18 Days Left Before the First Launch… Ready?
The Serial Cooking web application is going to be launched in 18 days and the past 3 weeks were a bit tough.
On the first week, I was sick and unable to work properly. The week after, we moved into our new flat and, even if I made my registration on time, British Telecom decided to be late on the broadband delivery. This resulted in a whole week without the internet. This means 2 blank weeks on the development process. Hum not really good.
However, last week, I started to work on the application development again.
First we made some big improvement on the global design. As the application aims at having regular new features, we needed a design that could evolve.
We chose to make the application design as simple as possible. The main colour will be a light blue with a white background for the sections. We are also thinking about using the main colours of the blog categories for the application.
You can see on the above screen-shot the current state of the recipe view. Everything has it own section, and for each recipe, Serial Cooking is going to provide you with a simple comment and rating system. You’ll also be able to add your recipe to your own cookbook and/or to your meal planner. If related photos are available on Flickr, we are going to show you some thumbnails. If we find related videos on Youtube, they will be displayed automatically. The recipe display needs more stylish work, but everything is there, tested and working.
On the right sidebar, you have the main menu on top, redirecting to the main pages of the application. Below, you have your own menu, with a direct link to your favourite recipes, your meal planner, your following friends and your account information. Then, there is the tag system where you’ll be able to interact with other chefs recipes’ by tagging their recipes.
I can’t show you a screen-shot of the home page because it really needs styling, but on your homepage you’ll see large photos of the 10 latest recipes, the 10 last registered users, your friends newsfeeds and the latest recipes you’ve seen.
Once again, we would like it to be as user-friendly as possible. If something seems to be wrong with this implementation, please let us know by posting comments on the post.
What needs to be done ?
A lot of work still has to be done before the first launch. We need to finish the application template. We need to have a descent footer. We need to add the print and the send-by-email actions. We need to provide you with an avatar system. We need to create the sitemap … and more.
But, this can be done in 18 days. Like someone said, Yes we can!
And Nathalie?
Well, if I’m on the spotlight with this post, I can’t forget Nathalie’s work during these past weeks. She is maintaining the blog, preparing the press kit, uploading photos and recipes, looking at the application promotion, keeping our Basecamp busy (we love Basecamp btw), making me some descent meals to feed my developer stomach… In a few words, she is (among other qualities) a very good business partner.
18 days before the launch?
Indeed, we’ve chosen to launch the application on Saturday 7 March, but if the application is not ready we will give ourselves one more small week.
After the launch, we want to have a scheme of 2 new features per month, either small or big. Anyhow every 2 weeks you’ll have a new tool to play with.
Nathalie is going to prepare the business model of the application. We are not going to charge the users so we are exploring other possibilities. This will be detailed in another post…
Finally, the Serial Cooking project is only one part of our work. We are creating a “professional” website, wealsodocookies.com, as We Also Do Cookies is about to become our brand for all our project developments. I also work on two other projects in my spare time (when I’ve got some) and I’m trying to be involved in the Ruby on Rails community. Ho and to make things busier, I’ve also got a day job so all this has to be done at nights and during the weekends.
I hope you like the development progress. I know it’s hard to judge on one screen-shot, but I promise there will be some more by the end of the week.
Let us know what you think!
Nicolas
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Génial ! Je me réjouis de voir le résultat ! En tous cas, bon courage pour cette première étape. Il est clair que cela n’est pas facile à combiner cette vie à tous le reste, mais c’est une chouette expérience riche en enseignements ! Évidement…si en plus vous avez des idées de business model, c’est encore mieux !
Bref.. merci pour l’update et a bientôt !