The 2.0 launch - lessons learned

[puppies]

I think the fact that we have a bad ass mutable block chain and that it took us less than two days to respond to our first spam attack should go in the win column.

Immutable, surely?

I most certainly did not speak clearly.  The block chain itself most certainly immutable.  The parameters of the live network mutable.

[nickelback70]

There are definitely a lot of experts in the tech and economic fields in Bitshares, but their appears to be no expert teachers stepping up to show how it works to the AVERAGE non-coder, non-trader person.

I agree 100%. 

For average guys like me who are new to Bitshares you must have clear, concise educational tools to inspire confidence and usage.

Cryptocurrency is a new science for most people, much like learning a foreign language.  We must understand the benefits of investing our money in  a safe and secure environment.

[Frodo]

Good points on things learned.. UI is only a framework and rightly so.. the refer program is to bring in competition.. now the stage has been set.. cue the heros to appear with various wallet solutions, and more on/off ramps. For now we just need to break in this amazing network.

Exchanges and volume. We have to reach out to the exchanges in a professional and coordinated way.

But first we need to have a GUI that looks and feels like an exchange and not a BTS wallet with a mediocre exchange page attached to it.
So I guess I'd agree with Ander: we waited for 2.0 for so long and now we need to wait again, this time for 2.1 which will offer a proper GUI.
Ideally available in two incarnations: (1) a BTS wallet with an integrated exchange and (2) an exchange with an integrated BTS wallet.

A little frustrating, but i think thats true.

Maybe moonstone can save us from that. (Or is that just wishful thinking?  )

[Average Guy on Street]

There are definitely a lot of experts in the tech and economic fields in Bitshares, but their appears to be no expert teachers stepping up to show how it works to the AVERAGE non-coder, non-trader person.

[Average Guy on Street]

I really hope an expert teacher will come along to produce a series of instructional videos to teach how the AVERAGE person can get into Bitshares -> from changing their fiat to crypto - >to setting up a Bitshares wallet -> to becoming a successful investor through the Bitshares Market. Teaching all the critical terminology/concepts of each step along the way.

I expected Bitshares TV to do this, however it only ended up being a buzz word marketing effort.

In my opinion Great Educational Resources along with Simple UX design are the most important factors for user adoption.

[MJK]

Good points on things learned.. UI is only a framework and rightly so.. the refer program is to bring in competition.. now the stage has been set.. cue the heros to appear with various wallet solutions, and more on/off ramps. For now we just need to break in this amazing network.

Exchanges and volume. We have to reach out to the exchanges in a professional and coordinated way.

But first we need to have a GUI that looks and feels like an exchange and not a BTS wallet with a mediocre exchange page attached to it.
So I guess I'd agree with Ander: we waited for 2.0 for so long and now we need to wait again, this time for 2.1 which will offer a proper GUI.
Ideally available in two incarnations: (1) a BTS wallet with an integrated exchange and (2) an exchange with an integrated BTS wallet.

A little frustrating, but i think thats true.

[jakub]

Good points on things learned.. UI is only a framework and rightly so.. the refer program is to bring in competition.. now the stage has been set.. cue the heros to appear with various wallet solutions, and more on/off ramps. For now we just need to break in this amazing network.

Exchanges and volume. We have to reach out to the exchanges in a professional and coordinated way.

But first we need to have a GUI that looks and feels like an exchange and not a BTS wallet with a mediocre exchange page attached to it.
So I guess I'd agree with Ander: we waited for 2.0 for so long and now we need to wait again, this time for 2.1 which will offer a proper GUI.
Ideally available in two incarnations: (1) a BTS wallet with an integrated exchange and (2) an exchange with an integrated BTS wallet.

[MJK]

Good points on things learned.. UI is only a framework and rightly so.. the refer program is to bring in competition.. now the stage has been set.. cue the heros to appear with various wallet solutions, and more on/off ramps. For now we just need to break in this amazing network.

Exchanges and volume. We have to reach out to the exchanges in a professional and coordinated way.

[monsterer]

I think the fact that we have a bad ass mutable block chain and that it took us less than two days to respond to our first spam attack should go in the win column.

Immutable, surely?

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

Good points on things learned.. UI is only a framework and rightly so.. the refer program is to bring in competition.. now the stage has been set.. cue the heros to appear with various wallet solutions, and more on/off ramps. For now we just need to break in this amazing network.

[jakub]

I think the fact that we have a bad ass mutable block chain and that it took us less than two days to respond to our first spam attack should go in the win column.

Yes, I agree.
The list of things that have gone wrong is relatively short but the list of things that could have gone wrong is quite unlimited.
That's why I think that it's been a success that we should appreciate: so many things could have gone wrong but only a few of them actually did.

[puppies]

I think the fact that we have a bad ass mutable block chain and that it took us less than two days to respond to our first spam attack should go in the win column. 

[Ander]

So...waiting for 2.1 is the new waiting for 2.0 now?

[Empirical1.2]

The back end is great and super fast and that's your base.

Other lessons learned:

It looks like the exchange upgrade to 2.0 might not have been properly co-ordinated?  Failing at the relatively simple task (by comparison to the time and effort to create Graphene, establish partnerships etc.) of emailing & confirming exchanges were ready for the upgrade to 2.0 would not be good.

[Thom]

The OP is spot on IMO.

[theoretical]

Hopefully third-party companies will take it as a starting point, improve UX and expand it further.

I'd like to point out that the referral system is designed to give such third-party companies an incentive to develop their own UI solutions.  Specifically, if you develop a UI, and program the UI to set yourself as the registrar / referrer of anyone who registers through your UI, then you can get a big cut of the transaction value created by users who register through your UI.

[Louis]

Maybe it should have been announced before the release of 2.0 that the backend was ready and  fully functional and  to excuse the UI for is still in development but nevertheless very useful. Something along those line.

[jakub]

The back-end is great, no doubt about it.

But the GUI is more like a solid proof of concept showing how to connect a Graphene back-end with a javascript front-end.
Hopefully third-party companies will take it as a starting point, improve UX and expand it further.

So I'd say the current GUI is nice, it has a big potential but it is still work-in-progress and was released to the public prematurely imo.
If I were a big bank I wouldn't dare to release an interface to a financial system at this stage of development.
But I understand that BitShares is not a proper company with unlimited funding so maybe different rules apply.

[mike623317]

I think the backend is great. Super fast. 

I would like to see a better GUI. I really think we should aim for something like kencode suggested yesterday, but that can be a lower priority.

My 2 cents.

[jakub]

This is how I see it:

• It's been declared that UX is a priority in 2.0 yet we have released a GUI which is still an unfinished product, with known bugs and without proper tests.

• The migration process has been flawed for Windows users and unable to handle wallets with a large number of private keys. It's clear it hasn't been properly tested on all platforms and for non-standard cases.

• The official http://bitshares.org website has not been updated in a timely manner. Even now it still contains large sections referring to the old blockchain.

• There was no contingency plan in place in case somebody discovered a new attack vector right after the launch. Luckily the name squatting incident was the only one that has happened so far, but had it been something more serious, all committee members would have been unavailable to react quickly while CNX was asleep.

• We've had a clearly flawed pricing strategy regarding registering new account names. As a result we've lost quite a lot of revenue and ended up with thousands of fake names.

• We've had 2.0 witnesses who have 0.9.2 delegates still running on the old blockchain.

• EDIT: Not all exchanges were directly informed. Instead of reaching them we just assumed they would follow our announcements.

• EDIT: The new rules for SmartCoins shorting were not explained well enough before they started to take effect.

Other than the above it's been quite a success.
I mean it, really well done (except for the things above).