Fluent Community is being compared to, and suggested as a potential replacement for, BuddyBoss.
However, BuddyBoss provides the community feature on both web and native mobile app. At present, the app could be viewed as a key advantage over Fluent Community.
Hence, what, if any, is the plan and timeline for the release of a native mobile app for Fluent Community? Thanks.
Mark Milgrew this may answer your regards why this is being developed….
https://community.wpmanageninja.com/portal/space/community-meta/post/i-know-we-did-not-releas
Debo Ogunrinde, Thanks for your comment. However, my question is not so much "why is Fluent Community being developed?" but rather "what, if any, is the plan and timeline for the release of a native mobile app for Fluent Community?".
When creating a product to provide community, I think simplicity is important and an obvious focus for Fluent Community. However, we also have to consider user accessibility and convenience, i.e. how do most users log in and interact with a community.
Let’s take Facebook as the example and consider the distribution of users by device. The data tells us that more than 80% of users log in only via a mobile phone. https://www.statista.com/statistics/377808/distribution-of-facebook-users-by-device/
This is why I have asked the question about a native mobile app for Fluent Community and tried to highlight it as an important customer requirement to Shahjahan Jewel and the WP Manage Ninja Team.
Mark Milgrew, you have absolutelly right but Fluent Community is a Wordpress based product so it is a little bit different than Facebook and other SaaS solutions. We all (end-users) would like to have native app not only for fCommunity but also other Fluent Products (free for all users, no ads, no tracking of course). Does the fTeam could support navite app forever? Not sure... But you are not alone here. Dont forget that we all play in the same team. We are far away from integrations yet and it will take time to implement other requested features - the native app I am pretty sure is not something we can think of now (expect in the nearest future). You will get your answer from the fTeam what is the plan.
Mark Milgrew, I was not trying to be offensive but trying to help so you can see the current overview/projection from the developer of FCommunity. My take is that this product is still in beta and this space is 1. to provide feedback on testing the beta to assist developer finetune a better product when released, so we can all benefit from a solid release. 2. to add "feature request" for current and future improvements.
If I am not mistaking, there is already a feature requst for mobile app somewhere here.
Debo Ogunrinde, you are not offensive to me or anybody at all (my internal feeling). I dont think anybody here would have such an intention.
Debo Ogunrinde, one of "many" requests here (4 months old) and here (2 months old) + some comments here
btw: since the top search box scope is limited to Posts only there is no easy way to search for the answer in comments etc.
Debo Ogunrinde, No offense taken. I agree that Fluent Community is still in beta. That being said though, while creating a native mobile app and a WordPress plugin to sync Fluent Community into the app will take time, I strongly believe it is a critical requirement for products offering community.
Mat, I think to compete effectively as a product offering community, it has now became a critical requirement to have a native mobile app. Case and point is to look at the competition, e.g. BuddyBoss, Kajabi, Circle, Skool, Membership.io. They all have a mobile app.
Mark Milgrew, fully agree.
Let's start with LTD sale now. To keep mobile app there must be a revenue based on monthly payments (not on LTD) otherwise it won't be supported and mobile app will become out of date fast.
Ps. I would sell mobile app to the wordpress admins only with monthly plans (no users limit but license per domain if the admin want the access to his Community in the mibile app too) if I would be the product owner otherwise app would include my ads and can be free. I didn't check any other offerings in this matter since it is not my case.
Ps. We have over 2000 users here and there are not too many conversations so it is easy to followup even with email notifications. I don't have any plan to manage communities larger than 500 users and I am not worry about the mobile app (yet).
If i could get integration with MS Teams/Google Chat/Discord or PWA then i am fine for now. Of course native app can be awesome and I will try to use it too.
Mark Milgrew, I definitely vote for the app feature too! Although I’m totally aware it might be a while before it happens. There are other platforms like Uscreen and Vidapp that, while more focused on catalog-style content like Netflix and often massive in the fitness community, also integrate many community features in their apps. I know they aren’t as popular since they typically target really big creators, but they’re worth looking into as a reference for community web-app experiences.
I remember Shahjahan Jewel talking about that in response to a post... He was saying they're thinking about a native app and were in talk... But I didn't find the post/comment.
Pierre Debraux, I paste some links above. Just wondering if PWA would be a temp solution for fCommunity but I guess we all would like to have at least notifications on mobile so we could feel more connected to our Community etc. I have also submitted: Feature request: Integration with Twitter, Discord, MS Teams - it could also work as a workaround for notifications on mobile.
BTW: I am not sure how to convince small community members (<500) to install any additional app on a phone but I will think of this when the app subject is in a game).
Wilco W, if this is the way we can get notification on mobile then it is an alternative.
I want to have integration with other apps like m365 because this is a natural integration for me - it doesn't mean that it needs to be implemented in the first place.
Ps. I use m365 and gsuite so just to be clear why I placed this request.
Mat, As someone who’s been part of lots of different communities, I’ve noticed that most users—especially those with less technical know-how—actually prefer using an app instead of a browser to engage with a community. In polls I’ve run within my own networks, around 80% of users (even in smaller communities!) consistently choose the app experience. :) I’m not saying this needs to be the main focus of Fcommunity, just thought I’d share in response to your comment about convincing people.
I agree that an app will become necessary however you have to walk before you can run. I purchased the initial launch of BB app and it was a disaster. They constantly overpromised and underdelivered. The web BB was full of bugs yet they continued to plough ahead with the app while their core product was flawed. I would never go back to BB simply because of how they operate. I want Fluent to focus on creating a strong web version first before even considering an app. As a businessman I think it would be foolish for WPManageNinja to speculate on an app before their web is out of Beta.
Mike Cameron, I’ve been using BBoss on one of my websites and had considered creating an app with it as well. Before deciding, I checked out around 10 different businesses using BBoss App, and while I liked the concept, most of them felt very slow and buggy. It wasn’t the best experience, and in the end, it made me decide not to move forward with the app project. It’s reassuring to hear that I’m not the only one who had that issue!
It would be wonderful if in the future Wpmanageninja could bring an app to the table, but of course, that’s just dreaming for now. Still, the fact that we have this WordPress Fcommunity plugin thanks to them is a dream come true on its own! ;)