New version of Pipeline

Fall is the season of change and Pipeline is no exception! It's been a busy couple of months. Our first round of beta testing on Newgrounds produced a huge batch of great ideas and feedback. Since July, we've been working on integrating that feedback into Pipeline. The new version is now available for testing and we believe it's the best one yet!

The new Pipeline is quite a bit different from the last version. Here are just a few of the biggest changes:

* Pipeline is now a platform, not just one website. Previously, Pipeline was a single website where people started and worked on projects. We broadened that idea, because different kinds of projects attract different communities with specialized needs. Now, anyone will be able to download the Pipeline source code and set up a customized instance on their own server. In other words, now anyone can have a Pipeline. We will still host a Pipeline instance for demo purposes (check it out here), and a few more for research/testing purposes.

* Pipeline has a brand new visual design. It's cleaner and makes better use of screen real estate, especially for folks with widescreen monitors, which are increasingly common.We've also moved color-based CSS out of the main stylesheet, which means it's really easy to customize the colors of each Pipeline. We now have two out-of-the-box styles, a dark version (default) and a light version.

* Pipeline has a new code base from the ground up. Pipeline evolved so much from its original conception that the old architecture just wasn't cutting it anymore. We took the opportunity this summer to rethink the basic site architecture in terms of our latest ideas and user feedback on what Pipeline should be. Most users won't notice these changes, though lots of bugs will be fixed, performance might be faster, and improvements should come more quickly. Developers, however, will appreciate how much more sense everything makes, and that's crucial for an open source project.

* Pipeline has a new workflow. The old Pipeline was based around concepts like "scenes", "submissions", and "versions", which were unfamiliar and confusing to many users. With this new version, we redefined the workflow around something more straightforward and familiar: tasks. Trusted users now create tasks, which any logged-in user can join. Once joined, users can post contributions (files, updates, etc.) and edit their status (in progress, seeking feedback, completed, etc.) Both tasks and contributions can receive feedback from anyone with an account.

* Pipeline has comprehensive support for multimedia files. Previously Pipeline had inconsistent support for media uploads: for example, you could stream video but you couldn't see thumbnails for uploaded images. The new version of Pipeline fills in these gaps and expands them. Now you can upload video, audio, images, or Flash animation. Pipeline will handle the rest: generating thumbnails (if applicable), rendering streaming versions, and providing in-browser playback support via the open source flowPlayer.

We hope you find these changes as exciting as we do!

Beta Testing on Newgrounds

In mid-June, we had a soft launch of Pipeline in the Newgrounds community, timed to coincide with their bi-monthly Game Jam contests. Lots of folks signed up and tried Pipeline, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Here is a sample of the feedback we received from our first batch of beta testers:

"This looks really nice and helpful." 

"To be honest I thought this was just an ad for a generic site, but I'm pleasantly surprised." 

"Very nice, Will definitely help lots of collabs... Looking forward to the collabs this will help and to a future of better, organized collabs." 

"Wow, I'm impressed... It'll help me in the future and right now." 

"Pipeline is truly awesome."

Obviously this kind of reaction has us really pumped. But even more importantly, these comments came with a lot of great ideas for  how to make Pipeline even better. So we've decided to temporarily take Pipeline offline while we implement our next set of changes. We expect to have a new version up and running in July, along with a contest to entice our next round of beta testers.

Please note if you registered for Pipeline, your account information will be transferred to the next release. We will also try to notify those folks via email when they can log in again.

Thanks for your patience, your feedback, and your enthusiasm while we bring you the best platform for crowdsourcing movies out there.

Changelog for April 18

It's been a while since our last update... So here's what we've been up to:

The Big stuff:

* Private Messaging - Users can now send other users private messages.
* Revamped Dashboard - The new dashboard builds upon the old dashboard and adds several other pages. Users can now see their Inbox, Profile page and change Notification settings all from one place.
* Threaded comments & threaded discussions - Discussions and comments are now threaded. So users can now reply back on a particular comment or reply on a particular discussion thread.
* Submission status - Users can now change the status of each submission. They can indicate if they are looking for feedback on their submission and also claim a submission that they would like to work on.

Some Small stuff too:

* We've cleaned up the Log In widget a little and made it a little more intuitive.
* Bugfix to allow ASCII characters to be seen properly.
* Bugfix to prevent one user from kicking another user out of a collab.
* Minor code cleanup.

