You might have already noticed that we've been making some changes here and there. What you don't know is that we're making significant changes under the hood, so buckle up, it might be a bumpy ride.
We're going to be pushing these changes out as they're tested, so expect to see some intermittent errors or oddities over the coming weeks. But stay tuned, we have some good things in store.
NC State, UNC Chapel Hill, and Duke University, we have a little promotional tour planned for your campuses!
Keep your eyes and ears open during the coming 3 to 4 weeks, and you should notice signs of Swirl popping up here and there on and near your campuses.
Everything will culminate in mid-April, and you'll have the chance to try Swirl out and collect some schwag. And there's a little cross-campus competition aspect involved here, too, where you'll get the chance to win a new phone, an iPod, collect some cash, or earn other free gifts.
More information to come soon.
I'm a little late in posting this, but we were featured on Killer Startups last week. They review up and coming Web 2.0 and mobile companies. We were sitting at the top of the charts for the week, but the clock is reset when a new week starts.
You can check out their profile of us, and give us a vote while you're there! You can find us in the Top 10 | This Year | Mobile category -- we're sitting at #2.
If you've been keeping an eye on our placemark coverage map, you've probably noticed that we've been expanding our footprint to most metropolitan areas in the United States. We're focusing primarily on meeting places, like bars, restaurants, coffee shops, cafes, book stores, arenas, and the like, but have avoided most retail establishments. It can be easy to get carried away!
While we've done the major metropolitan areas, coverage is still sparse in less populous areas. But you can help -- and it's easy! Just let us know what you'd like to see covered next, and we'll do the rest. Rounding out our U.S. coverage is a priority, as well as initiating coverage in the UK.
Because all of our activities and connections occur somewhere, at some specific geographic point on the Earth, codifying those points represents another step forward in the evolution of our product. And we're glads to be moving forward.
Your Swirl Connect friends list is very different from your buddy list on services like My Space or Facebook. Even though Swirl Connect includes some social networking features, it is not a social network. It is a service used to stay connected with your friends -- your actual, real life friends -- and connect with people and places near you. We use the word 'friend' quite literally.
With social networks like Facebook and My Space, friend collecting is common. You see a post you like, you add the poster as a friend. Someone shares the same interests, you add them as a friend. Someone looks cute, you add them as a friend. This is a not the wisest strategy for using Swirl, both for privacy/security and practical reasons.
You can, of course, use Swirl any way you see fit, but personally, I don't want 100 acquaintances knowing where I am whenever I'm logged into Swirl. I also don't want them peering at my pictures as I take them. I prefer to share these types of things with my actual friends. Before you add someone as a friend or accept a friend request from someone else, put yourself in a hypothetical situation (say, it's 2:00 AM, you're alone, and on your way home), and ask yourself if you want that person knowing where you are and what you are doing. If you cannot safely answer "hells yeah!" then you probably want to think twice about keeping that person on your friend list.
From a practical standpoint, the more friends you follow, the more alerts you'll receive. Do you really want 100 alerts a night? And do you want to wait while we periodically query the statuses of 100 people? Do you want to wait while your poor, overworked mobile phone tries to display hundreds of activity items? Do you want to constantly zoom in and recenter so that you can see your nearby friends' activity (by default, we zoom out so that you can see all of your friends)?
For best results keep your friend list short.
Please be safe and have fun.
We've added a placemark coverage map so that you can see if we've had a chance to add your area to our expanding list of places. We're starting with larger metropolitan areas in the U.S., along with our hometowns, but we have plans to include many of the major metropolitan areas in the U.S. over the next few months.
For everyone outside the U.S., all I can say is that we're working on it. If you'd like to get involved, please let us know! Of course, everyone can get in on the action by adding their favorite placemarks via their My Swirl control panel or Swirl Connect on their phone (it's easier on a PC though).
If you'd like to see your city on here sooner rather than later, give us some feedback and we'll see what we can do.
Just a reminder that the latest Swirl Connect release is now 0.8.6 Public Alpha. If you're using a version prior to 0.8.0, you're using our Private Alpha version. Version 0.8.x:
Versions 0.7.x will continue to function normally, but upgrading to the latest version is recommended. When you upgrade, your phone will prompt you to replace your current installation and keep existing data. You might see a prompt similar to "Source has changed," "Trust this source," etc. Acknowledge these prompts to continue with the upgrade.
As always, feedback is welcomed. Either contact us directly, or post to the forums.
Thanks for your continued support.
We have officially released Swirl Connect (Yes, as opposed to our previous unofficial
releases)! What exactly IS Swirl Connect you might ask? Well, it's a free location-based crossover application that helps you stay connected with your friends, experience what your friends experience as it happens, meet new people while on the go, and find places of interest near you.
Whether you're sitting at a computer, or you're on the go with a mobile device, you can still connect with anyone else who is using the Swirl software. Swirl Connect supports nearly 200 handsets, including support for Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, Motorola, and Samsung phones. We will be working on supporting another 100-200 additional mobile devices in the coming months.
Swirl Connect includes popular aspects from several leading products, including mobile social software applications, web 2.0 sites, mash-ups and common communication tools. Swirl-enabled phones allow you to see your friends' pictures, placemarks and placenotes. Phones with GPS receivers update automatically, while other phones require a quick, manual check in.
All Swirl users have access to a web-based control panel called "My Swirl." My Swirl archives all users' (as well as their friends') activity. People, places and photos can be discovered with My Swirl and located with Google Maps integration.
Initially, the placemark database will contain a limited number of placemarks, since much of this content is user-generated. What does this mean to you? Get out there and start listing some hotspots! Find places of interest— places you’d recommend to your friends as great places to check out/eat/visit/tour etc. The more you use Swirl the better it will be.
So check to see if your phone is supported, get a Swirl account, and "Connect" with what's around you!
We quietly added a 'Quick Signup' option to our web site in a recent release, which enables you to register for a Swirl account with minimal fuss. I have mixed feelings on this quick signup option. I like simple and fast registrations. Sometimes I won't even use a site if it asks for too much information. But in Swirl's case, this information really is needed to personalize your experience. So now we're giving you the choice, and the trade off is convenience vs. personalization.
We don't ask for your address in Quick Signup, but instead try to geocode you based on your IP address. We have about a 70 percent success rate with this, but we can only narrow it down to a city. So three out of 10 of you we won't be able to find, meaning we can't show you what's around you. The other seven will be shown things near your city or zip code center, rather than your actual coordinates. You can always geocode yourself, however, and I recommend that you do so before you login via your mobile device for the first time. Swirl is much more fun when we can determine where you are!
We don't ask for your phone make and model during Quick Signup. This only means that you'll have to browse our WAP site so that we can auto-detect your phone, rather than being able to choose from all of our other download options.
We don't ask for your phone number during Quick Signup. This means that we can't push real-time alerts to your mobile phone, we can't push instant messages to you, and your friends can't use Swirl's Quick Talk feature to reach you. You can, however, send instant messages.
Those are the three biggest concessions you have to make when you choose Quick Signup. And now you see why I have mixed feelings on this. I want registration to be as simple as possible, but I also want you to get the most out of Swirl. And those two wants happen to be mutually exclusive.
