Social Appeal

Skipped a month. I was busy adding some grouping features to the main site. I always figured there are enough social networks out there that I would just let those sites be the place where people shared their audio messages. While I don't think msg-time will become a fully fledged social networking site, it would be nice to have a place to showcase your audio to like minded people, friends, or contacts. Hopefully this makes things easier to use and more fun.

All Night to the Early Morn..

So, it's about 1:30 and instead of putting off upgrading my site to leverage Facebook's new platform features till this weekend, I started hacking away late evening(early morning), and it lasted all the way till just in time to go to work. There are a lot of nice integration points to explore with the new tools, and I've chosen to use the Canvas Page integration point as a sort of gateway to Msg-Time.com content.

Facebook users can share and search on public content provided by Msg-Time users. I've found a little bug with the share links, but the search functionality seems to be working fine. Hopefully this reaches more people and gives them a compelling reason to add their audio messages or voice to the web.

I'm so tired....

"..Seek and ye shall find..."

Rolling out some search capabilities. What's the point in having all these messages and no one can look for them? It's pretty simple at this point and should get the job done.

The search function looks on tags, title, description, name, and the author to help someone find what they're looking for. I'd like to bring advanced options and searches by category sometime soon.

More to come...

Playing a little game called "Tag"

Bringing yet another addition to the msg-time fold......comes the tagging of message files and feeds.

Many web sites these days use this to give the content people create some meaningful information.

This information may be later used to categorize or search on said content described.

My little foray into the tagging world is more of an experimental and rigid implementation, but hopefully is enough to provide some beneficial uses.

- 6 tags are allowed and words only.

- There is some controlled vocabulary used when associating information with content so be aware of those limitations.

- tagging is allowed for message files and rss/atoms feeds (msg-lines).

This is one of those things that really shows its potential from the creativity and strength of the user participation, so hopefully you guys like it enough to make it useful.

Feel free like always to throw any suggestions my way about it as well.

Adios.

Spring-Time

Hello Hello. The latest is....

- There should be a blog service or two added to the feature set soon.

- Explanation of what those services mean and a site map were added.

- Also added is an explanation for how upgrades work and their benefits, for all those gracious enough to be interested in subscribing.


Everything else is about spreading the word these days. I do need to tackle how I want to offer the site in different languages. This needs to be done in a way where the translations are not laughable or disrespectful either. Should be fun. Check the voice over below.

Say, Say, Say

New additions! Note the newly added web services on the home page, more message management tools, and I finally got rid of that activation nonsense on the recorder for all you IE users out there. I've done a lot of reading up on the competition lately. I have to say that the user generated content space is exploding with a bunch of different sites and ideas. There are some very good ideas at that. I'd like to think my KISS approach to a content service will be good enough, but the people will have the final say on what works best for them when all is said and done. I've appreciated the challenge of making something happen like this, and whatever happens I've appreciated the support greatly. I'm in it to win it though, and the growth is steady steady. Till next time...

Excited

Welcome.

Here we go again. An Idea I feel I really need to scratch has crept up on me. I've received a lot of questions from people about how am I going to go about making money off of this or making it worth my time. Of course, I always reply that this is really a throwback idea from some old friends of mine, and I'm the type of person that just likes to create stuff on the fly if possible. I've also had the unexpected return of gaining exposure on some career fronts and moving onto better things. I don't need the money to drive this site, because it is something I enjoy doing and put my own money into to make happen. Something has hit me like a brick though, and I figured if this thing ever became something that is pay worthy, it would just kind of happen. I am going to make a solid attempt to monetize, and I want to make some guarantees to any current or potential future users of my site as long as I'm the owner.

1. There will never be ads served up all over my site home pages or informational pages.

- I'm not a fan of all the clutter and I feel the absence of all that nonsense better enables people to experience the spirit of my site.

- Advertisements would only ever be served in my members section and only if you're a member that is using the FREE service. They will be off to the side and banner like. NO POP-UPS, OR VIDEO/AUDIO BASED ridiculousness. If the ad does involve sound or video you will be allowed to listen or view to your choosing. They WILL NOT auto-play.

2. Paying members will never be served ads of any kind.

- If you've deemed my service worthy enough for payment. I appreciate you for making my service better and your support. All the while you get to enjoy your message limit increases and increased functionality that comes with paid membership undisturbed.

This is the stance I am taking on trying to make money on the web. It may not be the most realistic or smart money man's game to play, but at the same time if it is that good, people will talk about it, like it, and it will pay for itself. This works like every other product anyone has sold and been successful with. In my eyes the Internet is no different.