Back to work updating the blog

Sometimes, we get busy.  Really busy.  So busy that we neglect our blog and Facebook communications with our users and our fans.

It’s been a long time since I last wrote about our progress and there is really no excuse for the silence.  To be sure, we’ve continued to update, add, and expand our list of features, but I haven’t carved out the time to sit down and write about them.  For that I apologize, and rest assured that this will not be the case in the future.

With that in mind, I’d like to outline some of our broad goals for the next 3 months.

1.     Learn about you - Although we continue to come up with features that we think you may enjoy, I’d like to get better at understanding exactly what you want from KnowTango.  What is your main channel for gaining information about tango events and teachers, and what is the benefit of that channel?  If we were to create the ultimate resource that has everything you could ever want, what would KnowTango look like and what would it do?

2.     Reach out to communities - We’ve been around for 10 months, and there are still many tangueros and tangueras that are surprised to hear about our centralized, global resource.  Most of our informational updates occur on our Facebook page, but we need to find a way to reach out to all our users.  Leave a comment if you would be interested in receiving a monthly KnowTango newsletter.

3.     Revamp our interface - We know that the current site could really be reorganized to increase the usability, and we are constantly looking for feedback and people to help us achieve that goal.

We have a lot of work ahead of us, and a ton of great ideas in the pipeline, so stay tuned and let us know if you have any suggestions.

In just about every industry, to apply for a job you must first present a resumé, CV, or portfolio to be seriously considered for the position.

In tango, however, teachers and DJs come and go from cities with little but the implicit (or sometimes explicit) endorsement of the main organizer.  At best, dancers can YouTube teachers to see how they dance, but performances offer little insight for teaching capacity.  For DJs, there is nothing a dancer could find online to proxy their skill.  And especially organizers, arguably the most pivotal and most overlooked professional in the tango world, there is nothing would be consumers could find to judge their skill.

What about having published resumés or portfolios for teachers, DJs, and organizers? When a teacher or DJ is being considered for a gig, they can simply include a link to past events, YouTubes, and any endorsements if they have them. When an organizer puts together an event, they can include previous events they have organized and any testimonials from that event.  (As a quick aside, I would much prefer to hear testimonials from the professionals working with the organizer than that of content dancers because I think the professional relationship is much more telling).

With the KnowTango Profiles, we have taken a somewhat accidental step in that direction.  Teachers, DJs, and Organizers (or anyone for that matter) can enter events (both past and future) and our profiles automatically generate a map and a calendar for each tango professional.  If there is enough interest, we can easily convert the map and calendar to embeddable widgets so tango professionals can drop their “visual resumé“ on their own websites or blogs.

What do you think?  Is it time for tango resumés?

Hooray, the newest version of KnowTango is up and running!  I know I’ve been a little out-of-the-loop recently, but that’s because we’ve been working really hard to finish our latest release of features.  So far, this is what we’ve added:

• Automatically generated Profiles for every tango event, venue, teacher, DJ, and organizer
  • Each Profile comes complete with a Map and Calendar specific to that Profile.
  • If you see a profile that is incomplete, inaccurate, or simply missing, just add or edit an event.  The moment you update an event with the correct info, every profile is also updated to reflect the most current information.
• Search for every tango event, venue, or professional using our Profiles
• Claiming Profiles
  • Claiming a Profile keeps you up-to-date on any changes (see Watching below) and also gives you the option of uploading a photo
  • Claiming an event (festival, milonga, practica, or class) makes you the organizer
  • Claiming a Venue makes you the Venue Manager.  This doesn’t do anything yet, but we’re working on tools and features for Venue Managers.
  • NOTE:  We are working on our system to verify claims on people Profiles, so for now we have disabled the feature
• Watching Profiles
  • Users can “watch” their favorite tango teachers, DJs, organizers, events, or venues, and get email notifications every time someone updates information on that profile.
• Feedback tab
  • Vote on other users’ suggestions or offer feedback on the features you want to see.  If enough people like your idea, we’ll definitely make it happen!
• Easier way to add and edit events
  • If you’re logged in, we no longer ask for your name and email
  • If you’re looking at a Profile, you can easily add similar events using the text links on the left below the picture

Thanks for all the support and feedback we’ve gotten so far, and I’m greatly looking forward to our next few updates.  Just to give you a heads up, this is what’s in our pipeline:

• Ratings and reviews on Profiles
• iPhone app

We’re also going to get better about posting new features, thoughts, tools, or other cool things.  If you have any ideas or suggestions for something we should write about, feel free to reach out to me at henry@knowtango.com.

