Introducing a
Conversation

Here at Spot.IM we’re very passionate about creating product experiences that encourage fruitful, healthy conversation for users around the OpenWeb.

Today we are happy to announce a new version of our Conversation that brings our users and our partners a few shiny, new features, capabilities and improvements. This version will be released gradually to our partners in the coming weeks.

So – let’s get to it.

What’s New?

Improved Performance ⚡

When it comes to communication, speed and performance matters. That’s why we’ve dramatically improved our loading time and further lightened our product weight — all the way from a 30% decrease in the size of our initial skeleton loader to a 40% decrease in the final interactive download size.

Featured Comments 🏅

Highlight the best contributions to the conversation by featuring them at the very top. This is a great way for moderators to encourage users to write insightful content so they can get the attention their contribution deserves. The users will be notified when their comments are featured.

Emoji Keyboard 😀

You asked and we delivered. Based on popular demand from both our partners and users, users can now add their favorite emoji to their comments, even if they are using a desktop computer with our dedicated emoji keyboard that has over 3,000 different emojis.

Improved Exception Handling ⚠️

Users will now receive error messages if their actions failed for any reason, with an option to quickly retry. This is most common when users encounter connectivity issues, so now they can simply hit ‘Retry’ once the connection is restored. No comment is left behind.

What’s Improved?

Design refinements & UX tweaks 🧑🏽‍🎨

We’ve updated parts of our design to make things simpler. There’s improved visual separation between the comment and its metadata, better cues to who is responding whom and default fonts are rounder and a bit larger for easier readability. Don’t worry, everything is right where it was, so there’s no learning curve.

• The Comment and Reply editors now expand and collapse, instead of staying open – click anywhere outside of the comment editor or click again on the reply button to collapse their respective dialogs.

• A styling toolbar will be displayed when you select a part of the comment, to make it easier for you to select or edit.

Post GIFs and pictures without text 🎑

Can’t find the right words? That’s fine. We all know that pictures are worth a thousand words and GIFs are just, well, fun. It’s now possible to simply add a comment that only has a GIF or a picture.

User Profile Enhancement 👤

Users can now add a personal bio of up to 200 characters so other users can get to know them a little better. We also improved the way users edit their own profile by moving all editable functions under the same tab. It’s also a lot more seamless — your changes are now reflected immediately across all Spot.IM products.

New Dark Mode 🌜

Our dark mode support went through a complete overhaul — our entire product suite now has default dark mode color schemes so you can easily switch between bright and dark themes.

What’s Next?

Self Serve Customizations

Making sure the conversation looks just like your site will be incredibly easy with self-serving customizations right in the admin panel. Choose your brand colors, font and size to make the experience consistent to your users. No tech support required.

User Loyalty and Transparency

We’ll soon be rolling out our new clarity features that will improve the transparency of the moderation process to users, to increase trust and community health:

• Real Time Feedback: We’re using NLP models to predict if a comment will likely be rejected by a human moderator, and nudge the user to change their comment before attempting to publish.

• Post Action Notifications: Letting users know the current status of their message and why an action was taken – whether it’s going to a moderator for approval or final rejection.

What Do You Think?

We would love to hear your thoughts! Talk to our team in the conversation down below or reach our to your Partner Success Manager.