Hi Journalers! Wow – it feels so good to open the editor and start typing out a new post (yes, with those splendid typewriter sounds turned on :D). Today I'd like to give you a nice little update on the platform and connect with you all, so let's jump straight in!

Briefly Looking Back On 2021

2021 was an absolutely insane year for Journaly development. Users who were here through that year will remember just how much we built during that year, from literally hundreds of bug fixes, to key improvements of existing features, to finally building new, long-awaited features that totally transformed the User Experience of the platform, such as In-App Notifications! In addition to all this, we launched Journaly Premium, built several features for that, and even conducted a User Research study and, as a result, dramatically dropped the prices and introduced a student discount.

This involved hundreds and hundreds of hours of unpaid work, but was all so worthwhile and Journaly even got to the point for a little while where Premium revenue paid for the bills of keeping the platform running.

2022 – So Far...

This year, however, until now things have been a lot slower. Just a week ago I finally published my first new YouTube video, a short documentary piece that tells the story of why – I worked so hard on that tiny film and it's been so wonderful to see the heart-warming and supportive comments pouring in. If you haven't seen it and would like more context on why I had to take some time off actively developing Journaly as well, I'd love for you to check it out here.

Let's Take A Step Back For A Moment

With that, I'm incredibly happy and excited to share that along with me being back to publishing content on YouTube, Instagram, and Patreon, we're also back to active Journaly development! 🎉

This is really, really exciting to me because when I take a step back to look at how far Journaly has come, it's pretty insane... Please forgive me for patting myself and Ryan on the back for a moment, but the amount of work and complexity behind building a fully-functioning product with even just a couple of features is just crazy for a couple of people. Journaly still has a long way to go, but if you take a moment to consider all the features we do have and how well many of them work; and when you think how much content people have posted on the platform, how much time and care our users – YOU – have poured into reviewing posts and helping each other; and how much value has been delivered and shared across the community... we have come a long way.

So, What's Next?

I really believe that this next phase is where Journaly becomes an absolutely stellar platform that has everyone you need, most things you could want; a simply delightful place to be where everything just works incredibly well, with a warm, vibrant, supportive community.

Here's a selection of things we're working on next:

• Unsplash Integration: Get beautiful, stock-free images for your posts right within the Journaly editor
• Inline Feedback SUGGESTIONS: Suggest a specific change to the author who can simply apply it with a single click
• Badge Redesign & Expansion: Tons of new badges you can earn, with a whole new look
• Dashboard Home Re-design: A new "home" for your Journaly dashboard that will provide a new cosy space to see and navigate all your Journaly activity
• Direct Messaging: That's right! The ability to message other users directly and take the connections you make here to the next level
• @Mentioning: Ability to mention other users and notify them directly
• Writing Prompts: Get prompts to give you ideas of what to write about, prioritizing those that relate to your interests
• Weekly goals: Set weekly goals for your foreign-language journaling, get reminders, and earn badges to help you build a healthy, consistent streak!
• Split-screen view for reviewing comments: The ability to see your original post on one side of the page while making edits and applying suggestions on the other side. A huge improvement to the experience of applying the feedback you get!

This is actually just a small set of things from our product roadmap, but there's a ton of work there and hopefully this gives you an idea of how I think over time Journaly will become that place I described above. I can't promise timelines, but me and Ryan will be working on building these things for you every week – we started again last Friday!

Building The Community

Before I go, I just want to say a quick word about the Journaly community and continuing to build it up moving forward.

Firstly, I have honestly been amazed by how robust the Journaly community already is. I haven't mentioned or promoted Journaly on YouTube for 8 months or so and yet there isn't a day without lots of beautiful new posts filled with comments and support from fellow Journalers. The platform is still so young and relatively small with no marketing team or advertising budget, and the community is already self-sufficient – that's AMAZING. Thank you all because without you, the platform means nothing.

That said, there's no question that we have lots of work to do continuing to build this amazing community. Now that I'm back to publishing content – hopefully stronger than ever! – I plan to be much more active sharing and promoting Journaly and doing whatever I can to bring more people here. I'm so thankful for all you have done to help us spread the word, and would love for us to continue working together on this.

Signing Off, For Now!

I know this was a bit long but I hope you enjoyed the update and are excited about what is to come. In closing, let's please just take one more moment to celebrate each other. Seriously, it's pretty darn cool that we're all here together, helping each other, connecting, and sharing pieces of who we are with each other. When you write a post, you share a little bit of yourself. When you leave someone feedback, you're sharing a piece of you who are – your language – with another human being and making their day. I think that's beautiful.

Hugs and good vibes to you all! ❤️