Dayre: A Review

What is Dayre?

Have you ever been stricken by a profound idea at the most inconvenient time? You want to share it to the world but you can’t fit it into a Twitter update. You could share it in Facebook but the majority of your "friends" there are dicks and they probably won’t appreciate your stroke of genius. Post it in Tumblr? Nuh! Too many swag-obsessed teenagers mostly interested in shipping fictional characters from different media sources. How about a blog? Oh wait... It’s too short for a blog. And here is where Dayre comes to the rescue!

Dayre is a mobile blogging platform. It is currently available on Apple and Android devices. According to its website..

“Dayre is the App that helps you blog on your mobile device.For busy people dying to say more than a Note, 140 Characters, or a filtered photo will allow, this is the App for you.Simply post multiple bite sized updates within a day, and hey presto, your blog post is done.Fill days with treasured recipes, cutting edge tech trends, or your young one’s first years and share your personalized URL with friends, family and the world.”

 I have been using Dayre for a little over a week and I must say, I am enjoying the app. I have never successfully kept a blog before. I can’t even count how many times I've created one yet they all share the common fate – they have all fallen into the depths of oblivion (oooh! sounds menacing!). Perhaps it's the absence of inspiration, perhaps I'm just busy, or perhaps I lack the perseverance and dedication that a lot of successful bloggers have. Whatever the reason is, Dayre offers redemption for blogging dropouts like me.
 

 Who will find this useful?

• People who are too busy to sit down and create a long-ass blogpost in one go.
• People who frequently suffer from  word diarrhoea and is guilty of flooding their followers on twitter with 10 consecutive posts or posting essay-like status updates in Facebook.
• People who are interested in “blogcasting”, i..e. you are attending a convention and you want to blog the exciting events live to your fellow geeks. 

Features

1. Your personalized URL accessible on web or mobile.
2. Keep it simple with plain text, or Quotify it for nuggets of wisdom.
3. Enhance your images with 12 built in custom filters such as Uno, Balmoral, Mono and more.
4. Record or upload a short video clip.
5. A sticker for your thoughts? Use one of our original designed characters to express yourself.
6. Check in to your favourite locations so others can find your secret digs. 

Getting Started

You can sign up using your Facebook details or manually enter your email address and chosen password. Everything from this point on is simple. You will receive an email containing a link which you will need to open to verify your account. Once your account is verified, you can start blogging.

Sign up with Facebook

Or enter your email address and create a password manually

 The settings are pretty straightforward. Under Profile are the options to upload a profile photo, cover photo (reminiscent of Facebook), short description of yourself (50 character limit), choose your location and blog category. Account displays the email address you used to sign up and an option to reset your password. I tried changing my email address, but it's either I'm an idiot and can't figure out how to do this simple task or the app simply doesn't allow it. Eerr... but what if your email becomes compromised? Yikes!

Under your Social Media Settings are options to enable/disable automatic Dayre updates to your Facebook account. I haven't really utilise the app's Facebook integration so I cannot comment on its efficiency. No other social media is available under this setting.

 

You can tweak your notification settings under, well, duh!, Notifications. You can choose to receive it it via mobile, email, both or none at all. Underneath these lies the About section which shows the version number of the app installed in your mobile device, the Terms of Use (which no one really reads) and the Privacy Policy (which no one also reads). 

Explore let’s you lookup blogs based on usernames or hashtags. Hashtagging in Dayre uses the same principle as Twitter and Instagram. You can either embed it in your entries (which is what I do) or put in the comments section.
 

Looking up #anime hashtags cos that's how I roll

Your notifications show up below Settings and Explore. You can keep track on who follows your blog and likes your posts.

Blogging
You can post a quotation or a simple text if you uncheck the “Post As Quotation” option, a photo, a video, a sticker, or check your location in. Each entry has a 500 character limit. The idea is to mini blog at several intervals throughout the day (each day runs from 12:00 midnight to 11:59 PM). All your entries will collate into a single blog post and given a title based on a 365 days per year cycle, i.e. today is Day 328. You can add your own title too if you prefer and it will show up as – “Day 328: [Your customise title]. 

