Click here to view the embedded video.

Also, another interesting note, Sunny Seed implemented the Apple Game Center product alongside ours. We have always found that Socialize fit quite snugly next to many SDK product in the market today.  And more often than not it is a AND and not an OR situation.

Finally, let’s not forget that the game is pretty cool too! It is like a mix between Sodoku and cross words where the mission is to find two numbers that connect that are either identical or add up to 10. Giev it a shot and post your best score!

10:55 – Amit – “Death of Search as We know it” because of the Knowledge graph.  The graph has  over 755K knowledge graph entities.  Google should just give you information and answers before you have questions.  Google Now was launched for Android last year, and now its available for iOS.

Demo for “Hot words”.  Say “OK, google” to start asking questions.  They’re getting really good with voice commands.

10:42 – Google’s Data Center is the new “Darkroom”.  This week they’re announcing 15GB of free photos at full resolution.

New feature “highlight” which pics the best pictures out of the lot of photos.  ”It’s remarkably accurate”.  How does Google know it was the best?  Looks for duplicates, wrong exposure, recognize landmarks, people, aesthetics and affinity.

Enhancing Images  - auto-enhance is an “easy-button” to make your memories look beautiful.

10:38 – Google+ will now have long-lasting conversations.  Conversations are “rich and alive”.  As people are typing and joining they animate in and out.  The new release is available today on iOS/Android/Web.

By tapping on a face you’ll be dropped into a group video chat at no-charge.

10:28 – Vic Gundotra back on stage to talk about google plus.

Introducing 41 new features, but the high level is stream, pictures and hangout.   The new Google+ is all about depth and multi-column design.

Google+ Will now rank and search across the Google+ network and will create related content based on your posts.  This is done “just for you”.  Google will automatically hashtag your images.  They’re showing a picture of a Eiffel tower and google successfully identified the landmark.  You can then go deeper on the topic across Google+

10:20 – Google Apps – many universities are using google apps for education.  Chris is back on stage.  Introducing Google Play for educators.

“In education there is a big gap between whats possible and practical with technology.  It’s Google’s job to fix this”

10:02 – Linus Upson, VP, Engineering, Chrome introduced on stage.

Chrome is about Speed, Security, Simplicity.  Improve performance of V8 Javascript engine improved by more than 57% in the last year.

asm.js is C based code converted into javascript.

60% of bytes downloading during a webpage are images.   Google has created a new image type called “webp”.  Supports animation   Pictures of animated cats now on screen. =)

VP9, video has same quality but has about a 50% reduction in size.

Data reduction proxy will automatically convert images to run through google’s proxy to make things much faster.

Abandonment of carts is about 97% on mobile – New feature for shopping on your phone much easier since Android will automatically standardize your payments across devices.

Providing new web-toolkit that has new UI frameworks to re-use custom tags and UI components based on CSS/JS/HTML.

Now introducing a new car racing game based on chrome web technologies.  The track is layed out across many devices like tables and phones.  very interesting!

9:58 – Chrome OS is now at 750M Active users monthly.  Chrome is meant to provide a cross-device experience.  They’re now showing what a cross-device experience between nexus 10 and a chrome pixel.  Based on Web GL.  The experience looks flawless.   “This wasn’t possible on the web last year”.  WebGL is something new to chrome.

Swiping and gestures on the touch screen are very interactive and smooth.

9:52 – New hardware – new Galaxy S4 will now have a pure Android experience.  ”Google’s take on Android and it feels awesome on S4″.

9:49 – All Access can be accessed on tables, phone, desktop.  ”radio without rules”, “Your personal library blended with ours”.  Priced at $9.99 with a 30-day free trial

9:41- Chris Yerga introduced on stage.  Google Play Store

Play Store will now be optimized for tablets

Google Play All Access – a music subscription service with a “unique Google experience… Anything you see you can immediately start playing”.

9:32 – Monetization tools, Ellie Power, Product Manager

Optimization tips – analyze the app and provide insights on how to improve it.

For instance, upload tablet screenshots, internationalization based on analytics with help from the new “App Translation Service”.  You can upload it straight into the Google Play Developer Service console.

Google Referral Tracking – Allow us to track the effectiveness of channels based on view, install and open.

Engagement metrics from Google Analytics right into the developer portal, soon

New service, Beta Testing and Staged Rollouts

9:27 – Developer Tools – Android Studio – based on intelliJ – “Truly built for android” – Hugo

Integration of more services, with a simple menu item it will integrate GCM right into the app.

9:22 – Google Play game services :

cloud save – ability to save points within in a game

leader boards

achievements

multiplayer  -  manage peer-to-peer connections, using connections from google circles.

9:18 – Google Cloud Messaging – pushing 17B messages/day.  GCM is now part of Google Play Services and announcing 3 major new features:

1.  Supports a persistent connection

2. Upstream messaging, so you can send data from phone to server

3. Automatically dismisses notifications across your android devices.

9:15 – New Android features (Google Play Services): Geofencing,  Fuse, Activity Recognition – apps that help users track their physical activity.  Automatically figures out wether users are walking, driving or walking.

Google+ Sign-in – cross device installation.  If you sign into a website it prompts you to automatically download the app on your tablet or your phone.

9:12 – “Revenue per user is 2.5x what it was just a year ago” – Hugo Barra

9:11 – “Google Play has just crossed 48 Billion app installs” – Huge Barra, VP of Android

9:10 – Over 900 Million activations of Android, Penetration in South America, Africa and Asia is still less than 10%

9:07 – “Chrome is the most popular browser used in the world”

9:07 – “Android is the most popular browser used in the world”

9:07 – Sundar “This is one of the most important times in computing”

Sundar Pichai, SVP Android, Chrome & Apps is now on stage.

There are over 1 million people watching Google IO live on Youtube right now.

Vic Gundotra, SVP is coming on stage to start the conference.

The event is about to begin in less than 20 seconds…

Today at the Mobile Marketing Association’s NYC Forum, the CMO of The Home Depot, Trish Mueller, gave a gangbusters presentation on the impact mobile has had to her company.

As she was showing off what The Home Depot’s mobile app can do, she mentioned that users of the app can literally place a physical bolt onto the screen of an app to correctly size the bolt, making it easier to find the bolt in the store:

You can find more fascinating stats from Trish’s presentation below, but to zoom out and be more macro for a bit: The app’s bolt functionality is an awesome example of something that my co-founder Isaac and I have been discussing a lot recently:

There are two types of engagement in a mobile app.  Inherent Engagement, and Enhancement Engagement.

Engagement is a huge problem in mobile.  Think about it — how many apps do you have on your phone that you never open?

And the problem is only going to get worse.  That’s why Socialize CEO Daniel Odio (now SVP Strategic Partnerships at ShareThis, our new home!) says that there’s a mobile engagement crush coming and that a number of Fortune 1000 CEOs will be fired for missing it.

So let’s talk about inherent vs. enhancement engagement:

Inherent Engagement:

The core function of an app has to provide some value on its own.  Trish’s Home Depot app bolt sizing mechanism is an example of this.  It’s a core function of the app.  There are other things the app does that are also inherently engaging, such as being able to use augmented reality to see how an item in the store would look in your living room before you buy it.

Another example of inherent engagement is a banking app that lets you deposit your check just by taking a picture of it.

Or the Contour HD Camera app, which lets me start recording video on the camera just by tapping a ‘record’ button on the app.

Or the startup Automatic, which is liberating data from the car dashboard with its app in ways that humans really care about.

Inherent engagement is a very business-specific thing.  A business has to really think about how it can add value to its customer base.  And if you don’t think your business is mobile, you’re wrong.  Every business is mobile, because every user will want to interact with you through a mobile device.  If you can’t think of ways to inherently engage your customer base, then you just haven’t thought about it enough.

Enhancement Engagement:

Enhancement engagement, on the other hand, is very different.  It’s like an overlay that is not business-specific.  Examples of enhancement engagement include:

• Gamify the app.  Turn something boring into a competition for users that keeps them coming back.  Leaderboards are a similar example of gamification in an app.
• Add a social overlay to the app.  This is exactly what my startup Socialize does.  Adding this social overlay can double engagement in an app and increase organic downloads significantly.
• Enable targeted notifications in an app.  This ties into social above, for example, with Socialize’s MicroTargeting and SmartAlert functionality.
• Personalize the experience in the app.  It’s crazy that everyone has the exact same experience in an app when they open it up.  The app should be personalized to each user’s interests.

There’s a ton of opportunity for platforms in the ‘enhancement engagement’ space, because it isn’t app-specific, but rather it’s human-specific.  I.e., we’re all social creatures.
Isaac gave a great presentation on inherent vs. enhancement engagement at a recent conference for CMOs.  Here’s a video of his talk.  You can find his full slides here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Back to Trish’s presentation today:  Hopefully I’ll be able to post here full slide deck here, but below are some highlights she provided about how The Home Depot (THD) is approaching mobile:

• Trish views mobile as Personal, Adaptive and Valuable.  She mentioned a few times how intimate a connection it is with the userbase; how it creates a “one-on-one connection”.
• 1/3 of THD’s traffic in 2012 came from mobile, which is incredible, but even more incredible is that 60% of traffic was mobile during Black Friday last year. (!!!)
• During hurricaine Sandy,  THD sent notices to customers in affected areas on how to prepare their homes.  This is a great example of enhancement engagement mentioned above.  She mentioned that push notifications increased traffic by 60%.
• THD views both mobile web and mobile apps as equally important.
• Every single store layout is mapped out and can tell you where an item is in the store. A scannable bar / qr code tells you more about product.
• Mobile search converts more than desktop – BUT they convert in the store!  This means that from a strict mobile ROI perspective, the numbers can be misleading because users search on their phones then buy in the store — they don’t buy on their phones as much as they go to the store, but mobile drives both behaviors and must be accounted for as such.

You may know him as a radio station personality on 97.9, but we like to think of him as the man that brought kick-a$$ music to the Android and iTunes app stores on both phone and tablet based devices. And to make sure his music doesn’t go unheard to it’s herds of fans they added a slew of custom Socialize features to help get the word out of his top notch play lists.

DJ Lobo customized the Socialize experience by only using the ActionBar’s ActionButtons and injecting them into his list of playlists. This created a great feedback loop between him and his fans to see which playlists are getting the most chatter and likes. Once he skims through that data on the GetSocialize.com dahboard he can send notification to his grups of users that have commented, liked, or shared certian types of music and let them know about new songs or promotions that relate most to them.

In addition to the clever implementation DJ Lobo’s app leverages our SmartDownload page in a unique way. Since many apps have much of their content locked into the app Socialize creates a page generated specifically to publish activity and content form within the app onto the web. This allows app content to be shared to popular networks like Twitrer and facebook as well as give users that have ot yet downloaded the app the ability to see the activity going on in the app from their desktop and provide users of either platform to download the app made for their specific device. DJ Lobo took it one step further and used our SmartDownload page for the app as the DJ Lobo app home page. Check it out here on your desktop or mobile device: http://www.djloboapp.com/

Home Screen Audio Player

Swipe Left for Genre

Playlists w/ Socialize Likes Comments and Share

Socialize Chatter About a Playlist

Shared on Facebook

Send SmartAlert to Fans by Playlist

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here are Isaac’s slides:

As with most iOS projects, some of our newer unreleased products at Socialize have had a common need for some networking support beyond what core foundation provides on iOS. Nate, our rock star iOS developer, took those needs (and some frustrations with libraries available today) and created a separate iOS library called SZNetworking.

Lighter than a swimsuit model before a pageant

Our goals for this library was to make something far lighter and less complex for managing network requests and signing OAuth requests out of the box than that what is available in libraries such as AFNetworking. As an example, AFNetworking is composed of over 5,000 lines of code where our light weight focused library is made up of less than 1,000 lines of code. The hopes is that our lightweight networking library is far more easy to fix and improve upon than what is out there today.

Covered more than “Yesterday” by the Beatles

Although SZNetworking is not yet in production we have made it available with a slew of tests that generate a 80% test coverage report. We will continue to work with the library and stabilize it as we depend on it more and more in production. We encourage you to try it out and tell us what you think, send us suggestions you may have, or even fork and improve the code base as well!

For more info, check out the README at https://github.com/socialize/socialize-networking#readme

• An overall overview on Splunk
• How do you use it?
• How the deployment was done?
• What are the components
• If we create a new instance of splunk using our bootstrap technologies, how do we move the existing data?

Overview of Splunk At Socialize

Splunk is used for all things logging based at Socialize.  Splunk provides the ability for us to ask questions about our data and quickly get answers without need to write complex code or MapReduce jobs.  More importantly once we have answers about our data we can share our findings with others through easily digestible visually based dashboards and not vague spreadsheets.

Our Use Cases

• Monitoring
  Splunk monitors our all of our servers as well as our applications.  It ingests and indexes everything from nginx logs and application logs to custom events (JSON formatted) directly from a port.  We can see how all our systems are responding all in one place.
• Alerting
  We currently use it to alert through e-mails.  We’re able to set thresholds for the results of queries.  For instance “if nginx 500 response events  is greater than 100” or “if user registration events are less than 350 for the last 10 minutes”.  If any of those thresholds are met then we can shoot off an e-mail.  We could even execute a script that self-remedies the situation or escalates the problem to the right parties through an API.
• Log-based Analytics
  We log 3 types of events to Splunk:  service logs, application status and custom semi-structured events.
  
  Service Logs- These are logs from nginx, apache or gevent services.  Anything that is running on the system level that we want to monitor.Application Status -  These events are all about what’s happening internally with the application.  For instance it could print out the queue size on a regular interval and print it to the application log so Splunk can interrogate the queue size and calculate analytics like average queue size, max queue size and alert the team if there is ever a problem through email or kick-off a custom scriptCustom Semi-Structured Events – These are events that are JSON structured which we can later use for analysis.  For instance, we log an event when a user logs in or authenticates with Facebook/Twitter. Here is an example of a semi-structured JSON event:  
• Ad-hoc Analytics
  Splunk allows anybody to ask any questions of the data at anytime.  For instance, last week one of our customers was experiencing what he described as “slow response times”.  Using splunk and ad-hoc querying I was able to get the response times just for his app.  I then broke down the query by endpoints and got their average response times.  I was able to quickly identify that the /v1/entity endpoint was the source of the issue.  Seeing that his request/response sizes were fairly large for a few events, I was then able to get an average packet size and notice they were sending extremely large packets.  All because I was able to slice and dice the data in different ways.  I was even able to merge it with different datasets quickly to get an application name and e-mail so I can notify that user with the results.
• Dashboards
  It’s easy to create and display dashboards for upper management to easily digest numbers, charts and analytics.  We provide logins to the system to a variety of users so they can get to these dashboards which show data in near real-time.