So what's been keeping us busy lately?

* Autocomplete – Instead of having to remember the username of a particular user, the system will autofill the username in the form as you type.
* Adding support for web video linking – Users will soon be able to post submission video that have been hosted on youtube and vimeo.
* Enhanced Project status – Admins will soon be able to state if they are looking for members and what type of members.

Changelog for March 29

Spring break was last week, but that didn't stop us from getting some things done.

Big stuff:
* Email notifications: You can now choose to have Pipeline send you email notifications of your choice. To edit your notification preferences, go to your profile page and look for the Preferences panel. Current notification options include:
- notify when your application to join a collab is reviewed
- notify when you are invited to join a collab
- notify when someone comments on your submission
More notification types will be added over time.
* Buttons: when you click a button, it will only submit the first time, no matter how many times you click the button. This should eliminate a number of issues we saw with people accidentally posting a comment multiple times, uploading the same file multiple times, etc.

Small stuff:
* File uploads and new comments are now added via a popup dialog box, consistent with adding new scenes and submissions and uploading profile pictures.
* Fixed a bug where users could delete submissions from the Overview tab. This is disabled now; the Overview is geared towards viewing, not editing.

In the works:
* We're working on an overhaul of comments and discussions. The new system will make it easy to have conversations, i.e., reply to specific people and stay on topic.

Pipeline demo at Georgia Tech, April 14

We'll be demoing Pipeline at the GVU Spring Research Showcase on April 14 at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Details are here, and our title and abstract for the demo is here:

Pipeline: Exploring Leadership in Crowdsourced Movie Production

Crowdsourced movies -- created by volunteers collaborating over the Internet -- have won an Emmy Award, debuted at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival, and screened at thousands of theaters across the United States. How are these movies made, how can technology be designed to support them, and what can they teach us about online creative collaboration more broadly? To address these questions, we first conducted a series of interviews with creators of crowdsourced animated movies called "collabs," focusing on the challenges for collab leaders. We then conducted a quantitative study looking at which factors influence collab success. Now, we're using these results to develop Pipeline, a web-based software tool for organizing crowdsourced movie projects. Pipeline supports a range of leadership styles, from democratic to benevolent dictator, and a variety of collaboration styles, from divide-and-conquer to improvisational. We plan to test Pipeline with real users to study how leadership and technological support affects the process and outcome of online creative collaboration.

Leading the Crowd

I've just posted a short essay, "Leading the Crowd," on the CHI 2011 Crowdsourcing and Human Computation workshop blog. The essay argues for the importance of effective leadership in crowdsourcing and briefly mentions Pipeline and our studies of crowdsourced movie productions. Check it out and let us know what you think!

Changelog for March 13

Lots of new fixes and features as a result of the Piggy's Bad Day test.

Big stuff:
* If you upload a video in a supported format (.avi, .mpg, or .mov) it will generate thumbnails and a streamable .flv file to make previewing easier. Formats that are already easy to preview (.flv and .swf) will also generate thumbnails. In lists of uploads, Pipeline will show an appropriate file format icon (if it has one) for uploads without thumbnails.
* You can now preview uploads of the above formats from either submission pages or the Files page.
* If a submission has multiple file attachments, it will show the thumbnail of the most recent attachment that has a thumbnail when the submission appears in lists (e.g. Scenes page). This "featured" thumbnail will also appear in large size at the top of the submission page. If there are no uploads or none with thumbnails, a placeholder image will appear there instead.
* Pipeline now displays text labels, in addition to icons, for panel actions, e.g. create, edit, delete. It also shows customized text labels when available, e.g. "Upload" (for files uploads) vs. "Create" (for new scenes).
* Scenes are now more visual, displaying thumbnails for every submission they contain.

Small stuff:
* Signing up for Pipeline generates a log event
* Fixed a bug preventing invitations to join collabs
* Fixed a problem with non-functional profile links on the Crew page
* "Speak Up" buttons renamed to "Submit" -- less awkward phrasing
* Panel buttons (create, edit, delete, etc.) easier to see
* Multi-file uploads disabled -- seemed to make the UI more complicated
* Pipeline now handles links to collabs or users that don't exist without crashing
* Max upload size changed from 30 MB to 100 MB per file
* "Play" image always appears over big thumbnail on submission page, not just on hover

Look for these changes to go live soon.