¡Feliz bailes para todos!

I have long been looking for a notation to effectively write down tango steps and sequences.  Ideally, I would be able to send any tango teacher a text message or an email, and they would instantly know what sequence I had in mind and be able to answer my question.  This is what I’ve found so far:

• Hong Kong Tango Academy — able to expressed in email, but very long notes to get across a single step.  Just take a look at the basic!
• Labanotation — Seems very complete, but doesn’t allow for the ease and flexibility of text-based systems.  How could one write to a friend or a teacher with a question?
• Tangotation — Requires a three column system to be able to visually parse the letter sequence.  Plus, it’s really easy to get lost in the letters and have to look up more information.
• Rasche Notation — Incorporates a complex grid of direction, angle, footwork, and musicality.  Very complete, but totally impossible to implement in any meaningful way without the special notebook.

Unfortunately, these are the only systems I’ve been able to find that are worth mention.  All of them are unsatisfactory in one way or another — does a good tango notation system exist?  Is there any way to relay tango sequences with a text-based system?

We are pretty excited about the guest post that Sorin will write in the next few days about his opinion on Excellent Teachers.

Sorin is based in Boston area, but is currently studying and dancing tango in Buenos Aires.  He’ll help us compare teaching styles between the US and BsAs.

Sorin’s blog.

For those users interested in offering feedback on our future direction, we’ve created sneakpeak.knowtango.com.

Take a look at the embed feature, the calendar feature, and the new design — what do you think?

In the meantime, here’s just a taste of your feedback:
“Nice work. Nice widget :)”
“What a good idea! Many thanks to everyone who have helped in updating Tango Map.”
“This is really superb!!! I feel like becoming a Tango globetrotter.”
“una gran idea …”
“the map ~ that’s really cool!”

If you have any ideas or suggestions, never hestitate to sent them to suggestions@knowtango.com

-Henry

Hey Tango World! So loud out there, full of music and the silence of dancers (except a few beginners too nervous not to shush :-). It’s exciting to actually merge my work experience (programming) with one of my most cherished passions (tango)! I started programming senior year college, which was thirteen years ago! Mostly server-side web programming, and mostly on UNIX. Now I am more versatile, doing also quick scripts as well as full-blown software engineering. That’s the boring part. The more interesting part is that while being a nerdy programmer in front of a computer at some corner in some God-forsaken lab at Yale, a labmate kept suggesting that I join tango at her now world-famous Yale Tango Club. Eventually I gave it a try after being nudged by another friend. And, woo, that changed my life a lot. It’s no coincidence that so many scientists are in tango; it reminds us the human side of life.

I am studying Hindi now, and the other day I learned about India’s most famous poet, Kabir, and he said that you can spend all your life studying and thinking, but you’ll die not being anywhere closer to the truth; but if you know the 2.5 syllables of love (in Hindi it’s 2.5 syllables), you know life. So true for tango, especially for those who’d tried dissecting the steps but failed to open their hearts.

So I will be one of the people driving the software forward, heart and mind. It’s true that nowadays it only takes two to tango, but I am glad there’s more than two of us in this wonderful team!

We are truly excited to say that our idea has been catching on around the global tango community.  We have gotten a great show of support on our facebook fan page (check the wall fan posts), and in emails from organizers, teachers, DJs, and dancers in more countries than I can name.

But nothing speaks as clearly as numbers: since our launch on Feb 24th, we have had 4,107 visits from 766 cities in 64 countries.  That means a set of eyeballs checks out our site once every 7 minutes — that’s pretty cool!!

I’ve also attached a map of where our users come from, thanks to Google Analytics.  If you know someone who would like the site, make sure to tell them about it so we can have 1 comprehensive and complete global tango resource. 

Users from around the world