Okay so it’s official
Posted on February 6, 2012 by jessevondoom
Last week we snuck out the first officially supported version of our platform. It’s a hands-on look into where we’re headed and brings a few useful pieces of functionality to the table today — with a rapid update schedule on the horizon and supported one-click updates.
So what is it? The CASH platform has been designed to be an easy-to-use tool that can work with your existing site or become the foundation of a new site. At the core of our mission as a nonprofit is sustainability for musicians, and to that end we want to work with other services not just compete with them. So we built something that lets you manage your world locally but pull in third-party services and data — all that rolls into what we’re calling “elements.” Elements give you the power to embed the things you need on your site with a single line of code you copy and paste from a simple web form.
So what can you do with it today? For us this is the foundation, and you’ll need to be comfortable pasting a line or two (literally) into a PHP file. The elements available are just the tip of the iceberg, and we’ve been building a lot under the water. Currently this works really well to pull in Tumblr and Twitter feeds; merging, sorting, filtering, and styling them. It can collect emails for you, and even provide email-for-download as long as you can upload your download. It’s also good at displaying tourdates, and we’re working on making it even easier to enter them. Step-by-step walkthroughs for each of these are on the way.
With every release we aim to add significant functionality as well as making the interface easier to use. So in addition to polishing the usability, our next release will bring playlists and basic commerce — functionality that we’ve finished but need a little more time to gracefully work into the framework and interface. The other thing high-up on the list is our WordPress plugin, which will lower the technical bar. Expect a full and detailed roadmap soon.
To play with it right now grab this installer upload it to a folder on your server, and visit it in a web browser. It’s a single PHP file and will take care of the rest of the installation and configuration process for you.
We’re still working to make the installer work in as many places as possible, but some hosts disallow features that it requires. We’ll release a more in-depth installation guide for folks unable to use the installer, and we’re continuously working to make the install process as smooth as possible, so look for more on that front too.
If you do install things, please leave a comment and let us know what you think — we’ve built all of this hand-in-hand with artists and want to continue building with a community not just for one.
The kitchen sink:
For those who care about the details, here’s a quick run-down of some of the more exciting technical points that we’ll revisit in detail later:
- Analytics. We don’t have the fancy visualizations yet, but everything is tracked. Every asset download is tied to an element, elements are all tied to where they came from, and we keep an independent session variable so you can see visitor paths through your site. All respecting the privacy of your fans and not getting creepy.
- Identity. When you collect email addresses we’ll verify them for you with an email, or if you like you can skip that step or even sync to a mail provider and let them do it. Better yet, we’ve built deep integration with Mozilla’s BrowserID project, allowing all users to identify themselves using a single, trusted login from a trusted nonprofit in the open-source space.
- Contacts. Right now you’ll see list management meaning you can target specific lists from individual elements, but in the core framework we have the ability to add and manage contacts…so in the near future we’ll open that up so you can import your people, work with them, give them access to private resources, and even do basic relationship management.
- Multiple users. The framework supports multiple admin users and wholly separate accounts, so as we’re working with the admin app we’ll be enabling multiple accounts and even things like account sharing where you can authorize someone else to help you run things.
- Connections. We’ve got a connection manager that makes it easy to manage the third-party connections you use. It also makes it easy for us to define connection types, so look for us to add services and continue to make this an important part of our platform.
- API. API’s are the new markup. Every major webapp has one, so now your site does too. We’re only using this a tiny bit now, but it’s the piece that’ll make publishing your stuff as easy as embedding a YouTube video.
- Functionality. Lots more in the works. Playlists and commerce. Guestlist management and giveaways. Contacts and private streams. Download codes. Deeper and better social media integration. This is just the start.
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