Architecture

High-Level Architecture

Indexer Architecture

Components

• Splunk Forwarders
  From Splunk: Forwarders are lightweight Splunk instances, whose main purpose is to consume data and forward it on to Splunk indexers for further processing. They require minimal resources and have little impact on performance, so they can usually reside on the machines where the data originates.

  For example, say you have a number of Apache servers generating data that you want to search centrally. You can install a Splunk indexer on its own Linux machine and then set up forwarders on the Apache machines. The forwarders can take the Apache data and send it on to the Splunk indexer, which then consolidates and indexes it and makes it available for searching. Because of their light footprint, the forwarders won’t affect the performance of the Apache servers.

• Splunk Indexers
  Indexers are the core of the Splunk ecosystem.  They’re responsible for ingesting log data, storing it safely and indexing the data so it be found later.  The more of these type of boxes we have the more the system can index and scale out.  The Splunk instance that indexes data, transforming raw data into events and placing the results into an index. It also searches the indexed data in response to search requests.

• Search Head
  The search head is the point of entry for end-users trying to integrate the data.  It connects to all the indexers in the cluster to query all the data that is available.  All queries are managed and setup through this UI.  Currently this search head isn’t pooled/distributed but it can and should be setup to do so.

Migration

  Splunk is a distributed system in which a component can fail and the system will continue to work because the forwards will redirect traffic to the available indexers.   This makes the migration easy.  The steps below are how the migration can happen without a need for an outage.

1. rsync data directories from indexer 1 while the processes are still running.
2. shut down the indexing process of machine 1.  All traffic directed at machine 1 will now be directed to other machines in the cluster.
3. rsync machine 1  to the new machine again to  make sure the datastore is in a consistent state.
4. Redirect traffic from indexer 1 to the new machine.
5. Repeat with the other machines in the cluster

I’m a Java guy originally but lately I’ve been rolling up my sleeves and wrestling some pythons.  Despite some early “crybabyness” that I didn’t like the environment and that I wasn’t alone, things soon settled into a rhythm that seemed to be working, until I got mocked.

Read more…

• Splunk allows us to quickly find the top app ids by social actions and top app ids by downloads.  Joinig with the DB let’s us look up application name and category in our MySQL DB.
• Finding applications by id which are using a deprecated API endpoint.  We can lookup their app id  in one database and then join that with a customer e-mail in our user’s email  in another database.  We can then export that list to a mail service and notify users that our endpoints are being deprecated proactively.
• Output from our RTB (real-time bidding) platform for statistics into a mySQL database for reporting, i.e. how many impressions did we display, how many people clicked on it, how many people completed the call to action.
•  Output from referral log events into an aggregated stats table in MySQL database for reporting, e.g. How many people clicked on the “like” link that we propagated to facebook/twitter.

Here is the summery of our process:

• Use BC to discuss topics or ideas
• If that discusion leads to a need for a meeting or is ready to go from idea to project – create a Google Doc
• Put all your ideas in doc, don’t worry about organization and formatting (that can often happen naturally or done as a cleanup item before the meeting)
• From that doc create an agenda to discuss the points within the doc
• If there is still a need for a meeting, create one, use the agenda to run the meeting and the notes in the doc to reference.  This converts a open meeting around ideas taking hours and turns it into a focused meeting in minutes around the doc/agenda.
• The meeting should be around remaining uncertainty revealed in the doc and to additional action items.  Always leave with action items and named owners.

If a meeting is ultimately required, the result is a more focused meeting, with notes already prepared when you walk in.  Also the doc becomes a link you can share with others to provide more transparency about the plan.  This ultimately saves time when explaining the idea and plan to others like upper management.  Below is a more in-depth review at how we work asynchronously.

How We Work Asynchronously

What enables us to work asynchronously are the availability of tools.  Below are some of the tools that allow us to work the way we do.

Google Docs

Google’s online docs allows to create more detailed plans and ideas while allow other people to collaborate.  Many times we’ll start by creating an outline using headings and create a table of contents.  This allows others to fill in the rest of the outline when they find the time to focus on building the document.

As you’re working through the document, Google Docs shows you other participants that are actively editing the same document in real-time.  This is a little odd at first since entire blocks of text can be cut-copied into other parts of the document as you’re typing.  But after awhile it becomes second nature and most of the time you stay out of each other’s way.  Google Doc also gives each participant is given a different color so you can see who is typing.

If you’re working asynchronously you can notify other participants through e-mail.  You can do so by using the twitter like ‘@’ notation to grab their attention.  This helps call out areas which either need additional content or clarification.

Basecamp

Basecamp (BC) is our project management tool of choice.  BC allows us to have quick, threaded discussions that may not be suitable for Google Docs. Our goal is to keep conversations out of e-mail and into a system that can be referenced by other people should the same questions/thoughts arise.  It’s much easier to pass a link than to have to re-answer the same question a few times.

BC enables us to work from anywhere, not just in the office  We trust that our employees will place themselves in the environment that makes them most productive.  This is because we focus on results and not just hours in the office.  Using BC allows us to work remotely because we’ve traded meetings for working asynchronously.  Have a question for me?  Use Basecamp!  Want to assign me a task?  Use Basecamp!  Have a new idea for a feature?  Use Basecamp!

Github

Git is the new repo of choice but what makes git great is Github.com and all it’s developer tools.  Git allows me to follow repos of interest and get notified as commits happen.  I can review the commit and leave comments around the code.   But the biggest feature that Github created that allows us to work asynchronously is the “pull request”.

They’ve turned a time-consuming code-review into an asynchronous process.  A pull request allows developers to request that a set of changes on a branch be merged back into the master branch.  I’ll be notified of the request and get to review the changes when I have time to focus on reviewing the code.  Github shows me all the changes, color coded, so I can quickly see what has been removed or added.  I can then leave the developer questions about blocks of code.  We’ll go back and forth until we feel the changes are good enough to merge back into master.

Chat

If all other means won’t work and we must have a synchronous conversation then we’ll use IM to avoid meetings.  It might still be a distraction but not to the degree of an entire meeting.  We use Google Talk since it comes free as part of Google Apps.  It makes conversations concise because people don’t want to go on long winded, off-topic rants on a keyboard.  This tool also enables us to work remotely.   When anybody on our team works remotely we ask them to stay on IM to discuss anything that can’t wait such as operational issues.  Some of use Adium for Mac and others just use the chat client that is built-in to Gmail.

So you have an urging desire to have a meeting?

We’re not sure why people hate meetings but love to schedule them.  But if someone insists on having a meeting we follow these guidelines (manifesto #11):

1. Arrive at meetings with clearly communicated objectives and leave with action items
2. Always know what you want, and what you don’t want to get out of the meeting.  If you don’t know both beforehand there is no reason to meet
3. Agree on the length of the meeting before it begins
4. Create an agenda, break up the meeting into 15-30 minute blocks and cross off each section as time elapses
5. Every idea needs an owner to become an action item.
6. Don’t use “we” when taking an action item, it’s a cop-out.  We = you or me.  Instead of “we need to do that” say “I’ll take care of that by Friday”.
7. End the meeting by capturing action items and dates in writing in tools like Google Docs or Basecamp.

By using the tools and processes described in this post.  By the time you have a meeting it’s more about finalizing plans and not starting from ambiguous ideas.  Let us know what you think in the comments below!

======Updates=====

Q: But I love collaboration and free thinking meetings, won’t this kill that?

A: Not at all. I love barnstorms but even they can be defined/scoped before hand with a goal in mind.

Every meeting has an objective whether you realize it or not. Will you discuss how cool blue jays are, or is this about building better apps. List the goals of the brainstorm before you walk in, get it in the doc and ask everyone to prep the doc with ideas they already have. You can always think of new things at the meeting, just add them to the doc and make sure you don’t run over time.

Often times, if we realize an idea has no objective or goals the person with the idea simply srarta a thread on BC.  If no one is interested in responding it is either a non-starter, or you have to flesh it out a bit more on your own to get buy in. Every individual is a startup and every employee that wants to get involved in your idea is sort of an investor or partner. If your idea is great (or even kind of good) someone will join you in fleshing it out. As it matures and goals and benefits develop it will naturally bring on more time from others to get it done, and the docs and BC threads help get it there, and keep a record of how you got there, for all to catch up on when the time comes.

Comment: I don’t have time to use a doc or thread and organize everything first. It is quicker to just meet.

It may be quicker for YOU, but that offloading of organization and time is placed upon everyone else at the meeting who ALSO doesn’t have time to do extra work. If your idea, project, or conversation has value then it is worth taking the time to get it organized and focused. If it IS NOT worth writing down and organizing then I hate to break it to you but that means it isn’t worth it to anybody else to sit down in a meeting.

Comment: I don’t need a meeting I will just use IM.

IM is great -don’t get me wrong. But it has a risk. I was just talking to someone now on IM about things to do in the future and “someone just walked in sorry”. In the old way data is lost, and momentum is killed. In the new way above it really doesn’t matter at all – add to the thread or doc when you get the time and we will continue to flesh it out there. Done and done .

Here is an explination of what Twitter Card is from their dev site:
“Twitter cards make it possible for you to attach media experiences to Tweets that link to your content. Simply add a few lines of HTML to your webpages, and users who Tweet links to your content will have a “card” added to the Tweet that’s visible to all of their followers.”

Of course our team loves to play with new stuff, so we couldn’t help but play around with it! And what better place to try it out than on our SmartDownload page.

More about our SmartDownload page: Our SmartDownload page is a page Socialize generates for each entity (piece of uniquely tagged content) to help Mobile-first apps/comapnies have a web presence for their social interactions spawned from within their native app without needing to host a public web site of their own. The SmartDownload page gives viewers a glimpse into the activity and content within the app as well as download capabilities for their different devices in use.

What happens next: We finished adding the tags to the SmartDownload page to include the title, description etc. of the shared content as well as mobile specific tags such as app name and schema to allow Twitter viewers to open an app directly for the Tweet posted. After validating a test URL in the Twitter dev validator dashboard (which worked super smoothly BTW: http://cl.ly/image/000e05194036) we sent our setup to Twitter for approval (http://cl.ly/image/0M1w283y3J0c). If /when Twitter approves our implementation we will test away! If all goes well this Twitter Card integration in our SmartDownload page will let Tweets, generated through Socialize actions taken within the app, display a more rich and robust visuals of the share content, as well as allows users to open the related app from within the post with a single click.

For those curious to know how to implement Twitter cards yourself check out these super helpful documents posted in Twitter developer site:

https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/markup-reference
https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards
https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards/validation/validator

======UPDATE========

It looks like our request to serve cards for our domain was accepted. We never got a formal “welcome” email or notice so I am not entirely sure when it went live. Good news is it went live

We found one small problem (more of a miscommunication) with how the card is presented. There is a field called “twitter:site”. That field is defined as “not required”:

So my assumption was that if it is not required and not presented in the tags on the page the card will simply ignore the field from rendering. Not so.  Since I set up the card system on dev.twitter.com while logged into my personal account the default value for the field I did not specify ended up being my personal twitter account. This meant that many users had my personal twitter account on their Twitter card. It turns out that if I want this feature truly ignored I must add the tag and enter a blank value for the content of that tag. C’est la vie. The fix is in and my personal account no longer shows up for generated cards.

At Socialize we believe that it is hard to move a product forward if those developing for it are constantly looking backwards chasing down bugs. Lacking the confidence that each change made to the code base will not create new problems elsewhere pulls innovation for a product in a technology company to a screeching halt. As such, our head engineer Jason has pushed hard to create and drive a deep testing culture here. Our SDK has thousands of tests running continuously through our build server, those running tests monitor code  functionality as well as analyze our code base for code coverage (lines of code covered by tests). The results are fed into heads up display at the office keeping our “test stats” top-of-mind.

This approach works well for established development environments with mature testing tools, but one area that is often overlooked is common-place websites.  With more and more emphasis on Javascript-heavy web apps the need for an automated testing environment is becoming increasingly apparent.  Often this problem is solved by using some form of browser automation like Selenium and this is great for performing integration tests on the final product, but what about good old unit tests?

Thankfully some time ago the folks at Yahoo developed a testing system for Javascript which formed part of their YUI toolset.  As awesome as this toolset is, it lacks a simple interface to report on the outcome of tests.. so we built one.

The js-test-suite system is a web based runner for Javascript tests based on the YUI test system which both executes the tests in a suite, and renders the results (tests passed, reasons for test failures, and an overall count of both) to a simple web page. The tool also incorporates JSLint test execution which (particularly in a JS environment) will catch several problems in your code that may not be apparent from broader integration test scenarios. This web page can then be easily displayed or parsed into our heads-up display system at our office. The tool is packaged up and documented so that anyone interested in adding this awesome test suite to their project can do so by simply changing a few configuration settings.

Here is an example of what our JS testing dashboard looks like when it’s run:

 Visit our GitHub page to get the JS framework code!

Socialize has some great news — we’re being acquired by ShareThis, Inc.

With the acquisition of Socialize, ShareThis assembles a unified platform across desktop, mobile web browser and in-app environments and extends its massive reach of 200 million US internet users to the mobile app ecosystem.

Why we’re selling to ShareThis:

Socialize has been committed to creating the best possible social platform for mobile content, and when ShareThis approached us, we quickly realized that we could do some pretty amazing things together.  With the acquisition of Socialize, ShareThis extends its massive reach to the mobile app ecosystem, which is poised to reach 98 billion downloads by 2015.  As a result, no other company understands consumer sharing behavior across desktop and mobile platforms better than ShareThis.  This was an opportunity that was just too good to turn down!

What this means for you:

ShareThis is committed to Socialize’s vision for deep, powerful social functionality in the mobile ecosystem.  This means that Socialize’s infrastructure will be supported by ShareThis, and it’ll be the same team (us!) working to bring you great a social platform.  If you’ve already integrated Socialize into your mobile app, you don’t have to change a thing.  And if you’ve been thinking about integrating Socialize, now’s a great time to do it, because with the backing of ShareThis we’ll be able to provide an even better experience — not just in mobile, but across all device types.

Over the next few months, we will be integrating the Socialize dashboard into the ShareThis dashboard, giving you a unified view of how social is performing across both desktop and mobile devices.  We will also have a number of great new things to share with you as we build out a unified infrastructure.

If you have any questions about the acquisition, please post them on our support forum.

About ShareThis

ShareThis powers the social web, touching the lives of 95% of U.S. Internet users across more than 2 million publisher sites and 120+ social media channels. It makes content more engaging for publishers and marketing more effective for brands by tapping into the purest expression of interest-based social activity. ShareThis was just ranked #35 on Forbes’ “America’s Most Promising Companies” list. ShareThis is the company for those wanting to make the world more connected, trusted and valuable through sharing. Based in Palo Alto, CA, the company is privately held. To learn more, click here.

