Thursday, September 2, 2010

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Visual Website Optimizer: Another Way To Run A/B Tests On Your Site Top
A/B testing, which entails running multiple versions of a site at once and tracking which one performs best with users, is a key part of launching a new version of any website. Visual Website Optimizer , which I’ll just call VWO from here on out, helps users manage this often complex process. The service shares some similiarities with a Y Combinator-funded startup called Optimizely , which launched in July. Among some of VMO’s features are multivariate testing (you can adjust more than one item on your site and VMO will run them in various combinations to determine which ones have a positive effect), heatmaps showing off where users are clicking (which are useful for visualizing where your visitors are clicking for different variations of a site), and split URL tests, which gives you the option to redirect traffic to two alternate versions of your website. The site also has WordPress, Drupal and Google Analytics plugins, and allows testing of pages which are behind login/signup wall and enables segmentation and running targeted tests (say, for example, you want to test only new visitors who came to your site searching for ‘Techcrunch’. Customers can use VMO’s API to integrate the data and management into their own dashboards. And VMO will track conversions across different domains via third party cookies, send email notifications of test results, and will send automatic screenshot generations of variations for archiving and reporting, The bootstrapped startup is also seeing significant growth in traffic handles by its severs; its servers are now handing 540 million pageviews per month, a 500 percent increase in month-to-month traffic. And VMO’s platform is being used by a number of well known companies including Microsoft, RackSpace and Vendio. CrunchBase Information Visual Website Optimizer Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Twitter For iPhone Push Notifications Are Being Internally Tested; Rolling Out Soon Top
To many users, Twitter for iPhone (the artist formerly known as Tweetie) is perhaps the perfect Twitter client (though I’d argue that the new Twitter for iPad is right there with it). But the one thing it has been lacking and that users knock it for is the lack of Push Notifications. Well, good news. They’re coming. Soon. Twitter is currently internally testing the feature, we’ve confirmed. Interestingly enough, we learned of its existence when the latest version of the app went out yesterday (the universal binary that included Twitter for iPad). It appears that users who have iOS 4.1 installed (which just hit Gold Master for developers, but won’t be official out until next week) get the option to enable Push Notifications for Twitter. They don’t appear to be working yet, but the feature is definitely there. Here’s Twitter’s statement on the matter: We’ve been testing push notifications internally. When we launched Twitter for iPad, there was a configuration error that caused us to offer push messages to a small set of users. We’ve stopped sending push messages, but users may see an option to turn on push until we release an updated version of the app. So, push isn’t ready yet but we look forward to rolling this out soon. I’ve asked Twitter to clarify what exactly is getting pushed. I assume DMs and @replies are two options, but it will be interesting if search items or specific lists are options as well. Twitter hasn’t gotten back to me on that just yet. Currently, a few third-party apps enable Push Notifications for Twitter, notably, Boxcar and Notifo (via Push.ly ). [thanks Nick ] CrunchBase Information Twitter iPhone Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Notifo for iPhone Gets Free User-to-User Messaging, Real Time Twitter Notifications Top
Last time we wrote about Notifo, we called it a “ simple mobile notifications platform for anything ” — and really, that’s probably the best way to describe it. Take your iPhone, install the Notifo app, hook it up to your favorite services (like Twitter, or GitHub) or any of the “Projects” (read: plugins, like Growl alert forwarding, or Chrome-to-Notifo ), and bam! You’ve got push notifications coming down to your iPhone from just about anything you could imagine. All that notification sending takes two things: users to send the messages to, and a message pushing backend to handle all the heavy lifting — the same two things, as it just so happens, that one would need to create a basic instant messaging service. And so they have. Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>
 
Record Numbers Pinging Ping.fm Thanks To Apple's Ping Top
