I was hoping to find a module or feature similar to Facebook's user chat or MSN instant messenger. Anyone else interested in a feature like this for ActiveSocial?

Side note: is ActiveSocial.com down?

It's not on the roadmap...but I'm pretty sure Will has mentioned it for future functionality.

ActiveSocial.com is down due to a spam attack...read more here:

http://www.activemodules.com/Commun...fault.aspx

There are a lot of different Chat modules out there... I wonder if any of them can report who's in the chat room back to Active Social?

Ventrian has the "Shout Box" module, I'll have to look to see if it supports the userids...

I have Swirl Chat on my site now. It's a great chat module. But it only get's utilized for planned chats. Some groups will actually schedule a chat in advance and invite members (through the forum).

Other than that it's not very "hey, you're online? Me too! Let's chat about this instead of post..." like FB does.

I was just thinking about this today.. There must be something in the air..

I currently use swirlchat from swirlhost. As far as displaying who is currently in a chat room, that shouldn't be too difficult. Looking at the database structure you can run a query to see what users are active and return all their info. It shouldn't be too hard to write a control to do that similar to Steve's image handler. You could then add that to a page returning which users are online. They already have a module that will display the user count in each room.

I've also considered switching to the cutechat module from cutesoft. It's pricey, but I'm becoming more and more of a believer in the old adage "you get what you pay for". Swirlhost hasn't made any updates to the module in over a year, and it's not because the module is flawless. Once I get AS implemented, I'll look at downloading the demo for cutesoft and see what I think.

Has swirlhost come out with a DNN 5+ version?

Posted By Dan Ball on 29 Apr 2009 02:48 PM
Ventrian has the "Shout Box" module, I'll have to look to see if it supports the userids...

The "Shout Box" is out of the question, there is no configuration options, I don't see any id passings, and there hasn't been an update since March of 2006.

(I have had the module for quite awhile, just never used it.)

We actually have two "chat like" items on our internal roadmap. One is basic and closely resembles facebook. The other is more complex and in a format that appears to be in demand, but not available in any other product yet. You should see the basic chat come up on the roadmap after the .21 release.

We use SwirlChat too.. It's a great module other than the fact that they don't seem to be working on it anymore and their support forums are a joke (not sure why they have them).

-Jason

I am currently investigating GroupChat of Think5 which is a video chat module that works with groups also. Impressing stuff, and works well with DNN roles. It requires a jabber server (or SaaS solution).

We also use Swirlchat. Its not too bad. But as it does not integrate with Active Social, im looking forward to what Will has install for us down the track.
Ben

I haven't worked with it much, but I'm wondering if the Private Messaging feature could have a custom template to work more like a Chat/Instant Messaging hybrid?

Definitely needed. Glad to see it is being considered.

Today I have been out looking at IM / chat solutions to go along with the Active Social modules.

I came across Cute Chat / Messenger and was just wondering if it wouldn't be worthwhile for you guys to either buy a redistributable license and just incorporate the functionality.

Or sell the integrated module as an additional addon. 

Or create an integration with it.

The main integration would be:

1) Showing who is available when you see a users information (whether on their profile, in friends list, on group, etc) and then be able to click on the icon and start a chat session.

2) Adding friends to the IM user list on Cute Messenger.

Just some thoughts. And I'm not hung up on Cute, it just looked very interesting. I may just get it and see what I can do to integrate it myself since I don't really have time to wait.

 

We already have a chat solution under development. It should be ready for release in August.

glad this is on the roadmap, would definitely like to see it tied into groups

I just got hammered because we don't have a chat any more. Did not like the module we had up so it was taking down with plans to use the one with AM.

Is it still coming out? Oh I know it's a surprise release for Open Force in Vegas next month right!

try messerchat it is a nice little mod much more stable than swirl, not too rich in functionality but in my opinion the best that I know of on dnn

Posted By Will M on 08 Jun 2009 12:18 PM
We already have a chat solution under development. It should be ready for release in August.

The Roadmap that was updated June 17th shows Chat at a prototype stage to be delivered in AS version 1.4. This post on June 8th (prior to Roadmap) seems to indicate that Chat was beyond the prototype phase if it would be included in AS 1.2 (which was not the case).

Based on my experience I could not see AS 1.4 coming out before Q1 2010. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe some of all this will come together quickly in the near future, but as major features are added and more scenarios to support come about I can see major releases extending out each cycle.

