2010 January | SocialWayne.com by Wayne Sutton

Archive for January, 2010

Posted on January 21, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

15 online customer support solutions for your startup

Ok here’s a post that includes Foursquare but not about Foursquare but is about Foursquare just not about locations. Now that we have that out of the way, like most startups using web apps to save time and money have become somewhat of a standard process. You can use Google Docs for all of your office application needs, you can use Phonebooth, Skype or Google Voice for phone service and instead of hiring teams for customer service, startups are using web base applications for customer support and ticketing. One of the most popular customer support platforms for startups is Get Satisfaction, which offers an instant way for companies to manage customer support, share ideas and gather feedback from customers as well. Get Satisfaction provides freemium services with paid upgrades for more options. We’re using it for customer support and feedback at TriOut. Since the launch of Get Satisfaction more platforms have lunched not to just focus on customer support but to focus on community feedback or collect ideas. Here’s a list of 15 online customer support solutions for your startup.

http://www.zendesk.com

http://tenderapp.com

http://uservoice.com

http://getsatisfaction.com

http://www.ideascale.com

http://www.crowdsound.com/tour

http://www.eldos.com/vp

http://userecho.com

http://www.suggestionbox.com

http://www.fevote.com

http://www.kindlingapp.com

http://code.google.com/p/cnprog

http://code.google.com/p/soclone

http://www.opensourcerails.com/projects/1785-OpenMind

*disclosure I have no affiliation with any off the companies listed above.

Have you used one of the customer support platforms before? Which one is your favorite?

Posted on January 20, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

6 Ways to show your location with location based app widgets

As the rush to location based app supremacy continues going from check-in to Twitter seems to be the default way to share your location status. Next up the obvious is to show your location on your blog for readers to stalk you, I mean to track your offline movements. Brightkite, Yelp, Whrrl and Google Latitude provide their own code for creating a location based widgets. Recently fans of two of the popular location based social networks/apps in 2010, Gowalla and Foursquare have created custom widgets allowing you to add your recent check-ins or favorite location to any website. Brightkite doesn’t call their location widget a widget but a wall because it shows all of the users who have visited a location but nevertheless it’s a widget.

Below are 6 Ways for you to show your offline location with location based app widgets.

1. Google Public Location Badge – http://www.google.com/latitude/apps/badge
iGoogle

2. Yelp - http://www.yelp.com/bling

3. Whrrl: http://whrrl.com/widgets (have multiple ways to embed locations/stores)

More check-ins at Twine Interactive

4. Gowalla via WP-Walla wordpress plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-walla/

5. FourSquare PlaceWidget for WordPress: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/placewidget-for-wordpress/
PlaceWidget Settings ‹ Social Wayne on the Social Web by Wayne Sutton — WordPress

6. Brightkite – http://brightkite.com/wall

Photo by Factoryjoe

Have you seen other location based widgets and would you add one to your site?

Posted on January 19, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

Shares from the Social Web: RSS feeds for January 19th

Today, while reading RSS feeds in Google Reader, I came across these interesting blog posts and wanted to share them with you. Some of the post topics range from WordPress themes/tips, to marketing advice, to various social media examples. I hope you find some of them interesting. If one of them was useful to you or if you have a comment about one, let me know in the comments. Thanks

	Shared Polldaddy Billion.
	Shared Four People Who Will Kill Your Company’s Social Media Efforts.
	Shared Abuzz Launches Social Media Search App for iPhone.
	Shared Does Your Small Business Think Local?.
	Shared How to Develop a Content Strategy Process.
	Shared The Social Networking Guide for Moms.
	Shared Personal Brands are Today’s Leaders, Not Tomorrow’s.
	Shared How I Wrote a $30,000 eBook (And You Can Too).

Posted on January 19, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

Your feedback and results from the location based social network/app poll

Last Thursday I created a poll listing 17 location-based social networks/ apps for the readers of socialwayne.com and my Twitter followers. The poll was for readers to vote on their favorite location based social network or app. During the voting process one of the most consistent comments I received was that most users didn’t know there were so many location based apps available. I could see how because if you read most of the popular tech blogs you’ll think there are only three or four available but that’s another post to discuss. Either way I didn’t receive thousands of votes but I do feel that the results are accurate based on the current trend of blogosphere as it discusses location based apps with the exception of Yelp being added to the list late Friday evening after they updated their iPhone app. Also some of the comments I believe provide insight on why some of the location base apps my see a decline in traffic, along with a few new location based apps that I was not aware of added by voters. Regardless, you can view the analytics, results and comments from the location based social network/app poll below.

Clicks and shares
610 bit.ly clicks on the link I shared
774 Total clicks total
55 other Twitter users shared the link
386 Clicks from the United States
388 Clicks from other Countries

Three location based apps shared the poll: Brightkite, Whrrl and UrbanKite

Votes
317 Total Votes

The Top 6:

Foursquare 35%
Brightkite 31%
Gowalla 12%
Whrrl 8%
TriOut 6%
Other answers

Other location based apps users voted for that were not on the list:
MobileMe
The Local Pub
origo.no
Grindr
Tellmewhere
Dopplr
aka aki
Twitter
sleeq.com
Geocaching
Waze
qik
GPS Assassins

Interesting Comments:
From Rachel
For a long time I was very loyal to Brightkite… until I discovered Foursquare. Brightkite was fun and I met a lot of people while it was still in Beta, but after a while I lost motivation to continue checking in. Then Foursquare came around and it seemed to just make more sense.

From Mike
I too was a long time Brightkite addict, until they changed to version 2.0, had lots of problems and then the android application stopped working.
I’m slightly puzzled about foursquare though. Is it not just a game? Where is the interaction element of it?
I dont see a way to post comments on peoples notes?
How do you post a general note? And I see no way to upload photos?
I have a feeling Gowala is similar?

From Chris:
I think BrightKite would get a larger part of the vote if some of the old features were to return to the new version. I know I miS the friend search feature for finding people I already know (the browse function is a meak replacement). It’s not as interesting to share your location if you can’t find people you know to share it with.
I think Loopt has some interesting features, but they need to open it up for than just their limitied list of carriers.
Lattitude has potential, but doesn’t have a way to check in to specific locations.
Foursquare seems to be gaining ground. All of these sites will be better once more people turn to one more than another.
One thing I think most of the location-based services need is a way to check out of a place, so you can check out when you leave.

From Ryan:
What about Dooplr, TripIt, Yelp, Urbanspoon? These are all fantastic niche location based social networks related to travel and reviews.

Do you agree the results of the poll and comments?