All posts tagged My Taptu

Taptu for iPad

Posted by on April 14, 2011

Hey Taptu-ers,

So our big news is out and so is our brilliant, new universal Apple App available for iPad, iPhones and iPod Touches.

Packed with a full host of features that let you get in that DJ booth to mix your news around your widest interests to your most niche passions.

In the StreamStudio, Add, Remove or Merge sources from more than 15,000 of our very own pre-loaded, Taptu curated streams or start with a fresh canvas and build your own streams by simply dropping your feeds on top of each other to start a new mix. Best of all, you can easily share any stream, especially the ones you create, with your Twitter followers or publish to your Facebook friends. Emailing stories and streams is also a cinch with one click. Mark any story with the bookmark tab on the reading pane to create a saved story stream of your favorites so you can go back later and check out your favorite stories.

Speaking of Facebook, Taptu got a facelift on our Facebook page so check that out. You can easily gift our Taptu App to your closest friends and colleagues.

Easily follow and share your passions and interests @Taptu. We’ve aimed to make your life less complicated and solve filter failure by putting all of your interests in one place. Best of all, we give you that perfect place to start your day and check out what’s going on in the world and your world throughout the day, many times, everyday.

Happy DJ-ing! We can’t wait to hear your feedback.

Mitch
Taptu CEO

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An Open Letter to Taptu Search Customers

Posted by on March 23, 2011

Dear Taptu Search Customers,

Thank you very much for your comments and sharing your frustration with us over the past few days since we announced we were shutting down our Taptu Search product. As with so many other loyal Taptu search customers, I am sorry to hear your frustration. But I am sure you can appreciate, every service must have a viable commercial basis to continue operating. Unfortunately, while the Taptu Search product was so beneficial to customers like you, it was not generating the revenue we had hoped to afford to continue to run it, manage it, and improve it.

Together with our team, I had to make the difficult decision to shut down the service and incorporate the key search assets, science and technology we have into our new offering, My Taptu, that puts all of your interests in one place and allows you to DJ or mix your news and social networks as streams. The underlying technology at Taptu provides us the opportunity to offer such a rich environment for making this service possible and in order to support our new direction, we needed to put all of our resources behind this so that we can focus on making Taptu a success.

Many of our customers and the media are telling us they love our new product and direction. We also believe it is a much better commercial opportunity for the company.

I know how you and many of our customers who used our Search product must feel and for that I can only apologize that we had to make this difficult, yet necessary decision.

I very much appreciate your feedback and I hope you come to like My Taptu as much as you loved our search experience.

Many thanks for your feedback.

Mitch Lazar
CEO
Taptu

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Updated-My Taptu Alert: Is My Taptu Crashing On You? Now Fixed!

Posted by on March 23, 2011

Hi all,

We wanted to alert you to an issue we are having with Facebook at the moment. Yesterday, Facebook updated their API and since then we have discovered that My Taptu customers who have previously added their Facebook stream or their Facebook Links stream to their app, can’t get their app to start at all on the iPhone. On Android, the Facebook stream won’t update.

We are fully aware that this is a major problem and since pinpointing the issue we have been working hard to get it fixed.

BUT, if you can’t live without My Taptu, we do have a temporary solution on how you can get the app back up and running. You will need to remove your Facebook stream and Facebook Links stream from the app by following these steps:

On iPhones:
1) Under Settings, tap Airplane Mode “On”.
2) Load My Taptu and tap on the Edit button in the left hand corner.
3) Locate your Facebook stream and if you added it, your Facebook Links stream. Tap the red circle on the left of each stream and then hit “Delete.” Hit Done to go back to the My Taptu home screen.
4) To restore your connection, return to settings. Tap Airplane Mode “Off”.
iPhone My Taptu 1.3.2 fix is now live in the App Store. The new version of the app will resolve the Facebook stream problems. Please go to the App Store to update your app!

On Android devices:
1) Please do not tap on any of the article cards in your Facebook stream or your Facebook Links stream. Tapping on them will crash the app.
2) We will be submitting a fix to the Android Market in a few hours. Once the fix is submitted the problem will be resolved.
Android fix has been submitted and is now live! Facebook streams should be working in My Taptu once again.

Stay Updated! Thank you for your patience as we sort this problem out. Please check back on our blog to see when the fix has gone live and you can once again add your Facebook streams to My Taptu. We will also be sending updates via Twitter @Taptu, on our Facebook page, and on our community help pages. Please ping us if you need to get in touch or need help.

