WhosTalkin? Blog » Beta Test http://www.whostalkin.com/blog Social Media Search Made Easy Tue, 05 Oct 2010 17:01:03 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 WhosTalkin’s API Goes Into Public Beta http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/beta-test/whostalkins-api-goes-into-public-beta/ http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/beta-test/whostalkins-api-goes-into-public-beta/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:47:24 +0000 Joe Hall http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/?p=157 Its hard to believe that WhosTalkin has been around for over a year. Its been an amazing learning experience that has pushed my boundaries as a developer and an entrepreneur. Its this experience that has taught me more about the web and the realities (both technical and business) of real time data.

When WhosTalkin first launched we received a lot of attention from both corporate and small business about scaling our platform for enterprise level monitoring. As a result about a month after we launched we started to develop a full scale monitoring platform that includes trending data, backlogs, email alerts, and much more. During our private beta test we indexed over 750,000 brand mentions for our 34 private beta testers.

During the beta test two things happened.

  1. Everyone under the sun started their own enterprise level social media monitoring platform! Suddenly the market was saturated with monitoring tools. The honest truth is that most of these tools are nothing more than hack jobs with a fresh coat of paint. To truly build a monitoring platform of substantial quality you must have a multifaceted understanding of the world wide web and the complexities of merging diverse forms of data.

  2. People kept asking about an API. Several of our beta testers and several outside corporations, including one of the world’s largest media conglomerates, requested access to an API. At first the prospects of having an API seemed interesting. However, our first goal was the development of our platform. Then as market competition grew and the realities of managing a platform set in, we decided to put the development of the API at the forefront.

The API is now in a public beta. You can read more about the API at its documentation. If you would like to start beta testing the API. Please contact us to apply.

]]> http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/beta-test/whostalkins-api-goes-into-public-beta/feed/ 0 Whats to come… http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/beta-test/whats-to-come/ http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/beta-test/whats-to-come/#comments Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:06:49 +0000 Joe Hall http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/?p=59 Wow, a lot has happened since we launched a little over a week ago! We have seen tremendous coverage across the internet, and to this day we are seeing more and more people discover and join in on the conversations that they care about most. We want to take a moment and thank you for taking part in our public beta! Over the last week we have received many suggestions and ideas on how we can improve, we are implementing many of these ideas! We wanted to take a moment and talk a little about some of the many features and options that are not available yet. Below is an overview of some different ideas that we are currently working!

Save This Search

This feature will allow users the ability to save search terms and queries for retrieval in the future. This feature will also be used in conjunction with other tools and options. “Saved Searches” will be available to subscription based users only.

RSS Feeds

This feature will provide RSS Feeds for each search term that can be fed into a feed reader or other application. RSS Feeds will be available to subscription based users only.

WordPress Plugin - A WordPress plugin that will integrate a WP blog into the WhosTalkin? platform. Users will be able to run WT searches straight from their dashboard. Blog information such as URL and Blog name will be automatically integrated to give the blog owner a complete profile.

FireFox Plugin - Allows users to perform searches from their browser.

iGoogle Gadget – Allows users to perform searches from their iGoogle home page

]]> http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/beta-test/whats-to-come/feed/ 1 UPDATE – We Are Back UP! http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/beta-test/we-are-temporarily-down/ http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/beta-test/we-are-temporarily-down/#comments Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:58:13 +0000 Joe Hall http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/?p=53 *UPDATE*  — 10:47am EST — We have resolved all issues and the system is now back online. It appears that we were having issues pulling data from Bloglines. We will be in contact with the folks over at Bloglines to make sure that we can continue to include their results in our platform. Until then, we are excluding them from our service to ensure that our system continues to operate smoothly.

We had such a great launch yesterday that we are currently having some issues pulling data from a few of the services that we have tied in. Due to this we have taken the system temporarily offline to fix these bugs. Please stay tuned to this post for more information.

Joe Hall

WhosTalkin.com

]]> http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/beta-test/we-are-temporarily-down/feed/ 1 Public Beta Launched! http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/beta-test/public-beta-launched/ http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/beta-test/public-beta-launched/#comments Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:06:27 +0000 Joe Hall http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/?p=50 After 7 months of development, we are finally unveiling the WhosTalkin.com Platform to the public! Our private beta testers gave it their all and helped us shape the direction and face of WhosTalkin.com. With their guidance made the following changes below.

  • New design and logo.
  • Improved the sorting algorithm to organize by freshness and source.
  • Developed a URL API to allow third party developers and applications to tie in.
  • Added around 15 new services that we aggregate data from, putting our total over 60!
]]> http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/beta-test/public-beta-launched/feed/ 10 Get the ball rolling… http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/beta-test/get-the-ball-rolling/ http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/beta-test/get-the-ball-rolling/#comments Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:14:48 +0000 Joe Hall http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/?p=45 Rae Hoffman just wrote a great piece titled “How to Promote a Brand New Blog“. Rae talks about some great tactics to get a new blog or site some needed publicity. Rae lays out the following as needed things to do to get the ball rolling on that new site:

  • Create Promos and Trailers
  • Do Guest Appearances
  • Seek Out Sponsorships and Buzz Events
  • Form “Street Teams”

Of course I am not going to tell you everything that Rae said, go read it for your self! But, I will say that I think all of her advice is great stuff that I will be using to promote WhosTalkin? In fact, I already have a few Promos and Trailers that you should see on this blog and accross the web.

]]> http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/beta-test/get-the-ball-rolling/feed/ 2 When is this thing gonna launch? http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/beta-test/when-is-this-thing-gonna-launch/ http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/beta-test/when-is-this-thing-gonna-launch/#comments Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:03:29 +0000 Joe Hall http://www.whostalkin.com/blog/?p=24 Thats a very good question! The answer is: when its ready. When will it be ready? When I am confident that we have reached a level of satisfaction with the beta testers in the two categories below:

Function: Are the results, relevant enough? Do we need to add or subtract options? Is there excessive repeats?

User Interface: Are there any overwhelming design problems? Is everything standard compliant and cross browser compatible? Is the general layout suitable for easy navigation?

There will be many more ideas and issues that arise from this process but I am confident that taking the time to vet all of these issues will allow us the ability to hit the ground running hard when its launch time. The last thing we want to do is fall victim to the “Dip”! Stay tuned for tomorrow when I post about some future features and tools that we are working on for the WhosTalkin platform.

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