Unfortunately if the app crashes while you're in the middle of creating an entry, you have to start from scratch. There is no option to save an entry as a draft either. I suggest using Notes (or whatever the equivalent is for an Android device) when creating an essay, errr, I mean a long entry, then paste it in Dayre. Make sure it's not too long because it won't let you paste anything that exceeds its 500 character limit. 

You can also take photos using Dayre and use one of their 12 readily available filters, I personally love 'Matte'. It takes photos in square format. However, I prefer taking photos using a separate app, like Camera+ and Photogene², which offers advance editing capabilities. You have to crop your photos into 1:1 ratio before uploading, or use an app like Squareready. 

As for uploading videos, if you want to use a clip that has been sitting in your phone for all eternity, you have to cut it real short. I was able to upload a 10 second video of my cat and a 15 sec video of my Mass Effect 2 playthrough.

Posting quotations or regular notes

le kitteh Dayre stickers

You can create a custom title to appear beside the Day #.

You can also, edit/delete entries you created. 

How do I post more than one photo?
This is possibly one of the most frequently asked questions in Dayre, and the simple answer is...  YOU DON'T, YOU CAN'T and YOU SHALL NOT.  You can only post one media per entry. If you need to upload, let’s say, 5 photos, you have to create 5 separate entries for each one and make sure to caption it or Dayre won’t let you post the damn thing. Remember that this isn't regular blogging where you throw everything in the pot on one go. Like I’ve said, all the entries you create throughout the day will collate into a single blog post. So if you’re an idiot like me, who uses Dayre like one would use Twitter, you will end up with a confused blog entry that talks about hundred different things in one day. ADHD much? 

Your Feed
Entries are dated and timed according to your device settings. If I post or update an entry at 10 PM GMT +0, it will show up on a follower’s feed who lives in, i.e., Singapore at 6 AM GMT +8. Your Dayre feed is arranged on a chronological order with entries recently updated shown on top. 

I've heard that some users were able to backpost an entry for the previous day by adjusting the date & time setting of their mobile device. I haven’t tested this personally as I have no reason to do so.
 

User Demographics

Most users as of this moment are from South East Asia – mainly Malaysia and Singapore. I found out about Dayre via Nuffnang co-founder Timothy Tiah and his wife, fourfeetnine and of course, Xiaxue. However, I have absolutely no clue who created this brilliant masterpiece. Pardon my ignorance.
 

The Bugs, The Glitch and the Fugly

Before I begin, I would like to remind you that Dayre is still in its infancy and I believe it will continue to improve in the long run, or at least, I hope so because I already developed an unhealthy obsession with it.

• Holy lord, the lag! It takes its sweet time to load your feed, images, videos and notifications
• Unceremonious crashing.
• When you’re scrolling through your feed, it auto scrolls back to the top whenever you reach the bottom.
• Sometimes comment doesn’t show up.
• There's a few minutes delay for new entries to appear (especially if you’re a fecktard who post shitloads of them in a short span of time) and reflect changes made to your entries.

These are all the problems I’ve encountered so far. All of them are possibly server related. It’s annoying but it’s nothing major considering that in all my years as a social media hoe, I’ve experienced worst.

The GOOD NEWS is... Dayre is already working on fixing these bugs! In fact, after the November 19 update, the app's crash rate in my phone has drastically reduced. 

Here's Dayre's Version History for your viewing pleasure:

Version 1.02 (19 November 2013)

• Follow blogs from Explore Page

• Overlapping of pages fixed

• Refresh function implemented on feed view

• Fixed followers and comment counter

• Fixed bugs and crashes on V.1.01

Version 1.01 (9 November 2013)

• Fixed a bug that cause notifications to sometimes not appear

• Misc bug fixes

Version 1.0 (31 October 2013)

Anyhow, that’s it and I hope someone on the face of the planet will find this helpful. Anyway, if you would like to follow my Dayre (I promise, I am not THAT boring!); you can find me at dayre.me/katalepsia. 

KTHNXBAI,

katalepsia ツ