Todd & I traveled down to NYC this week to attend Jeff Pulver’s 140 Characters Conference (#140conf on Twitter) and show off ChatterBox. We manned a table in the exhibitors’ area and were fortunate to chat with many of the attendees as they circulated around the venue. As is usually the case when attending a Twitter-focused event, we met a diverse set of people from a variety of different industries. The common theme among them was that they were passionate about social networking and excited to learn about innovative new apps like ChatterBox.
Some memorable moments from our trip included:
Dragging a bag full of ChatterBox monkeys through the streets of Manhattan. Some companies might have opted to ship their conference giveaways to the venue, but we self-funded ventures think differently. (Note- the XL L.L. Bean Rolling Adventure Duffle makes an excellent monkey transportation device)
Giving up the chair from our demo table for use by Ann Curry. We didn’t actually hand her the chair, but I think we should still get credit for the gesture. Watch this video and you’ll see our chair being put to good use!
Todd being interviewed by BBC Radio Five Live on how Twitter is impacting the situation in Iran. You can listen to the interview by clicking this link (slide the track to around the 21 minute mark).
Todd being interviewed for Wednesday evening’s episode of CNBC’s Fast Money. Unfortunately his interview did not make the cut, but we acted as extras in a couple of the clips and the ChatterBox signage did make the air.
Getting to demo ChatterBox for a variety of influential Twitterers, including Chris Brogan & Clayton Morris.
Having a lively conversation with the world’s fastest talking female, @francapo. She just might be a perfect spokesperson for ChatterBox one day!
Here’s a quick recap of the show in slideshow form:
So, ChatterBox has been in private beta now for three weeks and things are rolling along nicely. We’ve been learning a lot since the launch to our beta users. So far the feedback has been very positive and we have been lucky to be able to attend some great events.
After our initial launch at the 140 Twitter Conference (#140tc), we were invited to attend Mass Innovation Nights. A huge thanks to Bobbie Carlton for organizing such a great event and for giving us the opportunity to participate. All I can say is that I am never going anywhere without a few ChatterBox monkeys. People love screaming monkeys. If you create a ChatterBox for the #MIN3 hash tag and the word monkey, you’ll see what I mean. I think I might need to invest in the Super Fly Monkey company!
As with all initial releases, there are some things that we need to improve in the application. I thought it might be useful to share some of these items. We’re working on planning the next release now. Aside from addressing some of the general usability items from this release (and some exciting enhancements), we want to make sure that your feedback is included. So, please send us anything you can think of and we’ll start to factor it in to our plans.
So, here’s the list of things we have found so far:
1. Expect a lot more data than you think!
So, believe or not, there happens to be quite of bit of content on Twitter. During 140tc, we opened up private beta invites for 24 hours and got about 70 users signing up to use the app. After 24 hours we found that about 10% of the users on the system had already accounted for 1.2 million conversations pulled-in from Twitter. Now for some that may not seem like much, but for us those numbers made us a little concerned. We want to have quite a few users on the system and to scale up to that amount of capacity over a short period of time will pose a challenge for us self-funded start-ups. So, we decided to make a couple of changes to the application. The first change was to put in a limit for the number of conversations a ChatterBox will pull in for that day. This helps by limiting content for very broad ChatterBoxes that may not be in use regularly. We also added an option to restart the ChatterBox conversation collection if needed.
Personally, I don’t think this solution is optimal. We’ll be improving this over the next release to give you a more “live” feel to the information and to try to take out limitations like this one from the system.
2. The workflow isn’t working out exactly as planned
We love the fact that when a conversation comes in to a ChatterBox, it’s easy to put that conversation into workflow and categorize and tag, prioritize and assign those conversations to other ChatterBox participants. The UI makes it easy to get to the conversations, respond and then update them with additional information. However, it’s not so easy to see which items you have already reviewed and also which items have been updated since you last looked at that ChatterBox. While we have a number in the ChatterBox tab for “untouched” conversations, it’s not all that clear what that number means. Also, in looking at the conversations, it’s not blatantly obvious which items have been updated since we present the conversations in a collapsed view. Notifications fall into the same camp. We underestimated the value of email notifications. That’s quickly become the #1 piece of feedback on our UserVoice forum. So, RSS is great, but email is better for notifications. We’ll get that addressed.
3. It’s a team app with a limited sense of team
One of the main ChatterBox features we’re proud of is the ability to collaborate with other members of a team in the management of conversations. It’s a powerful capability that let’s teams see the full trail of conversations and respond easily from a single account (or individual accounts if desired). One problem. You can’t really tell who is participating with you in the ChatterBox. If you are the admin of the ChatterBox, you can see who you have invited and who has accepted, but as a participant, the only way to really know is to look in the assignment drop-down. This will change in the next version. It was one of those oversights that will be addressed.
