"The Silph Radio just evolved (in a big way)! Announcing full websocket chat for raid beacons (and more!) plus some data from the Silph Road team!"

#PokemonGO: It's a big day on the Road, travelers.Nine days ago, the team opened the Silph Radio to public beta testing.Now, some new network advancements are ready to roll into our travelers hands!Without further ado, here's what just happened to the Silph Radio:New Features1. Full-Fledged Beacon Chats!Every Raid beacon just got upgraded from a simple RSVP counter, to a fully-fledged websocket chatroom.Use these to coordinate, confirm species, share info, or ask questions about the Raid meetup time, location and more.Beacon chats come with a few fancy features:Sound NotificationsIf you're coordinating a raid, you can now leave a Beacon chat open in a browser tab and it will 'pop' a little sound when other travelers message you back!Browser Tab AlertsAlso, your browser tab will flash a red icon and message count! For example "(3)", until you re-visit the chat and see the latest messages.Emoji Support(Executive Ceppi said we needed this. :/ So we added it against my better judgement.)2. RSVP Party SizeNow you can RSVP for however many friends are coming with you - not just yourself!You can also RSVP for 'zero' travelers, if you can't make it to a valuable Raid yourself, but you still want to let other travelers know about it.3. (Driving) Directions to Raid LocationsNow a new 'Map' button will open the beacon's location in Google Maps, for easier navigation!4. Persistent BeaconsNow, instead of disappearing as soon as their time expires, Beacons will remain for 15 minutes, to help any latecomers or stragglers looking to coordinate at the last minute.5. 120 minute TimersA small thing, but the Beacon timer selection dropdown has increased its range from 60 minutes up to 120 minutes - for Raids 2 hours out!Important Bugs Recently Squashed1. iOS Broken Map BugA bug preventing older versions of iOS from using the map has been resolved - iOS travelers should be in the clear now!2. Slow Loading Map Tiles - Resolved!As we opened public beta, our new vector map servers were struggling with high-zoom map data. Many travelers struggled to get the map to load streetnames, etc - and some could only use the map super-zoomed-out.We've resolved this now - the map should load just fine, thanks to our shiny new CDN. :)3. Additional Map Data Shown!We've also (finally) included state boundaries and other data (including more street-level data) to help with navigating the Radio.State of the NetworkDespite being in a beta state, we've already seen incredible adoption for the Raid Beacon network - and all without push notifications or the upcoming native app yet.Our native app is fast approaching a stable state and, once ready, we'll launch the Radio officially (and will use the full might of the Silph Road in helping get the word out around the world)!So how's coverage so far?It's far exceeded our expectations. :)Already, virtually every large town has several travelers standing by to receive alerts. Most mid-sized towns have a strong group as well - and many rural areas have pockets already materializing.Almost anywhere you point on the map in most towns will result in at least 4-6 folks receiving a raid alert.Here's a high-res, global view of the Radio's current network:http://ift.tt/2v5FYbd sweet, right?No one in my town knows about the Silph Road, though!We know. But don't worry. Even small towns are starting to gather enough folks to make Raiding parties work! If you're feeling discouraged, just wait til the native app launches and invite folks to download the 'Silph Road app' it when it's here! It'll make it dead easy for them to tap into the local scene, and still play anonymously.Parting WordsWe hope you get some good mileage out of the new Radio upgrades, travelers.Executive Ceppi and I haven't slept in two days, but seeing this start to work in neighborhoods around the world is a realization of one of the core goals of the Silph Road team. And we love it.Finally, we ask you to help grow the Road! Do your part by chatting on local Raid Beacons, remembering to fire Beacons when you go out raiding, and invite folks to set up their alert radius so when we launch, everyone will be ready to rock.We're well on our way to something amazing here. :)Travel Safe,- The Silph Executives - via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2u1UKTK