GameTanium is an “app store within an app,” featuring over 75 premium, console-quality games for Android phones on a monthly subscription service.

GameTanium has turned each of its games into an “entity” in Socialize’s system, allowing each user to comment, like and share each game included in GameTanium. Each social action propagates through Socialize’s social infrastructure, driving increased app downloads, user engagement, and intelligence about each user. At right is a screenshot of a user’s social action in the GameTanium app for a game called “Treemaker” being propagated out to Facebook, and here is the SmartDownload page that the social action links to.

Users are now able to socialize with each other regardless of ‘friend’ status around each game, right from within the GameTanium app, and they are able to easily like and share each game out through their social networks. Below are some screenshots showing the user experience in the GameTanium app.

Treehouse Game with Socialize Action Bar	GameTanium Home Screen, with Socialize Action Bar
User Taking a Social Action	User Successfully Autehenticated
User making a comment in the app	Comment posted in Socialize system
Screenshot of Socialize's SmartDownload Page

Happy birthday to us!  Socialize just turned one year old in November 2012. We’ve been so busy that we haven’t had a chance to celebrate!

50MM devices using apps that run Socialize

We’ve grown tremendously since the TechCrunch story celebrating version 1.0 of our social SDK came out, with 733 iOS & Android apps integrating Socialize’s social functionality.  We just hit 50 million devices — that means 50 million end user’s phones and tablets have downloaded apps that are using Socialize.

If you’re a mobile app developer and you haven’t yet experienced the download, engagement and user intelligence benefits of integrating Socialize, now is a great time to drop our social SDK into your app. You can register and get started right here.

• Splunk helps us evaluate ad billions of impressions monthly for bidding, each in less than 100 milliseconds
• We find errors in the system: If the feedback loop is broken, the bidder makes inefficient and misinformed bid decisions
• Collect and analyze data efficiently
• Storage devices need to be available for data collection
• We run json data collection code to standardize data collection company-wide
• We run realtime searches during deployments to catch deployment problems
• We re-architected our bidding application after analyzing data from Splunk
• We aggregate data into a relational database in 1 minute increments (what took 1 week manually, took 1 hour in Splunk)
• We use Splunk to increase performance in an iterative fashion

Here is a video of Isaac’s talk:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here are Isaac’s slides:

This is where you add your Twitter credentials

Attention Socialize Developers:

Last wednesday, November 28th Twitter changed its OAuth mechanism by ensuring that the consumer key/secret was passed along with every request.

Since Socialize did not require this from developers previously, user authentication with Twitter started returning errors as of Nov 28th.

To fix this issue we added two additional fields for the Twitter setup.  You must now provide your Twitter app’s consumer key and secret key in App Settings section of your App Intelligence Dashboard, as noted in the screenshot at left.

You can find your twitter consumer key and secret here: https://dev.twitter.com/apps.

As you can see from the trendlines in the graphs below, the promise of smartphones is rapidly coming to fruition, with over 50% penetration in the US, and an especially-significant stat that by 2015 the number of broadband connections coming from mobile devices will be over 300% the number coming from fixed (i.e., desktop computer) devices.  Translated, that means the promise of blazing-fast broadband on your phone is already here with 4G LTE on many new smartphones, and it’s about to become ubiquitious.  And that means that people will just reach for their phone instead of walking over to a desktop computer whenever they want to do anything online.  I wrote about this phenomenon in a personal blog post about how the iPhone 5′s connectivity has been growing exponentially since its introduction.

Another significant stat shown below is that the time smartphone users spend in apps is 600% greater than mobile web.  As TechCrunch reported last October, mobile app downloads are skyrocketing from 2 billion in 2010 to 98 billion 2015 — an increase of almost 50x.  And as Localytics reports, 26% of users only open an app once after downloading.  Already, engagement is a problem in mobile, and as the number of downloads skyrockets fifty fold, the problem is going to get much worse.  Just think about your own phone:  How many apps are on it that you downloaded, but never use.

Fred Wilson coined the term “30/10/10” to refer to 30% of the download base being MAUs (Monthly Active Users) and 10% of the download base being daily actives.  I believe the engagement stats for many apps are often even worse than that.  Oftentimes, as the Localytics data illustrates, 25% to 50% of users don’t even open the app once after downloading it.  In a presentation from PinchMedia (now several years old), the active user rate 90 days after install was well under 5% of the download base.

We believe the engagement problem comes down to a simple aspect of human nature:  We are social creatures.  And there are communities hidden inside of every app — not ‘friends,’ but a group of strangers who all share just one common interest:  The content of the app.  This means there’s an ‘interest graph’ hiding inside of every app.  It’s ridiculous that you don’t know who any of the other users of an app are.  You’ll never want to be ‘friends’ with them all, but around topics you both care about, you definitely might have something to say.  An example is Amazon comments:  I may not be your ‘friend,’ but if you make a comment about a product I care about, you may very well influence my buying behavior on Amazon.  Socialize takes that simple truth and applies it to all the content inside of an app, unleashing the communities of users inside the app, and ‘turning the lights on’ so they can all socialize with each other regardless of friend status.  To learn more about that, click here.

Here are some of the highlights of the BusinessInsider presentation:

A huge rise in smartphone and now tablet sales starting in 2009:

With the vast majority of broadband consumer connections coming from mobile devices by 2015:

With smartphone and tablet e-commerce growing fast:

And fast-growing digital advertising, but still with much lower CPMs than desktop:

With mobile-specific advertising expected to continue to grow:

Time spent in apps is vastly outpacing time spent in mobile web:

And while Android is gobbling up market share:

Most of the actual commerce & traffic is coming from iOS:

All of this takes a massive infrastructure lift, and we rely on Splunk to help us do it.

Our CTO Isaac Mosquera will be speaking at the SplunkLive! conference on Tuesday, December 4th about how we use Splunk in progressive ways to manage this infrastructure growth.

Here’s more about SplunkLive — hope you can join us.

“Splunk takes your machine data and makes sense of it. Business sense. IT sense. Security sense. Common sense. Only Splunk delivers real-time visibility and operational insights for IT and the business.  Learn how more than 4,400 enterprises, service providers and government organizations in 80+ countries use Splunk to manage massive streams of machine data to improve service levels, reduce IT operations costs, mitigate security risks, and drive new levels of operational intelligence across IT and the business.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

We asked Amazon to provide us a detailed accounting of what happened, as well as a post-mortem, to better allow us to evaluate the problem and how we can keep future problems like this from affecting Socialize.

Below is the answer directly from Amazon:

Here is the functionality as described by Nate:

“This is meant to be a very simple test of push functionality. The scripts also serve as code-as-documentation for the APNS protocol. It could be useful for anyone trying to diagnose a problem with push in an iOS app.

Also included is a script to check Apple’s push feedback service. This is a separate channel used by Apple to notify you of any problems encountered when sending to your devices.”

Nate, thanks for being awesome.

Just Crossed Over 500 Million Views of our Action Bar

Socialize is now serving 1 billion API requests monthly, a 500% jump over our numbers from May 2012.  We also just crossed over 500 million views of our ActionBar since we launched Socialize eleven months ago.

Socialize is now live in over 500 apps, with over 29 million unique devices using the Socialize platform.

Thanks for all the growth, and we’ll celebrate our one year birthday in style next month!

Socialize CEO Daniel Odio spoke about Socialize’s new Passbook ad platform at Digital Hollywood in Los Angeles, CA.  The panel was titled Branded Advertising Strategies – Content and Platform Integration.

Also on the panel were:

• Brad Davis, Executive Vice President of Sales, Photobucket
• Joseph Epstein, Chief Marketing Officer, DBG
• Chase Norlin, CEO, AlphaBird
• Eric Springer, CCO, Pitch
• Rob Kramer, EVP of Sales, Celtra

The panel was moderated by Robert Gonsalves, Consultant in Online Operations.  Here’s a video of the panel:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The panel had a spirited discussion focused on the intersection of mobile and social — something we live every day at Socialize.  Here is a description of the panel:

Every computer revolution changes our lives dramatically; so will mobile devices. Mobile devices enable billions of people to capture, share, interact, and consume real-time personal media in new and creative ways. In addition, being devices owned by individuals, they can form an autonomous computing fabric that frees us from the domination of existing centralized proprietary social networking services.

The panel was moderated by Marc Davis, Partner Architect, Online Services Division at Microsoft.  Panelists included:

• Daniel Rubén Odio-Páez, CEO and Co-Founder at Socialize, Inc
• Magnus Hilding, Head of Software Strategy, Sony Mobile
• Monica Lam, Faculty Director for MobiSocial Lab
• Keri Kandel, Product Marketing Manager – Google+ Mobile
• John Paul Shen, Head of Nokia Research Center, North America Lab
• Paul Master, CTO, Techfarm
• Alan Messer, Vice President, Head of Advanced Software Technology, Samsung Electronics
• Mark H. Wittow, Partner at K&L Gates

Here is a video of the panel:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Why sift through tech blogs or virtually meander through the App Store when new apps can be delivered right to you, as art? The iMosaic app for iOS is a beautiful way of discovering new apps in one convenient place.

And now even more people will be able to discover new and exciting apps. Having recently implemented the Socialize SDK, the developers have installed the Action Bar on each individual app. That way, new apps that are discovered through the iMosaic app can be liked, commented on and shared with friends through Twitter, email, Facebook and SMS. With each share (whether through the sharing feature alone or when sharing a comment), a link is posted to the entity’s SmartDownload page, showcasing the iMosaic app and encouraging prospective users to download it.

Beyond this, every social action around each app is tracked, analyzed and displayed on the developer’s App Intelligence Dashboard so they can see which apps are most popular, which shares are triggering the most new downloads and which users are most active. From there, they can then MicroTarget those active users to keep them engaged and loyal. This is done using SmartAlerts, which actually have two functions—they can be used for direct messages to individual users from the developer’s dashboard, and also subscribe and notify the user of thread activity once they’ve commented inside the app. The bottom line is, they keep users coming back to the app and strengthen the user-to-app connection.

Check out the screenshots below to see how Socialize has been implemented. And to download the iMosaic app for yourself, click here.

Mosaic of different apps to discover	App as entity with Action Bar
Share new apps through Facebook, Twitter, email and SMS	Comment on entity and subscribe to thread through SmartAlerts
Share comment to Facebook (and Twitter)	Posting requires authentication to populate Socialize profile

It seems we’re in the music business! On the heels of other radio apps (click here and here for examples) that have implemented Socialize comes the mixRadio app for iOS.

With over 10,000 stations from all over the world, this app caters to anyone’s musical tastes. Users can compile a list of their favorite stations for easy access, enable playback for up to 30 minutes and record stations that they’re listening to. And of course, with Socialize now installed, users can also like, comment on and share each station to their social networks.

Because the Action Bar has been installed on each individual radio station, the developers can track social actions around each one via their App Intelligence Dashboard. All activity around each
entity is displayed in one place, showing which stations are generating the most buzz, which shares are bringing in the most new downloads and which users are most active (allowing them to be targeted via SmartAlerts). This granular insight into app and user activity is what put the Socialize features beyond sharing—they’re a means to total app transparency.

Check out the screenshots below to see Socialize in action. And to download the mixRadio app for yourself, click here.

Main Menu with all stations	Station with Action Bar
Share each station to social networks	Authenticate through Facebook and Twitter
Comment on each station	App's SmartDownloads Page linked to with each share

The idea of relaxing with a good puzzle is a little different in the smartphone age. With the Sunny Seeds Free app, users will curl up with a cup of tea and their iPhone on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

The goal of the game is to leave the page free of any numbers. Users simply follow the hints to eliminate numbers as they go. The game can be played in two modes—Classic or Advanced—and comes with features like “Undo”, pausing and now, Socialize.

The Action Bar has been installed on the homepage to turn the entire app into its own entity that can be liked, commented on and shared. Users can share the app itself through Facebook, Twitter, email or SMS. They can also comment inside the app to connect with other players, and share those comments to their Facebook and Twitter wall. Each share contains a link to the app’s SmartDownloads Page, promoting the app and encouraging new downloads. Meanwhile, every social action is tracked for the developer to examine on their App Intelligence Dashboard.

Check out the screenshots below to see how Socialize has transformed this game into a social entity. And to download the Sunny Seeds app for yourself, click here.

Homepage with Action Bar	Share app through Facebook, email, Twitter and SMS
App shared on Facebook wall	Comment on app
Post comment to Facebook or Twitter	Comment posted in thread
Authenticating through Facebook or Twitter imports information to Socialize profile

We recently announced an performance advertising app install platform for app developers who want to drive installs and engagement of their apps.

If you have a $5k budget to drive installs, and you’re willing to spend at least a 25 cent Cost Per Click (CPC) to drive new users to your app store install page, we can help you.

Here’s how Socialize drives real installs to your app:  In our insertion order, we ask you to fill a profile out describing your ideal user.  We ask you things like:

• Your app category
• Type of device (i.e., iPad only?)
• Gender of your ideal user
• Age of your ideal user
• Geographic Region of your ideal user
• Best time of day to show ads (are your ideal users on their devices in the evening, for example?)

We use your answers to build a profile of an ideal user and then we target people who match that profile.

How we target:  We evaluate hundreds of millions of ad impressions every day, looking for impressions from users that most closely match the profile of your ideal user.  When we see an impression from a user we think is likely to install your app, we bid on that impression.  By carefully bidding on only the best impressions, we’re able to get you installs of users that will provide you long-term value.

How we are different from incentivized install networks:  There are networks such as Tapjoy that can drive a large number of installs, but those installs are driven through incentives that have nothing to do with your app.  For example, a user might get virtual coins an a game app in exchange for installing an app.  That user only wants the virtual coins — they don’t actually want to use your app.  To the right is a screenshot of an actual app that used Tapjoy to drive installs — but you can see the long-term engagement of the app was unaffected by the campaign.

Our goal is to provide you real users that will provide long-term value.

If you’d like to get started, just fill out our insertion order.  If you’d just like more info, tell us more about your app.

Whoever thought tech and fashion couldn’t go together never checked out the Trendstop Fashion TrendTracker app for Android. Filled with videos, photo galleries and an in-app magazine, this app will keep the fashion-conscious up to date on the latest trends, right from the palm of their hand. The app even uses GPS to find the nearest stores so users can pick up what they like in the app for themselves.

The Socialize Action Bar has been installed in the app’s gallery section, turning each individual photo into an entity that can be shared, liked, and commented on. Users can interact with each other around each image through the comment threads, connecting with other fashion fanatics they otherwise wouldn’t have discovered. Socialize user profiles are automatically populated with personal information upon authentication, which also enables global posting, posting all future activity to the user’s social networks.