Maybe we just need an updated Roadmap to clarify where we are at on major features. It might be time for a survey as well to determine where things are headed. I haven't seen a lot of clamoring for Classifieds (even though they would be great). But there has been a lot of talk about needing Active Purchase tied into AS for eCommerce. It might be that classifieds are easier to layer into AS than the current AP architecture. 

All of this is pretty much conjecture on my part hoping to elicit a few more details for the near and mid-term outlook for AS and AF. Hopefully it will do that. 

Cliff

Hi Cliff,

I don't want to spoil the fun but I believe that after AF5 the AM team will be focusing more on Active Purchase & Active Cases (and I sure hope they do) . These next versions of these products have been claimed, by AM, to be close to a release a while ago and Will argued that he will provide an update on these products soon. Active Purchase is important for some customers who want to sell subscriptions and Active Cases will be a cool addition into the direction of true Social CRM, a subject on which Will has blogged about a couple of times. Active Cases should provide one the ability to escalate a cry for attention on the forum into a help desk call in the back end CRM solution.

The idea of updating the roadmap for AS sounds great but I'd rather see a roadmap non which all of the Active Modules products can be found to provide AM customers with a sense of what might be expected to be released. An overall roadmap should provide AM a clear focus on what deadlines to meet but most of all it would get us all of their back, nagging about what to expect and when. Keep in mind that a roadmap is just a guidance and can should be able to change, whether we like it or not.

What do you think?

Great post Marc! I appreciate the fact that you understand the big picture. I will be providing details about the direction of all the products very soon.

Posted By Cliff Hammock on 05 Oct 2009 11:05 PM

Posted By Will M on 08 Jun 2009 12:18 PM
We already have a chat solution under development. It should be ready for release in August.

...
All of this is pretty much conjecture on my part hoping to elicit a few more details for the near and mid-term outlook for AS and AF. Hopefully it will do that. 

Cliff

As you see from the end of my post, I was very transparent in that I mainly wanted to elicit some feedback from Will and Crew. It is always nice to hear from them and I thought there might be a need for some clarification on Chat since there were some conflicting posts.

Marc, I agree whole-heartedly with your post and would love to see an Integrated Roadmap for AM. I believe that an integrated solution will be the best for most of my community needs and want to rely heavily on AM core products. That is why I put most of my sites on hold until I can get a better feel for where the integrated suite of AM products is headed.

At first I was really keen on seeing how to integrate 3rd party modules and I will still do some of that with Ventrian products and maybe some others. But for the most part I want to stick with a clean AM toolset.

Cliff

Cliff, I totally agree with you on that. Ultimately, this will be the easiest for me also. B.t.w., I noticed in the latest weekly update of Snowcovered that there were to video chat solutions promoted. Perhaps Will can surprise us when releasing an integrated roadmap .

@Will, I'm really looking forward to your update.

@Marc - Also looking forward to a global roadmap. This could really give us decision support whether to invest further in other DNN modules instead of AM, or wait a bit for the AM enhancements to come out.

My current situation,

- should Iintegrate AS with Onyaktech's CRM solution, since we're already using their Axon for e-mails, or should I wait for AM's Social CRM?

- should we continue to modify ComboLogin for our payments, or should we wait for AP?

I think a complete package with features like Infusionsoft or Netsuite is really what all are looking for to give us KPI stats, recommended actions, social CRM, automated follow-ups, e-commerce, affiliate solution, e-marketing, etc. - all in one package.

I would really recommend taking a look at Infusionsoft for a very benefit instead of product oriented approach. Very transparent and a perfect fit for the SMB market. Netsuite offer more, but are very product oriented and a real pain to deal, in my experience, although they offer more than Infusionsoft. Negative about Infusionsoft is their pre-made blog posts they have spread to their affiliates, and all of them copy-paste this as if it were their own texts. Except for their marketing ethics, however, I really love their product ... would be great to see AM get some inspiration from these guys!

@Cliff, great idea with a survey soon.

@ Will, coming from a marketing background, let me know if you'd like any help with setting up a survey or a focus group.

- Frank

Any update on this?

Will,

Is this still a part of the Active Social project? If not, do you know any products that integrate with Active Social? For the record, I prefer an integrated sollution but I would like to know what is realistic ti expect in terms of an ETA.

Yup, would be great with an update on this :-)

Interested as well...

Any new info on this?