Posts tagged TweetAfter.me

I launched TweetAfter.me with a minimal feature set. I had (and still have) many ideas to enhance the service, but made a conscious decision that none of them were necessary on the very first day. This allowed the service to get in front of users faster, allowing feedback to be received quicker, which ended up changing my view of which features were more important in my backlog.

Besides deploying with a minimum feature set, I also felt it was important to reduce recurring costs until higher revenue is generated. Let’s face the facts. A new product or service has zero users when it launches (TweetAfter.me went live on 02 January 2011), and no product or service is guaranteed to increase users. Therefore, it makes sense to lower your recurring costs to reduce your overall burn rate.

Sometimes that includes making tough choices regarding features. While sometimes, you completely remove a feature, tailoring the feature may be the only solution. A real example from TweetAfter.me is that tweets are currently scheduled in one hour increments. The goal has always been to provide a lot more flexibility in duration between tweets, default schedule durations, etc. However, right before deployment, I made the tough decision to reduce the initial scope of these features. Why?

To achieve my initial goal would have had a recurring cost 12x more expensive then current recurring costs. With zero users on day one, it made little sense to pay 12x more money for features of a just-launched service. The truth is that startups should test the market to verify those features are needed. If they’re needed, then users may pay for them, increasing your return on investment for these features. 

Therefore, just don’t assume you need expensive features on day 1. Higher costs give you less time to validate decisions with customers. On day 1, one of your highest priority goals should be to give your startup enough time and money to reach customers. If you spend the money now, you lower the chances of succeeding regarding that goal.

TweetAfter.me provides a bookmarklet that allows users to to save and share interesting things they find on the internet with their Twitter followers throughout the day. When the service became available, the bookmarklet only stored the page’s title. However, you can now use the bookmarklet to dynamically change the text that you tweet along with the URL.

• Tweet the page title
• Tweet selected text found in the page
• Tweet whatever you want

The Default

By default, your profile is set up to tweet utilizing the first two options. When clicking the bookmarklet, the service will automatically store the page’s title, unless you have selected text to be stored. If text is highlighted within the page, then the service will save this text in place of the title. “The Default” works even if you have not logged into the service, and your text is saved as you are redirected to/from Twitter to verify your credentials.

The Dynamic Tweet

I’m sure your wit and humor stands out on your Twitter profile. Tweeting the page title or some selected text may bore you. If so, then TweetAfter.me allows you to tweet what you want with Dynamic Tweets. With this setting enabled, clicking the bookmarklet will show the small form (pictured above) in the top left corner of your browser. Type what you want and click Submit. Note the URL is automatically added, so there is no reason to add it to your text. Also note, at this time, you must be logged on to utilize Dynamic Tweets, and the bookmarklet will utilize The Default method if you have not logged onto the service, even if the setting is enabled (Why? Since you’re not logged on, the service can’t tell if you enabled this method).

You can enable or disable Dynamic Tweets at any time from your profile page.

With these 3 options, TweetAfter.me is a terrific supplement to your overall Twitter experience. 

Listed below are updates to TweetAfter.me from this week. Feedback has been really good so far. Please continue to contact me with what you like/hate/would like to see enhanced.

• Visual Recognition: After bookmarking a page, a visual confirmation is shown in the top-left corner of the webpage. It will disappear after approximately 1 second.

• Tweet selected text: Find an interesting quote to tweet? Highlight the text in your browser and we’ll tweet the quote in place of the page title. 

The bookmarklet is the only setup necessary to use lloquy.com. Registration isn’t even necessary. With lloquy.com, you could be setup, bookmarking, and having conversations to in under 30 seconds. This post takes you through steps to install the bookmarklet on some different platforms. 

The easiest method is to just drag the bookmarklet image found on the main page to your bookmarks bar. For most platforms, including Safari, Firefox, and Chrome, you are setup in under 5 seconds.

For Internet Explorer, try these steps.

• Make sure your Links Toolbar is visible. If it is not, right-click on any part of the menu bar and make sure Links or Favorites Bar is checked.
• Right-click on the lloquy.com bookmarklet button and click Add to Favorites.
• Be sure to save the favorite in your “Links” folder so that it appears in your Links Toolbar.

For other platforms, such as the iPad, you may have to perform other steps, although they are still easy. To install the lloquy.com bookmarklet on the iPad, you have two options, which are detailed in the following subsection

Installing the lloquy.com bookmarklet on your iPad

To install the bookmarklet on your iPad quickly and easily, add the bookmark to  Safari or Firefox on your computer, then synchronize your bookmarks to your iPad with iTunes.

