Dennis Update II

Yesterday p-i-g orangepeel and I visited the largely underwhelming Social-networking World Forum in London Olympia (to be fair to the organisers we only went to the exhibition - I'm sure that the speeches and discussions were very interesting). There were a lot more suits and ties than I expected to see, as well as rather a lot of dubious products and business models. I'm not going to point any fingers but if you are demonstrating a new mobile phone application and the best new feature you have in development ("we hope to have this function live before too long") is a menu ("we think this will allow users to select options much more easily"), you might want to rethink your pitch. Or product. That being said, there were some noteworthy stands/pitches (we liked the guys from Omnifuse) and we were very pleased to meet up with Kevin Dixie from Fuelmyblog. Quick, fuel my blog. Down there, on the left. Go on, click it. ;-)

Following the exhibition we had a (long) meeting with the team at Simplicity, to review progress on Dennis. Last Friday we got our first look at the "preview site." This gives us the ability to surf around the user interface - the top of three 'layers.' As usual, we had a long list of amendments, which we went through in minute detail (Dennis the pedantic peasant) and they are being worked on as I type. In the meantime we continue to refine the algorithm and rules that will occupy the second ('business') layer, and prepare for testing the Alpha site once we go live. The bottom 'database' nuts-and-bolts layer is now largely complete, even if it's an empty, vacant skeleton.

There is an awful lot still to be done if we are to meet our go-live objective of end-March, but we are cracking on. Things are definitely taking shape, and there is a sense of momentum. Responses to the concept continue to be highly positive, and though nobody can predict precisely how things will pan out, we are definitely on to something. Perhaps even a whiff of a whale...