Sprint 21 – We’re back!

Hey! you probably didn’t think it’d been a month since I last updated did you?

It’s been a month since my last update and 6 weeks since my last Alpha release!

Before I share what happened, I want to say thank you to everyone for their kind messages of support over the last month, as well as the Patreons continuing to support SoSa.

It’s really helped centre me and keep me motivated to working with SoSa!

So what happened?

Being completely transparent, a lot has been going on at work. We’re building something incredible that will change an entire sector – but the team is still growing and with that comes pains.

As their tech lead, I wanted to make sure that we kept things moving even when we were struggling and that meant I was working long days and weekends but at the end of it – i needed some time to recoup emotionally and mentally.

On top of that, not that long ago, I started some life changing medication which has been wreaking havoc with my emotional state.

So I kept my head down as much as possible and focused on doing tiny bits of work to move us forward.

Cool Story Bro, but what now?

Alpha Release 1.0.9

Well now, my friend I have an update for you! let’s start with the new release! You can read about it here:
https://blog.sosa.net/alpha-release-1-0-9/

There’s videos and pictures and everything you love <3

The Journey So Far

(I should really make these smaller, they’re getting a bit long now!)

1. Precursor
2. Sprint 1 – The Foundations
3. Sprint 2 – The ummm Foundations?
4. Sprint 2 – Nerd Ramble
5. Sprint 3 – Cooking with matches!
6. Sprint 4 – Now We’re Cooking With Gas!
7. Sprint 5 – Robot Uprising
8. This Is Not the Sprint You’re Looking For
9. Sprint 6 – That’s a Weird Looking Patronus
10. Sprint 7 – Corona Stole My Title
11. Sprint 8 – Adventure Time!
12. Sprint 9 – Now In Technicolor
13. Sprint 10 – Refinement
14. Sprint 11 – Motion In The Ocean
15. Alpha Release 1.0.3
16. Sprint 12 – No Rest For The Wicked
17. Alpha Release 1.0.4
18. Sprint 13 – I Need a Break
19. Alpha Release 1.0.5
20. Sprint 14 – Just James Things
21. Sprint 15 – Wearing My Heart On My Sleeve
22. Alpha Release 1.0.6
23. Sprint 16 – Warm Up
24. Alpha Release 1.0.7
25. Sprint 17 – Coffee’s back on the menu!
26. Alpha Release 1.0.8
27. Sprint 18 – We’re on fire!
28. Sprint 19 – Slowly fast
29. Sprint 20 – Let’s get Nerdy
30. Alpha Release 1.0.9
31. Sprint 21 – We’re back!
32. Alpha Release 1.1.0
33. Sprint 22 – You Look Cute Today
34. Alpha Release 1.1.1
35. Sprint 23 – Sausage Smuggler
36. A SoSa Retrospective
37. Sprint 25 – I am SoSa and don’t call me Shirley
38. Sprint 26 – The best laid schemes of mice and men
39. Sprint 27 – Vogue, Strike a Pose
40. Sprint 28 – a New Hope
41. I Couldn’t Think Of a Title
42. Guess who’s back, Back again!
43. Demolition Man
44. Squid James
45. I AM STILL ALIVE
46. We Didn’t Choose This Life, We’re Just Living In It
47. Let’s go!

Game Night

Next SoSa game night we will be playing Jackbox Party 7!

Sunday 29th November 1900-2100 GMT / 1200-1400 PT / 1500-1700 ET

You don’t need to buy anything this time around, it’s free to take part and you just need a mobile phone / web browser.

Games are max 6-8 players but unlimited audience players, so if there’s a lot of us we can either split ya’ll into groups or just take it in turns who plays!

Get a ticket on EventBrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sosa-plays-jack-box-party-7-tickets-128652492067

Designs

Pleased to say I’m now working with a very talented designer to help me design the Website and Apps, she’s responsible for Botface design that I need to build out and really get’s what I’m trying to build with SoSa so expect great things over the coming months!

We’ve been discussing ideas for the homepage and made a little survey, be great if you could take it if you haven’t already: 

SoSa Homepage, How should it work?

FaceFace

We’ve also managed to progress the profile picture generator this sprint, ignore the skin tones…. we’re working on that

Framework Rebuild / Code freshen up

Framework rebuild is finally finished, I went in to this in more detail in my last update but during this sprint i’ve also had to refactor the app and the chat bots to support the new client methodology.

On top of that, i’ve fixed some bugs inside the app that were related to connectivity, I’ve moved the client library to be at the top layer of the app (so it can always be connected and accessible no matter where in the app you are) AND i’ve refactored some parts of the app, cleaning up the code generally as I introduced.

Chat server now supports more than just chat, becoming our general purpose server.

Stats

LinkedIn grew from 740 to 793
Patreon, We’re steady at 15!
Our Beta List grew from 374 to 381

Our Domain authority is up to 27 from 23! Seems Moz found about 100 domains linking to our website that weren’t there before. 

A bit unusual so I’m going to keep an eye on that – quick growths can usually be a sign of someone buying links and as I’m not buying links that can suggest an attack and i need to mass disvow to stop google deranking us.

Our average search position has improved from 24.2 to 23.2, our impressions are up from 1.78k to 3.19k and our click through rate has gone down again from 2.4% to 2.2% but more overall clicks!

—

I hope you enjoyed my update, please consider becoming a patreon to support SoSa, cool perks on when it relaunches, early access to designs and mockups, bits of the lore that will underpin the SoSa universe and even early access to features when we’re up and running.