ZapTXT 2.0 Beta goes live! - the highlights
On behalf of the ZapTXT team, I’m thrilled to join Ed in announcing the new release of ZapTXT.
As Ed mentions in his post below, we have currently opened up registration for the first 10,000 users that sign up. Our current users of course are already registered.
If you would like us to drop you a line when we open up registration, please email us at feedback@zaptxt-inc.com.
Before I get to high-lighting the some of the goodies in this release, I want to say 2 thank you’s:
First, we are very grateful to those that provided incredible feedback during testing. We can’t thank you enough.
Second, my heartfelt gratitude to our dream team that helped put this together. Alex Wright patiently worked through multiple interaction design and content iterations; Jane Devon brought her amazing talents (as usual) to shepherd us through design directions and Xavier Vanvlasselaer was able to produce the application beautifully and in a very short time frame. Of course Ed rocks. ZapTXT was his baby before I got involved, and I have yet to work with another developer that could so easily be open to fundamental changes put forth by the team and put his emotional attachment to the side as we baked the roadmap for this release. I don’t think developers get nearly enough credit for conceiving new ideas but that’s a different show.
For those of you that are new to ZapTXT, a big welcome to you. Here’s the skinny on our service: We allow you to create custom keyword searches to track your favorite rss-enabled websites via email, instant messenger or mobile device. For more information, click on the “Learn More” button on ZapTXT.com or check out the FAQ.
Objectives of this release:
- Re-architect the concept of feed monitoring by focusing on why the user really came - which is to monitor specific information for a given task, sometimes across trusted sources.
- Bring the amazing benefits of OPML to the forefront for the every day user.
- Improve usability via the use of widgets, auto discovery and good interaction design to simplify the process of creating, monitoring, refining and delivering your tasks.
Highlights of this release:
The new ZapTask: We’ve turned the notion of monitoring feeds on its head. With this release you bring your tasks and your multiple trusted rss-enabled sources to ZapTXT, we monitor that task for you and you move on with your life. So search for that digital camera across Craigslist, eBay Stores and CNET reviews at one time and get the best deal available. Get the best out of the web, on your terms - when you want and where ever you are.
We’ve also made it very easy to edit a ZapTask. You can now change just about anything on a current ZapTask - keywords, feeds you want to monitor and delivery preferences.
Here are some use cases to get your juices flowing:
- A researcher, journalist or PR/communications professional can create ZapTasks using specific key words (e.g. CEO, resigns, downgrade, earnings for a company and monitor these keywords across say PR Newswire and the Wall Street Journal or “Joe Lieberman” on Daily KOS, CNN, Digg and Sphere) and receive real-time updates on when news is covered in any of your chosen content sources.
- A diabetic can have ZapTXT monitor a new drug, alternative treatment, across the FDA, a set of blogs, the drug manufacturers site and the health section of the New York Times - all as one task.
- A sports fan can monitor a team, a player on his/her favorite blogs, news feeds that Fox Sports provides and your local newspaper.
- A systems security professional can now know right away if new security holes or virus are discovered and move swiftly to protect against a new threat.
- For the shopper or jobseeker or any classifieds user, let the deal come to you and be first to respond. Monitor a job across Craigslist, SimplyHired, Edgeio, New York Times or just about any rss enabled feed. Same applies for that snowboard you want to buy, or that apartment you’re looking to rent. You get the idea…
OPML: In the event that OPML interests you, this release brings one of the more user-friendly approaches to importing, creating, refining and searching across an OPML file. So bring your trusted feeds to ZapTXT or create a set within ZapTXT and in a few seconds you have ZapTXT serving as your agent looking for what you consider juicy content across that feed set. No need to browse every day to see what’s new and whether you care about what’s new. We’ll do that for you.
Widgets: We’ve brought some of the widgets that were previously hidden in the application to the forefront. So no need to come to ZapTXT every time you find a site that has useful information. Add the ZapTXT bookmarklet to your browser and just click on it - the feed passes automatically into ZapTXT. Simply enter your keyword filters, pick your delivery mechanisms and frequency and your done.
Publishers can also add the ZapTXT button to their sites to allow users to be able to monitor their blogs for topics of the users interest.
Delivery Mechanisms: In addition to Gtalk and Jabber, this release also allows for MSN and AIM to be used for IM alert notifications.
That’s a lot for one post. We can’t be more excited about this release and what’s to come in bite size pieces over the next few months.
Thanks for stopping by,
Sameer
