Jux Revisited: An Interview with CEO Ted Metcalfe

Posted by Ben Greenwood at 15:26 Blogging

Oct 132011

It wasn’t all that long ago I discovered Jux and gave it a pretty decent write up. It has proved different enough for me to continue using it since then. Jux, for me at least, is here to stay.

Recent enhancements have only made this truer. They include:

Blockquote, photo and article posts can now be created in different shapes and sizes, meaning that if your picture (every Jux post comes with a picture, beautifully handled – almost always) is portrait or slightly lower quality than full, edge to edge production requires, you can still get away with it without it being poorly cropped or appearing pixelated.
Countdowns and Slideshows have been enhanced to provide a new title page and bigger images that fill the screen. These are amongst the most powerful post options Jux offers and these changes are very welcome.
Support for Vimeo as well as YouTube has been added, and the whole video post experience improved so they render bigger and faster.
Navigating posts can now be done via the keyboard arrow keys so you can sit back and relax as you browse and there’s no longer any dead time when you do so.
Failsafe saving means you’ll never lose a post. Never. They say, anyway, and to be fair, I haven’t.
The homepage and photo galleries have been speeded up a lot. This was one of my biggest problems with Jux, so I’m really happy about that.
New fonts and language support have been added.

If you haven’t tried Jux yet, give it a go for a completely different blogging experience.

There are, of course, still some issues with the start up that only launched in April of this year. The lack of social integration is one – you can’t follow a Juxer, comment on a Jux post or even Like one. You can share a post with Twitter or Facebook, but that’s it. It makes for a fairly lonely experience. That’s ok for those who just want to publish, but not so good for those want feedback and community.

This is one of the things I raised with Jux CEO Ted Metcalfe when I had the chance to interview him recently. We talked about the origins of Jux, his thoughts on its future and what he thought about some of the criticism levelled at Jux since it launched.

IOnline: Jux has been described in a number of ways – “blogging in HD”, “blogging 3.0″ – but how would you describe it as it stands right now?

TM: Today, we make a focused, tangible, and demonstrable promise: Jux is the best showcase for your content. This means two things: superior presentation and foolproof creation. First, the design strips away clutter and eliminates the million ways that Facebook, YouTube and others subordinate you to the platform. People are struck immediately by the Copernican shift from frame to content. Second, Jux’s simple, purpose-built tools inspire you to tell stories with bolder images and more expressive words.

In the weeks since launch, Jux has improved on both fronts. Viewing is faster and more natural, with keyboard controls and no gaps between pages. You’ll see this evolve further on touch devices over the next few weeks. Ultimately, less time and attention is frittered away on navigational overhead. What emerges is a more intimate interaction style that’s true to the post-PC era in the sense that devices are increasingly optimized for viewing rather than general purpose computing. On the creation side, the buffet of layout and content options has grown — but purposefully. We study what people are making and where it goes awry. Today, the showcase really works for most cases.

All of these statements are about Jux’s features and performance. That matters. But what matters most is how people are motivated to put more stories online and feel a sense of achievement in doing so. Blogs, even microblogs, are just too darn big and demanding. Social networks are for spreading the stories. Every passion, event, idea deserves a Jux.

IOnline: There is no doubt in my mind that Jux offers the most beautiful, unique blogging experience around and is incredibly lightweight. However, to remain this lightweight you will presumably have to avoid implementing the sorts of features you find on traditional blogging platforms like WordPress – how, then, do you anticipate taking Jux forward?

TM: Thank you! Jux has the benefit of arriving much later. The humongous social media networks can host a lot of the assets as well as provide a platform for conversation and connection. New devices demand a simpler interaction style. And we’re optimistic that system smarts — like facial recognition for image cropping, or popularity algorithms for sorting posts— can counteract product complexity.

IOnline: Early reviews of Jux mentioned drag-and-drop widgets and complete control of the source code – that’s not something I’ve seen in my time using Jux. Am I missing something or have they been dropped in favour of a much more easy to use platform?