Well, that’s all for now. Keep the feedback rolling-in. We’re very excited to have people using the app and we’re on a mission to make sure that it provides the best user experience possible.
As we approach our open beta launch, I thought it would be nice to follow-up on an item we wrote about previously. In our post “Meeting Jeremiah’s Developer Challenge,” we set out to meet a challenge for a set of functionality described by Jeremiah Owyang. Jeremiah created a post issuing a challenge to developers to create a crowd managed feed reader:
I’m happy to let you know that we achieved the goals described in our previous post. The challenge was to create a solution that addressed the following pain points:
“Finding people on Twitter, then following them is already a challenge. Sharing your hard earned list takes time. I deal with a lot of executives at companies, that want to quickly scan the topics in their industry, or see what their employees, customers, and competitors are doing. Searching by keyword isn’t sufficient. Carter Lusher has this large Twitter list of analysts, but in order to see their streams, adding each one is a manual process.”
You can easily meet this requirement with our new application. ChatterBox is a collaboration platform used to discover information pertaining to topics of interest on Twitter. An intelligent, single point of access, this web-based interface pulls in conversations and creates a collaborative workspace that provides topical views of information – along with features such as personalized views, assignment, categorization, prioritization, notifications and tagging – creating a more streamlined process to listen, organize and respond to conversations. As a result, social media power users and corporate teams can become far more effective in participating in relevant conversations, providing excellent customer service, and generating stronger business leads.
Jeremiah wanted to achieve the following use cases which we allow out of the box:
I want to track all analysts in my industry, then I could [give] my executives a single URL so they can observe
Give a sales rep a single webpage to see all the tweets coming out of their client
Professional to quickly track all their industry counterparts tweets
Have further features that allow very large feeds to segment by a variety of filters perhaps by location, popularity, and other metadata
Be easy to use (feedback so far on this has been very positive)
There are some other items identified as requirements that we’re still considering. This includes things like public views, additional data sources, ChatterBox access requests and automated prioritization. If you would like to try out the private beta, please use the Contact form to request access. We would love to get your feedback.
Well, I am back from our launch at the 140 Twitter Conference (#140tc) in Mountain View, CA. Charlie dispatched me to represent the product and what we are doing. I got to meet a bunch of great people and also received a nice reception for the product. We can’t thank you all enough for being included and the opportunity to spend some time to show you what we have put together. The Parnassus Group put on a great event.
People had some good things to say about ChatterBlox. Here is quote by @justinjwilliams I captured from Twitter (using ChatterBox of course):
People also loved the monkeys we brought as our giveaway. Apologies to everyone for the #MONKEYFAIL during the keynote where one of Charlie’s brethren went off accidently.
Attendees found lots of great uses for the monkeys (aside from a screaming slingshot). @krystyl wrote:
We also presented at the launchpad session. It was a nerve racking 5 minutes, but I think we well positioned the application and the demo went smoothly. The audience was great and the other presenter showed off some really interesting tools. Definitely check out TwittyLinks.com by Loren West. TwittyLinks is the fastest way to tweet about a web page. One click lets you tweet without leaving the page you’re on. Loren was very kind to take this picture of me presenting at the launchpad session:
Well, we’re busy taking a look at all the feedback and suggestions for improvements and are building out the app for full open beta. Expect to see open signup at the end of June. In the meantime, use our Contact Us form to request immediate access. I can’t wait to see everyone again at the next event!
I’m glad he did. We’re definitely thinking the same thing. Jeremiah outlines the following pain point:
“Finding people on Twitter, then following them is already a challenge. Sharing your hard earned list takes time. I deal with a lot of executives at companies, that want to quickly scan the topics in their industry, or see what their employees, customers, and competitors are doing. Searching by keyword isn’t sufficient. Carter Lusher has this large Twitter list of analysts, but in order to see their streams, adding each one is a manual process.”
A ChatterBox allows just this capability. When configuring a ChatterBox, you can define a list of interesting topics and can filter those topics to a set of Twitter handles. You can then invite other users to participate with you in the ChatterBox. Not only can those participants respond back right to Twitter right though the ChatterBox, but the threaded conversations can also be assigned, categorized, tagged and put into workflow.
Once the ChatterBox is created, users can create their own custom views and RSS feeds into the information. Individual users can create an unlimited number of ChatterBoxes. So, you can create one ChatterBox to follow a set of concepts/handles and another to interact with your business partners to respond to tweets through a common process.