An interesting beneficiary of Apple’s launch of music-oriented social network Ping —social status updater Ping.fm. According to Seesmic CEO Loic Le Meur, Ping.fm saw a record number of accounts created yesterday (Seesmic acquired Ping.fm earlier this year). Could it be a coincidence? Definitely, not. When you Google “Ping, ” Ping.fm is the second result under the golf equipment site PING (this doesn’t include News results). Apple’s Ping is actually the fourth result (not including Video results). On Bing, Ping.fm is the third result, behind the golf company and the Wikipedia page for Ping. Clearly, as people starting becoming curious about Apple’s Ping yesterday on search portals, they also found Ping.fm in results. Le Meur declined to reveal the exact number of accounts created but he did say that the number of accounts created was three times the normal rate in a given day. Apple actually licensed the name Ping from the golf company, as PING owns the trademark. CrunchBase Information Ping.fm Seesmic Apple Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Reddit Diggs Traffic Surge, Prepares For Expansion Top
It’s all hands on deck at Reddit this week. In the wake of Digg’s bungled redesign, its rival is enjoying a surge in traffic and a jump in ad and subscription sales. Since Monday, the site has been averaging 900,000 uniques per day— a 50% increase from Reddit’s pre-”Digg 4″ average, according to senior programmer, Chris Slowe. The six-member team does not openly celebrate the technical woes of its competitor but there is a certain giddiness in the air at Reddit’s SF headquarters (a small room, tucked in the corner of Wired’s expansive office). The Conde Nast owned startup is having a moment, and they know it. However, there’s no time to bask in glory, as the number of page views rises and the press rolls out headlines like, “Backlash Continues For Digg as Reddit Steps in and Reaps the Benefits,” “Report: Reddit Ready To Defeat Digg‎,” and “New Digg Sucks? Reddit All Over Digg FrontPage Now!” No, for the four-person engineer team, it’s time to roll-up their sleeves and crank away, to keep the site afloat (no easy task) and create the next whizz-bang features to keep Reddit’s enlarged user base happy. On Thursday, we dropped by their offices for a pulse check. While programmer David King’s eyes were glued to his monitor— tweaking a feature that will hopefully improve the site’s scalability— senior programmer Chris Slowe was available to take our questions, video above. Highlights: -Slowe says they first noticed a spike in traffic on Sunday night, as activity increased in Australia. By the close of Monday, Reddit saw 850,000 unique visitors, that number increased on Tuesday, with 900,000. Traffic has continued to hover around this level, with roughly 13 to 14 million total page views per day. -Self-serve ads are up 30% since Digg 4′s launch. Overall ad sales have been growing roughly 5% per month, Slowe expects monthly sales to increase 5 to 10% for the remainder of this year. Subscriptions are also up, currently Reddit has 10,000 subscribers. -Their prayer for more resources is finally being answered. They are currently in the process of hiring one new employee, but hope to have enough cash on hand to hire two full-time employees by year’s end. -On Digg’s fumble, Slowe says: “I think the biggest complaint from their community has been that they feel marginalized…The only advice I would really give them…they haven’t been as communicative as they could be…Our only currency really is trust and candor and so if you treat your community like adults they’ll behave like adults.” -On that whole Proposition 19 debacle: “Once the dust settled everything was just fine nobody’s been fired, everyone is perfectly happy. The main problem was that it was all happening very fast. It went from a blog post from the Prop 19 guys to a full blown community revolt on Reddit in about an hour… One of the problems with trying to be candid at all times, is that sometimes private political arguments end up public…we could have been a little bit more graceful in the handling of that. -On the next feature for Reddit: “Our UI is not particularly friendly…we’d like to work on some tools to make it more friendly…another thing that’s been big is that its not necessarily clear off the bat that Reddit is customizable we have a whole bunch of communities and they all have different bends and you can subscribe to different communities…I think that’s not necessarily clear from a first look.” CrunchBase Information Reddit Information provided by CrunchBase
 
This Spam Infographic About Spam Infographics Makes My Head Hurt Top
Buzzfeed , the Huffington Post of Internet memes, wins the “more meta than thou” award for making “An Infographic Backlash Infographic” inspired by the tragic tale of a guy whose job it was to game Digg back when Digg had enough traffic to make it worth gaming. Okay Buzzfeed, just because you understand recursion, doesn’t mean you have to rub it in our face all the time. Aside from the Greyhat SEO tricks, your anti-infographic infographic and the post that inspired it are actually just describing successful web-writing and content creation . It’s like…there’s a reason people are clicking on it. From the Digg gamer’s playbook, which is really interesting if you care at all about how people used to build website traffic. “Spam other sites with it too for bonus points. Email large blogs, etc. to try to get them to run with it too.” From the Buzzfeed “community manager,” in our Tips inbox today: Thought this might be up your alley - a couple of days ago someone posted on Reddit about how he been paid to game Digg and other