The last post spoke to our in2apps Development Principles, which we use to guide our overall decision making process on what features and
functionality we introduce and what areas of our platform, thin-client applications, and API we
concentrate on. Now it’s time to cover
what you’ll be seeing in the next 90 days from in2apps.
We've released in2community in public beta trial mode –
if you didn’t know that, it’s time for you to sign up! However, in2apps is much more than our social
networking application, it is a SaaS platform that we are using to develop our
proof of concept applications (and just because we deem them proof of concept
does not make them any less usable in the real world) and we chose to start
with in2community because it is the first pillar of our community, content, and
commerce philosophy. So our product
roadmap covers everything in our development pipeline, working against a 90-day
project plan.
Since we are a small dynamic company, our 90-day plan
needs to be flexible so we can add, remove, and shuffle projects based on level
of difficulty, customer requests, priorities, resources, ROI, and of course how
they align to our development principles.
We also have a parking lot to store features and functionality that we
will implement when the opportunity arises and it is technically and
resourcefully feasible for us to do so.
Those are usually the fun features that sneak in.
So with this development approach in mind, it is somewhat
difficult to provide a product roadmap that is carved in stone, because if we
did that we wouldn’t be all that dynamic anymore. The best we can do is to provide a 90-day
roadmap at 90-foot level.
At the 30-day mark, which we consider the month of April,
we will be releasing a number of features both major and minor for
in2community:
- A CSS wizard to customize your community
- Google AdSense within our thin-client (which
you might have noticed there already)
- The ad inventory buy-out feature so for a
monthly fee you can place your own ads or none at all
- External end-user invites
- Extended digital media
And we are excited to start on our next thin-client
application, in2classified.
At 60-days, which we consider the month of May, we will
continue to evolve the in2community thin-client with more features and
functionality and of course, really dig into in2classified. Look for the following for in2community:
- A requesting system to support friendship and
private groups
- Whitelabelling
- Fully enabling private and public communities
- Preliminary features for end-user
monetization
At 90-days, the month of June, one last feature for
in2community to support templates, full-on development and possible private
beta launch of in2classified, and laying some solid groundwork for our open
three-tier API.
You can keep up-to-date through our blog and through the
Product Release Notes in the Forum, as these are updated with the release of
each new version of the thin-client.
We use
the in2apps development principles to guide our overall decision making process
and we ensure they are taken into consideration in every version of every
application we develop.
1.
Optimization,
Performance, Stability, and Scalability
These are critical to
both in2apps and to each and every in2community embedded out there (especially as
we happily experience growth spurts). So
we make a conscious decision to include enhancements to the application in
every release with the goal of improving one or more of these areas. These may be noticeable and notable only to
us and within our infrastructure but if we didn’t include them, then what you
would notice would not be pretty - slow response times to perform routine tasks
such as loading the thin-client, uploading an image or video, or even editing a
profile. You have to pour the foundation
before you can put in the skylight!
2.
Ease
of implementation
It’s One Line of Code
and we take this one line very seriously.
All in2apps applications follow a single philosophy – to eliminate the
barriers to entry and provide equitable access to tools that deliver content, community,
and commerce opportunities for online publishers of any size and type. Whether you are a blogger or Webmaster,
deploying an in2apps application not takes only just one line of code, it’s
free.
3.
Features
and functionality that will encourage end-user interaction/adoption
Features/functionality
+ end-user interaction/adoption = revenue generation! How do we decide which features and
functionality to introduce? We start
with the baseline and then apply the elements of D-to-C – Distributed (Rich
Internet Applications) for Content, Community, and Commerce, ensuring that any
features encompasses one or all of these.
The 3 C’s in a distributed fashion are essential to creating dynamic
websites and increasing interaction and adoption.
4.
Complementary
applications and integration
Although each in2apps application, like
in2community, can be deployed standalone, our applications are being developed
to work in concert, sharing a complementary feature set that accelerates
monetization and adoption. Eventually
the line between in2classified and in2community will be blurred, one
application seamlessly blending into the other, and so on with our entire
application suite.
5.