Because every social action is tracked on the developer’s App Intelligence Dashboard, they can see which images generate the most buzz, which shares of those images are bringing in the most new downloads, and which users are most active (the “whales”). Being able to see which users are most valuable to them allows them to target those users by sending them exclusive offers, promotions, and other perks via SmartAlerts to further encourage app loyalty. What other social features do that for their app (and users)?

See how Socialize has transformed this app in the screenshots below. And to download the Trendstop Fashion TrendTracker app for yourself, click here.

Image as shareable entity	Share through email, SMS, Facebook and Twitter
Comment on entity and share comments to social networks	Authenticate to post comment to Facebook and/or Twitter
Sharing entity via email	Entity shared with links
Links shared prompt user to download app for the device they're on, in the case Android

Find yourself cursing your Android phone one too many times a day for a slow connection or dropped calls? Put the swear jar away. Downloading the Network Speed Booster app will refresh your connection to cell sites to improve reception and Internet connection.

Not only that, it also gives you better call quality and maximizes your phone’s broadband radio power. Offering a data, wi-fi and airplane mode switch straight from the app, it makes managing your connections easier than ever. With Socialize now implemented, interaction both in and around the app is now possible as well. The app itself is its own entity, allowing it to be liked, commented on and shared. Authentication makes sharing to Facebook and Twitter as easy as clicking a button. And SmartAlerts keep you notified of app activity by subscribing you to a comment thread once you participate.

Meanwhile, every social action around the app is tracked on the developer’s App Intelligence Dashboard so they can see which content is most popular, reward their most active users, and see which shares are bringing in the most downloads. Seeing what works for their app means they’ll be able to keep giving you, and other users, what you like.

Check out the screenshots below to see how the app has installed Socialize. And to boost your own network speed, download the Network Speed Booster app here.

Action Bar on app homepage	Social actions trigger authentication through Facebook or Twitter
A like posted to Facebook after authenticating	Every shared post links to app's SmartDownload Page
Commenting system powered by Socialize	Comment and subscribe to thread via SmartAlerts
Share app through Facebook, Twitter, email and SMS

Start your new year’s resolutions early this year with the Diet Assistant – Weight Loss app for Android. With almost 8,000 users rating it 4 out of 5 stars, this app will make fitting into those skinny jeans (girls and hipster boys alike) easier than ever. This app isn’t just a calorie counter—it includes diet plans, a weight tracker, graphs of your progress and a customized user profile. And on top of that, it now boasts a social layer courtesy of Socialize.

The Action Bar has been installed on the menu page of the app, turning the entire app into its own shareable entity. This allows users to like, comment on and share the app via Facebook, Twitter, email and SMS from the app’s homepage. Twitter and Facebook authentication both fills out the user’s Socialize profile in the app (giving them an identity when commenting and interacting inside the app) and promotes future sharing by enabling global posting. With each comment, like and share that is posted outside the app, a link is included to the app’s SmartDownload page, showcasing the app and encouraging new downloads. Meanwhile, every social action is tracked on the developer’s App Intelligence Dashboard so they know exactly where those downloads are coming from, what content is triggering them and who the most active users are.

Check out the screenshots below for more on what Socialize has done for this app, and can do for yours. And if you’re looking to shed a few pounds (hey, beach season is only 9 months away!), then download the Diet Assistant – Weight Loss app here.

Main menu with Action Bar	Liking triggers authentication
Share app through Facebook, Twitter, email and SMS	Commenting system powered by Socialize
Commenting subscribes user to thread through SmartAlerts	Authentication when commenting and sharing enables global posting
Socialize user profile tracks personal activity

Here’s our Media Camp Demo Day presentation:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s a demo of some apps running Socialize, including CNNMoney and NCAA prototypes:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here are screenshots of the apps as well as pics from the event:

Keep your phone’s charger handy, because now you can watch full Indian cricket matches right on your device—and there’s no such thing as a “quick game of cricket”. The Indian Cricket Live TV app for Android lets you (as you probably gathered) watch live cricket matches inside the app. And with the Socialize SDK now installed in the app, each video can be liked, commented on and shared—as well as scorecards, app categories and the app itself.

The developers have implemented the Action Bar into various layers of the app, turning different pieces of it into entities. The entire app can be shared through the Action Bar on the main menu. The categories accessed by the main menu can be shared as well. And each individual scorecard, video, and piece of content within those categories can be liked, commented on and shared through their own Action Bars. Not only does this allow users to interact with each facet of the app—and each other—but it gives the developer granular insight into their own app.

Every social action that occurs in the app is tracked and analyzed on the developer’s App Intelligence Dashboard. Because the Action Bar has been installed in so many places in the Indian Cricket Live TV app, activity taking place around all of that content will be measured. Information about the most popular content, most active users, which shares are triggering the most downloads, and more, will all delivered right to the developer.

Check out the screenshots below to see how Socialize has been implemented in this app. And for hours and hours of live cricket at your fingertips, download the Indian Cricket Live TV app here.

App main menu as entity	Top app category as entity
Individual score card as entity	Share any entity through Facebook, email or SMS
Commenting system powered by Socialize	Comment on any entity and post comments to Facebook
Authenticate to post to Facebook

Eighties babies, this one’s for you! The Radio Music 80′s Android app has recently implemented Socialize to help you and your friends get your jam on to George Michael and The Bangles.

This app has a set playlist of 100 songs (see the full list here) and turned each individual song into its own entity with the Action Bar. App user and 80′s fanatics can not only connect with each other to build an engaging in-app community, they’ll draw in new users with each comment, like and share. Nearly every social action prompts the user to authenticate with Facebook or Twitter, enabling global posting for automatic sharing. Which means every time someone gives “Like a Virgin” the virtual thumbs up, it posts that like to their social network profiles and promotes the app’s content. And Socialize makes sure every post is optimized to bring in more downloads, showcasing the app and directing users to download it through the SmartDownload System.

Ready to get your big-haired, blue-eyeshadowed, white-blazered groove on? Download the Radio Music 80′s app here.

Each song is an entity with the Action Bar	Share through Facebook, Twitter, email and SMS with option to comment
Commenting system powered by Socialize	Join the conversation and subscribe to the thread to receive push notifications with new activity
Authenticate through Facebook and Twitter	Socialize profile filled out automatically by authenticating
Facebook share with link to SmarDownload page where new users can see app activity and download the app

At Socialize, we clearly believe in the power of apps. But we also believe in the power of a good sale (that little “percent” sign is like a credit card lightning rod). Which is why we’re thrilled that the AppSales. Best Apps on Sale app for Android has recently implemented the Socialize SDK so more people can download awesome apps at a fraction of the price.

We’re also excited about the way they’ve installed Socialize. Jumping on the opportunities our completely customizable SDK offers, the developers have integrated the liking and commenting features alone to perfectly coincide with the app’s current UI. Their tailored version of the Action Bar has been installed on each individual app, allowing users to like their favorite sales, comment on them and share their comments through Facebook, Twitter, SMS and email. While they’re spreading the good cheer (for wallets everywhere), the developer gets granular statistics on each piece of content via their App Intelligence Dashboard. Information like which apps are most popular, which users are most active (leaving them ripe for MicroTargeting, which sounds much more predatory than it is) and where all of those new downloads are coming from.

Check out the screenshots below to see how the developer has seamlessly integrated the Action Bar into the app’s design. And to start hitting the bargains yourself, download the AppSales. Best Apps on Sale app here.

Latest apps on sale	App on sale as entity, with Action Bar integrated into app's design
Comment on app on sale	Post comment to Facebook and/or Twitter by authenticating
Share posted to Facebook with link to entity page	Entity page with links to download AppSale app as accessed by shared post

Socialize has teamed up with Madrid Metro to give you a tour of the amazing Spanish city—on a budget! The Madrid Metro/Bus/Cercanius app for Android gives you up-to-date information on every bus route, Metro station and Cercanius commuter network to get you anywhere you want to go, on time, and without shelling out extra Euros for cab fare.

The Action Bar has been implemented to make the app itself an entity, so users can like, comment on and share the app as a whole to their friends through Facebook, Twitter, email and SMS. Every time someone shares the app or makes a comment—say, on a route they’re taking or where they’re heading to on the subway—the SmartDownload System posts the comment with a link to the app’s entity page to encourage new downloads. Which is great for the users who get to share with their friends, the developer who gets more app downloads, and the city of Madrid which will have less confused, lost people wandering around bumping into each other.

Heading to Madrid? Already live there? Download the Madrid Metro/Bus/Cercanias app for yourself.

Action Bar turns entire app into entity that can be shared, liked and commented on	Share app through Facebook, Twitter, SMS and email
App shared to Facebook wall	SmartDownload page linked to with each share
Comment thread powered by Socialize	Join the conversation and share comment to social networks

We need not be slaves to our Wi-Fi connection! At least when it comes to watching videos on the web (other circumstances are yet to be conquered). The Viz app for Android lets you download videos from the web’s most popular sites and watch them regardless of having an active Internet connection.

A built-in browser lets you download videos to watch them whenever you want. Just hit the “Play” tab and watch them right there. Everything happens inside the app—including Socializing!. With the Action Bar installed on the Play tab, each video becomes its own entity so it can be individually shared. Then, when that video is shared to the user’s social networks (something that is automatically enabled when the user authenticates through Facebook or Twitter) it promotes the app as the source of content. The SmartDownload System works to showcase each piece of content in the app to encourage downloads. So every time a user shares a funny video, it’s like free publicity for the app.

Check out the screenshots below to see Socialize in action. And to download the Viz app for yourself, click here.

Video source menu	Select from latest videos
Download video to watch and share (share feature installed individually without other Action Bar features)	Share through Facebook, Twitter, email and SMS
Shared here through SMS	When viewed on a device, shared link either directs you to download app or continue to content

Now that the app has been Socialized, even more veggie aficionados will be able to enjoy the recipes it offers. Socialize features allow users to like, comment on and share each recipe to their social networks, promoting the app to potential users who otherwise would not have come across it. The SmartDownload System works on the developer’s behalf to make sure each social action is optimized to boost downloads. Every time a user shares a comment or recipe (which happens automatically once authentication enables global posting), the shared post includes several links to a tailored entity page that encourages the user to download the app for themselves. Which means more healthy, delicious vegetarian dishes being cooked the world over. Needless to say, we’re sure the farm animals of the world approve of this app.

Check out the screenshots below, and download tonight’s yummy vegetarian dinner for yourself here.

Main Menu	Choose a recipe
Touch to flip to recipe instructions and like, comment on and share	Authenticate to post to Facebook and Twitter and enable automatic posting
Share recipe through Facebook, Twitter, email and SMS	Any share (here through email) includes link to SmartDownload page
SmartDownload page, with prompts to download app

If bubble wrap has taught us anything, it’s that people have an insatiable desire to pop its namesake. And now they can do it as much as they want (without the added shipping costs!) with the app for Android.

With the installation of the Socialize SDK, the app itself has been turned into an App Intelligence Dashboard. There, they can see all of the activity that is happening in and around the app, along with which users are most active (and therefore valuable) to the app. Besides knowing how the app is performing, having access to these valuable users gives the developer the opportunity to reach out to them. SmartAlerts can be sent to those users with specific messages, promotional links, or special offers, microtargeting them to encourage app loyalty and drive more activity. It’s just one of the ways Socialize fosters the app-to-user connect to increase engagement and boost app installs.

Check out the screenshots below to see Bubble Drop’s Socialize implementation. And to download the game for yourself, click here.

App is the entity with Action Bar on main menu	Bubble Drop game
Share with option to comment	Commenting thread powered by Socialize
Join the conversation	Authenticate to post to Facebook
Authenticating automatically fills out Socialize profile	Comment posted to Facebook with links to download app

While we in no way condone breaking the law or avoiding due punishment (of course!), we definitely condone installing the Socialize SDK into your app. So this post pretty much evens itself out, right?

The Police Traps and Speed Cams Android app gives you the inside scoop on known police traps, speed cameras, accidents and parking warden hotspots courtesy of other app users. Spare your wallet (and driving record) of future tickets by knowing exactly where the traps are lurking thanks to your fellow app mates!

User camaraderie is further encouraged with a chat room powered by the Socialize commenting feature. Able to talk to each other within the app itself, then share those comments to their social networks, a community builds around the app to increase user engagement and drive new installs. Every time a social action—be it a like, comment or share—is taken, it promotes the app by linking to an entity page that showcases the app, its activity, and where users can download it themselves.

And for all the Android-using leadfoots (leadfeet?) out there, download the Police Traps and Speed Cams app for yourselves here.

App itself an entity with Action Bar	Police locations an entity with Action Bar too
Share entities through Facebook, email and SMS	Comment thread powered by Socialize
Comment and automatically subscribe to thread through SmartAlerts to receive push notifications	Authenticating also triggers global posting, so each social action from then on is posted to social networks

There’s more to photo editing apps than applying different filters that showcase your life in varying shades of sepia. The Pho.to Lab app for Android lets you add different frames, effects, colors, animations and even let you turn yourself and your friends into a pirate, a monkey, a knight, a…well, you get the point. Basically, you can do pretty much anything you want to your photos with the 555 effects in this super fun app.

Having recently implemented Socialize, each photo masterpiece is now its own entity that can be liked, commented on and shared. This is not only great for the users—a rendering of yourself as Jack Sparrow is something that deserves Facebook recognition—but gives the developer insight into their app that would otherwise have remained untapped. Every time a social action is taken, it’s tracked on the developer’s App Intelligence Dashboard to give them complete transparency into what’s working for their app. The most popular photo effects, most active users, which shares are attracting the most new users, and more, are all on display for the developer to use.

Check out the screenshots below to see Socialize in action, and to download the Pho.to Lab app for yourself, click here.

Main Menu	Photo effect as entity with Action Bar
Authenticate through Facebook and Twitter when liking and commenting	Commenting thread powered by Socialize
Comment to join the conversation and post your comment to social networks	Comment posted in app
SmartDownload Page linked to with each share

From the same developer as Tips for Eden comes this handy-dandy guide to navigating each level of 100 Floors (we’ll take a stab in the dark and guess there are 100 of them?) in the form of Cheats for 100 Floors for iOS.

Forgoing the customized Action Bar developer Jonathan Brake designed specially for his Eden app, he’s installed liking, commenting and sharing on the main menu page, as well as the Walkthrough category and each separate tip for floors 1 – 100. Doing so turns each of these pieces of content into an entity that is tracked and analyzed on Jonathan’s App Intelligence Dashboard.

