Archive for The Future
March 11, 2009 at 11:19 pm · Filed under Checkout System, Payments, Search, Seller Opportunities, Showcase, Site Security, Site Use, The Future · By JB
The Head of Etsy’s Product Team has posted an update on their progress and projects for the coming months.
Source: The Storque
Sara recaps the changes from the past several months including Google Analytics, beta testing of API, the Etsy Shop application on Facebook, and changes to the RSS feeds.
She also mentions features which had previously been promised but have now been put on the back burner, including more tools for Etsy teams, and the Super Etsy Mini.
Key points in their plans for the coming months include:
- “Search is our top priority for 2009. We anticipate numerous updates to Search throughout 2009.” (more details are available in Product Manager Sean Flanagan’s Storque article here.)
- Payments: There is currently a seller survey about payments, which Sara did not mention but that will possibly result in some new payment options being incorporated into Etsy, such as google or RME. Sara only mentioned changes which have already occurred such as sellers being able to pay their bills with paypal, and the fact that Etsy now employs a collection agency.
- Checkout: In the coming months we will be working to better clarify the functional elements of the overall (checkout) process, including introducing inline registration (i.e. letting first-time buyers checkout on Etsy without forcing them to confirm their registration first).
- Safety, Security, and Trust: No specific details are given here, but Sara says “While it may not always be possible for Etsy to disclose its fraud deterrence practices…Etsy takes these issues very seriously and thus we continue to update our infrastructure to keep fraudulent behavior off of our site.
- Showcase: In March you will see improvements to the design of Etsy’s Category pages and, more specifically, the design of the Category Showcase promotional modules at the top of those pages. …
In the coming months, we are looking to expand Showcase placements to other relevant areas of our site to provide more opportunities for sellers to gain additional exposure. (ed:this is possibly related to Sean’s mention of possibly selling paid ads on the search results pages.)
- Seller Tools: In the next month, Etsy plans to release tools to allow sellers to rearrange the items in your shop.
- Site Performance: Sara does not mention any details, but refers readers to Chad’s recent article here which goes into detail about site performance.
Sara closes with the promise of more regular updates:
I’ll be back with regular updates on what we’ve accomplished from this list and what else we have lined up for the remainder of the year.
For the full text of Sara’s article please see The Storque.
Commenting is closed for this article, but there is a forum thread open to comments.
March 9, 2009 at 9:21 pm · Filed under Search, Site Maintenance, The Future · By JB
Etsy’s Chief Technical Officer Chad Dickerson wrote an update today on Etsy’s technical progress and plans for the coming months.
Key points included:
- Monitoring and Communication
we rolled out a sophisticated monitoring system in November that today enables us to keep an eye on 700 services running on over 170 pieces of hardware, including servers, network gear and storage systems. When there is an issue with one of our systems, our engineers are proactively alerted. The monitoring system performs over one million automated checks every day — about 12 checks per second — and notifies us of any problems 24×7.
…
We also use a third-party service from Gomez to proactively measure page load times for Etsy at various points around the world. Gomez (which is used by 14 of the top 15 most visited sites on the Web) is an incredibly rich information source and tells us how fast Etsy’s home page is loading right now in Los Angeles, or last week in Madrid or the average for the world last Tuesday.
- Performance and Scalability
our performance as measured by our own systems and Gomez has vastly improved in the past six months even as site usage has grown considerably. In other words, the changes we have made to our systems and approach are demonstrating scalability. The numbers from Gomez, our third-party measurement service, tell the story in clear measurable terms. Our home page now loads 2-3 times faster in most locations around the world compared to October and as much as nine times faster in some places
…
We achieved some of these improvements by using the services of Akamai, a web infrastructure company. Akamai directs 25% of the world’s Web traffic using 40,000 servers in 70 locations around the world.
- Search and Developer API
When I arrived in September, Etsy’s search function was unacceptably slow, plain and simple. As I wrote in that update: “Some searches are taking as long as 60 seconds to return results and others are timing out altogether.” We began work on Search immediately. You should have noticed speed improvements in search and across the whole site beginning in November as we improved existing search and eventually migrated the backend entirely to a widely used open source platform (Solr) in January.
…
In February, the Etsy API has also been released to a small group of developers and a public beta launch will follow soon.
- Looking Ahead
Looking ahead, our goals in the Engineering Team are very simple: to continue to refine Etsy’s technology architecture towards a high-performance and scalable model, and to deliver the new features to buyers and sellers in the areas described in Maria’s update on Etsy’s priorities for 2009.