influential sites by creating infographics (those goofy, badly designed images with stats and pie charts called “everything you ever wanted to know about boobs” that keep turning up on content-sharing sites) and then loading them with keyword-spam embed tags once they start spreading. today, we posted an infographic about how the system works: http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/the-truth-about-infographics and within a few minutes, dozens of new fake accounts were created on our site to defend the practice. the whole thing is pretty fascinating! Well I do find it fascinating … But wait, didn’t you guys just tell me I shouldn’t link to infographics? Fortunately the spam infographic has some helpful suggestions for what to do when you’re in this kind of a situation. “If you do include a link to a spam infographic include a no follow tag in the html.” Which is exactly what we did. Thanks guys! Hi Jonah ;)
 
In The Coming HTML5 Browser Wars, The Markup Should Remain The Same Top
On Monday, Google made a big splash with a customized Arcade Fire video page that showed off all the cool things HTML5 can do, from video, animations and 3D rendering to gorgeous fonts and choreographed windows. It’s all cutting edge stuff as far as what is possible with a Web browser goes, but there is one very big problem. It doesn’t work so great in all browsers, even browsers that supposedly support HTML5. If you go to the landing page that launches the video in Firefox or even the forthcoming IE9 (which isn’t out yet, but is very HTML5-friendly), it detects your browser and suggests you use Chrome instead. I received the following message on Firefox: This site was designed with Google Chrome in mind and is unable to render properly in your browser. For the best viewing experience, we recommend downloading Google Chrome and trying this site again. But wait, isn’t Firefox one of those “modern browsers” that supports HTML5 ? This isn’t the first time there have been issues with HTML5 compatibility. The problem is that HTML5 is so young that the standards have not been hammered out yet across all browsers. The markup language required to produce the same effect is different for different browsers. “The Arcade Fire thing . . . they are writing to the browser,” points out Dean Hachamovitch, the Microsoft general manager in charge of Internet Explorer. “They use proprietary Javascript.” HTML5 “done right,” he contends, would be using the same markup language across browsers. Seems reasonable. That is what the open Web is all about. It is why we have standards. But HTML5 is so new that we are getting flashbacks to the late 1990s with sites refusing to accept certain browsers. To illustrate this point, Microsoft has an browser test page to show the difference between different browsers. Under one set of tests titled HTML5 Demos, there is a “ Border Radius” test that changes the border around a block of text. Inside the block of text, it shows the markup code required to create different effects such as animating it or creating dots instead of a solid line. ( Update : As pointed out in comments, this is technically CSS3, which is not exactly the same as HTML5, but both go hand in hand). Here is what the code looks like in Chrome: And here is what it looks like in Firefox What’s wrong with these pictures? One takes 16 lines of code, the other takes four, and they are completely different.  Even the dots that are created don’t match (Chrome’s dots are square).  A different set of code is required for IE9.  ”We want to make the same markup work everywhere,” says Hachamovitch.  ”If you have to write that differently for every browser it is kind of missing the point.” Microsoft is working with the standards bodies, as are all the other browser makers, but what is really needed is better definitions and a thorough set of reference examples for every possible HTML5 feature.  It’s a lot of work.  Eventually, we will get there. But until then, expect to see grandstanding about which browser does HTML5 better.  When you hear that, just ask yourself, which version of HTML5 are they talking about. CrunchBase Information Google Chrome Windows Internet Explorer Firefox Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Hot Or Not's App Answers The Next Question: Close By Or Not? Top
It was only a matter of time before this app came out. The folks over at Hot or Not have launched a location-based free iPhone app that will show you the hottest ladies and gents that are close to you. If you aren’t familiar with Hot or Not, the site allows you to rate pictures of girls or a guys (depending on your taste) on a scale of 1 to 10. It’s a mindless site and game which has managed to gather a fairly massive user base. The app is fairly simple in what it does: it uses the iPhone’s built-in GPS technology to map out the hottest guys or girls registered on HotOrNot.com that are close to your location. Currently the site draws from a database of 4.8 million members. Hot or Not says that the app received more than 2,000 sign-ups its first day in the App Store. Last year, the startup also launched Hot Or Not War, which we covered here . Hot Or Not was bought by Avid Life Media in 2008.