If you do not want to sync your bookmarks in this way, then you can perform the following steps.

• Ensure proper settings on the iPad by going to the Settings app and turning on Always Show Bookmarks Bar, as well as JavaScript. Set Accept Cookies to From Visited.

• If you are reading this on another platform besides the iPad, Open the Safari web browser app on your iPad and return to this page.
• Copy this link holding down and selecting Copy. 
• Click the button shown in the picture below. Click Add Bookmark.

• Change the name to lloquy.com and ensure the bookmark resides in your Bookmarks Bar. Click Save.
• Tap the bookmarks button in the toolbar. Ensure that you are seeing items from your bookmarks bar. Tap Edit and select the lloquy.com bookmark.
• Replace the URL with the copied text by first tapping the X button to clear the URL, then holding down your finger until the magnifying glass appears. Click Paste. Remove http://www.lloquy.com/? from the beginning of the URL.
• Save your changes and tap Done.

This method is awkward and has a higher probability of error. However, with the iPad’s inability to copy javascript, this is the best solution I could come up with at this time (I’d love to hear from developers who could do something better).

If you feel more platforms should be involved, let me know and I will try to add instructions.

Did you know that 25% of tweets on Twitter contain links to interesting opinions, news, and photos? Posting interesting stuff, through links, is one of the best ways to increase the number of followers you have. However, update too many times in a short timeframe, and you’ll lose a percentage of people following you.

For me, I only have certain times I can tweet, mainly when people aren’t focusing on Twitter. I find interesting stuff, but no one sees it, because I post when no one is looking, and I post in bulk. 

TweetAfter.me was created to easily bookmark interesting news, opinions, and articles you find on the internet, and tweet on your behalf in set intervals (2 Tweets every hour). Therefore, if you find 20 articles in the morning, TweetAfter.me will spread those tweets over 10 hours. 

TweetAfter.me is incredibly simple. To get started, just drag the bookmark located on the main page to your bookmark’s bar on your browser.

That is the only setup required. Note that registration wasn’t required, because there is no registration. TweetAfter.me does not store your Twitter password. 

So now that you have the bookmarklet on your browser. How do you use the service?

• Surf the web. Find interesting stuff.
• When you found something you want to share, click the bookmarklet. If you have not confirmed your credentials with Twitter this session, we will redirect you to Twitter to log in. After verifying your credentials, you may be asked to authorize TweetAfter.me to communicate on your behalf. Accept this request (You can turn access off at any time by visiting Twitter.com).

• You will be redirected back to your original page. The page is now bookmarked and will be tweeted when scheduled.

Subsequent bookmarks will not require you to logon. Therefore, to visually show that websites were bookmarked, a visual cue will appear in the top-left corner of the browser when the bookmarklet is pressed. It will disappear on it’s own.

That’s it! When you find other interesting pages, just click the bookmarklet and it will be saved for future tweeting.

So, is TweetAfter.me a fully-featured service that provides me everything I could ever want as a supplemental tool for Twitter?

TweetAfter.me is an “un-launched” product that allows users to bookmark interesting content they find on the internet, and share that content at a later time. If you’re like me, you may find multiple things during one timeframe (such as when you’re drinking coffee). Instead of sharing those links all at once using your favorite Twitter client, TweetAfter.me allows users to bookmark that content, and we’ll automatically share with your followers throughout the day.

So what is “un-launched”? Another term that may be more utilized for this stage in product development is “beta”, which just states that the product contains only a subset of features a finished product would have. Instead of keeping the service in stealth until it is complete, however, I realize that TweetAfter.me has value now with it’s current set of features. Therefore, I hope users will use it to grow their follower count and reputation, as well as provide feedback on enhancements they would like to see.

Why tell you this? First, if you use the product and see something you don’t like (or think of something you would like the service to perform), I want to hear about it. I know how I use the product, but the service will only be truly valuable by understanding how You use the product. By utilizing an “un-launched” term, I’m stating that the service is consistently being upgraded. As an example, the first two weeks have brought several major upgrades to the service.

• Tweet what you want utilizing our Dynamic Tweet Form instead of tweeting the content title
• Select text from the page to tweet
• Your own profile page, allowing you to perform multiple actions, like deleting a scheduled action tweeting content right away
• A visual cue of success when clicking the bookmarklet

These examples come straight from user feedback. Therefore, I encourage you to try the service and give me the “lowdown” on your use.