Oh look, it's 2010...
Okay, okay…we’ve been neglecting TweetMeUp.net for a bit, because, as most of you know, it’s a side project…and life happens.
And we’ll be honest with you, the site hasn’t seen much use. However, the hosting’s paid up for the rest of the year, so here’s the plan for the foreseeable future:
There is something quite big in the pipeline, behind the scenes. We’ve been working on it on and off for a month or three now, and we’re trying to get it done before the end of February. You’ll know what it is once it’s ready. Apart from that, we’ll keep on tweaking the code and adding features, bit by bit. Even if we’re the only ones that end up using it, it’ll keep the code monkeys in us sharp.
That being said, here are some stats:
- Since launch, we’ve seen 2347 visits from 1074 unique visitors, which viewed 5642 pages.
- 101 users have signed in.
- Only 9 tweetups have been organized.
- 54 people have RSVPed a “yes” to those 9 tweetups.
Nothing groundbreaking, but still interesting. :)
We don’t expect the site to become a giant success, because there are others out there that do exactly what we do, and they do it as a full-time job. Success will, however, be a nice surprise.
And so we leave you with a bit of reading to do: Overnight Success: It Takes Years…
Surprise Update!
We’ve changed the way RSVPs work on the site to the more accepted “yes-no-maybe” model.
This was going to be part of the 0.2 update, but we’ve decided to make it live sooner.
0.2 is going to take a teeny bit longer than anticipated, but things are still on track.
Oh, and look out for some big, big news soon (the main reason for 0.2’s delay)…
-Albert
No excuses.
I know we’ve been quiet, and stagnant. I have no excuse except for “life got in the way”. TweetMeUp.net is, after all, a side-project with no intentions of making any kind of money.
That being said, development will continue a little bit at a time, and once we’re ready, 0.2 will go live. Here’s what you can look forward to:
Bugfixes
- A fancy behind-the-scenes script that will run weekly, updating any relevant user information, such as location and profile images. No more broken images.
- Twitter status check. If Twitter is down or having problems, the site will automatically go into an “offline” mode, and come back up once everything’s good again.
- Change the way External data (Tweets and Images) are fetched.
- If you sign in from a page other than the home pages, you will be returned to that page afterwards.
- Much better error handling.
Features
- Do it like the other sites out there with Yes/No/Maybe buttons.
- Invite your friends via DM.
- The option to e-mail yourself an iCal format invitation.
- Integration with most major Twitter-based image sharing sites.
- POI files for most major GPS devices.
- Live Tweetup page that can be displayed at the Tweetup, showing an automatically refreshing page of relevant Tweets and Images.
- Interface improvements.
Thank you so much to everyone that has used the site, whether it be for organizing a Tweetup, confirming attendance, or just logging in to check it out. We really appreciate it.
-Albert
Update? What update?
This morning the site went down for maintenance.
The big reason for this was fairly technical, so you can skip this paragraph if you want. We were storing users details (username, real name, location and profile image url) and using the username as a primary key, but when I initially put everything together, I didn’t take into account that users may change their usernames. Long story short, we’ve fixed it so that the database now uses the unique UID from Twitter, which will always stay the same. Crises averted! This also gives us a few other niceties, like being able to keep all the other details up to date without the user having to log in.
With this update also came three other small changes:
- When an event is deleted, the host has the option to specify a reason. Then, the cancelled event is logged. This means that when someone follows the link to a cancelled event, they’ll be notified of its cancellation instead of getting a big old 404 error.
- The map on the home page now automatically knows how many Tweetups there are and adjusts the zoom level and center point automatically. This makes it totally resolution independent!
- Shorter URLs for Tweetups! Now, when you ask the service to automatically send out a tweet about your event, it’ll use our short URLs put in place to make the most of the 140-character limit (http://tmu.me/1 for example).
You can also find the short url by looking at the link the Tweetup name has now become, for each event.
These three were initially going to be 0.2 features, but they were done so we included them anyway! :)
Now, for the rest of 0.2…
-Albert
A bit of a status update.
So, three Tweetups have been organized using the site so far. That may not sound like much, but it’s been enough for us to pick up one or two bugs, most of which have been fixed.
We’re hard at work behind-the-scenes to sort out one or two other bugs that will improve the site by quite a bit, and we’ve also started working on the 0.2 release. We’re hoping to get it out the door before the end of the month.
In other news, I was interviewed over at Twindie.net. Also, watch this space as we have a surprise waiting for you later this month!
-Albert
New & Upcoming Features
Here’s what we’ve added since we’ve gone live:
- GPS coordinates in DMS format
- The option to add a link for venue information (this should be available tomorrow)
We’ve had some feedback (thanks @igitur and @foxofsly), and here’s what we’re planning for our 0.2 release:
- Choose which Twitter Friends to invite, and send these automatically via DM
- You’ll be able to reserve a place with a “maybe”
- Picasaweb and Twitpic integration
- The option to e-mail yourself an iCal invitation upon confirmation
- POI file downloads for Google Earth, as well as Garmin, Tomtom and Nokia devices
We’re also working on making an API available. Keep those ideas coming!
-Albert
We are LIVE!
Head on over to http://tweetmeup.net to start organizing some Tweetups!
There may be one or two bugs still lingering (thanks to different versions of python on the dev server and production server).
We’re ironing them out.
What's the deal?
Where are we at? The answer to that comes in the form of some very good news. We’re very, very, very close to going live.
All that remains is one or two style tweaks and a bit of pagination, and then it’s deployment time.
That’ll be followed by a wee bit of testing…and if all goes well, we’ll open the site up for public consumption.
I’m going to say Monday. Yes. Let’s make Monday the preliminary go-launch day…
-Albert
A bit of an update.
We’ve been quite busy this past week, but TweetMeUp.net has gotten some attention here and there.
We’re quite satisfied with the progress we’ve made so far. A lot of the hard work is done, and all that remains is one or two big tasks, and a whole lot of spit and polish.
Development and refinement will be continuous process even after launch, with a multitude of planned features that will be added later on.
So, let’s say we’re about 3/4 from where we want to be before launch.
-Albert
Here you go. An uncensored preview of TweetMeUp.net! Note that it’s all still very much work in progress, and there’s still a lot of spit and polish needed.
Lots to do!
