  • Book Edition Handling (Sep)
  • Web Novel / Web Comic (Nov)
  • Rereads / Rewatch (Nov)
  • Recommendations & Premium( Dec)
  • 1-2 more Languages (Dec) - Probably Spanish & German
  • Book Club Support (Jan)
  • Notifications System (Feb)

Priority Future Goals beyond that:

  • YouTube (would be major growth opportunity, but quite complicated to do well imo)
  • Other Languages
  • Other Content Types (Video Games, Podcasts, Audiobooks)
  • More Platform Community Things (Liking Reviews/Activities, Personal Goals, Opt-in Gameificaition)

My Thinking:

This is a good balance between trying to attract new users (new languages, new content types) and improving the platform for current users (content tags, rereads, book club support). I’d also like to take a crack by the end of the year at a premium service.

You’ll also notice that I expect these all to be ‘medium’ sized tickets, which is different than in previous years.

I’m very excited by the roadmap! It’ll be quite hard to accomplish, but I think it’s possible.

Let me know your thoughts :slight_smile:

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What is the premium version going to do? It’s not going to paywall features that we already get now for free, right?

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Nope, nothing as you see on the site currently.

My thinking is something similar along the lines of storygraph plus which is mostly advanced stats & improved / unlimited content recommendations. I also imagine I could incorporate some notifications as well - bookmeter sales, new manga volume releases… etc.

But yeah, I think the best place where premium plays is in recommendations if that makes sense.

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It looks like they have stuff in there that look like the “affinity” calculation (to get recommended books/people to follow) I suggested way back.

Are you thinking to include it in there or is it too much development effort?

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That’s definitely one of the features in my mind as I think it’s pretty easy to implement.

But, not entirely sure… that feature set is pretty uncertain right now.

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Wow, lots to look forward to! :smile:

Out of curiosity, why Spanish and German? :slightly_smiling_face:

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Spanish is simply because it’s massive, German because my brother wants german.

In general, I think romance languages will be the next few added.

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Thank you for your hard work!
As an aspiring polyglot I can’t wait to see Natively covering more languages, specially German!
All the other features will make this platform more dynamic(likes & notification & bookclubs & …) for sure.

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I assume the top smaller feature requests will just be done throughout this period as you feel like doing them?

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Yes. I will try to keep making some progress on the little requests at all times, especially the more critical ones. I find it’s just good to have a big picture roadmap too :slight_smile:

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I will for sure nose around the German section. Always fun to see what learners get up to. They get hung up on the oddest stuff (seen from a native POV). :eyes:

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Looks like you got a lot of work cut out for you! Good luck :muscle: :muscle: :muscle: :muscle: :muscle: :muscle: :muscle: :muscle: :muscle:

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SO EXCITING!! I especially can’t wait for content tags and recommendations, and for Spanish and German b/c I know some people learning those :smiley:

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Big plans!
I’m really excited to see Natively continue to grow, it’s been an amazing resource for me.
Really interested in seeing what you decide to do for premium, are you planning a “lifetime” subscription option as well as monthly?

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What exactly do you plan to notify on considering likes won’t be implemented at this point?

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I’m guessing new episodes / new books for stuff you are watching / reading would be one of them?

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Haven’t a lot of people requested notifications for new followers as well?

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Both good points! Plus a notification (instead of an email, or configurable) for when a book you requested gets added would be nice.

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Probably - I’m certainly not opposed to it. Haven’t really specced it out fully, but I’ll keep that lifetime option in mind! :slight_smile:

So everything that has been mentioned. Additionally, book club notifications will be a major one too. If we move book club procedural stuff on platform (nominations, voting, schedules…etc) it’d be really nice to get notifications for that stuff too. I’d also think that once we get enough book clubs, we could notify you if a book club is reading something on your wish list / owned list… etc.

Basically, there’s a ton of notifications I’d love to do and it’ll only grow in functionality. Getting an initial version out, with all the associated notification preference management, would be really nice.

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When you say Liking Reviews/Activities, do you mean a status like “user_xyz wrote reviewed This Book”, or liking/up voting the reviews themselves?

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