How many times can you post about restarting your blog and then post nothing? My count is about 3. It's not as though I haven't been writing. It's simply a lack of posting and ability to commit to finishing a few thoughts. For example, here is a post I wrote in January but never posted:
Here is my first post in a series where I'll be using three new apps and reviewing them for this audience. My goals are to demonstrate expertise as an avid user of technology while increasing my knowledge of specific apps and the larger app marketplace. Hopefully these posts provide insightful feedback for the development team while also uncovering obscure apps to new users. My samples will be limited for the time being to the Android Marketplace and web based apps until I get my hands on an iphone, ipad, or Kindle Fire...cough...cough...send me a free one!
if this then that (ifttt) - This service has been around for a little while but it's relatively new to me. Techcrunch calls ifttt, "a glue gun for sticking the web together," and I couldn't agree more. Ifttt lets you link your online accounts, phone, and popular websites to create instances or rules that trigger certain actions. It's like a simplified programming language that lets users put the power of the internet to work in ways that benefit them on a daily basis. One of the most basic examples is a user telling ifttt to text their cellphone whenever the weather forecast calls for rain. Another is to update your Linkedin and twitter profile pictures whenever your facebook profile changes. Ifttt saves you time by allowing you to automate repetitive (annoying) tasks.
Using Ifttt is very simple but its infancy shows in the lack of programs and triggers you can use to create tasks. Triggers are the program specific variables that ifttt can recognize and are the "this" of the equation. Examples of Twitter triggers include anytime @JetBlueCheeps tweets or anytime someone follows you. It seems as though the basic triggers exist for each service but more complex features will make the service more relevant for users. I'd love to receive a text message whenever @JetBlueCheeps tweets about deals from BOS or one at 7:30am if the day's forecast calls for rain but those options aren't currently available. Ifttt could also do a better job of engaging users by providing an opportunity to suggest new triggers in the app rather than having to find a mode of communication for sharing ideas.
Ifttt should win an award for the site's design as the white background and dark/bold text make it visually appealing. The site contains an excessive amount of information and details but I've yet to feel overwhelmed. One thing that would make adoption easier for users would be to setup their initial task for them or to walk them through it with a tutorial. Alternatively. They could do this upon registration or after a few weeks for users that register and never setup a task. Either way they could do a better job of helping users access the service who aren't your typical early adopter. Finally, the best thing they could do to expedite the growth of the product is by opening the creation of tasks to third party developers. Seeing other users recipes is great but it doesn't address the issue of limited tasks.
Buffer - A new tool that helps you "be awesome on Social Media" by letting a user create a "buffer" or log of tweets which get published on a defined schedule. The primary goal is to help the user tweet more consistently which is a key factor in gaining an audience. This is definitely a problem I have around 9am and 1pm each day when Mashable and Techcrunch emails show up in my inbox. Bursts of 6 tweets can be an annoyance for your followers and it decreases the chance you'll catch people when they're on Twitter. Users at tweets to their buffer through a browser extension or app which makes the experience much more convenient.
After a few days of using Buffer, I started to notice that it could take a day+ before some tweets would show up in my stream. Consistency is great but so is timeliness. It's hard to be relevant or to be current if there is a day lag with your tweets. This issue had an easy fix as you can adjust your schedule in the settings tab. The default is four tweets spaced evenly at 9am, 12pm, 5pm, and 9pm. These times correlate with times people are out of work and most likely to check their social streams but it clearly isn't often enough for a frequent tweeter. My biggest frustration or holdup right now is that Buffer doesn't suggest Twitter users to mention in the app or plugin. This annoyance erases the benefit of the plugin and app if the user has to visit Twitter to find a user's handle anyway.
Overall the UI is very modern and inviting. The UX couldn't be better with the convenience of having a plugin, app, and website to build your buffer. The pain solved is an annoyance but isn't necessarily a critical problem worth solving. This is a great app to use but not sure it's worth paying for the premium features.
Zerply - Another site that has been around for a little while but I hadn't gotten around to trying. On the surface, it's simply another professional social network...boring. But Zerply differentiates itself from Linkedin by focusing on connecting professionals based on specific skills and tags. For example, a user can search for Inbound Marketing Professionals in Cambridge (In my case it's more likely a Ruby developer) and easily find professionals that meet that criteria. This should make it a great tools for recruiters as I've found it particularly helpful for finding technical talent. Zerply also provides customizable profiles unlike the standardized profile approach taken by facebook and LNKD. This should make it much more appealing to creative types as it acts like a networking about.me. Another useful feature of Zerply is the ease of connecting or saving contacts to your address book. This is a drastic shift from the private nature of making connections through LNKD which requires you to know the person.
I actually setup my Zerply account four weeks ago but abandoned it due to frustration experienced while attempting to add a profile picture. I initially tried connecting my Twitter profile but the API crashed and eventually told me the picture was too small for Zerply. Then I tried uploading my LNKD and original Twitter profile pictures but neither were accepted because they were also too small. This means my profile will be lacking a picture until I find one that fits...not likely to happen anytime soon. Another unusual aspect of Zerply is that you can only edit your profile through the settings. Most sites let you access the editing interface through your profile and it isn't initially clear where to find it with Zerply. This is obviously a minor annoyance but it could lead to adoption issues for users who aren't accustomed to this UX.
Zerply lets you connect and display all of your other profiles making it similar to about.me. A natural application is to utilize it as a hub for my other online accounts. Reducing my email signature will definitely be a welcome change assuming people click through to Zerply. This use case combined with simplifying recruitment should make it a useful resource for those looking to demonstrate their professional skills. The only question remains, Mr Owl, why call it Zerply? The world will never know...
Looking forward to using Smak (launching today) next week but might not have enough time to write about it. Please suggest some other applications you can't live without and give me your feedback on ifttt, buffer, and zerply.
(Disclosure: I wasn't paid for these product reviews and I don't own a financial stake in any of the companies...yet)
This could have been a great post and part of an even better ongoing series yet it sat in my Drafts for 10 months. How many bloggers have this posting problem? The bottom line is get your ideas out there and worry about grammar, misspellings, and other errors later.
Update:
Buffer is the only one of these apps that I still use because they've seamlessly integrated it with Twitter, FB, etc. Ifttt was great for a little while but I gradually turned all of the alerts off especially once I learned when the 4th Season of Breaking Bad would be on Netflix I really had no other use for it. Coincidentally it would have been helpful to have the profile picture recipe activated when I updated all of my profile pictures last week...missed my blogger profile. I see no need for Zerply as LinkedIN has launched skills yet I still refuse to purchase a premium subscription. Note, next post will hopefully be about my life hack for getting around LinkedIN's free model restrictions.
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