 
Nailed It (Not): Our First Twitter Post, Circa 2006 Top
I often point to my first post on Twitter , the day it launched in 2006. Why? Mostly because of how wrong I was. Best line: “I imagine most users are not going to want to have all of their Twttr messages published on a public website.” I also love that original vowel-free logo. The first couple of comments to that post are classic as well: I do not understand the utility of adding the SMS messages to a public webpage or making messages from my network public. I would have to pass on that type of offering. The ability to make messages private should be added asap. and i do not want to be woken up at 4 a.m. because my friend got drunk and decided to text Twttr with “asdl im at barasdf sooo drunksalkfjs”…i find it interesting such an annoying feature is supposedly causing viral growth…i’m done developing social software if the key to success is to be intrusive and So is it pronounced twitter or twatter? With the benefit of hindsight it’s clear that I was…a bit off on how Twitter would play out. As were most of the commenters, although commenters are often negative just to be negative. And the most wrong of all? The Odeo investors who elected to take their money back rather than port it over to Twitter. My point here is that you never know which startups will make it and which won’t. As a blogger I say it like I see it, but I’m wrong a lot. It’s why I’m not a venture capitalist, where wrong decisions tend to have real consequences. And this is also a reason for us all to give startups a little breathing room when they’re finding their space in the world. Startups evolve. The world evolves (things have changed a lot since 2006). That dumb startup that’s just a rehash of that other thing from before, with a twist, just may turn out to be something special. Perhaps world-changing special. It’s why I like The Man In The Arena so much, and why I’m an eternal champion of the entrepreneur. CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Fwix Shifts From Local News To Places: "We Are Automating Patch" Top
For the past two years, Fwix has been building a hyperlocal news site for cities and neighborhoods around the country in a very automated fashion. Its homepage for every city has been three columns filled with recent news and blog headlines, along with other local data like weather (see second screenshot below). Today, it is scrapping that approach to become more of a hyperlocal places directory. “We are automating Patch and building richer places pages and city pages,” says CEO Darian Shirazi. With everyone on the Web crazy for Geo and trying to tap into local commerce, places directories are becoming more valuable. (They are also better for SEO). Whereas AOL’s Patch is building out a directory of places in 500 small towns by hand, Fwix is creating an automated directory filled with maps, news feeds, events, photos, reviews, Tweets, status updates, and check-ins. In a sense, Fwix is really a cross between AOL’s Patch and Google Places, which is also created by automatically indexing of parts of the Web. Fwix can create a places page for 50,000 neighborhoods and 15 million businesses and points of interest. It culls local data from 30,000 blogs and news feeds; status updates from Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, Google Buzz, and BrightKite (but not Facebook); geo-tagged photos from Flickr, Smugmug, and Picassa; local deals from Groupon, LivingSocial, and MobileSpinach; evets from Eventbrite, Eventful, Zvents, Stubhub, Ticketmaster, and Upcoming; reviews from Yelp, Citysearch, OpenTable, Yahoo! Local, and Zagat; and government data from SpotCrime, FixMyStreet, and SeeClickFix. The layout of each page is now centered around a map with dots linking to recent stories, check-ins, Tweets or what have you. In the middle column there is a stream of recent headlines, geotagged photos, events, and reviews (most of which are linked to the dots on the map). Below the map are hot places where a lot of check-ins, news ,a nd Tweets have been occurring lately. When you are looking at a city level view, the left hand navigation bar lets you zoom into specific neighborhoods. Each business or place also has its own custom page. Fwix also picks up trending keywords from local news feeds and Twetets. Most of the individual elements which go into Fwix’s new places directory are available through its API , although the completed directory is not. As I’ve argued before, it is time for an open places directory so that companies can stop duplicating efforts contribute to one big places directory that keeps getting better and better for everyone. The problem is that a lot of licensed business directory data is mixed in with the open stuff, but we’ll get there some day. CrunchBase Information Fwix Patch Google Places Information provided by CrunchBase
 
HipChat's Enterprise Communication Platform Adds Video Chat And Guest Access Top
