The Future of D-COT

I sent out a survey to our active supporters to get an idea on how D-COT is used on a day-to-day basis. Thanks to those of you that participated. I had a sense that there are some components of the site that are not used as often as others and I wanted to get a real good understanding on it. Here are the results:

As you can see, not many use the forums. 馃 This part of the site used to get a lot of traction, but I think nowadays people turn to other social media platforms for their answers.

This surprised me that almost 50% don’t use the activity feed. Some additional feedback included how bloated it is and I tend to agree.

I wasn’t too surprised to see that not many people use the private messaging feature.

We pay for every e-mail sent. The stats from this survey indicate that if these were to “go away”, not many would miss it.

I know there are some of you that love being in the top of the leaderboards. 馃槂 75% of you just enjoy being active on the site. 馃槝

The thought here was to provide another benefit to our supporters and it looks like majority would enjoy a weekly or monthly newsletter.

There are so many Disney podcasts out there. I was surprised to see how much interest there was if another was made. 馃榾

This was a close one! It looks like you enjoy the games. I mean, who doesn’t love games?! 馃幃馃幇馃幉

Other feedback

There were a lot of suggestions for a native app on iOS and Android. I get it… I would love to have that too. I did not try to submit (or develop) an Android app, but Apple denied me when they saw Disney music in the app. I needed direct consent from Disney. I pay royalties and licensing fees to keep D-COT alive, but that was not enough for Apple. 馃槥

What’s next?

I am going to take this information and put it towards more research on where D-COT should go. My first thoughts are “trimming the fat” on what aspects of the site can go and which need to stay.

The beta jukebox (https://jukebox.d-cot.com) has helped me learn how to program an actual web application and I will be re-using this code in the next generation of D-COT.

The initial thought here is to go in the direction of a complete web application. The data will be moved around and realigned with this vision. Needless to say, the main focus is going to be the jukebox and community. I know a lot of you made real friends here and I will never take that opportunity away from others entering this safe, toxic-free environment.

I want to take this moment to thank all of you for making this a happy place. You make everyone feel welcome and at home. Please know that any changes I make to D-COT will hopefully be in the best interest of this community. Here’s to looking to a brighter future.馃尀

Steve is the founder and administrator of D-COT. If anything breaks on the site, @TheSwedishChef is the founder and administrator.

34 Comments

  1. Thanks for the update Steve! I really appreciate the survey and a chance to share our thoughts with you!

  2. Ah man, I love the email feature. That tells me when someone replied to something I posted and I don’t have to go looking for it in the feed. Maybe if it went to a PM instead of an email? At least have something to notify us that includes a link directly to the post so we don’t have to look for it.

    • Ok, nevermind. I see the notifications up there is pretty much the same thing. I just never check those because I get the emails! LOL

    • Hey! Just because the survey stats show that not many people use it, I know that doesn’t mean nobody uses it. :) It also doesn’t mean it goes away. It’s something for me to consider how it gets used in the future.

  3. I am cancelling those email notifications immediately! :rabbit:
    Thank you so much for pouring your heart and soul into creating and keeping this community! :dcot: You have so many visionary ideas and it’s incredible to see how much this community has grown in the relatively short time I’ve been here.

    I’m not surprised to see such stark splits in people’s preferences — some people come nearly solely for the music. I’ve come to love the people, too. This is a tremendous pool of positivity at D-COT! And I hope the responses you received reflect that.

    (As for the News Feed being bloated… some of that may have to do with the :up: :up: s on every little update… :goofy: :cheshire: )

    Again, thank you for your vision, leadership, and positivity! Here’s to new :horizons: !

  4. I appreciate all the hard work you put into into the site, Steve.
    If you sent me a survey, I probably didn’t see it as D-Cot emails go into my junk folder, and I almost never check that :D And with that statement you can see what my answer would have been about the email notifications going bye bye ;) LOL

  5. Thanks for all you do to keep d-cot on the air! It has become my daily music companion while I work!

  6. Thank you Steve for sharing the numbers & calculations. we’re here to keep D-Cot alive and well in the near future.

  7. The forums really surprised me. Im curious, what about the articles the contributors submit? Do people anticipate new submissions or are they pleasantly surprised when one pops up. Maybe the submissions could be included in the newsletters?

    • The blog will remain as well as contributor articles. If a newsletter does happen, these would be included in it.