What does this mean for him? Well, while app users are enjoying his cheat tips, he’s enjoying the insight each one of their social actions is giving him into app performance and user activity. Not only can he see which cheats are generating the most buzz, what people are saying about the app and which shares are bringing in the most downloads, he can see who his most active (and therefore valuable) users are. From there, he can MicroTarget by sending them a personal message, link to exclusive content or promotional offer using the SmartAlerts feature. Straight from his dashboard.

Check out how Jonathan has implemented Socialize into one of his many apps in the screenshots below. And to download the app for yourself, click here.

Main menu page with Action Bar	Walkthrough category as entity
Tip as entity with Action Bar	Comment thread powered by Socialize
Authenticate through Facebook and Twitter and enable global posting	Share tips through Facebook, Twitter, SMS and email (here)

It’s the Rubik’s Cube of the smartphone era! Pixelated —The Color Puzzle for iOS is an addictive color-matching game that challenges you to fill the screen with a single color in a maximum number of moves. Start from either the corner or the middle, and choose your next move based on the predominate color around you. Wash, rinse and repeat until you’ve filled the screen with one color only—before you run out of moves. Bonus: you’ll be less inclined to hurl your iPhone at the wall in excited frustration than you are the hunk of plastic that is the classic Rubik’s Cube. Less drywall repair!

Like many of the other game apps that have implemented Socialize—Minesweeper for example—Pixelated has placed the Action Bar on the main page of the app to turn the app itself into an entity. This makes it easy for users to share the game with their friends through Facebook, Twitter, email or SMS, accompanied by a comment (along the lines of “I’ve been playing this game for 3 SLEEPLESS DAYS.”) or sent along by itself through the sharing button. Meanwhile, the developers can see all of the social actions taking place around their app, along with which users are most active and which shares are bringing in the most downloads, conveniently laid out for them on their App Intelligence Dashboard. And clever ducks that they are, they also placed an Action Bar on the game rules so users can share the ropes with their buddies and add to their competition.

Check out the screenshots below to see Socialize in and outside of the app—the SmartDownload System includes a link to a tailored entity page with each shared social action. Take a look! And to download the game for yourself, click here.

Action Bar on Menu Page	Users can share game rules
Comment on the game	Authenticate to post to Facebook and Twitter
Comment posted in app after Twitter authentication	Socialize profile after authentication
SmartDownload page shared with Twitter (and Facebook) post

Eden may conjure up images of snakes, apples and fig leaves but those familiar with the Eden – World Builder game know that Eden can be whatever your little heart (and touch-screen tapping fingers) desires. Ensuring users can make the most of their personal Eden, the Tips for Eden iOS app reveals the game’s every nook and cranny for them to take advantage of.

Filled with tips and videos on every type of block, the implementation of Socialize in the app allows users to like, comment and share each one to the social networks. Doing so then prompts the user to authenticate, instantly populating their Socialize profile picture and bio and enabling global posting so each social action they take from then on is automatically posted to their Twitter or Facebook wall. Not only does this make sharing their activity and the app’s content with their friends easier, it continually promotes the app externally as users interact inside of it. The Socialize Action Bar keeps app users connected and engaged within the app, while simultaneously publicizing that activity to outside networks in order to lure new users into downloading the app. The SmartDownload System makes sure of it!

Take a look at the screenshots below to see how Socialize has been integrated into the app. Notice that the developer has chosen to place the Action Bar at the top of each different tip and video category, making each one its own entity, of which all social actions are tracked and displayed on their App Intelligence Dashboard. They’ve also taken advantage of the SDK’s unlimited customization and installed their own features into the Action Bar—such as a “More Games” button that directs users to additional apps in the App Store. Check it out for yourself by downloading the Tips for Eden app here.

Block categories	Action Bar placed at top of page
App Store button installed into Action Bar by developer	Video category as entity
Comment on each entity (as well as like and share)	Authenticate to enable global posting for Facebook and Twitter

Do you know your rappers? REALLY know them? Could you identify them solely by their catchphrase? If the answer is no, then you’re in dire need of the Rap Soundboard Lite app for Android. And if it’s yes, then download the app anyway and brush up!

Filled with rappers from A-Z, represented by hilarious bobble-head style graphics, you can sift through and listen to over 150 sounds from 77 famous rappers. Then choose your favorites, save them, and set them as ring tones or notification sounds to give you phone an instant dose of swagger.

The Socialize Action Bar has been installed to make the app itself an entity that can be liked, commented on and shared. Every time a social action is taken around the app, its entity page is shared to that user’s social networks to promote the app’s content and bring in more downloads. Meanwhile, the developer can see what people are saying about the app in the commenting threads, what they’re sharing to friends through Facebook, Twitter, email and SMS, and which users are most active. From there, they can microtarget users individually with special offers or exclusive content sent via SmartAlert. Which means the more active you are in the app, the more likely you’ll get special treatment. Coupon for a bottle of Cristal? (Maybe don’t hold your breath on that one.)

Check out the screenshots below for an overview of Rap Soundboard Lite. And to download the app for yourself, click here.

Action Bar turns the app into its own entity	View counter, like, comment and share
Comment on the app, then post your comment to social networks	Favorite, save and set rapper sounds
Entity page linked to each time a comment or the app is shared

Sometimes people just never get around to cleaning out the clutter, and that goes for the law books too. So why not have a little fun with it? The Stupid Laws the Facts! app for iOS compiles all of the silly, hilarious and ridiculously crazy laws from the USA and around the world to deliver chuckles right to your phone.

The developer has implemented the Socialize Action Bar in such a way that makes each US state and international country its own entity. The app is divided up into these categories, with tons of funny laws to flip through associated with each location. This allows the developer to track the app’s performance based on these categories and see which state or country’s laws generate the most activity so they can spend future time and resources giving their adoring public what they want. This also lets users share more content with each social action—each time a user shares from the app, they’re sharing that entire category. More content shared = more to draw new users in = more overall downloads.

Check out the screenshots below to see how Socialize has been implemented. And to download the Stupid Laws the Facts! app for yourself, click here.

Laws categorized by location	Laws with Action Bar, but category is shared
Comment thread powered by Socialize	Authenticate to post to Facebook and Twitter
Share posted to Facebook with link to entity page	Entity page with links to download as accessed by shared post

The app features a ton of recipes both hand-picked by the developer and submitted by juice-loving app users. Users can easily send their recipes in directly through the app by messaging the developer via the “Submit a Juice” tab. Having had Socialize built into it, the app allows users to comment on and share their fruit-and-veggie-laden discoveries with their social networks. Each recipe is turned into an entity through the Socialize Action Bar, which enables and tracks every social action taken in and outside the app on the developer’s App Intelligence Dashboard. With that kind of deep, insightful information at hand, the developer can see which recipes are most popular, what users are saying, and which ones are driving the most new app installs.

Check out the app, created with AppMakr and powered by Socialize, below. And to download the app for yourself and get your juice on, click here.

App Splash Screen	Home feed of juice recipes
Juice recipe as entity with Action Bar	Commenting powered by Socialize
Comment in thread, without Facebook authentication	Socialize user profile without Facebook authentication
Socialize user profile with Facebook authentication

It would be a shame for college kids to go hungry, so the Creighton Dining iOS app from Creighton University in Nebraska is making sure that doesn’t happen! And with a social layer courtesy Socialize, they’ll make sure their friends are properly fed too.

The Creighton Dining app has installed the Socialize Action Bar on each food item so students can like, comment on and share the daily menu with each other. Rather than blindly showing up to different cafeterias and on-campus restaurants, they can see what’s offered where through the app. They can also see where their friends are headed and what menus they’re checking out each time a comment or item is shared to Facebook or Twitter. Authentication through the app not only gives users an identity inside the app, it enables global posting so every social action they take from then on gets posted as well.

Meanwhile, Creighton University can see which menu items are most popular to keep giving students what they like most!

Check out the screenshots below to see how Creighton Dining has implemented Socialize, and if you’re a current or future Creighton student, download the app here.

Menu Items	Action Bar for each menu item
Comment on menu items and subscribe to thread with SmartAlerts	Authenticate to post to Facebook and Twitter
Authenticating automatically fills out the user's Socialize profile	Authenticating also triggers global posting, so each social action from then on is posted to social networks
Entity post when shared to Facebook, with links to SmartDownload Page	SmartDownload Page for shared comment

And the tweens shall inherit the earth…with the help of Socialize.

The adolescent app market is no boys club. Along with One Direction and Justin Bieber comes the Selly Gomez app (or Selena Gomez, singer and current girlfriend of Justin Bieber for us old-timers) for iOS. Serving up the latest Selena news, videos and photos, it also provides a chat room courtesy of the Socialize commenting system, and sharing features that help promote the app and its content.

It’s no secret that pre-teens and teenagers love to talk. The commenting feature included in the Socialize Action Bar allows Selena Gomez fans to chat and connect with each other, fostering a community that centers around the app. On the flip side, the social actions—liking, commenting and sharing—that take place in the app are tracked and dissected on the developer’s App Intelligence Dashboard, giving them deep insight into what content is most popular, which users are most active and which shares are driving the most new installs.

Check out the screenshots below for a peek into the app and its Socialize implementation. And to download the app for yourself (or “your little cousin”), click here.

Socialize Action Bar turns app into entity	Favorite the app by liking it
Chat room powered by Socialize	Share app via email
App shared via email with comment

We won’t pretend to know a lick of Urdu, but we can honestly say we’re beyond excited the Urdu News app knows Socialize!

With the Action Bar placed on each individual article, they become their own entities that can be shared, liked, commented on and tracked on the developer, PakData’s, App Intelligence Dashboard. Every social action that takes place in, from and around the app gets tracked, along with statistics on each user’s activities. The most active users—the ones sharing, commenting and bringing in the most downloads through their social networks—are easily identified and able to be microtargeted to further encourage their loyalty to the app.

All the while, each time a comment or entity is shared, the SmartDownload System works to drive installs. Check out the screenshots below, where the user is prompted to download the app for iOS by clicking on the link contained in the SMS share. The SmartDownload system can tell that the user is on an iOS device—and forwards them directly to the App Store to download the app for themselves.

And for the latest from Urdu News, download the app here.

App newsfeed	Article as entity with Action Bar
Commenting system powered by Socialize	Socialize user profile (without authentication)
Share via email and SMS (this app does not include the Twitter and Facebook sharing features)	Share via SMS
Share via SMS, complete with link to download page	Shared link leads to download page, tailored to device it is being viewed on

Heads up, spiritual Socializers. If you’re looking for a daily dose of wisdom, brought to you in style, look no further than the Photo-Verse app for iOS. Updated with a different bible verse every day, this app goes beyond your usual Bible quotes app by accompanying the verse with a beautiful and relevant photo. It’s inspiration, specially served, to keep you grounded and remembering the important things in life.

Of course, there’s no reason to keep the good word to yourself! The Socialize features contained in the Action Bar on every verse turn each one into its own entity that can be liked, commented on and shared to social networks as well as through email and SMS. Not only does this share the app and its content with people who otherwise may never have come across it, it gives the developer powerful insight into the app, its users and their activity through the App Intelligence Dashboard. Which means more knowledge about what’s working for the app, and more giving you and other users what you like.

Meanwhile, the app’s many SmartDownload pages (each tailored to the way the entity was shared and how the viewer is accessing it) ensure that the app’s content is optimized to spark more downloads. Here’s an example.

Take a look at the screenshots below for a glimpse of Socialize in action. And to download the Photo-Verse app for yourself, click here.

App Splash Screen	Verse as entity with Action Bar
Verse as entity with Action Bar	Commenting system powered by Socialize (along with sharing, liking and view counter
SmartDownload Page for the app, shared with each comment and share

We never thought we’d be using the word “pimp” in one of our blog posts but the Pimp Your Body—Tattoo Catalog and Maker has proven us wrong. If you’re a walking human painting or new to the ink game, this iOS app will provide inspiration for your next (or first) tattoo.

Installing the Socialize Action Bar on the app’s homepage has turned the app itself into an entity with a view counter, like button, commenting and sharing features. Beyond building a community of tattoo aficionados around the app—connecting them and keeping them engaged with the app—it offers a means of promoting the app via the users themselves. Every time the app is shared or a comment is posted, the app’s SmartDownload page is spread throughout that user’s social networks (here’s an example of their entity page, shared through email without comment). And since the SmartDownload System is constantly working hard to make each share turn into a new download, there are going to be a lot more fine-looking heavily tattooed people out there soon!

See the Socialize implementation in the screenshots below, and if you fancy a little body art inspiration and illustration, download the Pimp Your Body—Tattoo Catalog and Maker app here.

Main page with Action Bar	Share through Facebook, email and SMS (Twitter available too)
Share via SMS	Authenticate through Facebook when sharing
Comment thread powered by Socialize	User profile tracking activity (prior to authentication)
Entity shared via email	Entity page as accessed through link from sharing

If you’re constantly on the move and hate having to open your browser and Google Map the nearest bank, coffee shop, gas station or restaurant (the less typing, the better when you’re in a rush!) then we’ve got the app for you. And with a social layer powered by Socialize, you can share your whereabouts and on-the-run genius with your friends.

The Around Town app for iOS lets you choose your destination by category (bar, coffee shop, bank, etc.) and gives you an instant list of the nearest locations. Share each location to your social networks to let people know where you are, and comment on each location—which is its own entity—which can also be posted to Twitter and Facebook.

The more social actions that occur, the more information the app developer gets on each users, what content is working and generating the most buzz, and which users and actions are bringing in the most downloads. The SmartDownload System works hard to ensure that each piece of content shared is optimized to bring in as many new users and installs as possible, displaying the results on the developer’s App Intelligence Dashboard.

If you’re looking to cut down on search time and make sure you get to where you want to be, check out the Around Town app for iOS. And for a quick look at Socialize’s implementation, check out the screenshots below.

Category selection is its own entity with an Action Bar	Choose a location
Each location is its own entity to be shared, liked and commented on	Comment on and share each entity
Authenticate through Facebook and Twitter	Comment is posted in the thread in the app
Authentication automatically populates the Socialize user profile	Share to social networks, with links to a tailored SmartDownload page
The SmartDownload page, with app activity and links to download

There’s no point in keeping a good joke to yourself, is there? Which is why the JOKES. app for iOS has installed the Socialize SDK, allowing users to connect and laugh with each other inside the app, favorite the best jokes and share their gut-busting discoveries (and the app itself) with all of their friends through Facebook, Twitter, email and SMS.

While users are swapping punchlines, the developer, Free Style, can measure which jokes are most popular through their App Intelligence Dashboard. They can also see which users are most active, which shares are bringing in the most downloads, how many comments, likes and shares each entity is generating, and more.