Networks,
networks, and more networks
Not networks in the
technology sense, but rather in connecting publishers with like-minded
publishers, their audiences, and their content.
Embracing localization and relevancy is an innovative way to create,
expand, and connect communities, which is why all in2apps applications are
developed to enable publishers to be associated to a greater network(s) based categorical
definition of their website. Classified
sections and social communities, for example, are instantly populated with
relevant and localized information from compatible publishers, so in2apps
publishers enrich the experience of their audiences while establishing a
highly-targeted critical mass beneficial to all publishers in the network. Each in2apps development endeavor undertaken
ensures that the network effect is exploited to the best means possible.
When your new year starts off as being listed in the top 5 or top 10
of anything to watch, it is inevitably a great beginning and it just
seems to be getting better daily. in2apps shares the #1 spot in The Push to Pioneer of the Top Five Social Media Trends to Watch in 2008 on Leverage Social Media.
I
hope Mr. Amis and others continue to keep an eye on us, because we are
definitely starting 2008 off with a bang - the first 20 online
publishers are at the starting line ready to begin their private beta
trial of our first service, in2community for social networking, on January 14th. Remember, that was the first 20 and if you
haven't
signed up yet, do it now because the next 20 are just around the corner!
As a successful 2007 comes to a close, in2apps would like to extend our happiest wishes to our own social network – our extended team, friends, family, existing and future customers.
We have several unique initiatives in the pipeline for 2008 and we are excited to start sharing them with you in the New Year. Until then, have a fun and fantastic holiday season and a prosperous 2008!
Cheers,
The in2apps team
in2apps.com is looking for online publishers to participate in our private beta trial. Our SaaS platform enables online publishers, from bloggers to webmasters, to effortlessly establish a social network with in2community, a customized classified section with in2classified, and a number of self-service time-based ad zones with in2advertizing, and monetize instantly simply by embedding one line of code (per solution). The best part - these enterprise-quality thin client applications are free!
If you, or anyone you know, is an online publisher loosing the audience retention game and valuable revenues to other social networking, classified, or advertising destination sites, or you are looking for quick and easy means of competitive differentiation to offer your user community, then sign up now for the in2apps private beta trial at www.in2apps.com.
It has been a little over a week since we returned from the TC40 conference and with all of that activity crammed into two days, it has taken about this long for us to digest it all. It was definitely a rewarding experience, not necessarily on a financial level (yet), but on a tactical one. The number of start-ups in the social networking space is dizzying and they still garnered a lot of attention – partly for their functionality but mostly because the space is still hot topic. It seems the focus has moved away from Facebook and towards Ning – the “how are you different from Ning?” question popped up a lot. Facebook is still riding high but the focus now is on what applications can be, and are being, developed on the Facebook platform than for the social networking aspect itself. Which will hopefully bring to light the next hot topic – the platform.
People seem to be grappling with the platform concept a bit, as in2apps experienced at TC40. You can’t necessarily see or experience its capabilities or potential but clicking a link, a widget, or a button, however the Free SaaS Platform signage we posted on the table skirts seemed to capture the right attention. Once we explained it, people really latched onto it and most importantly other start-ups there could see the synergies of some business development opportunities. The fact that we were also showcasing our three proof of concept solutions for online publishers to implement directly on their own websites (social networking, on-line classified, and time-based advertising) with only one line of code, reaffirmed that the in2apps SaaS Platform is indeed a powerful tool. You might not be able to click on it but soon everyone will start experiencing the developmental freedom it brings to the next generation of Internet initiatives.
If you have some cool, innovative ideas on how to affect the way the
Internet evolves, then it's time to check out in2apps.com. in2apps is
a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that provides community,
content, and commerce opportunities through its array of Distributed
Rich Internet Applications that enable online publishers to deploy
social network, classified, and advertising services at no cost, with
only one line of code. It's a revolutionary new way to bring power to
the people and you could be an integral part of it, starting today!
Looking for Flex and Flash Developers in the NYC area is like trying to find a needle in a haystack...but we know you are out there. If you are one, or know of anyone with Flex and/or Flash experience, please email us today at jobs@in2apps.com
Sometimes there is an easy way to recoup your marketing expenses - enter a contest and win the $1,000 prize money offered by another TC40 DemoPit participant. Thanks Jiglu!