Jeremiah Outlines the following use cases (in quotes):
“I want to track all analysts in my industry, then I could [give] my executives a single URL so they can observe”
Yes, we do this out of the box. Additionally, you could create a view/RSS feed for that executive and assign them the ones they should read so that they do not need to filter through the full list.
“give a sales rep a single webpage to see all the tweets coming out of their client”
We also do this out of the box.
“professional to quickly track all their industry counterparts tweets”
Again, we do this out of the box. We also let the professional tag, categorize and archive the tweets so that they can be viewed and searched at a later point in time.
We think there are some other interesting use cases, including:
PR agency that wants to set up a shared workspace with their client as part of their social media program.
Team that wants to easily share the responsibility of responding to tweets.
ChatterBox capabilities like assignment and prioritization can also be used to better streamline management of responses. The are many more use cases, many of which we can’t wait to learn when our users come up with them.
Jeremiah also lists some required features (in quotes):
“Allow anyone to create a public stream of Twitter users, later it could evolve to include blogs and articles.”
We will allow users to create a stream of tweets that can be shared amongst ChatterBox users. The stream itself will not be public, but it could potentially be in future releases. Adding other content sources for elements that can be pulled into a ChatterBox is high on our list of priorities.
“It should allow members to submit themselves to these lists, or allow anyone to volunteer others.”
The ChatterBox creator (moderator) can invite others into the collaboration space in the initial release. We don’t have an option for other people to submit or volunteer other members. That could be added if it becomes highly requested.
“Have administrative controls.”
Yes, we have administrative controls although they are limited in the first release. This is an area we will focus on enhancing.
“It should be public.”
We won’t have fully public facing information available in the initial release. We are thinking about pages for public facing information, like latest updates, status and background information.
“Be easy to use.”
We hope so, but we’ll really know when users start providing feedback.
“Have further features that allow very large feeds to segment by a variety of filters perhaps by location, popularity, and other metadata.”
ChatterBox will have meta-data capabilities for assignment, categorization, prioritization, status and tagging. All of those values are configurable. Other data elements could be tracked as tags or through future potential enhancements.
“Aggregate then prioritize. Feeds on their own are a bit messy, if you’re not in front of in real-time you may miss something. This feature should bubble up the most important tweets based on popularity or weight.”
Yes, we agree. We won’t be there from day 1. It’s definitely something on our radar, though.
Please check out Jeremiah’s post. We’re very excited by the vision he outlines for this type of solution. ChatterBox will be here soon and we can’t wait for you to start using it and providing feedback. I’ll definitely keep you updated on our progress. We would love to hear your ideas as well!
Hello There! I would like to introduce myself. My name is Charlie Chatterbox. Everyone just calls me Charlie, though. I’m here to let you know about a new application coming to this spot very soon. I’m not ashamed to admit it, but I just love my name. So, I decided to call my application ChatterBox. I think you’re gonna love it. Oh, don’t you love my picture? They got both my good sides…
So, I’ve got some good news for you. ChatterBox allows you to monitor Twitter conversations that matter to you. Whether it is a list of interesting keywords or specific user handles, ChatterBox can centralize that information into a common dashboard that individuals and teams can leverage to manage and respond to those conversations.
Easily assign workflows, prioritize, tag and assign those interactions to team members ensuring that all tweets are responded to in a timely manner.
Here’s what you’ll be able to do with my application:
Monitor Twitter keywords and handles of interest
Interact through a centralized dashboard
Define team-based workflows to drive efficiency
Categorize and tag Twitter conversations
I’ll be updating this spot with information on what’s going on with ChatterBox. I’ll also let you know all about me since I know you can’t wait to hear the details. Keep watching this spot for the latest and greatest. The posts will either come from me or one of my assistants. I’ll be introducing them as we go.
In any case. Thanks for stopping by! I can’t wait for you to see what I’m cooking-up.
- Charlie
So, ChatterBox has been in private beta now for three weeks and things are rolling along nicely. We’ve been learning a lot since the launch to our beta users. So far the feedback has been very positive and we have been lucky to be able to attend some great events.
After our initial launch at the 
it’s not all that clear what that number means. Also, in looking at the conversations, it’s not blatantly obvious which items have been updated since we present the conversations in a collapsed view. Notifications fall into the same camp. We underestimated the value of email notifications. That’s quickly become the #1 piece of feedback on our UserVoice 
As we approach our open beta launch, I thought it would be nice to follow-up on an item we wrote about previously. In our post “
Well, I am back from our launch at the 
we brought as our giveaway. Apologies to everyone for the #MONKEYFAIL during the keynote where one of Charlie’s brethren went off accidently.
A ChatterBox allows just this capability. When configuring a ChatterBox, you can define a list of interesting topics and can filter those topics to a set of 