HipChat , a recently launched private instant messaging service for companies, has added support for voice and video chat as well as guest access. Similar to Campfire, HipChat provides a simple application for communication within businesses. HipChat offers both a web and desktop client based on Adobe AIR that lets you chat with your entire team at once, or hold more private discussions with select team members. The application includes support for quick attachment sharing, notifications when you receive a message, and a searchable web archive for past messages. It’s incredibly easy to use and setup and doesn’t require a company email address. The newest version of HipChat adds the ability to enable video and voice chat with fellow users. This feature will be included with the paid plans for the service. Guest access enables employees to generate URLs that allow non-HipChat members and people outside their company to access group chats. It’s actually a pretty nifty feature for any business that wants add another communication layer (besides email) with clients, vendors, or contractors. Guest Access could also be used to offer live customer support for a business. Like all chat history, guest messages and files are archived automatically but guests can only access the chat logs created during the time they were invited to the room. Like video chat, GuestAccess will be includes in the paid versions of HipChat. For a bootstrapped startup, HipChat seems to be gaining traction in the space. The company has “thousands” of companies using its application, with over one million messages sent since the company launched in private beta. HipChat was founded by Garret Heaton, Pete Curley, Chris Rivers, who previously founded calendar startup HipCal, which was acquired by Plaxo in 2006. At Plaxo (which was eventually acquired by Comcast ) the team helped build out Plaxo Pulse. HipChat, which recently raised $100K in funding, faces competition from 37 Signals’ Campfire and Yammer. CrunchBase Information HipChat Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Yammer 2.0 To Launch As A Powerful, Full-Fledged Social Network For The Enterprise Top
Since Yammer launched as the “Twitter for businesses” at TechCrunch 50 in 2008, the startup has continued to improve on its already solid product, releasing mobile apps and new desktop clients, adding threaded conversations, and more. The fact is that in just under two years, Yammer, which we use at TechCrunch for internal communications, is being used by more than one million users and 80,000 companies worldwide (which includes 80% of the Fortune 500). That’s impressive growth for the startup, which has raised $15 million in funding and is doubling revenue every quarter. But the social enterprise arena is competitive with Salesforce Chatter, Jive, Socialcast and many others vying for a piece of the pie. However, Yammer is going to be releasing a new version of its application at TechCrunch Disrupt this fall which could be a game-changer. The new Yammer will essentially turn the microblogging application into a full fledged social network. Yammer plans to add a number of applications to its platform that will increase its functionality beyond just a communications platform. An events application will allow you to invite co-workers to company or group events and track responses. Attendees can also download the event into their calendar. An ideas application will help employees and administrators create, find and categorize the best ideas within a company. Employees can rank ideas through voting, and ideas can be created separately or can be promoted from existing conversations on Yammer. Yammer is also going to be upgrading content sharing by allowing users to preview information in shared links. The startup has also added a Q&A app that encourages workers to ask questions and find answers from a database, and includes a polling application. Additionally, the new version of Yammer will allow users to assign a task resulting from conversations and track its completion, and will include the ability to tag content with topics, making it easier to find conversations by subject. Another integral part of Yammer’s transformation into an open social platform is the ability to install third-party applications. Yammer will soon give third-party developers the ability to sell and create applications like those that Yammer will now offer. It’s similar in theory to the Google Apps marketplace. In terms of communications functionality, Yammer is adding the ability to send Direct Messages to multiple parties, and a chat feature, which will allow users to create chat rooms that can be archived or searchable. Missed chats will automatically become direct messages. A new Activity Feed will aggregate stories about co-worker actions within all of their enterprise apps (both on and off Yammer) and will allow users to follow content. And a new notification feed will alert users in real time about co-worker actions that affect them. Yammer CEO and founder David Sacks tells me the feed is one of the key components of social networking and existing enterprise platforms have been built before the concept of a realtime feed. Yammer’s next-generation application, he says, will help enterprises create a social communications platform around data and communications. In terms of the big picture view of the social enterprise, Sacks believes that the ability to create a go-to corporate social network is a Facebook sized opportunity. Half of the social web entails sites like Facebook and Twitter, explains Sacks, and the other half will be around enterprise social networking. And he makes it very clear that Yammer hopes to be the de-facto application for companies, both big and small, to use for their social networking efforts. Of course, it’s safe to assume that either an existing social enterprise player, such as Salesforce, or even Google may want to purchase Yammer to boost their own offerings. Sacks says he’s received considerable interest in his company, but for now he wants to focus in creating the best product in the space. That, he says, is going to be the new version of Yammer. CrunchBase Information Yammer Information provided by CrunchBase
 

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