There's nothing like trying to get 1,000 one dollar bills in a clear plastic brief case through airport security....
in2apps is headed to San Francisco for
TechCrunch 40. You'll find CEO Mehdi Alami or CTO Manny Berrios in the demopit on Day 1, Sept. 17th, actively engaging other TC participants in conversations about our SaaS platform and our distributed rich internet applications for online publishers. We're excited to share the news, so please drop by to exchange some thoughts and ideas - who knows, we could even uncover a few opportunities as well!
I decided to type “Web 2.0” into Google. The result – 588 million search items returned. That’s nearly 4 times as many as McDonald’s and twice as many as Microsoft. It would be naïve now to think that Web 2.0 is merely hype, or just a marketing buzzword, or merely a term that resulted from a brainstorming session intended to put some meaning behind all of the new Internet successes materializing, seemingly, from out of no where. Of course, the introduction and exploitation of the first iteration of the Internet, as we look at it more than a decade later, was just the beginning of something big, perhaps it is still not completely defined or never will be in my lifetime, but it was undeniably monumental. Initially, most of us assumed the role of follower, pushed into business models pre-defined by a select handful of technology corporations. Time passes, bubbles burst, and things change. The fundamental backbone is now redefined and I believe more influential than ever before.
Two key essentials of the Internet, Content and Commerce and their evolution, are understandably integral to sustaining its growth. However a third C, Community, surfaced in Web 2.0 and seems to be changing the landscape dramatically. Community – where and how we choose to communicate, collaborate, and interact with whom, why, and when now happens globally in the online world and on our own terms. Individually, we are responsible for creating an astounding amount user-generated content. We create personal pages, voice our messages on blogs, upload photos and videos, rate and rank movies, music, and restaurants, and post our stuff to sell or trade – virtually all for free. Web 2.0 has created the architecture of participation, with services, not software, delivered from a core platform.
I think it is pretty safe to speculate that user-generated content has usurped traditional media, or it soon will. The face of the new publisher, from bloggers to webmasters and everyone in between, is varied, global, opinionated, and remarkably influential. So, how do you exploit that potential? The barriers to entry online, although significantly lower than before, still continue to prevail. What if, as a blogger, I wanted to start my own social network, to provide my user community with a means to socialize with like-minded individuals about content that is relevant to their interests, those same interests that pulled them to me initially? And then envision all of these like-minded social networks connecting virtually, regardless of location, solely based on common affinities. Once these critical masses of like-minded individuals have been brought together, they could buy, sell, and trade contextual goods and services by posting them for free in customized, tailored classified sections. I did not stop there in my utopia - every advertisement would be significant and important to the community as well. But who has the time, effort, resources, and financing to develop all of this, when there’s content to create.
That was when something occurred to me – what if we designed a revolutionary new way to bring power to those people and deliver it through Content, Community, and Commerce services, and offered it all for free via Distributed Rich Internet Applications (no, I realize you don’t have the time, effort, resources and financing to develop these either). That’s when we formed in2apps and embarked on building something we call the new D-to-C: Distributed (services) to (enable) Content, Community, and Commerce. It’s a means for every online publisher to catch up and capitalize on Web 2.0 before Web 3.0 transpires. Without a doubt, this had to be easy, transparent, and produce immediate results for publishers. We’re starting with solutions for community, classified, and advertising , but with open APIs and a lot of mashup activities we anticipate hundreds more will be developed.
By incorporating a radical new service and delivery methodology with a distribution and display mechanism for Internet applications, in2apps will bring distributed content, community, and commerce directly to publishers and indirectly to the masses. Our philosophy is to:
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Offer Software as a Service for free.
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Enable mass peer-to-peer networking.
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Provide equitable access to tools that deliver community, commerce, and content.
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Create the potential of monetized content for every individual.
The most compelling part - the publisher can accomplish it all with one line of code. Each solution can be implemented by embedding one line of code into a website. Amazingly, the new D-to-C is that simple.
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