Official Launch of English Version of MessageLeaf

Merry X’mas!!

Surprisingly, it has already been 4 months since I updated this English blog. 

We have improved the UI of MessageLeaf in many aspects in this period including major design change of the website.  The official launch of Japanese version was done on Oct.10, and now we are happy to announce that our English version is officially launched.

<Front Page and Account Management Page>

As you can see, our front page (http://en.messageleaf.jp/) is fully renewed as shown below. 

We also made the account management page fully available in English, which enables any English bloggers or website owners to set up MessageLeaf on their sites by themselves.

<Newly applicable blog services>

We have made MessageLeaf applicable to all the main 3 blog services in English.  Those are WordPress, Tumblr, and Blogger.  Covering the “big 3”, we expect around 200 mil blog owners have become our potential users.

Although we can set MessageLeaf both on Tumblr and on Blogger in normal form, WordPress.com is exception as it does not allow sidebar customization.  Coping with this problem, we created new button instead of popup gadget for WordPress.com blogs.  The button, if appropriately set, would look like the following picture.

<Virtual Cycle to go global>

As shown in our vision and mission, we hope many blog owners will set up MessageLeaf on theirs sites so that they will have feedback otherwise unheard, and will be encouraged to make yet another good entry.  We feel this kind of virtual cycle has already started in Japan, and are very sure that the same thing will happen all over the globe. 

User experience of MessageLeaf

Having been a month and half since the launch, more than 140 users have started using MessageLeaf in Japan.

Here are some feedbacks from our early users.

< from web owners >

l  “I surely got many more “leaves” than “comments” on my new blog post.”

l  “The feedbacks through MessageLeaf are longer and deeper than those of comments in the blog, Facebook, or Twitter.  It naturally makes me feel write back a leaf to them.”

l  “It is actually more joyful than I expected to have a leaf from others.”

l  “One of the readers giving me a leaf told me that he knows me since my previous job, and we finally agreed to have a lunch together through our leaf communication.  It is beyond my imagination what MessageLeaf can do to me.”

l  “I feel the timing of pop-up is too early for my readers.”

< from readers >

l  “This is a new experience.  It feels different from mail or from SNS.”

l  “The pop-up move from the bottom-right is just good.”

l   “If I see it on iPhone, MessageLeaf is too annoying as the pop-up suddenly covers up all the screen.”

All the feedbacks lead to our motivation and to the area of improvement.  For example, based on the last feedback, we temporarily stopped the pop-up in smartphones or tablets, and started re-designing for smartphones or tablets.

We ourselves are the biggest user of MessageLeaf in terms of # of leaves, and we are taking advantage of them.  I believe that creating services that one really needs is the best way, and I am glad to see that MessageLeaf is becoming a great example.

Lean Startup of MessageLeaf

<OurTeam to be “lean”>
The team MessageLeaf is relatively small.  The core team members are
 Yoshihito Kuranuki: Development Designer
 Shiro Fujiwara: Project Coordinator
 Teruo (Intel) Adachi: Chief Engineer
 Eisuke (Ace) Suzuki: Product Owner
Although the above is our basic role, we often cover others’ roles very voluntarily.  We are lean enough, but not too small to stop moving forward without one member.

We basically are doing “Lean Startup”.  Once assumption is well boiled down through discussions, we develop “MVP (Minimum Viable Product)”.  We test those MVPs either among ourselves or small number of participants depending on the maturity of the product.  Getting various kinds of feedbacks, we keep improving.

<Two “Pivots” MessageLeaf has faced>
MessageLeaf has experienced a couple of “Pivots” so far.  “Pivot”, a buzz word in Lean Startup, means a major direction change of the project.
The first one was when I first met Yoshihito last autumn.  At that time, the original idea was kind of a button in which the site visitors can decide on the amount of appreciation to the content.  I remember Yoshihito said that blog owners do not write blogs to get points or something, and he did not think those owners would like to set that kind of button.
I agreed, and through hot discussions, we generated a new idea of MVP that is a “Chrome extension” tool.  If you use “Google Chrome” as a web browser, and set the tool, you can send your message to any website owners.  We tested the ”Chrome Extension” version of MessageLeaf among us and my friends in the beginning of this year.  After asking 15-20 of my friends to set up the tool, and watched how they reacted, out team felt the responses were not what we expected, so we decided to have a lunch party where the users or potential users at that time got together to talk through about their experiences or reactions.  
After the luncheon in March, we felt the need of “pivot”.  One thing was that many people did not use “Chrome” as their main browser.  The other finding was that people did not get motivated as they were not sure if the leaf would be really read by the site owners.  (Even if they can send MessageLeaf to any websites they want, the site owners would not read the leaf unless they also use MessageLeaf.)
We went through a serious discussion again, and within a couple of weeks, we managed to generate a new idea which basically is what we have right now.

I’m not sure how many more pivots we may have from now on, but I’m sure that our team is capable of handling the tough decision quickly as long as we are lean.

Why I started MessageLeaf

Don’t you have an experience that you want to tell something to the website owner, but there are no good tools available?

I myself had such experiences, and I did want to have something which would enable me to contact the website owner as closed communication.
You may say just pushing “Like!” button is enough.  You may say writing “comment” is a good option.  However, I do not want to make it “socialized”.  What I want to have is personal, closed, and still casual communication.
That is how I came up with MessageLeaf.

On the website MessageLeaf is available, you, as a website visitor, can send your personal message to the site owner.  You can write anything you want, but remember that your Facebook account and picture is open to the site owner, so you need to be responsible with what you write there.

You as a website owner can set MessageLeaf on your site, and enjoy 1 on 1 communication with your site visitors.

Many more 1 on 1 communication over websites start going around which make both the owners and visitors happy - that is the world I want to develop.

You can now try English version of MessageLeaf from this blog or the following site.
http://en.messageleaf.jp/

Introduction of this blog

<Introduction>

MessageLeaf is a brand new web tool which I have developed with my teammate from Sonic Garden Inc., and the company MessageLeaf Inc. just started on Jul.2, 2012 as a joint venture of Medical Insight Co. and SonicGarden Inc.

You’ll see in this blog the progress of MessageLeaf and my personal view on specific social or business issues.

I hope the blog will generate “Insight, Impact, and Trust” among readers.