Thanks, KP

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Tips: Adding Streams to My Taptu

Posted by on March 17, 2011

My Taptu has three different ways to find and add streams to it: through our StreamStore, which has more than 13,000 streams and counting, through Google Reader, and by searching. We’ve broken down here the best ways to use these three resources:

1) StreamStore: The StreamStore is where you will find the most popular feeds from blogs and publishers and mixed streams we’ve curated. These are organized as Featured and by Topics. In the Featured section you can add streams from the most popular blogs and publishers. The Topics section is organized as a directory, letting you browse and add streams by subject.

2) Searching for Streams: You can also search for a stream by typing its name in the search box located in the StreamStore. If we have it in the StreamStore, it will be pulled up in the search results. If we do not, My Taptu gives you the option of using Bing RSS search to pull up the feed.

Please note that when you pull up feeds from Bing RSS, you may not see the images associated with the stories immediately, especially if no one else has added the stream. It takes a short period of time for My Taptu to crawl and return the images.

3) Google Reader: You can add up to 30 of your favorite streams from Google Reader, located just under the search box in StreamStore. Google Reader synch is very handy for those feeds you know are less popular and may not be pulled up in our Bing RSS search results or in the StreamStore search. Google Reader is especially useful for adding non-English language feeds to My Taptu.

In conclusion, StreamStore Featured and Topics sections are best for the most popular streams from blogs and mainstream publishers. Searching is great when you know exactly what you want, or if you can’t find it under Featured or Topics. Bings RSS search is great for feeds not found in the StreamStore. Lastly, Google Reader is most useful for feeds not found in the StreamStore or Bing RSS, and also for non-English language feeds.

If you have any problems adding streams, please give us a shout and we’ll try to help you out. You can reach us on @taptu on Twitter, on our Facebook page, and on our communities help page. Thanks again for using My Taptu!

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Introducing My Taptu 1.3: Be Your Own News DJ

Posted by on March 10, 2011

After weeks of hard work, we’re excited today to unveil the latest update to My Taptu, which now lets you mix your own streams, curating them exactly as you want them.

That’s right, with My Taptu 1.3′s new self-curation feature, you can now build your very own stream from scratch, choosing and combining feeds that you find from the My Taptu StreamStore (13,000 and counting!), through a search with Bing RSS, or from your Google Reader account. Or, you can edit the topic streams we’ve mixed up ourselves by removing and adding sources. Once the stream has been created, you can watch stories flow in from your favorite sources all in one stream.

The obvious streams to create are based on topics, such as the VC blogs stream DFJ Esprit VC Scott Sage has mixed up (search for “VC Blogs” in the StreamStore), the “Parenting Essentials” stream from Britain’s best-selling “yummy mummy” author Liz Fraser (search for Liz Fraser), and the DIY Inspiration & Tips from San Francisco-based interior designer Beryn Hamill (search for “DIY Inspiration”).

Then there are the not so obvious curated streams, random mixes of favorite blogs and sites, that mashed together, provide a serendipitous and thought-provoking line-up of stories. We first tuned into this type of stream when Jed Hallam, a London, UK-based social media strategist mixed up a bunch of feeds from business news to small creative blogs, to blogs from those working in his industry, with a few fashion and design ones thrown in and called it Jed Hallam’s “Synapse Starter.”

It’s been one of my favorite streams to follow—especially since it’s where I discovered the smart and often very funny musings of Dave Trott, a London marketing man (and learned, incidentally, how to say “stingy s**t” in the southern Chinese dialect Teochew). Another example of such a stream is the one Monica Durden has curated, namely “London femme’s escort into fashion and arts” with coverage from both the arts and the fashion world, an essential stream for whoever wants to stay up to date with the catwalk news as well the art world.

The point is, with literally thousands of sources accessible on My Taptu, any number of these streams can be created. Want to keep up on work news? Create a stream for it! Want to keep up on your passions? Mix up a stream! Or do like Jed and mash it all up. We’d love to see what streams you are coming up with—or as we say here, “How do you Taptu?” so let us know by pinging us on Twitter (@taptu), in the comments, or on our Facebook page. And yes, we are working on letting you share your streams with one another as fast as we can!

Now, just a few more cool features we’ve heard you asking for:

On the social side, you can now do more inside the app with Twitter and Facebook:

• Twitter Stream: You can now reply and retweet inside your Twitter stream without having to leave My Taptu.
• Facebook Links Only Stream: You can now add your Facebook links stream that will only show the updates when your Facebook friends share a link. The link will open as a preview in the article card, along with the update. You can also Like or Comment right in the card.

We’ve also made discovering new content streams and RSS feeds even easier:

• StreamStore Streamlined: Every time you visit the StreamStore, My Taptu remembers which streams you’ve added. The next time you visit, the StreamStore replenishes itself and displays new streams for you to choose from.
• Google Reader Front and Center: Google Reader is now front and center in the StreamStore to let you import the RSS news feeds you already follow.