    • For me I use the Forums less now because they don’t seem to be functioning correctly so it’s hard to see new threads and the latest posts. For example, when I look at any Forum under “All Things Disney” it says the most recent post in any Forum was to the thread “All Things Disney” which isn’t a thread. So then I have to click Forum individually to see which thread actually has a new post and how recent it is. During the week I don’t have much time to do that and on the weekend it’s super overwhelming to try to backtrack all of the week’s new posts. I read the blog posts but I’ll admit I’ve fallen behind since COVID

  8. As a statistician, I love seeing this data (and found it interesting where I was a “minority” in some places with my responses)! THANK YOU so much for this site, Steve. My day wouldn’t feel the same without it and the folks here.

    • Isn’t data fascinating!? Agreed 1110%! :figment:

    • You’re a statistician?! I’m a mathematician! That makes us like professional cousins or something! I, too, love data! :cool:

    • My dad always said, Statistics don’t lie, people do.

      He also said,

      Liars Figure, and Figures Lie

  9. thank you for all this info Steve, and again for all the hard work you put into this. I truly love this community and am so glad I was invited into it!

  10. Thanks for the update and keep up the good work! :)

  11. I so very much appreciate all you have done and continue to do for d-Cot! It is truly a joy to be part of and have that jukebox to keep us connected to our beloved Disney!
    whatever you do I’m sure we will all be behind you 110%
    Thank you Steve! :minnie: :heart:

  12. Thanks again Steve for all the blood, sweat and tears you put in to D-Cot!!! We SO appreciate it! :heart: :dcot:

    I couldn’t think of any feedback to give when I took the survey but now that others have mentioned the activity feed, I’m in agreement that it’s a little bloated. There’s so much going on that it’s too overwhelming and I often ignore it. I want to see updates from my friends but usually to find anything like that I have to scroll through pages and pages of song ratings and favorites first (usually by the same person) so I give up because it’s too time consuming. I’ll click on my friends’ profiles instead when I have time to see what they’ve been up to. I know there’s a way for users to change the settings on their end, but the burden is on them and they don’t. Maybe it would help if there was a way to only see your friends’ updates in your activity feed if that makes sense? I think that would help :)

    • And I like seeing people’s music (and when songs are rated :star: :star: :surprised: !) ! I like the opportunity to discuss tracks along the way. But I don’t often get around to chiming in or providing insightful commentary on it. :(

    • Thank you for the feedback, starbee! :up:

  13. I do like to see that also, but sometimes it can be too much :(

  14. I didn鈥檛 respond to the email only because it landed at a crazy time. (I run a non-profit community service center that also does social services in Brooklyn.) I align with the the polling. I mostly listen to music, which has become the soundtrack to our family life. I used to engage in the forums, but don鈥檛 really anymore. I do enjoy seeing people鈥檚 posts in the feed, even the countdowns to vacation make me jealous. I LOVE the idea of a podcast. I also like the idea of a newsletter. Just all around great communication with supporters and I believe a great eye for the changes needed. I鈥檓 all in.

    A side suggestion, I would easily set my membership to auto-renew. Been a supporter since 2017 and not going anywhere.

  15. I really enjoy this site but I must admit that I would be more active if the forums were more active. I’ve never been able to drum up any real conversation in them and it seems no one uses them for much more than the game threads which is sad to me.

  16. That is awesome – I enjoy finding a fellow math lover! Hi, professional cousin! :)

  17. This site is incredible! I know I cannot be the only one but over the last three months this place has become a sanctuary. Literally a HAPPY PLACE among all the negativity out there. Truly a great place to be and listen to music that instantly cheers me up!

    Thanks seems so little to say, but I will say it anyway, THANK YOU, STEVE!!!!! :clap:

    • :heart: Thank you. :) It’s never so little to say. It’s always warming.

  18. The end result of the polls. Thanks for letting us know.

    :)

  19. I was out of pocket a bit and went in the other day to respond to the survey and it was already closed. One thing I was thinking as I read through the article on the survey results this morning is about the bloating in the feed. It is overwhelming. If all of the “auto” posts on the feed were removed, then it would just be things that people actually take the time to post, which would make it more interesting and engaging and also less overwhelming. You would also dramatically decrease email notifications because people wouldn’t be getting/making comments on auto posts since those posts would no longer exist. Just a thought. Whatever you do, I am grateful for the site and will continue to be a supporter. I love D-Cot and our D-Cot family!

  20. Glad to see so many people love this site, because I do too!

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