Introducing BackType Alerts

http://blog.backtype.com/2008/09/introducing-backtype-alerts/

by omakase • 18 years ago

33 37 18 years ago

blog.backtype.com

fallentimes5• 18 years ago

I'm already a google alerts fiend, so I've been looking forward to these for a while.

Great work guys.

dmix• 18 years ago

I had some Google alerts set up to keep track of an industry I am entering but they cluttered up my RSS reader and became a chore. I'm thinking about using something like Rivalmap instead.

Backtype alerts would be good for comments which is almost as important as blog posts.

fallentimes5• 18 years ago

I don't use RSS...I just have Google Alerts email me a summary depending on the importance (i.e. as it happens for important stuff, daily/weekly for not so important stuff).

LukeG• 18 years ago

Nicely done...I still prefer my RSS tracking to Google Alerts, but this is definitely going in the arsenal.

prakash• 18 years ago

how is this different from google alerts?

fallentimes5• 18 years ago

Google alerts doesn't pick up comments. At least it never does for me.

omakase2• 18 years ago

Exactly! We will be publishing a blog post soon that shows the difference between BackType search results and other services.

I think businesses should be using every tool that is available to them to track their brand. That includes BackType Alerts, Google Alerts, Twitter/Summize search, Technorati search, FriendFeed search, etc.

rantfoil• 18 years ago

Another essential tool in the arsenal of a startup founder... monitoring and responding directly to feedback is critical.

omakase2• 18 years ago

I think a lot of people forget the responding part. Sometimes it's hard to know when to respond and when to let things go -- but it's amazing how quickly a pissed off user turns into a loyal one if you take the time to communicate with them.

Mrinal• 18 years ago

I so agree to that - we respond to the smallest of small bloggers for a good or bad post. No discrimination! Experiencing Backtype with this too.....

anotherjesse2• 18 years ago

The twitter integration doesn't seem to work.

I was talking to a friend about creating a "daily tweet" a daily summary of tweets of a search term. If they get this working then I don't have to build it.

konsl4• 18 years ago

We haven't done any Twitter integration yet. We are going to add a button to tweet a comment, but we aren't doing digests. If you want to push a digest to twitter, you can link your comments feed from BackType to: http://twitterfeed.com/

We'll be releasing an API soon so that the apps/tools/etc we don't build can still be built.

anotherjesse2• 18 years ago

Ahh, I read too quickly:

"Following comments by a particular author a la Twitter was a core feature when we launched"

I thought you guys used search.twitter.com and included tweets with my alert term. Please do add twitter as a source of comments for the alerts :)

sanj2• 18 years ago

what is really unfortunate here is that by being obstinate and combative with briansmith and plagiarismtoday, konsi is missing a solid business opportunity here.

As far as I can tell the mechanism to identify users is based on name and URL which is probably the best you can do. What this does create is a centralized ID for blog commentators.

By registring as a blog commentator with backtype, commentators could have a mechanism to control the distribution of their comments: control over copyright issues like the size of their excerpt or the ability to opt out.

At the same time, backtype ends up as the repository of record for comments and has an alias database of commentators, which I can anticipate being monetizable.

Every opportunity starts out looking like a snake.

jamesbritt• 18 years ago

" By registring as a blog commentator with backtype, commentators could have a mechanism to control the distribution of their comments: control over copyright issues like the size of their excerpt or the ability to opt out.

At the same time, backtype ends up as the repository of record for comments and has an alias database of commentators, which I can anticipate being monetizable."

So the burden of opt-out falls on the those writing comments, while backtype gets the monetizable data so provided?

No thanks.

What could be interesting is if bloggers arranged their software so that every posted comment included a copyright notice declaring that the comment was copyrighted by the commenter and that it may not be reproduced in full, only excerpted (for example).

I would hate, though, for people to start thinking that, absent such explicit claim on content , it's fair game for poaching.

sanj2• 18 years ago

microformats to the rescue!

Or perhaps a commentator.txt file on ID urls.

My larger point is that this is an opportunity.

briansmith8• 18 years ago

I agree that there is some opportunity there. However, it really depends on the ToS. And, they have to provide people a way of opting out without accepting the ToS because the people own the content they are distributing. In fact, I already tried to sign up for a BackType account to see what controls there are, but I stopped once I read the ToS.

Since I first heard of BackType, I've been thinking about a way to solve this problem that isn't based on mass copyright infringement. I think I have a pretty good idea on how to do it. When I have something concrete I will bring it up as a new topic on news.yc.

ig1• 18 years ago

It's pretty confusing, it looks like a service I might use so I went to the home page and set up an alert for "fizzbuzz", I then got a prompt asking my to register (do I have to register for the alert to work ? is it optional ?). After registering I ended up at a page which confused the hell out of me.

"we haven't found any of your comments yet" left me thinking - have they not found any comments that match my search term or does it mean something else.

The options given were: # Claim Comments – help us find your comments # Edit Account – review your account details # Edit Profile – so people can find you # Search – for people to follow

The "Search" option kinda sounds like what I want to do, but the "for people to follow" makes me think it isn't. It's completely unclear what I need to do in order to track some keywords.

konsl4• 18 years ago

Sorry -- Alerts require you to be a registered user so we can deliver them to a verified e-mail address. If you don't want to sign-up, you can perform searches and subscribe to results via RSS.

We thought it would be cool if we carried an alert through the sign-up process and added it afterwards. I guess we didn't realize how confusing it would be when the registration was complete. We'll be making this a lot more clear; thanks for the feedback.

The page you're viewing (the Dashboard) allows you to:

- View comments by people you're following (/home)

- View alerts you've subscribed to (/home/alerts)

- View comments shared by people you're following (/home/shared)

We're going to revisit that welcome msg; for now, you should visit http://www.backtype.com/home/alerts to find your alert and subscribe to more. Alternatively, you can perform searches on http://www.backtype.com/comments and subscribe to them from the results page.

Thanks again.

Tichy• 18 years ago

"conversations that may require our participation"

Nobody shall be wrong on the internet ever again!!!

lemonysnicket• 18 years ago

backtype = searchyc.com re-incarnated as a start-up (rather than a completed side project)?

Introducing BackType Alerts

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