Alicehub tech preview

Alicehub is a an experiment, a Conversation Core experiment. We think that the most important key to project success is effective communication. Alicehub facilitates this using fast, project focused, conversations.

Features included so far:

• Participate in fast, real time, multi-user conversations.
• Create projects at will.
• Communicate within projects and your network.
• Attach links messages, (more than one link per message/comment).
• Read messages in your language of choice.
• Get an aggregated feed of all your conversations.
• Stay updated on which conversations in your feed that are receiving attention from others.

So, if you’re looking for lightweight collaboration through fast communication and are not afraid of using pre beta tools, give Alicehub a try. Please read the getting started blog post first.

Cloud Tech

Alicehub is also an experiment with using technology in the cloud to build services for the cloud. We’re using Google App Engine (GAE) at the server end, providing an Alicehub API. GAE provides lots and lots of APIs for all sorts of tasks, too many to list here, but one is worth extra attention since it’s key to the Alicehub experience; The real time conversation features are built on top of the coming GAE Channels API of which we are “Trusted Testers”.

The Alicehub API is then used by the web interface, which is built using Google Web Toolkit. Authentication is outsourced into the cloud using the the providers Projectplace, Twitter and LinkedIn using OAuth. Real time language translations is carried out through the Google Language API. Avatars for Projectplace authenticated users are grabbed from Gravatar.

The visual user interface is almost exclusively implemented using CSS3. This is why Internet Explorer is left behind.

There’s also a client for Google Android, that we might or might not release. (We’ll post on this site if we release it). We also started with a desktop client built on Adobe AIR, but we haven’t taken it to a level where there would be a point of releasing it.

Get involved

Alicehub development will pause a while now as the Labs team is needed for other things. Hopefully we’ll be able to pick this project up again. The chances for that of course increases with the interest from the Alicehub audience. Here are  a few ways you can get involved:

• Comment on articles on this blog.
• Use Alicehub heavily. This is the Staff Favorite. =)
• Befriend us on Alicehub by searching for users named Peter Strömberg, Samuel Cyprian, Jayesh V, Martin Rosell and Jon Nylander.
• “Like” the Alicehub Facebook page (which I created as I wrote this, be the first to Like!).
• Follow @ProjectLab on Twitter.

Looking forward to seeing you often!

Get started with Alicehub

How to get started with Alicehub conversations. First thing first:

Use a modern web browser, preferably Chrome, Safari or a recent version of Firefox (in that order of preference). We haven’t had the time to make it work for Internet Explorer yet, sorry about that.

Register

Then browse to Alicehub.com. There you can register a new user with one of three authentication providers:

1. Projectplace
2. Twitter
3. LinkedIn

Choose one and stick with it (i. e. the next time you log in choose the same provider). There’s no way to merge accounts later.

Edit your profile

Once you’ve registered, the first thing you should do is to edit your Alicehub profile. Click your name next to the Logout link in the upper right of the Alicehub interface. Then click Settings.

• Edit your first and last name if they haven’t been relayed correctly by the login provider.
• Provide your e-mail address so that Alicehub can send system messages to you.
• Set your language preferences. Alicehub can translate messages if they are written in a language you do not speak.

Find contacts

As Alicehub is all about conversations, it is also quite pointless without some people to talk to. Unfortunately this crucial step is something we haven’t put enough work into. Meaning it is a bit quirky. But, indeed, just persist some and you’ll be rewarded. Here’s a quick howto:

 

Your contacts list (well, mine, but anyway)

 

1. The Contacts section.
2. Click here to search for Alicehub users to add to your network.
3. Requests from others that want to connect with you are shown here.
4. Your list of contacts. (Or search results if you have issued a user search.)

When searching for Alicehub users you’ll get a list of users matching your query. Click the plus-icon next to a user  to send a connection request. At current you will get very little feedback that you’ve sent the request.

You cannot invite users to connect to you on Alicehub unless they are existing Alicehub users. Please help spread the word through your social networks, e-mail or whatever.

Start the conversation

Once you have some contacts you can start communicating with them. There are basically three “channels” for Alicehub conversations:

1. Your network of contacts. Communicate in this channel by starting a conversation in your Home section (or your own profile page).
2. The network of contacts of one of your friends (a.k.a. user “walls”). Start a conversation on someone else’s profile page. She and her contacts will see it when they visit her page. (Your common contacts will see it on their Home feed too).
3. Project conversations. When you’re participating in an Alicehub project you can start a conversation on that projects page and only members of that project will see it.

We hope you’ll try it out. If you are a few people trying online at the same time the conversations can get very lively, effective and fun.