Jodel now has channels! In this post we will introduce you to this new feature to make sure you have the best possible start.
Wait, what? Channels…?
Exactly! Imagine there was a place on Jodel for you to discover, build and join specific local communities. A place where you could find and talk to all people around you sharing your passions and interests. A place where musicians can find people nearby to jam with and gourmets could exchange tips about the best restaurants in town. Channels will enable all this and much more!
When you subscribe to a channel, everything that Jodelers around you post in it will automatically appear in your home feed. This will give you the power to decide what you see when you open Jodel. To read only one specific channel, simply tap on its name, either in the home feed or in the channels tab.
To give you a head start we propose some simple first channels we consider important for any local community:
- 🙌JodelersHelpJodelers is the part of your local community that aims to deliver a great local question & answer experience. What was the loud noise 2 minutes ago all about? Why do all people nearby suddenly wear red sneakers? This is a place to help each other and satisfy your curiosity.
- 😻Jodelzoo is the home for all of our petlovers. Here you can get your daily dose of cuteness to get you through a rough day.
- 📅HappeningToday! is the place where fellow Jodelers keep each other updated about cool stuff to do in their city. There’s some awesome show in your neighbourhood? A new shop is opening up? Drop a message and receive some love!
Awesome! But how do I follow / unfollow a channel?
Wherever you see a box next to the channel name you can tap it to either follow or unfollow it. You will find such a box either in your channel overview, in the search results or directly in the channel feed.
To post, reply or vote on a channel post you must also follow it.
Makes sense! Where do I find the channel for my passion?
In the channels tab you have a bunch of tools to explore other channels or search for a specific one.
You can click on “discover more channels” to get a list of all channels available in your area. This is a great place to get inspired and see what is out there.
By tapping on the magnifying glass you can also search for a specific channel. While typing you will see some existing communities that match your search. On the right you will see the button to follow / unfollow it. The counter next to the button shows you how many Jodelers around you are currently following this channel.
If the counter shows a “0” it means that in your city no one follows this particular channel, yet. Be the first one and start building your local community.
Great! Anything else I should know?
There is also the possibility to link to a channel to help others find the right one.
Type “@” + “channelname” (e.g. “@selfies”) to create a clickable link to the channel.
Of course, it goes without saying, that our community values and guidelines also apply to all channels. So keep up the good jodling and stay positive! #GoodVibesOnly
Ok, now you are a master of channels. Spread the knowledge and help other Jodlers. The more use it, the better it gets.
We will continuously improve channels in the future. As always, make sure you add #feedback to all your suggestions so they reach and inspire our team (in 🇬🇧 if possible so everyone in the HQ can understand you 😌).
Have a great time and enjoy the endless possibilities to discover and talk to like-minded people nearby!
Much love and good vibes from the Jodel-HQ
Niklas and the Jodel Team
Mar 8, 2018
Dear Jodeler,
In the past three years we have continuously worked towards growing the Jodel community and providing new features to better connect you with Jodelers in your city. Today, we are proud to have built a positive and caring community that shares fun and interesting experiences, helps each other out and even meets up. We were impressed and moved by the countless stories of Jodelers forming friendships, getting married, and even having babies. Jodel today is the place where people come to connect with the nearby community and we are thrilled to continue building this further in the coming years. There are a few new features we’re working on that we’re especially excited about right now.
In order to continue building our community, we also want to work on the financial sustainability of the company. Enabling and developing Jodel means enormous costs that have so far been covered via external investors. This will likely still happen in the future, but depending only on investors of course comes with high risk. As Jodel means a lot to all of us, our financial sustainability is essential.
In the near future, we will thus start to experiment with revenue streams and you may see some occasional ads. There are currently a few formats we are thinking about. Some will be tested earlier, others later. It is important to us and we are determined to…
- …only show ads in formats that will not negatively influence the current usage of Jodel. We won’t destroy our colourful design and the philosophy behind it with banners and interstitials. We actually believe we’ve found ways to incorporate ads that improve your experience on Jodel.
- …only show ads very occasionally. At the beginning, you will have to be lucky to actually see one.
- …make ads as funny and relevant as possible. Although, like anyone, you probably want to earn 500€ overnight, we won’t show you crypto traders trying to get your money. Or should we? As usual, tell us via #feedback.
Much love and good vibes from Berlin, we are looking forward to the future!
Tim and the Jodel team
Mar 7, 2018
Dear Jodelers,
Another year has come to an end — and it has surely been an exceptional one. We would like to take a short journey with you and revisit the best moments of 2017.
So grab a cup of tea, hot chocolate or mulled wine if you will, and let us travel back in time to reminisce on the happy times.
