Matt Galligan's Comments

Socialthing! blog : Time for an update...

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:09:29 +0000

Unfortunately Facebook doesn't expose that via the API so we're not actually able to do that, and until they add it to their API functions, we won't be able to. I would really love to see that ability, but as of right now, it's not there...

Socialthing! blog : Time for an update...

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 17:47:35 +0000

Yup...but as we grew we started to realize more and more things...but most of all, understanding that we got acquired by AOL, we have to prepare ourselves for that large of a userbase.

Socialthing! blog : What the heck are we up to?

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 16:54:59 +0000

Alrighty everyone...check out our most recent post on our blog post for an update!, http://blog.socialthing.com/2008/11/23/time-for-a...

IntenseDebate Blog : Automattic Acquires IntenseDebate

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:31:12 +0000

Congrats guys! That's super exciting...glad to see that it worked out for you and it's very cool that there's more and more focus on Boulder these days!

TechStars Blog : Socialthing acquired by AOL

Mon, 8 Sep 2008 11:03:41 +0000

Nate, good perspective for sure. We definitely consider this an "early exit" but there's plenty of reasons that an early exit might work well for a team. Sometimes making the "big bucks" isn't always the goal. Of course, making a ton of cash off of something so you barely need to work ever again is pretty awesome, but a lot of times there's a lot of other things that you need to consider. One is that Ben and I (the founders) are pretty young (just turned 24). By having an early success (and being acquired by a large company, such as AOL) is huge for our careers. Now whenever we start some other company (in the future) we will have an easier time picking up VC funding for that company. Beyond that, usually you've got three options for running a company...raise tons of cash, get cash flow positive or exit. Unfortunately our business doesn't really easily get to cash flow positive quickly. Because of that, we were stuck raising cash. Now granted, we didn't need a ton of it, but we did need some. The more investment you pull in, the less percentage you have in the company, and the more difficult (more expensive) it is to sell the company. There's a whole lot of things that you have to weigh in on to really decide what kind of outcome is meaningful to you...in this case it was a really meaningful exit for all of us in the company, and meant that we could keep working on our product without the pressures of raising money or running a business. Make sense?

Socialthing! blog : Just added Brightkite, Plurk, Seesmic, Guitar Hero and more!

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:00:41 +0000

Ah, got it now. There's really not a definite reason that there are no promo badges just yet, but one big one is that we're still in private beta. It's disheartening for a user to come to our site via a badge and not be able to use something immediately...but definitely something we're willing to explore

Socialthing! blog : New (old) feature! Twitter @replies and Directs

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:40:11 +0000

Not at all, they're only for your personal consumption...don't go anywhere else, the public can't see them...

Socialthing! blog : Just added Brightkite, Plurk, Seesmic, Guitar Hero and more!

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:28:57 +0000

While I'm not belittling your intelligence in this field by any means, I'm just trying to set forth the limitations of our own app to be able to do this. With 1.0 it was impossible because we weren't even collecting user data...with 2.0 we got closer, but now we need to be able to expose the data to the outside, not just our profiles within our walls. Once we are able to do that, we'll be able to build that into a widget no problem...getting to that point just takes time.

Socialthing! blog : Just added Brightkite, Plurk, Seesmic, Guitar Hero and more!

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:27:44 +0000

To explain a bit better...this initial batch of apps were basically to test our implementation of RSS parsing. We hadn't previously used a straight-up RSS parser (outside of an API) for data on any service before. Before we add services that rely on RSS (which happen to be a lot of the top voted apps: Google Reader, generics RSS, Tumblr, Blogger, Amazon, StumbleUpon, etc.) we had to test the implementation on a few cases. Saying it's "easy" is because the apps we chose to demo this (Plurk and Guitar Hero 3, which has been completed for months) were the easiest implementation of the RSS spec to test it. Generic RSS is tough because there's a lot of sanitizing of the feed that goes on, so that a feed doesn't inadvertently screw up the rest of the app. Rest assured, we're dedicated to being able to provide as many apps as we can, as quick as we can. Now that we've accomplished a few of the big hurdles that were keeping us from apps like Google Reader and generic RSS, we'll be able to get those in within short order.

