Project Guinea Pig: dConstruct feature preview

Lucky attendees get a sneak preview of three new features that we are experimenting with today exclisivly for dConstruct.

1. People you want to meet
2. Messaging
3. Introductions

All these are available on both Lanyrd.com and in our mobile apps, but if you're at the event you'll probably find the mobile apps most useful.

So if you are at the event make sure you have entered your email address in Lanyrd and downloaded the latest version of our native iPhone app or on any other phone, bookmark our HTML5 Mobile web app m.lanyrd.com (These handy little apps will also give you the event and schedule information offline)

We are trialing all of these so we can itterate and improve them before we launch to a wider audiance, so the Lanyrd team would like to say a big thank you to you dconstruct attendees who use these features. Thanks for being our Guinea pigs, please do let us know what you think!

People you want to meet

We launched this feature for dConstruct attendees last week - it lets you browse through our dConstruct attendee directory and build up a personal list of new people you'd like to meet or old friends you'd like to catch up with. You can find out more about this feature in our blog entry from last week.

Use this at dConstruct to make a list of the people you want to meet or need to catch up with before the after party tonight!

Messaging

If someone wants to meet you, what can you do about it? This morning we've turned on our messaging system, which lets you send messages (delivered by email, and push notification to our iPhone app) to people who've said they want to meet you.

You can also send messages to people who follow you on Twitter, similar to Twitter direct messages. Unlike DMs, you can always send a reply to someone who has messaged you even if they aren't following you on Twitter - which should make co-ordinating with new friends easier.

Introductions

Messages from friends are useful, but a conference is a great place to break the ice with strangers. When you add someone to your want-to-meet list, you now have the option of sending them a single, short introduction message.

You can only have ten open introductions at any one time but you'll get your introduction allowance back should the person you message reply to you.

Send us feedback, in-app or in-person

If you have access to messaging, you'll find a new "send us feedback" option on the mobile app profile tab which will let you chat directly with the Lanyrd team. You can also drop us a line at support@lanyrd.com, or if you're at dConstruct itself come and chat to Simon, Natalie, Sophie, Dan or Jake in person.

We will also have with us some Lanyrd schwag, including Lanyrd conference flair badges! a cute analogue way of showing people you meet what you are interested in.

Can't see the new features? We've only turned them on for people who had marked themselves as attending dConstruct before the event started. It's not too late though: If you are going to dconstruct add yourself as an attendee now (or ask us nicely) and we'll turn the features on for you as soon as we can.

We would love to know what you think of these new features, have a play with them and send us feedback