Source: this Storque article
February 28, 2009 at 2:03 am · Filed under Etsy Communications, Miscellaneous, The Future · By GreenMamba
In this Storque article, Maria Thomas touches base with the Etsy community, addressing such topics as 2008 (a very brief retrospective); operational updates and a short list of product-related priorities; reaching out to Etsy sellers, which includes a focus on non-US shopowners and an upcoming trip to Europe; and the introduction of two new consultants: Sep Kamvar, “one of the world’s brightest minds in personalized search, computational methods and data mining”; and Louis Sagar, “a recognized innovator in home interiors, artisan craft and lifestyle retailing.”
Under the heading of ‘The Bigger Picture’, Maria concluded by asking a few questions of the Etsy community: (excerpted)
I’d like to close with a question: what business do you think Etsy is in?
[Followed by a paragraph about Zappos.com and a quote from its CEO, Tony Hsieh.]
So, what do you think? What has Etsy tapped into that’s bigger than creating a marketplace for handmade items, vintage goods and supplies? I will be curious to read your thoughts and will post again on this subject in April. Please join the discussion in this forum thread (we’ll close commenting here to consolidate dicussion in one thread).
Be sure to read the full article here, and add your comments and questions to the companion forum thread linked above.
February 4, 2009 at 8:59 pm · Filed under Features, The Future · By JB
Etsy CTO Chad Dickerson is starting beta testing of an open Etsy API. The testers are by invitation only but if you are a coder or developer you can ask to be included.
source: this Storque article
When I joined Etsy, one of the things I was most excited about was the proliferation of applications created by outside developers using data available from our servers. Historically, Etsy never made it difficult to access the functions that were created to serve applications like Time Machine 2, Color Picker and Treasury, but they were all officially unsupported for outside developers. Not surprisingly, developers “found” these capabilities and began building applications and services around them.
We think a formally supported Etsy API will be good for everyone, too. To that end, I am excited and proud to say that Etsy has begun an invite-only beta test of an official API with a select group of developers. It means supporting a new type of customer in addition to the buyers and sellers on Etsy: the developer. Releasing APIs takes significant thought and follow-through. So like those before us, before releasing the API publicly, we wanted to make sure that the API had the appropriate infrastructure that developers need to make them successful. We want to have the system in place to gather the appropriate information from developers to support the higher demands third party applications place on our system. That meant creating documentation, developer key provisioning, and stable supported methods that developers can depend on. We have spent the past few months putting these features together, with the effort being led by Tom Kutter aka kutty on the Product Team and Justin Sheckler aka Stunji on the Engineering Team. In reaching out to a number of developers who have already built Etsy applications, we have spoken to them about those applications and future ones they want to build. If you are a developer and are interested in joining this early-stage beta, please email us at developer@etsy.com
source: Chad’s twitter
new Etsy API, now in invite-only beta: http://bit.ly/fZmiV if you’re interested in joining, please dm me. big thx to @jaykayess!
If you are not on twitter, dm= direct message, it’s the twitter equivalent of a convo on Etsy.
December 24, 2008 at 6:07 pm · Filed under Etsy Staff, Features, The Future, Views / Counters · By JB
source: this Storque article
Tom Kutter, aka Kutty, is a new product manager at Etsy and focuses on building products for Etsy sellers and developers. Welcome Tom!
Etsy is currently conducting a beta test with Google Analytics to enable Etsy sellers to track metrics such as pageviews, site visits, popular content and page referrals.
We have contacted a small group of sellers to help us with beta-testing. We’re hoping to complete beta testing soon, and at that point, we will have more to say about the timing of releasing Google Analytics to the entire seller community. So expect an announcement here on the blog, in the forums, and to the Etsy News email list. The release will be accompanied by an FAQ and links to Google Analytics resources.
For now, we wanted to give Etsy sellers a heads up.
Shortly after this Etsy announcement, Etsy competitor Artfire publicly announced today that they are introducing Google Analytics stats free to all members. Previously, stats had only been available to Artfire paying members.
update: Google stats are already live in production on Artfire.
December 6, 2008 at 3:53 pm · Filed under Etsy Staff, Street Teams, The Future · By quirke
According to her blog, Etsy Teams leader Sarawearsskirts/Girlscantell will be leaving Etsy as of December 31st, since her position has been dissolved. Stellaloella answers questions in this forum thread.
stellaloella says:
Hi, everyone. Yes, it’s true that Sara will be leaving her position as Etsy Teams coordinator at the end of the calendar year. The Teams program, however, will continue on but with a slightly different direction in 2009. We definitely value all the Etsy Teams, Team members and the incredible work Sara has done with the program thus far. Matt will hopefully be able to elaborate more on the future of the Etsy Teams program in the coming months. For the time being, Teams should keep on keepin’ on with all the amazing work you do in these mini-communities.
On a personal note, I will definitely miss working with Sara, as I’ve come to admire her greatly for her community-mindedness and creative ambition. I wish nothing but the very best for Sara in all her future endeavors.