Beginning of the year, we celebrated the first successful year of user moderation. The local sheriffs (our amazing Jodel moderators) have done a great job restoring order and keeping the peace. If you’d like to learn more about user moderation, feel free to read the original blog post here
We released several cool features that transformed the Jodel experience around the globe. Check out the following links to read more about them.
The Notification Center
Share a Jodel
Thank a Jodeler
Mark Repliers
Slideshow
Drawing on pictures
We certainly didn’t expect all the creativity Jodelers showcased with this feature! We are looking forward to see more of it in 2018.😊
You have posted some amazing stories revealing the love, care and togetherness shared in Jodel communities worldwide — so many we could write a book!
One Jodeler posted his story of sharing a hospital room with a poor homeless man named Andreas. His story touched the hearts of the Jodel community. Jodelers came together to help Andreas with a fresh start — a trip to the dentist, a new job and even an apartment! Best of luck pal!
Not all stories get the attention of thousands — often times they only touch the lives of few. The magic is what lies in each that brings us together and creates joy for Jodelers. 🤗
Last summer, our investors — big part of our Jodel family — expressed their trust and support. Not only they gave us valuable advices, but also invested in our ideas and vision.
We’re thankful for the opportunity to expand and grow our HQ team so much we needed a new office space!
Completely occupied ensuring the Jodel app runs smoothly, we almost forgot our birthday! Jodel turned 3 on 20th October! 🎂
So here we are, arriving back in present day. Thank you for taking part in the trip, it’s been an amazing journey filled with your amazing ideas!
You allow us to do what we ❤️ the most, bring people together and make a difference in their lives.
Before we all go back to our local communities, let us share a peek into the future.
As you all know, Jodelers have a lot in common, but we’re are also very unique. That is why we want Jodel to be a place where everyone finds what they like and people who share the same interests.
Unlike bears, we will not hibernate for the winter. We have some big things planned for Jodel in 2018! 😉
We look forward to continuing our journey together.
Happy New Year and keep up the good jodeling! 🎆
Barbora & the Jodel Team
Dec 31, 2017
As we all know, the universe is responsible for distributing karma among us Jodelers. It rewards the positive and supportive while punishing the bad ones.
The more Jodelers do good, the better the vibe in the community around you and the more fun everyone has.
Now it is time to adapt our concept to all the new features and dynamics that didn’t exist when we first negotiated our karma deal with the universe. Your #feedback reached us, and we adjusted our systems. We specifically focussed on helpful and supportive actions within the communities. By this we want to help you spread positivity among the Jodelers.
Among others these two are the biggest changes:
One of our favorite features is OJ’s ability to give a thanks to other Jodelers that made his/her day. No matter if they helped you out, gave great advice or made you burst out in laughter, with a thanks you can show your appreciation. From now on this will also boost their karma accounts as the most valuable action.
Downvoting is a tool meant to help the communities to curate their feed in real-time. Only the good and engaging content stays while the negative disappears. Unfortunately, there are still some scattered members of the downvote mafia around. They are creeping through the feeds, trying to take away the well-deserved karma of others. To counter them, downvoting will now cost a symbolic amount of karma points (2). This will make the downvotes meaningful again and make sure they only hit the posts that deserve it.
The vast majority of us will barely notice this. The downvote mafia, however, will face a harsh and troublesome future…
Reporting abusive posts to our moderators is one of the most important things Jodelers can do. It helps keeping the Jodel world clean and fun (click the little three dots to report a post breaking our community guidelines). This is why we will from now on reward the correct flagging of abusive behaviour. Being a great karma-bountyhunter is also the first step to become a moderator.
You reported a Jodel that is not against the rules? Rest assured. You will not get any Karma for it but also not lose any. Making us aware of potential abuse already helped a lot. Better safe than sorry 😉
Abusing the reporting function by falsely mass-reporting good content still leads to a ban.
These are the most important changes to the system for now. We will of course update and twist it to make sure that the best users will always get the most karma. So stay tuned and keep up the good jodling.
To give us feedback on this article add #KarmaReform to your post and we will read it (please write it in EN 🇬🇧 or DE 🇩🇪 so we will be able to understand it 😉 ).
Cheers and enjoy your day!
Niklas & the Jodel Team
Nov 7, 2017
It’s been over three years since the first Jodels appeared in the valleys of Aachen and we have come a long way since then. Now millions of Jodelers connect with the community around them to laugh together, share the hottest news, exchange useful information, and much more. It has been an amazing journey so far and we’re looking forward to all that lies ahead.
During this time we have been guided by principles that helped us make decisions. Values we tried to incorporate into our everyday work as much as in our communities. These principles have guided our internal work as well as every interaction on Jodel. Every Jodeler has contributed and helped mold them into what they are today.
