BuyNothing Product Update #1

Welcome to the first BuyNothing App Product Update announcement! My name is Lucas Rix, and I’m BuyNothing’s head of product. You are receiving this email because you signed up on our waitlist. I’ll be sending out periodic updates to keep everyone in the loop about the App - what's new, what's coming, and other news.

 

Our BuyNothing community is truly unique in its commitment to and pride in local communities. I’m excited for this next phase, and looking forward to realizing the vision of our new platform together! Feel free to email me with any questions or suggestions.

 

In this update: 

• Beta Launch Update
• New Features Just Released
• What’s Coming Next

 

With gratitude, 

Lucas

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­­Beta Update

­THANK YOU 

  to all of the beta communities in Canada, Australia, and the US! As we near the end of our beta phase and approach our coming global release (to everyone, everywhere), we want to give a huge THANK YOU to the Guides and users that have been contributing to and promoting the app within your communities over the last six months. Your support and feedback has been invaluable to the build out of the app. Stay tuned for more updates on our global release.

­­New Version Just Released

­The newest version of the app (live on the App Store as of Oct 14) includes some exciting new features and improvements. If you haven’t yet, update your app to get the new features:
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­­­­­­New Feature: Sign In with Email

­Finally!!! For those that prefer not to use social sign in with Google, Apple, and Facebook, now you can create an account with your email.

­­­­­­New Feature: Replies and Love 

­You can now post threaded replies to other people’s comments, allowing for more natural dialog in the post comments. 

Sometimes we might not have anything to add in the way of words, but we do want to acknowledge, encourage, or “love” a neighbor’s comment or post. We can now ‘heart’ posts and individual comments! 

­­­­­­New Feature: Change your Location and Sharing Area

­This was a big one, and it really gets to the heart of why we’ve created our own platform: Removing Hard Boundaries!! By removing the physical boundaries of each BuyNothing community, we will now have the freedom and flexibility to decide how and where we want to gift and share with those around us. This new feature puts YOU at the center of your sharing community. Each user can decide to share HYPERLOCAL with others very close by or to share more broadly with people a little further down the street. We’ve also made relocating as easy as a few taps. Recently moved? Or need to help a parent gift items? No problem. 

­­­­­­Next Up: Search and Tagging

­Search: “Why can’t I search for something in the app?”
Results: We’ve heard you! And search is coming! We are currently in design and are user testing some approaches to make sure we get it right and you can search for people and posts, quickly and easily.

“@lucas, when can we tag users?!" 
This is an important feature and a priority for our team. We’re working on it.

­­­­­­In Other News: Redesign of BNP.org!

­We are working on a redesign of the buynothingproject.org site. It's going to be amazing. All the same content, tools, and resources, but in a new design that makes it easier to use them! 

­­­­­­­­­Thanks for reading! Let us know how we can make BuyNothing (and this newsletter!) better. And, remember, you can always share feedback in-app or by emailing me.