Thanks again for using My Taptu! If you need help, please go to our community support or ping us on Twitter @Taptu. As always, let us know what other features you’d like to see. Our full press release is here. Happy mixing! –Konstantinos

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Saving Stories to Read Later: Bookmark It!

Posted by on March 2, 2011

Sometimes as you’re scrolling and flicking through My Taptu, you might find a story that you’d like to read later or read again.

It’s easy to save these stories in their own separate stream to quickly find them again—all you have to do is to bookmark them.

To Bookmark stories:

1) In the article view of the story, you’ll find a “star” icon on the right hand corner of the page. Tap on the star. On iPhone, the star changes color to white. On Android devices, the star changes color to green. Success! You’ve bookmarked your story.

2) To go back to the home screen, tap Close on iPhones, or tap the back button on Android devices. At the very top of the home screen a new stream called “Bookmarks” will appear with all of your saved stories. (If you go on to bookmark stories after adding new streams, remember that the new streams will push the Saved stream down the list.)

3) Once you’re finished with the stories, you can delete the stream. If you’re on an iPhone, Tap the “Edit” box in the top left hand corner of the home screen. Find the “Saved” stream. Tap the red circle, which will rotate left to display a red “Delete” button. Tap “Delete” to remove the stream. Once deleted, tap Done. My Taptu returns you to the home screen. If you’re on an Android device, tap the “Options” button on the top right hand corner of the Saved stream. Tap “Delete.” My Taptu will remove the stream and return you to the home screen.

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Add My Taptu’s “Most Shared” Stories Stream

Posted by on February 28, 2011

It’s safe to say most of us here at Taptu are news junkies. We each seem to have endless lists of favorite sites, blogs, newspapers and magazines that we love to follow. So you can imagine our fascination and delight on discovering some new sources courtesy of none other than the My Taptu community.

Since we launched in mid-November, we’ve noticed that a whole lot of sharing of stories has been going on in My Taptu as the community have posted their favorites to Twitter, Facebook, or emailed them to friends. As the number of these shared stories have steadily climbed, we’ve found ourselves whiling away the hours browsing the number of interesting articles–some from sources we already love, and some from ones we were happy to discover. For us, stumbling upon these stories added a bit of happy serendipity to the app.

Today, we’ve added a new stream in My Taptu—the aptly named, “Most Shared” one that compiles the most popular stories that the My Taptu community is sharing on Twitter, Facebook or emailing to their friends. We hope you find the articles just as interesting as we do and see the stream as a great way to keep up with what’s trending and to discover new sources of content you may not have even known about. And, if you’ve seen an interesting story, and want the wider My Taptu community to see, remember, all you have to do is share it!

The stream, called “Most Shared” can be found in our StreamStore. To add the stream:

1) Tap on the + Add sign on the iPhone, and the + sign in the right hand corner on Android devices to take you to the StreamStore.
2) In the StreamStore, tap on “Most Shared”. If you are using an iPhone, click “Done” in right hand corner. If you are using an Android phone, hit the back button. Hit the “Close” button in iPhone. Hit the back button on Android.
3) My Taptu takes you back to the home screen where you will see the Most Shared stream at the top.

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Guest Curator: Beryn Hammil’s Classical Interior Design and DIY Inspiration & Tips Streams

Posted by on February 25, 2011

Here at Taptu, we know that our customers’ interests and passions are extraordinarily diverse and wide-ranging. And, while we’ve been trying to add and create as many streams as we can with everyone’s favorite sources, we’ve been fortunate lately to get a little bit of help. After putting out a call (or was it a cry?) for help on our Twitter and Facebook pages, we got in touch with Beryn Hammil, a talented interior designer from San Francisco, California who specializes in classical interior design, or as she says, “creating spaces people love coming home to every day.”

Beryn, who also writes about interior design, has curated not one, but two streams, for My Taptu.

Her first one is “Classical Interior Design,” which includes all of the blogs and news sources that she likes to follow to keep up on interior design news and latest trends. It, of course, includes Beryn’s very own blog, where she last wrote about solar shingles (for those who find solar panels on their roofs too ugly!) and the coolest space-saving Murphy beds.

She’s also curated a very handy DIY stream, “DIY Inspiration & Tips,” which includes a whole number of very great ideas from the likes of Miss Mustard Seed, Centsational Girl, The Nesting Place, and Remodelaholic that should help aspiring interior designers fix up their home, or at least be inspired by the sheer number of DIY jobs they could do. What’s more, many of the tips are done on a budget—such as an old thrift store chair recovered for under $50. Bargain!

