Help build a better Pidgin user community

2008 has been a slightly unusual year for the Pidgin chat client. Improvements were made, but the biggest news was caused by unhappy users. That's one of the reasons why I created a user survey to figure out what the big issues are.

If you're a Pidgin user, please fill the survey out! It should only take a couple of minutes and will be invaluable in figuring out how to improve Pidgin.

For some background, a change to the size of the chat input box led to the largest dispute. Time will tell whether the right decision was made; for now a bigger question looms- was there anything we could have done to handle this better?

Most of the discussion occured in a back and forth email flamewar. Frankly it's hard to gauge how big a problem is from a venue like this. To put it into perspective, Pidgin has so many users that an issue affecting 0.1% of the userbase means thousands of people are unhappy.

This post has comments enabled- do you have any suggestions for things we can do to improve the way users interact with one another and with developers? Surveying users is just one step along this path. I'm sure we can do more though, and we need things that can support the huge size of the Pidgin community.

If you're a Pidgin user or someone who has experience managing user requests, write down your ideas!

An introduction

I'm a product management junkie.  I've launched several startups of my own and consulted with many times more.  Making a real impact on users motivates me first and foremost.  One of the first pitches I ever made (when I was still a teenager, no less) was to Bill Gates.

I have the pleasure of working on two products with staggeringly large userbases right now- Google Book Search and Pidgin.  I am attempting to improve the relationship of Pidgin with its users, and will often blog about this.  

My roots also start in engineering.  I both design and build many of the things I work on.

The question I want to answer: What does it take to an idea from nothing to success, and to get others to buy in along the way?

I want this blog to reflect that.  It will have a heavy dosage of musing about product issues, with a sprinkling of entrepeneurship and engineering.

I don't intend on maintaining any sort of regular posting schedule, but I will certainly write whenever I have some stroke of inspiration.

This is a personal blog, and my writings do not reflect the opinions of my employers.