How to master pearltrees ?
Pearltrees is full of surprise, full of unknown functionalities. How do you want to master pearltrees ?
A couple of friends often ask me “how to rename a pearl?”, “how to send a tree to someone else?”. Indeed there are many ways to discover pearltrees and I was wondering what is the best way to learn how to master pearltrees.
Why don’t we create a set of very short videos (about 10 seconds each) ? Each video showing a functionality. Thus each user is able to learn step by step. Watch the video then try by yourself.
What do you think about it ? What in your opinion should be the best way to learn pearltrees ?
Nicolas
Filed under: Platform by Nicolas Cynober on December 29th, 2008
I’m afraid I might contradict you, but I think the best way to handle the monster is to practice, not to imitate. In my opinion this “self-apprenticeship” appears by two ways : pearling stuffs on its own, with average tries, failures and learnings and watching how the others’ trees are organized.
Of course a faq, even more in video can be reassuring, could even be fun.
I mainly agree with Mandy, it is part of the joy of a user to discover functions while pearling, editing, sharing and exploring.
Thus sometimes for very tricky stuff videos can be usefull. The question is : where should help-video stand?
I think they should stand on what can be seen as an “expert” zone like the blog and “pearltrees” website should not be polluted (except the inscription part of the site) with videos.
F.
We could also think about personnal coaches for devoted users… 😉
A couple of other options worth exploring
– An (optionnal) video aivalable during sign-in
– A couple of Dailymotion videos of all types we would send by pearl to newly arrived users
– A couple of Dailymotion videos we would send by pearl at different stages of users learning (not eactly the same!)
– Some pearl videos we would launch randopmly trough pearltree but without specifically adressing them to new users
What you guys & girls would think of those options?
PS : by the way, Francois, having youtube/dailymotion massively pearled and send to new users might bring them on these sites front pages… With some chances to catch the attention of a bunch of interested/interesting new users
I was talking about optional videos. Published on the blog or pearlmailed to newcomers. I definitely don’t want videos embeded in the site.
We already had this idea of helping the community by giving them pearls (we mainly thought blog articles). Using video sharing platforms seams a very interesting idea. Creating another source of traffic, but also creating a new media for viral videos. We are creating a couple of new functionalities each month, these videos might be a good support to promote pearltrees evolution.
The best way for a blogger to cover a new release is to show what is new, right?
I agree videos can be a useful tool to explain pearltrees at multiple stages and for various audiences. The 3 examples that I find most useful at first sight would be:
– at sign-in, an optional “basic” video can be interested for those “to-be” community members who want to know more.
– Videos after each iteration explaining new features to the community on the blog
– a “special” video for bloggers who want to cover pearltrees (maybe the same as the “basic” maybe not) in a dedicated area on the blog