Socialthing! blog : Just added Brightkite, Plurk, Seesmic, Guitar Hero and more!

Wed, 9 Jul 2008 23:34:38 +0000

Oh just you wait...they're on their way. First we had to build the profiles, and then services to populate the profiles...and then we'd be able to build badges. It's all a very linear sequence of events, so now the time is getting closer...

Socialthing! blog : Just added Brightkite, Plurk, Seesmic, Guitar Hero and more!

Wed, 9 Jul 2008 23:34:06 +0000

We'd definitely like to get a good bit of the messaging services in there. Some are more complicated than others (and not necessarily in the technical side of things, but also the user experience side of things). Pownce has issues with communication. We've been working with them for quite a while on solutions, but haven't really come up with anything solid just yet. I would hope that the Pownce integration gets improved sometime in the near future. And as for IE7? We're very close to being able to support it, just a few more fixed in the CSS and we're good...expect it in a future release with initial IE8 support in there too...

Socialthing! blog : Just added Brightkite, Plurk, Seesmic, Guitar Hero and more!

Wed, 9 Jul 2008 23:32:13 +0000

Posting to Brightkite is on its way. We wanted to get initial integration out there since it was working well on our end. Commenting is also going to be in the same update. We're their very first API customer and so their API is growing with our use and implementation...we can't blow it all up at once ;) . Things, however, are going very well, so we hope to have full Brightkite support very soon...

Socialthing! blog : Just added Brightkite, Plurk, Seesmic, Guitar Hero and more!

Wed, 9 Jul 2008 23:31:05 +0000

It's pretty easy to explain, really. The voting mechanism is a primer for the sites that we end up adding. It's a really great starting point for the things that people want. But there are a few factors that go into adding an app. 1. Ease of integration - since we still have so many features (beyond just adding new services) that we want to include, we have to consider just how easy it is to integrate. A great example of this is our Guitar Hero integration. We've had it working since before the private beta even opened and it's been quite a bit of a pet project of one of our developers for a long time. Since we were releasing a series of services, we decided to push it then too...that's why it's in there... 2. Opportunity - sometimes there's a great opportunity to be had with some of the integrations. Case in point being Brightkite. We are the very first app to use their API. They are friends of ours and we wanted to help them out by testing out their API for the first time with a solid userbase. 3. Buzz - Plurk is obviously the example here. Even though Plurk wasn't on the list, we've had many emails, requests, Get Satisfaction posts about adding it. It was easy, so we just popped it in... And that's pretty much it. While there's no definitive formula, I can say that now that we've accomplished some of the big back-end tasks for getting a few other services in there, we're working closer to being able to get most of the voted apps actually in there. There were a few technical barriers that we had to cross before we could start popping them in, but now that most of them have been crossed, we'll be adding more services on a faster basis.

Throw Away The Rabbits : No 3G in Boulder?

Wed, 9 Jul 2008 23:03:32 +0000

Yeah, there's definitely 3G support in all of Boulder. I've got an AT&T 3G card and when they turned on the networks last October, it worked perfectly...

Throw Away The Rabbits : Take Me Out To The Ballgame

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:51:56 +0000

Ha! Somehow I managed to not be in any picture. Elusive I am...

Throw Away The Rabbits : Ignighter in their Natural Habitat

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:43:51 +0000

So THAT's what they used the TechStars money for! I would have never thought of paying them off to do that! ;)

Socialthing! blog : What's new in 2.0

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:15:23 +0000

totally understand...it's just that other people read this too :P and by explaining about IE6, then I don't have explain it later ;)

Socialthing! blog : What's new in 2.0

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 00:12:08 +0000

As soon as we render very good in IE7 the "locks" will be lifted for all but IE6. I don't know that it's feasible to really spend all the time hacking up for IE6 when it will take such an incredible amount of time for so few users on a legacy browser...

Socialthing! blog : ST! 2.0 Update - Fluid and stability

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 10:35:35 +0000

There's always Prism for Windows, but Prism doesn't have all of the integration into Windows, like Fluid does for Mac OS X unfortunately...

Socialthing! blog : ST! 2.0 Update - Fluid and stability

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 07:22:10 +0000

Oh yeah...it's one of the next to get integrated!