I believe she has plans to stay active on Etsy with her personal shop, girlscantell. That said, I ask that you please be respectful of her privacy regarding her employment with Etsy. Speculation about the hows & whys of this decision are potentially hurtful to the company and to Sara, and so I ask that you please remain considerate of the people involved in this matter. Thank you.
edit Dec 8 by JB
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5946469&page=4
Matt posted here, with additional information
matt says:
Hello,
I will be sending this out to the teams later today, but wanted to share it here first. I apologize for the delay in getting this out.
Thanks, Matt
—-
Dear Friends
Etsy Teams are part of Etsy’s foundation, and we are committed to working more closely with all of you to help promote our joint goals. Since I created the Teams idea three years ago, over 450 Teams with 20,000 members have formed around the globe. It’s time for Etsy to take a closer look at how we can better support Teams and your needs.
Over the past few weeks, I have spent a great deal of time speaking with Teams and working with Maria to look at what Etsy is and isn’t doing with the Teams program. As part of this examination, I recently made the difficult decision to discontinue the role that Sara Selepouchin currently holds at Etsy. (For those of you who do not know Sara, she is the friendly lady who has been running the Teams program.) This decision is in no way a reflection of our commitment to the Teams program.
On the contrary, I see it as a first step to better aligning Etsy’s resources to meet growing needs of Teams. I will be creating a new Brooklyn-based position to work closely with me to develop and implement new tools, collaborative promotional, and branding opportunities for Etsy Teams. New Team profile pages, private forums, and more are among the top priorities for the first part of 2009 as mentioned in Maria’s Storque article: http://www.etsy.com/storque/etsy-news/talking-shop-with-etsy-ceo-maria-thomas-2853/.
Sara will continue working with Etsy until the end of the year. She will be meeting with a couple other admin, including me, to pass on her tasks, information and ideas so we can continue to provide support to Teams without any interruption. In the new year, Danielle (Etsy admin daniellexo) and I will be available and actively involved in handling Team page changes, questions, and content. We now share the teams@etsy inbox and are committed to keeping your Team information up to date and helping to facilitate your Etsy Teams in any way possible.
Organizational change is part of the natural, sometimes painful, process of building a great and lasting business, and with it comes great potential but also some hard choices. It is never easy when someone loses her job, and I can assure you that this decision was not made capriciously. We are all very grateful for Sara’s contributions to Etsy. I thank Sara for her one and a half years at Etsy, and I wish her the very, very best luck in her future endeavors.
I remain more committed to Etsy Teams than ever. I see the incredible role they play in our communities and want to make sure that Etsy Teams receive the attention and resources they deserve.
I appreciate your understanding and compassion in this matter.
As always, I am available at matt [!at] etsy.com
Please address all Teams related inquiries to teams [!at] etsy.com
Thanks,
Matt Stinchcomb, VP, Communications- Etsy.com
Posted at 2:26 pm, December 8 2008
November 3, 2008 at 9:14 pm · Filed under Etsy Communications, Etsy Staff, Search, The Future, The Storque · By GreenMamba
Today Etsy published this very informative article by CEO Maria Thomas.
In it she shares her experiences meeting with a few Etsy Team members, introduces some new hires, addresses a few ongoing community concerns, and details some upcoming feature changes and upgrades.
Excerpt:
Search
One immediate and urgent project involves architecting substantial improvements to Etsy’s search function. During the next week or two, you should see marked improvements in the speed at which Etsy’s search function returns search results (note: this refers to the speed with which users received results to a given query). Many of you and many inside Etsy want to improve search in other ways. That’s coming too, but I think speed trumps all, especially in the holiday season.
We also plan early in 2009 to begin to change the way Etsy’s site search actually works. It was originally designed to return the most recently listed items first. As a result, Etsy understands that many of its sellers renew listings before their original expiration dates in order to push items closer to the top of search results for a particular query.
I believe that Etsy must design its site search with buyers in mind. Its main purpose should be to help buyers find what they’re looking for. Returning items in reverse chronological order isn’t the best way to achieve that. At the same time, Etsy should provide sellers with various options to advertise and promote their merchandise to Etsy’s enthusiastic and growing buyer base. Redesigning the search function and creating new ways for sellers to advertise on Etsy are two important initiatives.
Find the complete article here and the companion forum discussion thread here.
September 17, 2008 at 12:23 pm · Filed under Convos, Features, Listings, The Future · By GreenMamba
Etsy announces the impending arrival (no firm ETA) of a long-asked-for feature, Shop Vacation Mode, and gives a sneak peek at how it will look and function:
Excerpt from the Storque:
Here’s a sneak peak of Etsy’s upcoming feature, Vacation Mode. Vacation Mode allows a seller to put her shop on hold if she is out of town, sick, or otherwise wants to take a break from selling. We’ll be rolling it out soon, so keep an eye out!