Meanwhile, a community is growing inside and around the app to engage users and keep them coming back. Facebook and Twitter authentication gathers information about each user to fill out their Socialize profile and puts a face on their social activity. And with global posting automatically turned on once a user authenticates, every time they share, like or make a comment, that action is posted to their social networks. Which means more publicity for the app’s content, more app downloads—and more laughs for their friends. Win win!

Check out the screenshots below to see how the Socialize SDK has been seamlessly integrated to fit with the app’s current UI and design scheme. And to download the JOKES app for yourself, click here.

Socialize features customized for app's design	Comment thread powered by Socialize
Join the conversation and share comments to Facebook and Twitter	Authenticate through Facebook and Twitter when sharing and commenting
Authentication automatically turns on global posting, so each social action is shared from then on	User profile with tracked activity
Authenticating automatically populates user profile	Share jokes (entities) through Facebook, Twitter, email and SMS
SmartDownload Page for the app itself

Listen up, John Cena fans (and everyone else, head to Wikipedia and then come back and join us). The Wallpapers — for Cena iOS app by Fun Secrets is jam-packed with wallpapers to wrap your phone with. Kind of like how Cena wraps himself around his opponents—only friendlier, and without the grunting.

Having recently implemented Socialize, Fun Secrets has taken advantage of the SDK’s customization opportunities by integrating the social features into the app’s current design. Rather than installing the Action Bar as is, they’ve installed the features piece meal to be flush with the app’s UI.

And because these features have been installed via Socialize, any activity triggered by them—likes, comments, shares—is tracked and displayed on their App Intelligence Dashboard. Here, they can see which wallpapers generate the most buzz, which activity brings in the most downloads and which users are the most active within the app. From there, they can MicroTarget those users by sending them a SmartAlert—contacting them individually with a message or special offer. Alternatively, SmartAlerts also work within the app, automatically, to keep users coming back. Each time they comment on a wallpaper or participate in a conversation, they are automatically subscribed to that thread (with the option to unsubscribe if they wish). From then on, each time someone else posts on that thread, the user is sent a SmartAlert notification to bring them back to the app when they’re not using it.

No matter what, Socialize has their back to keep users engaged, active, and sharing the app’s content. To see the Socialize SDK live in the Wallpapers—for Cena app, head here.

Wallpapers to choose from	Socialize features integrated into the app's design, at bottom
Comment thread on wallpaper/entity	Join the conversation and share to social networks
Socialize User Profile (without Facebook or Twitter authentication)
Commenters automatically subscribed through SmartAlerts

No matter what kind of person you are, what your day’s been like or what mood you’re in, there’s a quote or two out there that you’ll relate to (or at the very least, will give you a good chuckle). The developers at AppStand know this, creating the Instaquotes app for iOS that delivers pithy, hilarious, poignant, heartwarming (and sometimes heart-wrenching) quotes in hipster-tastic Instagram style. And with a powerful social layer courtesy of the Socialize SDK, users can spread the word to their social networks. And bring in more app downloads while they’re at it.

While the ability to share, favourite and connect with other users around each entity fosters a community in and around the app, the benefits of this social layer go beyond user engagement for the app developer. Each time a like, comment or entity is shared, it promotes the app to bring in potential users and gives the developer more insight into their current users’ activity patterns. With each social action tracked and dissected on the developer’s App Intelligence Dashboard, they’re able to see which content is most popular, which users are the “whales” (that is, the most active and therefore most valuable to them), and which activity is bringing in each new download. Meanwhile, the SmartDownload System works for them to bring in as many of those new downloads as possible, displaying the right content to the right people and showing off the app in style.

Check out the screenshots below to see how the Socialize SDK has been implemented. And to download the Instaquotes app for yourself, click here.

Quote as entity with Socialize Action Bar	Quote as entity with Socialize Action Bar
Comment on entity	Comment in thread for entity
Socialize User Profile (without Facebook or Twitter authentication)
Share entity via Facebook, Twitter or email	Entity shared through email
Smart Download page as accessed through link in email share

We’ve said before that Justin Bieber is taking over the world, but he might have some serious competition on his hands. From across the pond comes One Direction, a boy band juggernaut with a Beatles-esque following. A following that need not looking any further for their One Direction fix than the One Direction Gossip app for iOS.

Fans can catch up on the latest One Direction tweets, videos, photos and news with constantly updated content. They’ll never have to miss a beat of the goings-on of Harry, Liam, Niall, Zayne and Louis (so what if we just learned their names?) with the hottest news right at their fingertips. It’s one stop short of a One Direction IV. And much less invasive.

Taking full of advantage of the newly implemented Socialize features, they’ve turned the commenting system into a chat room so fans who are otherwise strangers can find each other to fawn and squeal with. They can also like their favorite content, and share that content, as well as their own comments, to their social networks.

Meanwhile, all the social activity happening around that content is tracked and delivered straight to the developer’s App Intelligence Dashboard, so they can see which content is most popular, what shares are triggering the most downloads and from where, and which users are the most active and valuable to them.

This information not only gives them deep insight into what’s working for their app, it allows them to MicroTarget those valuable users to acknowledge them and keep them loyal. For instance, they can send specific users a SmartAlert with a special update, link to concert ticket discounts, exclusive videos, whatever they think those users will enjoy.

Check out the screenshots below to see how Socialize has been implemented into the app. And if you’re jonesing for your own One Direction fix, download the app here.

Info on each member.	Share, comment on and like 1D tweets.
Join the chat room, like and share.	Track your activity in your Socialize profile.
	Authenticate through Facebook and Twitter to fill out your app profile.

Customization examples: Lebanese Recipes vs. Nexercise

You can learn more about customizing the way social actions post to Facebook in our iOS or Android SDK documentation.  Updating to the latest SDK in your app will also provide you enhanced Twitter posting as well

Also, if all you want to do is post to Facebook, we expose the ability to write & read to & from Facebook.  This is also outlined in the documentation.  Here’s a screenshot:

With the release of the ActionBar version 2.0 on iOS and Android, we’ve now added even more Action to the ActionBar.  Version 2.0 of the ActionBar:

• Makes fewer API calls, minimizing its performance load even further.  Since it’s asynchronous to the rendering of your view, it won’t affect the view’s performance
• Easily configurable buttons, allowing you to quickly and easily decide which features you want to include on the ActionBar (i.e., comment, liking, and sharing are all modular and easy to turn on & off).
• Easily add views to the ActionBar, allowing you to wrap social actions around any type of content in your app.  You can also now change & refresh entities on the fly.
• Fully configurable, allowing you to re-skin the ActionBar and easily make any other changes you’d like.

Want to dig in to see these changes for yourself?  Take a look at our ActionBar documentation for iOS or for Android.  Here’s a screenshot:

Socialize ActionBar iOS Documentation

In this manner, implementing Socialize helps you ‘future-proof’ your app.  What’s the hot social network going to be next year?  Are you going to stay on top of it, and integrate each social network as it rises or falls from grace?

And even more importantly, why are you relying on other social networks to handle social for you?  Shouldn’t social be happening inside of your app, with your users?  They will never all be ‘friends’ on any one single social network, but they are all users of your app.  In fact, although they’re strangers, they share one common interest: Your app.

Socialize believes that you should get the benefit of integrating social into your app.  Your content should be the “entities” around which users are socializing.  If users want to propagate those comments, likes or shares out to Facebook, or Twitter, or another social network, then great — it’ll help you garner new users.  But we believe that offloading social to a 3rd party social network is a mistake.

Have Socialize start the social experience right inside your app, and ‘turn the lights on’ for your users so they can socialize with each other regardless of friend status.  Start future-proofing your app now!

Now, as a part of that experience, if your entity key is a YouTube or Vimeo URL, the content will be automatically playable on a SmartDownload page.  Here’s a screenshot example:

Here’s how it looks to a user, and below that is how you can configure it for your app:

Facebook Facepile + Socialize = Awesomeness

Here’s how you can configure it for your app:

1. Sign in to your account so you can access the App Intelligence Dashboard.
2. Choose ‘SmartDownloads‘ on the right-hand side
3. Add your Facebook app_id to the “Advanced Settings” section
4. That’s it!  Now on your SmartDownload page, you will see a facepile of your friends on the right-hand side

Now, we’re giving you a way to track referrals, right inside your App Intelligence Dashboard.  To get started, just download and integrate our social SDK into your app and authenticate your app with our system.  You’ll be off to the races.

To learn more about our user referral system, start with SmartDownloads.

Here’s how the Propagations from Referrals screen looks:

However, when they don’t work for some reason, you don’t want to be left in the dark.   So we’ve been working on ways to make the SmartAlerts system fail gracefully:

• Our API server now accepts p12 development certificates and ensures that the developer is using matching certificates on the device and also when uploading the p12.
• Our system will still send the SmartAlert batch even if there are bad tokens. It will display errors related to token issues, for instance if there are device tokens missing. Here is a screenshot:

Here’s an example of sending a SmartAlert out through the App Intelligence Dashboard to all the users who subscribed to a specific piece of MoviePal content:

Sending a MicroTargeted SmartAlert to Subscribed Users

Here’s an example of a Path-style integration of Socialize that one of our developers, Sergey, did as a fun side project to show what Socialize is capable of:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s how Sergey did it:

The toolbar was designed as easy drop-in component:

1. Add the Socialize SDK
2. Add the AwesomeMenu framework (here’s the AwesomeMenu github repo)
3. Add this code: https://gist.github.com/3293696

The component is fully customizable: icons, actions, buttons, position, rotation angle.

And this example shows how to add a button of a company logo.

Enjoy, and let us know if you give it a try!

=========

We love being able to give Socialize developers what they’re asking for, and a big request was a programmatic API to interface with deeper Socialize functionality.  Consider your requests heard.  We’re happy to announce the Management API.  The first thing the Management API allows you to do programmatically is send SmartAlerts via an API endpoint instead of manually via the App Intelligence Dashboard.  Here’s a blog post on doing just that and here’s a screenshot of the API’s documentation.  Have at it!

The Socialize Management API

Over 20 million unique devices use apps running Socialize: 9.4MM Via our AppMakr channel, and 10.5MM via our Developer SDK

Over 400 live apps and 1,000 more auth'd apps

August is a big month for us!  Socialize just hit the 20 million user mark this month.  Here’s what it means for us, and where we’re going from here:

We already have over 400 apps live running Socialize, and over 1,400 more that have auth’d with our infrastructure and are testing.  All the numbers below come from just the live apps– The auth’d apps are the funnel that promise strong continued growth.

• Users via our Developer SDK are growing at 41% monthly, now at 10.5 million unique devices. Additionally, via our AppMakr channel we have an additional 9.4 million unique devices, growing at 7.1% monthly. That’s a lot of people using apps that run Socialize!
• We’re powering over 3.5 million social actions per month.  48% are likes, 27% are comments and 25% are shares.  Due to the lightweight nature and popularity of likes, we’ve made it easy in version 2.0 of our iOS and Android SDKs to break up our ActionBar and just use some of the functionality in your app.  Now, if you just want to let users ‘like’ an entity in your app (say, a photo or an article) it’s easy to drop that functionality in.
• We’re powering over 350,000 organic app installation opportunities per month.  Those 3.5 million social actions turn into hundreds of thousands of new referrals every month, due entirely to the passion of users within the apps running Socialize.  We always say that users are the best marketers of an app, so you should put them to work!  Users typically engage twice as much with apps running Socialize and our SmartAlerts technology which serves to bring your users back into your app.
• We’ve just launched a bevvy of new features.  Look through our blog to see them all.

If you haven’t yet dropped Socialize into your app, what are you waiting for?  Get more intelligence about your userbase, get more engagement in your app, and have your users drive more high quality, organic installs.

Attention all Comi-Con attendees, going-to-attendees and thinking-about-attendees for 2013: before you order that Iron Man costume or start drafting your Olivia Munn proposal, there’s one thing you need to do. Download the official Comi-Con iOS app! Having been featured in this year’s official Comi-Con app, Socialize wants to make sure you’re all set for next year too.

With fresh maps for 2012 and live updates for sessions and exhibitors, this app is all anyone needed to navigate Comi-Con (as well as WonderCon and APE in October) so they didn’t—and don’t—miss a thing. We bet this year’s app users had so many autographs, paraphernalia and tidbits of insider knowledge by the end of the week, they’ll be all set through 2012 and ready for next summer. And with the app’s social layer, powered by Socialize, they’ll have made a few extra buddies they can talk shop with.

Meanwhile, Comi-Con can see which exhibits, guest appearances and events were generating the most buzz. Programs and special guests were turned into entities by implementing the Action Bar and wrapping social actions around them. In turn, each like, comment and share is tracked and analyzed on the app developer’s App Intelligence Dashboard. Here, they can see which entities had the most social actions, which shares brought in the most downloads and who the most active (and valuable) users are. With these kinds of deep, detailed statistics on the app and users, Comi-Con can tell exactly what people want and make next year’s event better than ever.

Check out the screenshots below to see how Comi-Con has been Socialized. And to download the official Comi-Con app, click .

App Splash Screen	Special Guest as Entity
Comment on entity, and share comments	See activity by user
Post Comments to Facebook and Twitter

]]>

We Tell You How Many Friends & Followers Your Users Have

Clicking on the Twitter link brings up the user’s Twitter account:

View The User's Twitter Account

In the video below, Socialize president Sean Shadmand walks you through what’s new in our App Intelligence Dashboard, including the following new features & functionality:

• Custom CSS: Make your SmartDownload page look the way you want it to.  Here’s an example of a MoviePal SmartDownload page for an entity called TheHobbit.  The page is set up with a lot of classes & IDs with no inline style, giving you total control.
• Custom HTML Modules: Add in any HTML you’d like in a left and right content widget.
• Advanced Settings:  Re-route the referrals that come from external sites.  Forward actions to a specific page, such as an action coming from Facebook.  Socialize automatically adds an entity ID if the action comes from an entity page.  You can also choose to the user directly to the Apple or Android store (when possible).  You can configure desktop settings separately from mobile settings.
• Deep Link with App URL Schema Settings:  For example, use “fb://” to open Facebook’s native application if the user clicks “open app” within the SmartDownload page on the device.  Learn more in the video about registering your device with a service to create custom app URL schema settings.  We pass the entity ID in with the URL so you can use an entity loader to deep link into the app.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s how to take advantage of it:

Step 1) Order your users in our App Intelligence Dashboard.  Here’s a post we wrote about great new ways to order your users so you can identify and target the most valuable ones.  You can choose users with the highest Socialize Score (our proprietary algorithm), the most comments, the most recent users, among many other sorting factors.