Over the last few weeks we have been sitting down discussing what is important for us and for you. Over 20.000 Jodelers helped this process. From the seasoned moderator to the new Jodeler, all of you assisted in creating these values. The whole team would like to thank you for your time and support.
Today we’d like to share the current values with you to make sure everyone knows what the Jodel community stands for. We encourage all Jodelers to join us in protecting these values, to live and act by them and continue making Jodel a place for everyone to have fun:
Positive and friendly: we want the Jodelers in our community to always be positive and nice to each other. Good vibes only!
Helpful and supportive: we want Jodelers to help each other out. Do good and may the Karma be with you!
Colorful and diverse: our different colors represent the diversity of people and topics in our community. We celebrate and embrace diversity. Variety is the spice of life.
Original and creative: be your original and unique self, share your own amazing thoughts. We value creativity and new ideas. Just be yourself!
Respectful and human: remember that you are interacting with real people, not only a screen. Treat others the way you want to be treated, be friendly and have respect.
Jodelahuiiitiii: never ever underestimate the importance of fun. Don’t take life too seriously, smile and enjoy the ride.
As the only constant in life is change, we might revisit and refine our values down the line. We are also aware that not all Jodelers respect our principles. If you notice someone disregarding them, speak up and together we will make Jodel a better place.
Today we proudly share this with you. Use the #JodelValues to share your feedback and thoughts with us (if possible in EN so all of us in the HQ can understand it 🙂).
Have a great day and keep up the good jodeling!
Niklas & the Jodel Team
Nov 2, 2017
It seems like just yesterday that we set out to change the way people connect with their local community. But today it has already been three years. Three years of crazy, funny, helpful, witty and heartwarming stories that touched the lives of millions of Jodelers worldwide.
We want to take this moment to thank all of you! In the end we only provided the platform, but you turned it into the amazing and unique Jodel we all know and love.
Back in the day there was none of this - only the app, a few flyers, and our shared vision to instantly connect you with the community around you. It was time for a reality check: will people actually use what we built? Will the Jodel journey continue or will our dreams end in the first week of promotion?
The weather was good which was already a small wonder considering we started in #Aatlantis. Equipped with a few hundred flyers, stickers and posters we started promoting…
It was crazy! In the first day we already had more downloads than our best case scenario for the whole month! Our servers, totally unprepared for the huge amount of traffic, were collapsing every ten minutes. Even after we stopped promotion, the app continued to grow.
Despite all the technical issues, our first users kept jodeling. They immediately formed a great community and the first wonderful use cases emerged. It was during this time in the Aachen community that we saw the full potential of our vision. We experienced the power and fun of connecting people on a local platform.
It was this feeling that carried us to new heights in the past and still excites us today. In the coming year we will help even more users worldwide engage with the community around them and enable you to do so with a variety of new features, use cases and possibilities.
A final shout out to everyone who was and continues to be part of this incredible journey. To all the Jodelers helping to spread the positive vibe in your community:
Cheers to Germany, Austria, Switzerland: the traditional home of all jodeling.
A toast to Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark, whose Jodel-Vikings steal everyone’s hearts by sharing the Jodel-love.
A salute to our young communities in France, Italy and Spain who teach us how to live the good Jodel-life.
As Salamou Aalaikom to all of our Arabic speaking communities where Jodel spread like never before. By using Jodel to build bridges among your communities and sharing your positive spirit with each other, you show us the impact our actions can have.
And last but not least our communities in the US, the Netherlands, Ghana and everywhere else around the world, where more and more people use Jodel everyday to connect and laugh together: You guys rock, and we love you!
Keep up the good jodeling and have a great weekend!
Niklas & the Jodel team
Oct 20, 2017
Dear Jodeler,
We hope you are finally enjoying the summer as much as we are.
Here at Jodel we have used all these rainy days to work on new features that make connecting with the student community around you even easier and faster.
You have a lot to look forward to this fall.
Today, we would like to introduce you to Jodel embedding.
This next thing coming out of the orange raccoon’s factory lets you embed Jodels in your articles, blog posts or just in about any website.
This is how it works: Start by tapping on the Share button on any Jodel post and proceed to share via e-mail or any application you can open from your desktop.
From the web view, tap “Embed this post”. Now copy the code and adjust height and width to fit your need. Lastly, paste the code into your website and you are good to go.
Instead of taking screenshots, embedding allows you to present both text or picture Jodels in a much better-looking design. You can also adjust the size of the embedded Jodels directly from the link. Your readers are now able to view a Jodel and then read its whole conversation by clicking the “Read this Jodel” button or by simply clicking on the comments.
Lately, we have seen many more local Jodel stories to make national and international news headlines. That is why we hope Jodel embedding will help everyone who wants to share a popular story from their city with a broader audience.
Barbora & the Jodel team
Aug 10, 2017