After meeting with Stowe Boyd I got to thinking how we could create a public side to Phuser. This had always been a problem with new users, they signed up, had nothing to play with and then left and didn’t come back. It was hard to see how to add something public which worked with the key Phuser benefits of privacy and control.
My next break came a month ago when I watched a talk given to Google by Suw Charman. About 13.5 minutes into the video she 
sounded like she could be talking about Phuser! I realised Suw Charman was someone who understood what kind of service we offered so I made contact. She was kind enough to meet me for a chat over a coffee.
I explained the problem we were having – that we had shown that Phuser could work as we intended, for groups of people to plan and discuss privately. The trouble was we had no easy way of introducing new people to all the joys of Phuser so that they could quickly understand how it works. This came back to the problem that there was no public side to where new people could play around and get to grips so that they had the confidence to start their own Private Phuses.
Suw had a very good analogy explaining how websites like Phuser need to be public in a similar way to buildings like hotels and company headquarters. You enter the building into an open public reception area where people can see what is happening and they can see other people. You then have progressively more private areas like bars or conference rooms and finally you have the most private area, offices or bedrooms. With Phuser we were dropping people straight into the private areas where they couldn’t see anyone and were expected to know what they were doing there!
Looking at it like that I could see the problem we had created. For those of you not familiar with Phuser the private areas are called Phuses. Each phuse is like a mini-forum or shared space where you choose who can see it. They are great for making private plans with friends or family and work especially well for cross-border business projects where the team is not in the same place or even time zone but you also need time critical responses. This is where the SMS part of Phuser comes in. You can build each Phuse up with tools for things like finding out when everyone is free or sharing files or photos.
The best thing about Phuser is that you can keep your networks completely separate. You can have two Phuses with different groups of people and neither will know the other exists. Great for client projects which need to be separate or for keeping your friends and family life apart. This idea of separate networks is something Facebook is currently struggling with.
After talking with Suw it became clear how we could have a more public side to Phuser and we set about adding a new feature: Open Phuses. Open Phuses are different to the Private Phuses in that, instead of selecting who is part of the Phuse, anyone in your network of people can join them and take part. Besides helping new users see what Phuser is about they have useful business and social uses for company events and information or discussions with your friends.
To ensure that every new person joining Phuser had something to look at and get involved with we called on our company spokesperson, Mr Phuser. He is now part of every new person’s network and he has created a number of Open Phuses about his varied interests (like cheese). When people are ready to use Phuser privately all they have to do is remove Mr Phuser from their network and they are just left with their real contacts. He doesn’t get offended as he has plenty of other friends.
Thanks again Suw! Your advice has had a significant effect on our sign-ups and traffic!