Step 2) Send a MicroTargeted SmartAlert to that list: Now you can “Send SmartAlert to User list,” which will allow you to compose a SmartAlert for the users you just ordered!

Here's the type of thing you can do with MicroTargeting

Here’s another example where we’ve ordered by the users who have made the most comments:

Thanking users who have made the most comments in the app

Each user will get a push notification to their phone.  To see a live example of how MicroTargeting works (including the receipt of a SmartAlert on a phone), take a look at the video we made for Formstack poll-based MicroTargeting.

To get started with MicroTargeting, just register for an account with Socialize, add our iOS or Android SDK to your new or existing app, implement SmartAlerts (here are instructions for iOS or Android), and you’ll be ready to take advantage of this powerful way to greatly increase user re-engagement in your app.

From the good people who brought us XBox 360 Cheats Codes + comes another cheats app—this time for Wii. Once a cheater, always a cheater, as developer Digital Hot Sauce (probably) likes to say. These apps are pretty addictive.

As its names suggests, the Wii Cheats Codes + app for iOS has tons of cheats, codes, tips, tricks and secrets to get your Wii game to the next level (pun overload)! It contains insider information on almost every Nintendo Wii game available including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and any game variation of everyone’s favorite little Italian plumber.

Clearly they loved the features Socialize brought to their XBox: 360 cheats app, because it’s been implemented in the same way for Wii Cheats Codes +. Each game has been turned into an entity by having an Action Bar placed in its category. With social actions (likes, comments and shares) tracked for each game, the developers can see which games generate the most buzz. Buzz being activity that promotes engagement within the app and outside of it, bringing in new users and driving installs through the SmartDownload System. Further encouraging the in-app community, a chat room has been created out of the Socialize commenting system. Users can swap tips, start a conversation and connect with other users they would otherwise never have met.

Screenshots below! Check out how Socialize has wrapped social actions around each game and gotten the app community talking. And if you’re the cheatin’ type, download the Wii Cheats Codes + app for iOS here.

Homepage: choose from cheats, favorites, chat room and contacting the developer.	Games galore!
Game category as entity.	Comment on the entity (game).
Chat room powered by Socialize.	User profiles powered by Socialize.
]

It seems every celebrity and their mother has a Twitter account (if a famous person has a thought and doesn’t tweet it, did it really happen?). And with many of them racking up millions of followers—and thousands of dollars per tweet through endorsements—it also seems people are really listening to what they have to say. But have you ever wondered just how influential your favorite and not-so-favorite celebs really are? Wonder no more!

Tracking and compiling celebrity Tweeters’ Klout scores, the Twouter Lite app for Android lets you know just how powerful they are in the Twittersphere. Read their latest tweets, see who they influence, who they’re influenced by and what they’re talking about. There’s also an in-app search feature so you can find any celebrity your little heart desires (though we’ll spare you the heartbreak and tell you now that Bill Murray is not one of them).

The Twouter developers, having recently implemented Socialize, can now track social actions around each Twitter user through the Action Bar. App users can like, comment on and share each celebrity’s Klout stats and information, making each celebrity Tweeter their own entity. And because these social actions, any downloads they’re triggering, and the reach of each user taking them is displayed in the developer’s App Intelligence Dashboard, they’ll be able to see which celebrities and users have the most clout within their app (woah…meta).

Check out the screenshots below for a run-through of what the Twouter Lite app with Socialize has in store. And to download the app yourself, head here.

Pick a celebrity, any celebrity...	Lady Gaga is one whopping entity.
Read celebrity tweets on the fly.	See who influences who.

Prompting Mobile Users to Download an app is HOT!

Get in on the action by adding the “prompt to download” functionality into your website, so when a user visits your site from a mobile device, they get prompted to download the app.  Here’s what this section of our dashboard looks like:

Example 'Prompt to Download' javascript code from the App dashboard

Today we’re profiling Scott Boyarsky, VP of Technology for Turner Sports as our first mentor.  Scott has had an incredible career not only at Turner, but previously at the Walt Disney Company, Thompson Learning and others.  Thanks for taking us under your wing at Turner, Scott!

Here is Scott’s full bio:

Scott Boyarsky is Vice President of Technology for Turner’s Audience Multi-Platform Technology (AMPT) group, where he is responsible for Turner Sports digital technology strategy and implementation. In this role, he leads multi-platform technology efforts for Turner Sports properties including NCAA.com, March Madness Live, and Sports Illustrated digital (si.com) properties.

Prior to joining Turner Broadcasting, Scott served as Director of Technology and Product Development with The Walt Disney Company. He was responsible for technology and product development for part of the emerging business acquisition group. Boyarsky also played a leadership role in developing digital products for ABC News. Prior to joining Disney, Scott served as an Executive Web Producer at Thomson Learning, where he led digital strategy, design, and development efforts.

An early adopter of many emerging Web technologies, Scott is often looked upon for strategic product and technical development of new digital initiatives. With his strong business and technology acumen, he has helped navigate the complex landscape of modern digital technologies to provide guidance to Fortune 500 media, publishing, education, healthcare and pharmaceutical organizations.

Here’s the integration session with Socialize CTO Isaac Mosquera leading the conversation.  

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now Android is back with v2.1 (which you can download here), complete with these awesome features:

• Twitter posts are done directly from the client SDK
• Developers can post photos to Twitter and Facebook via the SDK
• Documentation updated with examples of posting photos to Twitter & Facebook
• Sample app updated with examples of posting photos to Twitter & Facebook
• Developers can create custom “like” buttons using v2.0 interfaces.  Examples in docs and sample app.
• Developers can override default settings for posting to Twitter

Review The Code to Post Photos to Twitter

We wanted to dig into the improved photos aspect of the SDK for both Facebook & Twitter.  You can find the code here for posting photos to Facebook, and here for posting photos to Twitter.

This functionality allows you to really showcase the media in your app when a user is taking a social action via the Socialize platform.  And since it all works seamlessly together, a photo that you post out to Facebok or Twitter will also show up on our hosted SmartDownload page as well, further showcasing the app’s content, and using it as a hook to drive more installs of your app.

In version 1.0 launched last November, we packaged social actions into an easy-to-use Social ActionBar.  Now in version 2.0, we’ve vastly extended Socialize’s functionality and made it infinitely customizable.

Here’s a video with our lead iOS developer Nate demoing the new iOS SDK alpha release:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And here’s Nate discussing the features of the new SDK with our CTO Isaac:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The new SDK includes a slew of new features and changes, which we’ll be describing in more detail when we launch the full version of the iOS SDK.  Here are some screenshots to get you started, and you can read in more detail about the v2.0 functionality on the Android v2.0 post.

Fresh from the oven comes a mouthwatering app that will have you cooking up a storm—then booking a one-way trip to Lebanon. The 100 Lebanese Recipes iOS app features, ironically, 105 delicious recipes to please the palate.

Search for specific recipes, save your favorites, or browse through the app by category, name or picture. There are also other cool features like the ability to calculate and covert liquid or fixed units, listen to music and learn the local lingo with a glossary of typical Lebanese cooking terms.

And now there are other cool features—liking, sharing and commenting—courtesy of Socialize! In this case, the Action Bar has been placed on each recipe to turn it into an entity. This means the social actions around each recipe can be individually tracked and dissected on the developer’s App Intelligence Dashboard. They’ll be able to see which recipes are most popular, what people are saying about them and which users are bringing in the most downloads through their comments and shares. By sharing through Facebook, Twitter, email and SMS—and posting comments and likes made inside the app out to social networks by authenticating—users promote the app to bring in prospective users. Every post contains links to the app’s SmartDownloads page, with information about the app, its user activity and several ways to download it.

The screenshots below display how Socialize has been integrated into this particular app. Note that they’ve included a little Socialize branding on the homepage—hey, why not show off your app’s social layer straight away? And to get cracking on your own Lebanese smorgasbord, download the 100 Lebanese Recipes app here.

App Homepage (complete with Socialize branding if you want to promote your social features)	Choose from recipes alphabetically.
Or choose through pictures.	Each recipe is an entity with an Action Bar.
Share via the Action Bar.	Share recipes through SMS, for example.
Comment on recipes to chat with other app users.	Post comments to social networks, with links to download the app.
Authenticate with Facebook and Twitter.	Your activity is displayed in your profile.

Here’s a screenshot of what the badges look like for the MoviePal app.

Socialize Badges & Links - Click to Enlarge

Just a word of warning: if this post turns into complete gibberish by the end, it’s because we drooled all over our keyboard and it started short-circuiting. Occupational hazard when you’re covering apps like this one.

If you’ve never indulged in Five Guys Burgers & Fries, well, you’re about to. Because it’s become ridiculously easy to order up a meal with the Five Guys Burgers & Fries Android app (making it ridiculously hard to resist their siren song). Just open the app, find your nearest Five Guys, and select from a bevy of burgers, sandwiches, fries, drinks and hot dogs, complete with your choice of toppings. Then pay via the app, go pick your meal up and BAM! You’re in burger heaven.

Now, having just implemented Socialize, this app has been taken to a whole new level. Give your local joint a virtual shout out by “liking” your favorite Five Guys restaurant. After you place your order, an Action Bar appears to allow you to comment, like and share to Facebook and Twitter—as well as through email and SMS. Because somehow, letting your friends know you just ordered an awesome meal with a few finger taps makes it that much more delicious.

While you’re ordering away, Five Guys gets the inside scoop on their customers’ activity. Besides knowing which locations are most popular with the store-centric “like” feature, each individual order is an entity that can be tracked and analyzed on their App Intelligence Dashboard. They can see which menu items generate the most activity, which shares are triggering new downloads (via their SmartDownloads page), and which burger-holics are their most active users. From there, they can use SmartAlerts to MicroTarget those users and acknowledge them for their loyalty.

Check out the screenshots below to see how Socialize can make even ordering food from your couch a social experience. And to download the Five Guys Burgers & Fries Android app for yourself, click here.

App Homepage	What
Dress it up (or not).	Do you want fries with that?
Pay directly via the app.	Comment and post to Facebook, to gloat to friends about the impending deliciousness.
Or let your friends know by sharing through multiple other channels...	...like email!	Your comment posted to Facebook.	The Five Guys SmartDownloads page, accessed by links on each shared post.

Here’s a link to the Socialize Manifesto that Sean mentions in the video.

Here’s a transcript of the video:

Speaker 1:            Are we recording?

Speaker 2:            Yeah. We’re recording. Alright! So, hey guys, it’s Daniel.

Speaker 1:            Hi! I’m Sean.

Speaker 2:            We’re doing another SocialCam video and just about business and process and start-ups all that kind of stuff. So, here’s one thing I was thinking that we could talk about today. You’re really amazing at creating process. By the way, you should introduce yourself.

Speaker 1:            Hi! I’m Sean.

Speaker 2:            It’s like the hot seat, right? This is like a mobile interview.

Speaker 1:            I don’t like hot seats. That’s why they have air-conditioning in seats. No one likes hot seats.

Speaker 2:            Alright! So, Sean is the co-founder of Socialize and you were talking about process just now. You’re really good at creating process and then using that process and not re-examining or doubting the process. One thing that you always say that I think is so true is like, “If you spend a couple hours putting a process together, then you shouldn’t spend a couple minutes completely voiding that process.” Can you talk about that a little bit?

Speaker 1:            Yeah. I guess like, a fundamental precursor to the value of process is the ability to adopt faith in that process and know that the total time that you took to make the decision can never be undone with less time. And like, if you give a real world example is, how many times have you ever put your keys, the night before your meeting you put your wallet in the backpack and you put this in the backpack and you put this on your pocket and you put that on your shoes and you put these keys in these vases, so you complete all these things, you put the process together like, alright, I got it. I know where everything’s going to go and the next morning you wake up, you have coffee and you’re like, “I don’t need this thing because I’m getting in my car, duh?” And you make that quick decision. You get in the car and you realize that thing that you really need is in that thing that you decided not to bring because you decided to take the car in the last minute. So it’s kind of like real world everyday example that we’ve all been through that represents that trust in the time that you put into something and how quickly unravelling that trust can cause a really bad effect if you don’t make a consistent effort to adopt it when the time comes to use it.

Speaker 2:            What’s an example of how we do that in socializing where you’re just running through some product decisions?

Speaker 1:            Well, it’s like, I guess an analogy there, would be like, brand awareness, like Coca-Cola and I say Coca-Cola gives you a feeling, this emotion, most people don’t want to talk about how gut is what makes businesses work but it’s not so much that gut itself is important as much as the speed of gut is important, right? Like if my gut was able to tell me with a spidy-sense of hair standing up on my hand that I shouldn’t do something then I took a 4 hour meeting then I turned it into a spidy-sense second, right? So really, process and branding are a lot alike when it comes to the business because like branding, you want to give a person the feeling that thirst quencher dark cola caffeinated in a can when you need it for a dollar is the word Coca-Cola and now Coca-Cola doesn’t have to explain all the time. That’s brand awareness. So really, process in a company, or in any situation for that matter is branding their long thought out process that should be faith based that you should never change into a concise one second gut feeling so that, and one, you do that for yourself, but then two, distribute that to your team so that everyone communicates on that level and then you can say, “Hey guys, remember this is, it’s no philosophy Tuesdays and you don’t have to explain what that means. Or, hey guys, this is do whatever the fuck you want Friday or hey remember don’t rethink your strategy where like you have these or always record a video, these are all, or M13, these are all like little colloquialisms that you put together, that you will find, that you take the time to do it and then they turn into one second gut reactions, like for instance, I have a rule of thumb, for instance, which is never say the word “and” in your thought process, and that means a billion, that means a lot of things, that means, small companies don’t have the energy to put in a lot of money and do more than one thing at a time, focus is a product of another colloquialism, a process of an iceberg is underneath every single thought and even though you think it’s simple, once you get into it, there’s always fundamentally larger thing than before you got into it, so fundamentally everything’s difficult. All this colloquialisms come from that concept.

Speaker 2:            So like, you were mentioning to me before we started this video that you’re really happy and satisfied you feel like our team at Socialize has internalized this kind of meta-discussion around process and around not like rethinking something at the last second when we spend a lot of time defining the process. And what you’re saying now is institutionalizing that within a company is a really important thing.

Speaker 1:            Yeah.

Speaker 2:            And, it’s a very valuable thing. It’s a very intangible thing.

Speaker 1:            It turns a day meeting into an hour meeting. It turns a three paragraph post or a comment on some document into a one sentence.

Speaker 2:            Not going down a rabbit hole.

Speaker 1:            Not going down a rabbit hole right. It adds up.

Speaker 2:            So, what are some of the ways that we even institutionalize that in Socialize, like do you want to talk about the manifesto for example?