When in Vacation Mode, items in a seller’s shop cannot be purchased. The seller’s shop will appear empty, with a special vacation announcement. The seller’s items can still be viewed via a direct item link (if they are linked from an outside blog for example), and can still be Hearted (added to favorites), but will not appear in site searches or the Category Browser. Buyers can sign up to be notified via email when the seller returns from Vacation Mode.
How it works:
Your personal Vacation Mode settings:
- From “Your Etsy” click on “Vacation Mode” under Shop Setup.
- The Vacation Mode page has prompts for a vacation announcement, Convo auto-response, and on/off switch.
- Enter your desired announcement message and Convo auto-response about being on vacation.
- Leave the on/off radio buttons set to “off” if you are just setting up the process at this point and click “Save.”
Turning Vacation Mode on and off:
- When you are ready to go on vacation, click on Vacation Mode from Your Etsy and set it to “on” and save.
- Your shop will now be in Vacation Mode and will function differently:
- Your Shop Announcement has been replaced with your Vacation Announcement.
- Items no longer appear in your shop.
- Any Convos sent to you will get an auto-reply.
- On your Shop page, Potential buyers will see a field where they can opt into having Etsy notify them when the seller returns from vacation. Their email addresses will be kept private.
- On all of your listing pages, a banner appears across the top announcing that the shop is temporarily closed and the “Add to cart” button has been replaced with a greyed-out “on vacation” notice.
- Your items no longer appear in Gift Guides, searches, Category Browser, flash apps such as Pounce, Colors, Shop Local, or Geolocator.
For complete details about this - and a related ‘batch deactivation’ - feature, please read the full Storque article.
To comment, join the discussion on this Etsy forum thread.
May 5, 2008 at 6:03 pm · Filed under Chat, Etsy Communications, Events, The Future · By JB
As reported in this Storque article, Etsy is holding a chat to gather community input on the issue of Etsy sellers having employees. This issue has come up a few times recently in the Etsy forums.
The meeting is Friday May 9
6 pm Central European time zone
5 pm UK time time zone
12 noon eastern USA time zone
11 am central USA time zone
10 am mountain USA time zone
9 am pacific USA time zone
Join us for a discussion and feedback session about employees and your Etsy shop. Rob, aka Rokali, co-founder and CEO of Etsy, will be leading the workshop.
When: Friday, May 9, 12 noon (Eastern US time) times on the Virtual Labs schedule are displayed in your local time
Where: Treehouse Room, Virtual Labs
…
Agenda:
For those selling handmade goods: Are employees necessary for a seller to “make a living making things”? Are the items still “handmade”?
What sort of hired help is needed for handmade sellers? Is *what* potential employees do for the shop relevant?
Does the number of employees that a business has impact whether the shop belongs on Etsy? If so, how many is too many?
Are different rules necessary for sellers of commercial supplies and vintage goods? Are employees acceptable for these types of shops?
What sort of information do you need (for example, links to information about employment law) to grow a business that includes employees?
Should sellers who are outsourcing, involved in collectives, and employing people be approved by Etsy? What sort of approval process would you be interested in?
UPDATE Monday May 12 by JB:
The minutes to the meeting are here
April 11, 2008 at 4:58 pm · Filed under Etsy Communications, Events, Features, Miscellaneous, The Future · By quirke
Today’s Town Hall meeting in the Treehouse of the Virtual Labs was attended by over 130 people. While a transcript will be available later in the Storque, here are a few notes in advance:
General notes:
-Etsy currently has 73,478 shops with at least one item
-There are currently 60 Etsy employees
-Engineering comprises ½ of the company
Rob said that they are developing 2 major changes for the near future and 6 other developments for further down the road.
The 6 future developments are:
-currency conversion
-shop stats for sellers
-dynamic Team sections
-“stuff with video”
-“real-time multi-user stuff” (like the virtual labs)
-an in-house payment system
The 2 upcoming changes are:
Changes to Listing Periods for Renewals – This change will mean that when you renew an item, instead of adding 4 months from the previous expiration date, the additional 4 months will start from the date of renewal.
Changes to Search/Categories – Top level categories will be clarified, and “filters” will be added, such as “who is it for?” and “what is it made of?”.
Other items of interest:
-revamping the forums is being looked at from a database perspective right now and remains under development
-the “first draft” of the separation of supplies/vintage from search is completed
-supplies/vintage will hopefully get their own place by the end of the year
-when shop stats are provided there will be different levels of stats available starting with free, and then more detailed stats costing “a few bucks”
A great many other smaller issues were discussed – we will link to the transcript once it appears in the Storque.
UPDATE April 15 by JB
The transcript of the town hall meeting is posted here
The Storque article summarizing the meeting is here
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