TM: During the R&D phase, Jux invited people into the process. However, the app has reached a point where it’s ready for everyone, no tinkering required. So, as you suggest, we’ve hidden the mechanics and given a simpler experience to creators. That said, our DNA is still social and open. Much of our code is on GitHub under open-source licenses. We treat creators as partners. We’re going to find ways to get more people involved in the platform and help them make what they want to make.

IOnline: Jux has most often been pitched as a Tumblr rival – do you agree with that positioning, and if not, who do you as Jux’s biggest rival, if anyone?

TM: Facebook, Twitter and Google will do the most to determine our success or failure. Can Jux contribute enough new goodness to that ecosystem by offering a space for richer collections and stories? Tumblr is profoundly inspiring, not so much for its toolset, as for how its community has bent and twisted the tool to serve the role of ad hoc expressions (among many others). But the challenge of designing this new medium from the ground up is, we think, new and the appeal should be broader.

IOnline: Which raises another point…aside from the ability to share a Jux post to Twitter and Facebook, there’s no way to follow a particular Juxer, like a post, comment on it or ‘re-blog’ it. How do you respond to criticism of Jux’s total lack of social dimension? Was this deliberately left out and if so, why? Will it be introduced in the future?

TM: It’s a stepwise process. Done wrong, or, should I say, done in the typical way, the social dimension would have obscured our focus on content. People do not say that their Canon camera or their Toni Morrison novel “lacks a social dimension” (though perhaps they should). With articles, photos and videos in place, we’re in a position to introduce curation, conversation, and redistribution. Social engagement is our theme for November.

At this point I asked Ted about many users Jux has, how many posts per day it was getting, that sort of thing. His reply?

With apologies, we aren’t publishing specific numbers because there’s so much flux. Suffice it to say, Jux is new, small, and growing. We have aggressive targets. Either people love Juxing and spread the word or there’s no reason to continue.

While I can understand his point of view, I don’t think a new company should shy away from publishing early numbers. That said, he does admit they’re new (no doubt) and small – perhaps it’s this last point he doesn’t want to put a number against. Fair enough, I can respect that.

IOnline: How big is the Jux team and are they all NY based? Can you introduce them one by one?

TM: Jux is 6.5 peeps, all on the ground in SoHo. You can line us up from front to back (or back to front) though we have a lot of overlapping skills and interests. Harrison and I talk with creators and figure out how the product can actually be new and valuable for them. Edvin, our Art Director, takes a no-compromise approach to simplicity while also adding visual refinements of the sort that Silicon Valley is blind to. Josh, our UI engineer + artist, is pushing the new interaction style forward. Greg is our hardcore Javascript architect. Aidan connects the JavaScript to our Rails/MongoDB server stack. And Tim, our tech lead, architects the server and the build/release process.

IOnline: How do you plan to monetise Jux?

TM: Any content platform generates value in two forms: loyal creators and avid consumers. We are open to the idea of charging for premium creative options, especially those needed by brands and businesses. However, ultimately, an advertising model is likely to be more palatable for creators. Happily, we don’t have to do anything now and we aren’t about to clutter people’s content with ads. Other services, like Flipboard, Tumblr and Twitter have their feet to the fire. Jux will benefit from their experiences.

This month, we are focused on the tablet experience (as a way also to improve the desktop interaction) as well some home page customizations and URL cleanup. Next month, as mentioned, will be primarily about conversation, curation and sharing; that is, the basic social feature set, but re-envisioned in such a way that it doesn’t distract or detract. Mobile creation and viewing will also be a priority. Other planned features are tracked here.

It’s clear Ted and his team have some big ideas for Jux. It’s already pretty unique and I believe it has a big future. Not as a blogging platform as such, but as Ted says more as a way for people to publish their passion, idea or event in a beautiful, succinct and “richer” environment.

The pitfalls for Jux lie in trying to do too much. It needs to avoid being sucked into the belief that it needs an ever increasing toolkit and feature set. It doesn’t. Yes, the social integration needs to be improved upon a lot, but by adding that and sticking to refining what they have now, refining to the point of near perfection, Ted and his team will have given us one of the most compelling ways of expressing ourselves online that there is.

Take a look at how some Juxers are using the platform so cleverly already: