It’s been a while since we wrote on this blog, or put out a significant update to Socialthing! But we’re not sitting with idle hands, that’s for sure and we wanted to give you a quick update…
For the last two months we’ve been hard at work at what we’re calling version 2.0. After we released Socialthing! at South by Southwest this year, we had quickly realized a few things that we wanted to change. We immediately started work on the next version, but the hardest part was realizing that it couldn’t be an incremental change, it was going to have to be a major revision.
That’s why we’re calling it 2.0. The things that you’ve come to love are still there, our great UI, ease of use, etc. But a lot of the things that have had criticisms are changing. We’ve fixed a lot of things, added a ton of new features, and all in all, made a much better app. We’ve got some new features that will help with information overload, including new ways of sorting information, hiding it, etc. The upgrade also means that we’ll be able to add new services at a much faster pace, new features on a more regular basis, etc.
We’re working hard to be able to deliver these changes to you. We’ve been alpha testing some of the new features for weeks with great success. ST! v2.0 is really a massive upgrade so we’re really hoping that you like it when it’s finally in your hands.
Hello all!
Inspired by a Mashable article posted last week (http://mashable.com/2008/04/28/twitter-brand-management/), I decided to post a blog about how we go about brand management and where we have found success. At Socialthing! we do our best to keep up with what everyone is saying and suggesting. We find it very important to hear comments, concerns, likes, dislikes, and so on from all of our users and followers. There are a number of ways we go about managing this.
First off is our Get Satisfaction site: http://getsatisfaction.com/socialthing. Here, anyone can come and ask questions, let us hear ideas and problems, as well as just talk with other people. Not only do we try to respond to each post, but its a place for users to help each other as well.
Another way we stay in contact with our users is by a direct e-mail (mail at socialthing dot com) that in turn goes to each employee to ensure that it is responded to as quickly as possible. This is an easy way for someone to get a hold of us as an alternate to using our Get Satisfaction site.
One of the biggest ways we get feedback is by tracking mentions of Socialthing! on sites such as tweetscan.com and summize.com. By doing this we can see a copious amount of positive and (hopefully less) negative feedback. It allows us to see users concerns as well as what they’re saying to their friends about us. Keeping up with Tweets (as discussed in this great article on ReadWriteWeb: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_to_get_customer_service_via_twitter.php) helps us address many issues presented by our users.
With these three things, we find that we are seeing a lot more feedback and helping more people than just using traditional methods. It is of utmost importance to us to address all of the needs of our users, and we feel this is how it should be. So come on out and let us hear what you have to say- we’re always listening!
- Ally (Community Director)
Oh, and PS…you can always email me at ally at socialthing dot com if you have issues!
We want to hear from you…
We want you to tell us what kinds of things you want our upcoming API to do…head over to the link below and tell us!
http://getsatisfaction.com/socialthing/topics/tell_us_what_features_you_want_to_see_in_the_st_api
The closer we get to releasing Socialthing! to the public, the better we’re able to get some really cool stuff included in the app. We’ve already got some sweet new features that will be ready for launch, but we’d really like to hear from the community. What’s been swirling around in your mind when you’ve been using Socialthing!? What’s been that ONE thing that you wish that we did? Well, we want to hear about it…so tell us in the comments, and we’ll see what we can do to get it in there…
Any time you see another feature someone else posted that you think is awesome, go ahead and vote it up. Our blog comments are powered by our friends over at Intense Debate and it will help us with our little experiment here…
We can’t wait to show off all the new things that are just around the corner…
Socialthing! is in private beta at the moment, but you can always request an invite by signing up for our mailing list!
Socialthing! is hosted by (mt) Media Temple
