buddhify 2 is now eight weeks old and we continue to be energised, moved and inspired by the community of users that has grown so quickly around the app.
The new app contains a simple way for people suggest new activities or parts of life for custom meditation tracks. And to date we’ve received 768 suggestions and so we wanted to share what people are asking for.
New things you want
The top 10 suggestions for new areas for content we’ve had so far are:
And if it helps give a sense of scale, Difficult Emotion represented about 15% of the requests.
This is a really interesting set of suggestions and interesting to see some big themes emerging. We take a very user-centred view of the world here at buddhify HQ and so we are using this data to decide how we rejig the buddhify content wheel to include these suggestions. Therefore it may well be the case that later this year we may see two whole new sections for the two most requested areas and other suggestions represented in other areas of the content.
(Sidenote on Driving: for legal/safety/insurance reasons buddhify will not feature content for driving. There are however some ideas and techniques that are useful to bear in mind for driving situations so we hope to write a blog post about that in the future).
Existing things you want more of
Both through direct feedback and analysis of usage data we know which content is the most popular (sleeping, Just Meditation, working online, work breaks, walking) and so it goes without saying that we shall be adding new content to these and all other areas.
Features too!
You have also been suggesting new features or feature revisions for the app and there are some great ideas in there. There can be a temptation to make an app like buddhify more and more complex to service different needs and so our challenge is to work out what brings an improved experience while retaining simplicity and elegance. We will talk later in the year about what we are planning new features-wise but one of the questions on our mind is how to build the sense community in an elegant and non-obtrusive way.
When we’re going to do it
We’re still very much in listening and thinking mode at the moment. Saying that, some writing of new content has already begun and so we hope to see the next set of content arrive on the app in the late Spring, early summer. We will revise this timeline and keep you updated in the coming weeks and months.
The big ambition
Our vision for buddhify 2 is meditation for the people by the people. Historically meditation has been primarily been an expert-led tradition where there is a master or guru or teacher sharing their insights from that elevated role. That is a useful model for some people but buddhify 2 is explicitly trying to be different. buddhify is based on a much more democratic, multi-voiced, peer-to-peer sense of the world so thank you to everyone who is helping us realise that through our little app. And thank you also for your patience while we continue to work and take our time to get it right.
yours on behalf of team buddhify,