Introducing Rejaw Rooms

We’re happy to announce the release of Rejaw Rooms. It’s been one of our most requested features, by users as well as ourselves.

room

On Rejaw, you can create as many rooms as you want, public or private. By joining a room, new messages in the room start to appear in your dashboard in real-time.

Here are the key features:

  • Real chat. Beacuse it’s Rejaw, all messages in a room flow lightning fast as you spark up a conversation. Rejaw Rooms is threaded, archived group chat on the web.
  • Privacy. A room can either be public or private. In a private room, anything in the room is invisible to non-members, except the room name, icon and description.
  • Owners. A room has one or more room owners, and all owners share equal permissions. Room owners are able to manage the room memberships and messages. Owners of private rooms can also accept or decline room membership requests.
  • Invitations. Room members can send invitations to new people, along with a customized personal message.

That’s pretty simple and straightforward, huh? Well, that’s actually the whole point; we strive to keep it simple and clear, so that the feature is really useful to anyone.

We think Rejaw Rooms will be particularly useful for small workgroups, remote workers (like us), friends and families. But how to use it is up to you, so don’t forget to let us know what you think. We’re all ears.

Seeing is believing, just check out the Rejaw feedback room and shout away!

For those who are new to Rejaw, also have a look at the list of basic features.

Enjoy!

- kenn

We’re moving this party over to Rejaw.

Since we launched Rejaw, we’ve been posting about new features, new applications, bug fixes, tips for using the site, and other good Rejaw related stuff over on the official Rejaw on Rejaw account. Rather than maintain this blog and that one, we’re going to switch everything over there.

So, from now on, Rejaw on Rejaw is our official communication channel. If you haven’t been there, go take a look!

Chris

Rejaw is now ping.fm-able

The good folks over at ping.fm have added Rejaw to their list of supported services. Those guys are really at the top of their game- they added support for Rejaw (using our API) in just a few hours time.

If you’re not yet signed up for ping.fm, consider that problem solved- just use the beta code vivalaping.

Welcome to Rejaw!

We all love micro-blogging, but there’s still something missing when it comes to having a real conversation. Oftentimes we find a series of soliloquies isn’t enough.

So, we’ve created Rejaw.

Mini-blog + Chat = Fun.

If you’re familiar with the idea of a mini-blog, that pretty much summarizes Rejaw. But the details are what counts, so here’s an overview of Rejaw’s main features:

  • Real chat. Rejaw comes with truly real-time chat. Messages are delivered immediately.
  • Shouts and whispers. Shouts are publicly sent to your followers, whereas whispers are privately sent to selective recipients that you choose.
  • Images and movies. Just post a URL of an image or a YouTube video, and it shows up in your message.
  • Permalinks. Every shout or whisper has a permanent URL. It’s easy to link directly to a conversation.
  • Guests. You can invite friends to join your conversation by sending them the permalink to your shout. Anyone can join the conversation, even if they don’t have an account on Rejaw.
  • Auto-closing. Shouts and whispers are closed when there is no activity for 3 days, which makes them static archives.
  • Find friends. You can find your friends who use Rejaw from your Facebook friends or Gmail contacts.
  • Desktop app. Rejaw Radar is a desktop application that keeps you up-to-date with the latest shouts, whispers and replies on Rejaw.
  • API. For developers, we have a full API that allows you to create your own cool apps.
  • And of course it’s free!

This is just the beginning — we’ve got a lot more features coming soon. So stay tuned!

We’re looking forward to seeing how you like Rejaw. Please don’t forget to give us your feedback.

Have fun!

- Kenn

FAQ for alpha testing users

Okay, I think I have to write something up quickly to let you know about our plan.

First, as we told you at the time of invitation, this is only alpha. You could find many glitches and shortcomings, but that’s all expected.

So what we’re really interested in at this moment is the stories about how you floundered to find a feature, how hard it was to understand what it is, etc. Let us know all such experiences before you forget it.

As to feature requests, consider that we’ve only finished 50% of all features in our original blueprint. It’s great to see you give us such requests, but in most of cases, those are already on our to-do list. In addition, the reality is that we don’t have enough time to pursue everything, so we need to maintain our focus on the most important thing at a time.

I want to let you know that we’re very likely to say *no* to new feature requests in this alpha phase. I’m not saying you shouldn’t, but you have to be ready for blunt rejection when you do.

So, please find your REAL pain as you use Rejaw, not guessing or speculating a future’s pain, and if you find one, shoot it to us. It could be a very small visual appearance that made you confused. A small fix could save a lot of people. We’re all for such improvements.

Soon-to-come features are listed as follows:

  • API
  • Public profile page

Features demanded:

  • Marking all unread shouts as read
  • Making your shouts private
  • Finding your friends in a better way

Those requests above are all under discussion.

Thank you for your cooperation!

- Kenn

We’re about to give birth!

We’re really excited about releasing Rejaw!

- Kenn