To add either of Beryn’s very useful streams:

1) Go to the StreamStore by tapping the +Add button on the right hand corner of the My Taptu home screen on the iPhone, or by tapping the + button on Android.
2) Locate the search box.
3) If you are looking for Classical Interior Design, type this into the search box.
4) If you are looking for DIY Inspiration & Tips, type this into the search box.
5) Add the stream when it appears.
6) Hit Done. Hit Close on the iPhone and hit the back button on Android phones. My Taptu will take you back to the home screen where you will see the stream, (or streams, if you’ve added both), on the top of the page.

Finally, a big thanks to Beryn! And, to anyone else who’d like to curate a stream, please get in touch! @Taptu on Twitter, or My Taptu on Facebook.

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Taptu @Mobile World Congress: Keep Taking the Tablets

Posted by on February 21, 2011

After 16 hours on feet, endless industry squawking and endless red Rioja, Congress peeps need multiple tablets just to keep going. This year it wasn’t just Aspirin Tablets that adorned every exhibitor’s right hand; it was mobile web tablets in multiple incarnations from everywhere. Most of them, it must be said, were cheap iPAD and Galaxy lookalikes, their fate yet unknown (and as we all know, who really risks taking cheap tablets from unknown sources to clear real headaches?)

In the UK, to buy something “on HP” means to buy it on Hire Purchase, which is a cheeky mnemonic for buying something on a loan contract with high interest rates.  In such deals, the vendor always comes out on top and the poor consumer always pays too much. At MWC, the vultures permanently surrounded a Palm WebOS tablet now available on HP with equally high interest levels. Time will tell whether HP is the winner here as well and whether again it is at the expense of the mobile consumer.

Over on Android green play area, the green Droid was in full swing. Sitting at the Android bar, I wondered whether the Gingerbread, Honeycomb and Donut-flavored freebie smoothies were designed to emanate an impression of smooth transitions between Android operating systems. Or was it just because no one will drink green slime coloured drinks?

Next up for me was the Samsung Inter-galactic Mega Booth.  100 female blue and white coloured troopers in short skirts and 100 males in black suits did nothing for sexual equality but the products do go from strength to strength.  But just don’t ask for a product manager, they hide behind the Galactic air locks and it is hard to converse with them through the space suits.

Onward to App Hall 7 which now houses RIM (Blackberry) and their “Professional” grade tablet. Asked why it is specially marked out as “Professional”, an eloquent staffer replied that it was because the data it exchanged with a Blackberry server was encrypted for high-levels of security. Fair enough I thought, but then why call it PLAYbook?

And finally a word on the Yahoo MWC announcement, an initiative aimed at, surprise surprise, the tablets market. Dubbed “Livestand,” it has some similarities to our very own My Taptu, something not lost on reporter Ingrid Lunden over at mocoNews. I’m sure this has great potential, dear Yahoo, but announcing “Livestand” on Wednesday? After three late nights, Mobile World Congress and “Livestand” don’t sit well together – that morning most of the stands were dead. :)

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Valentines 0 – Barcelona 1: Taptu Heading to Mobile World Congress

Posted by on February 11, 2011

In a vile excuse to get out of Valentine’s Day responsibilities, the male contingents of the Taptu management team are once again sneaking off next week to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Mitch our CEO, Konstantinos our product head, and Bob, our commercial development head are the guilty trio. If you’re interested in getting in touch, I’m sure they’ll dig deep for a drink or two, but flowers are unlikely.

Just email… Mitch.Lazar (at) Taptu.com; Konstantinos.Papamiltiadis (at) taptu.com; bob.last (at) Taptu.com.

Mitch will also be speaking on a panel looking at the challenges that the media industry is going through as they get to grips with the digital world. Specifically, they’ll be discussing the business models behind mPublishing, the impact of advertising and the argument of paid versus free content. They will also be looking at the role of the apps and tablets within mobile media, and conclude with demonstrations of some of the latest start ups/ technologies in the space.

Mitch, who will be speaking on the business models part of the panel, will be joined by execs from Time Inc, France Telecom, and Pearson to name a few, in what should be an interesting session given the recent launch of News Corp’s The Daily, Ongo from a consortium of backers including the New York Times and the Washington Post, and Livestand from Yahoo (aka Mitch’s former bosses). Please join them on 16 February 2011, Wednesday, 2:00-3:30 in Hall 5.

Finally, we’ve also created a Mobile World Congress stream to keep you abreast of the latest news from the conference. You can add it by going to the Stream Store in My Taptu and adding Mobile World Congress located on the featured first page.

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