Speaker 1:            One thing that is always interesting to me is that, as you scale, it’s impossible, and a lot of people know this, but it’s really applicable to start-ups on a business is that at scale no person is able to manage everyone at the high touch like we all understand that on customer level like if you want to do a product for a million people, you can’t have a million people on the ground talking to a million of your customers. The same thing happens in employees, if you go from a 2 person company to a 10 person company to a 20 person company, it goes back to that process in branding, you have to be able to give a message, like a great analogy for this example is the bible, like millions of people follow it, whether you’re religious or not, millions of people follow it, I could say Psalm 13 and people are like, “Okay. Good point. I’m out.” And you’re like across that.

Speaker 2:            Psalm 13 stands for ethereal thoughts.

Speaker 1:            I don’t know what that is. Yeah. It’s emotion, history, all that kind of thing. So, as you grow your team much like of religion does, and I so relate it to bring it all together really, is as you go from 5 to 10, you don’t need to have 10 conversations or 20 conversations, you have a document and that’s why documents are so important is because people know that once something is written down, it’s there and it kind of is a representation that I was talking about, about solidifying something so you don’t have to talk about it again. Written word does that even if you don’t re-examine what the paragraph was, if you all can write it and agree upon it and you put it away, people are even more likely to accept that statement as a part of your process. So what we did is we implemented a manifesto which, someone made a joke one day, that one of our manifestos is to not have so many manifestos, but we do have a really long manifesto item, manifesto list.

Speaker 2:            30 points to live by!

Speaker 1:            30 points! And each of them, actually out of everything, maybe 5 of them come up all the time but that’s the manifesto is just they’re points with history and information that every time we have a meeting and we’re forgetting something or someone raises a flag, then we go manifesto item 13, M13, everyone’s like, “Okay. Yeah, you’re right. Let’s not go down that rabbit hole or let’s do that or let’s remember to do that.”

Speaker 2:            And actually, one really interesting thing about what you just said is that, the fact that we’re doing this video right now is because of a manifesto point. Manifesto item number 13 is for us to capture content and for content, from our knowledge must be lousy. So, we’re going into the garage, it’s going to get a little dark here but yeah that’s pretty cool that this entire conversation does kind of circle back on itself with process and manifesto. Alright! Cool! That was fun.

Speaker 1:            Yeah, thanks.

Speaker 2:            Ciao!

Click to view Isaac's presentation

Socialize CTO Isaac Mosquera spoke about Socialize at this year’s GLUE Conference with a talk titled “Develop Apps for Rapid Adoption and Enormous Scale”.  You can find his full presentation here.

In the presentation, Isaac talks about developing for apps with a large install base and a high percentage of active daily and monthly users.  If you’d like to learn more about how Socialize has done this, you can also view our 45 minute Socialize infrastructure talk which goes into detail on building a scalable infrastructure from an API platform perspective.

In the GLUE Conference presentation, Isaac also discusses which vendors Socialize relies on.  At the top of that list is Splunk.  We’ve written about Splunk before, namely Leveraging Splunk for MapReduce & Big Data Analysis and Using MySQL Lookups With Splunk.

While he was at the conference, Isaac captured the content of some of the other speakers (as you’ll read in our Company Manifesto, point #13, we believe in capturing content as much as possible).  Enjoy.

oAuth 2.0 and Mobile Devices by Brian Campbell (find Brian’s full presentation here)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Presentation by Alistair Farquharson of SOA Software

Click here to view the embedded video.

Isaac’s Glue Conference Presentation (sorry, no audio)

Click here to view the embedded video.

In version 1.0 launched last November, we packaged social actions into an easy-to-use Social ActionBar.  Now in version 2.0, we’ve vastly extended Socialize’s functionality and made it infinitely customizable.

Here’s a video with Jason Polites, our VP of Engineering, demoing the new Android SDK

Click here to view the embedded video.

A preview of Socialize's best-in-class documentation for Android SDK 2.0

Socialize is offering best-in-class documentation and fanatical developer support for the Android SDK version 2.0.

The new SDK offers numerous bug fixes and performance improvements, along with a greatly simplified API experience allowing you to leverage the full suite of Socialize capabilities with an extremely easy-to-use set of utility classes.

We’re always working to minimize our SDK footprint and ensure zero latency.  Our SDK works via an asynchronous call method, so it will never slow your users down.  We run over 3,000 unit tests on each release and auto-scale our infrastructure.  Learn more in our complete feature list.

Introducing the Social ActionBar, Re-Imagined:

Get ready to make your app beautiful with killer social features integrated like never before. We’ve completely re-imagined the way Socialize can be implemented in your app. You can still use the traditional Socialize ActionBar, but now you have infinitely more options. You can easily implement individual components like sharing around the entities in your app, or around the entire app itself. You can easily change the UI of the social actions, and wrap them around multiple entities in a single view.

Completely customize the ActionBar, down to individual components. Want to put it on the left-hand side of your app? Want to just have a "share" button? No problem. It's fast and easy with our new SDK.

Want to offer a complete set of social features for each entity? Now you can. We offer support for multiple ActionBars in a single view. Let your users take social actions around your content in entirely new ways.

Made for White Labeling and Customization:

We are here to make you look good. With our new SDK, Socialize can be white labeled like never before. Not only do we allow you complete and easy control over how the social actions are presented to the user in the app, but we’ve also made it possible for you to customize how the social actions appear on each user’s Facebook news feed. But we didn’t stop there. We also made the way a social action posts to Facebook even more engaging and enticing to Facebook users. It’s all part of boosting installs through our SmartDownload system. Want to be even more bleeding edge? Sign up for our Open Graph beta.

Want to private-label the way social actions show up on Facebook? We

We have created an improved presentation of posts to Facebook and Twitter, both within the app and on the social networks themselves.

Take Over Control:

Strap yourself into the driver’s seat. We have made a number of enhancements that make it easy for you to efficiently and effectively integrate Socialize right into your app. We’ve also included a demo app that showcases Socialize’s default functionality with testing mechanisms that give you a deeper level of control over the way social actions post inside and outside the app and customizable user authentication levels. This allows you to fine tune your users’ social experience.

You

We now include a powerful sample app with numerous examples of how to use Socialize to build your own customized social experience.

Make Them Aware, Then Help Them Share:

Sharing starts inside the app with an awareness of other users and the actions they are taking. Our SDK lets you start to leverage the community of users that’s been hiding in your app. We now give you access to the activity stream of social actions being taken inside your app, so you can make your users aware of what others are doing. And we’ve also bulked up the external sharing functionality and views to encourage users to tell others about your awesome app.

Action, action! Show an activity stream in your app of all the social actions your users are taking. The demo app includes a sample output of the last 50 actions taken.

Sharing outside of the app is even better in our new SDK. Users can now choose to share to both Facebook and Twitter instead of having to authenticate with each one separately.

Call Any Facebook API with the Socialize SDK:

We’ve made it easier than ever to leverage the power of Facebook from within your app. Our new SDK gives you the ability to effortlessly call any Facebook API, allowing you to do things like listing all the friends of the user and all the check-ins of the user from right inside the app.

Let

Check out checking in. We make it easy to list a user

Here’s a Demo Video Showing the New SDK Functionality:

Ready to get started? Just download the Android SDK on this page, then register your app with us and authenticate your app. You can configure the SDK as much as you’d like. We’ll take care of the rest.

SocialCam's Rocketing Growth of Monthly and Daily Active Users due to the power of social (Source: AppData.com)

We’re pulling back the covers just a bit to show you what’s coming next from Socialize.

The power of social actions to massively boost app installs and app re-engagement is something we’ve been passionate about since before we launched version 1.0 of Socialize last November.

Now it’s becoming clearer to everyone, with several apps greatly boosting their install bases by wrapping social actions around their content.  In the case of Instagram, the “entity” (to use our vocabulary) is an image.  For SocialCam and Viddy, the entities are videos.  For Netflix, the entities are movies. For Spotify, the entities are songs. The Washington Post has created entities out of articles with its Social Reader app.

All these apps are working on the same premise: Wrap social functionality around an entity and then turn those social actions into social objects that act as ‘hooks’ to bring in new users, greatly boosting installs. As Michael Siebel the CEO SocialCam said in this article, ”Our integration with Facebook has been ridiculously powerful. Users can share the videos they’re viewing on Socialcam, and that has been huge for us.”

What the companies above have done as individual apps, Socialize has created as a drop-in platform.  Our social API and SDKs allow you to get access to the huge benefits of wrapping social actions around your content without any of the work required to figure out how to do it, providing an insanely easy way to turbo charge your installs and user engagement levels.  We also provide deep functionality to boost user engagement, like SmartAlerts, MicroTargeting by entity or user, Form and Poll-based MicroTargeting, and identifying, targeting and rewarding your most valuable users. Not all users are created equal — some are more valuable than others.  Now you can treat the most valuable users differently from everyone else.

Over 270 Apps Already Live with Socialize SDK, Powering over 1.5 Million Social Actions per Month

Over 270 apps are already live with the Socialize SDK with another 1,000 apps auth’d and pending, and Socialize is now powering over 1.5 million social actions per month. Developers who implement Socialize are seeing up to a 551% boost in installs and a 316% increase in user re-engagement.

But we’re just getting started.  Here’s a sneak peek into what’s coming next from Socialize:  Giving your app the ability to expertly leverage the open graph.  

For mobile app developers, an app’s content often does not live outside of the app.  There’s no corresponding web page for each entity (whether that be a movie, an article, a product, a song, etc.).  That’s a problem, because in order to take advantage open graph, you need to have what’s known as an object page.  The app’s content must live somewhere on the web.  Even if you do already have a web-based version of your app’s content, it’s unlikely that the web page is set up to optimize new installs of your app.

SmartDownload pages for social actions around a MoviePal entity (top) and 4Sync (bottom)

Socialize has already solved the first part of this problem with our SmartDownload system.  We create a unique web page for each and every social action made around any entity in your app.  Each of these pages has its own SmartURL.  For example, here’s the SmartDownload page for a comment on an entity in the MoviePal app, and here’s the SmartDownload page for a comment on an image from the 4Sync app (screenshots at right).

As you’ve probably already guessed, it’s not a huge leap to create an object page from the SmartDownload page, sostay tuned to see more of what’s coming.  Dropping Socialize into your app just became even more of  of a no-brainer.

To get started with Socialize just download our SDK, register with our platform and then authenticate your app with the consumer secret and consumer public keys you’ll get from us.  Dropping the SDK into your app takes as little as five minutes if you use our ActionBar, or you can customize the implementation as much as you like.

If you want to beta test this new functionality in your app, we’d love to hear from you. Just fill out the interest form below.

• The most valuable users in your app, as determined by each user’s Socialize Score.
• Newest users
• Recently active users
• Total actions of each user
• Total activity of each user
• Most shares, likes or comments

This information lets you MicroTarget your users and implement innovative campaigns like Poll-based MicroTargeting.  All your users are not created equal.  Some of your users are more valuable than others.  We help you identify who those users are so you can reward them and treat them differently from your other users.

Sort your users based on various criteria to identify and target your most valuable users

We are thrilled to have been accepted to MediaCamp alongside five other San Francisco startups.  Here is the full press release.

Turner Broadcasting Accelerator Media Camp Unveils Inaugural Class
Six technology startups selected to help shape the future of entertainment

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – June 7, 2012 – Turner Broadcasting today announced the companies selected for its Media Camp 12-week accelerator program this summer. Due to high demand by quality applicants for Media Camp’s first round, six companies were selected to participate instead of five as originally planned.

The companies will benefit from one-on-one mentorship with digital, television and film executives, a comprehensive curriculum on media-specific topics and the opportunity to commercialize their business to Turner’s entertainment, news, sports and animation networks.

“Each Media Camp participant has compelling innovation to offer the media industry,” said Balaji Gopinath, VP of Emerging Technology for Turner Broadcasting. “Media Camp will help them lead the charge in making the next generation of social and interactive entertainment engaging and successful.”

Members of the first class include:

Chute (http://getchute.com/ | @getchute)

Chute’s platform enables publishers, brands, and app developers to seamlessly add any photo or video functionality to their apps or sites. Chute handles the entire backend from uploading, image processing, and API integrations, to features like moderation, commenting, and sharing.

Matcha (http://www.matcha.tv/ | @matchaTV)

Matcha is the easiest way to find the best Movies and follow your favorite TV Shows across digital video services such as Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, Amazon and more, in one place. Matcha’s guide goes beyond aggregating 200,000 premium titles and adds rich social elements and a proprietary recommendation engine to create a robust, personalized video experience.

Showbucks (http://www.showbucks.net/ | @Mike_Yuen)

Showbucks develops fun and engaging apps that combine social video with social games.

Socialize (http://www.getsocialize.com/ | @Socialize)

Socialize believes people strongly influence each other even when they aren’t ‘friends.’ Anyone who shares a common interest is influenced by others with that same interest. Socialize is creating a social platform that can predict user intent by mapping an interest graph across users and content.

SocialSamba (http://www.socialsamba.com/ | @SocialSamba)

SocialSamba is the leading social storytelling platform, enabling fans to “friend” their favorite fictional characters, and experience personalized stories with them. SocialSamba has served more than half a million scripted social experiences to fans.

Switchcam (http://switchcam.com/ | @switchcam)

Switchcam creates interactive video experiences that allow the viewers to direct the show. By syncing and combining fan footage with professional footage, fans can experience events, concerts and sporting games like never before.

Media Camp is also pleased to announce several affiliates which have committed to providing valuable resources, services and/or products to each of the startups, including:

• Amazon Web Services
• C100
• LawPivot
• MassChallenge
• Microsoft BizSpark
• sf.citi( );
• Startup America Partnership
• swissnex San Francisco

Media Camp’s investor demo day is scheduled for mid-September. For event updates, sign up for the newsletter at www.mediacamp.com.

Startups can apply for future accelerator classes at http://www.mediacamp.com/apply.

About Media Camp
Media Camp, a Turner Broadcasting initiative, is a comprehensive accelerator program that educates entrepreneurs and enables them to build innovative media businesses. Key features of Media Camp include presentations and workshops focused on media technology, formal mentorship from media industry experts, community events and knowledge sharing, as well as direct investments including partnerships and vendor relationships. For more information, visit www.mediacamp.com and follow us on Twitter @themediacamp.

About Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner company, creates and programs branded news, entertainment, sports, animation and young adult media environments on television and other platforms for consumers around the world.

Press Contacts
Amalia Miller
amalia@mediacamp.com
415-623-5912

Amy Cohn
amy.cohn@turner.com
404-827-5033

If you’re not familiar with the extensive array of Moroccan radio stations, you’re about to be. Android app Radio Moroc has just implemented Socialize so their music is about to reach many, many more ears.

The Radio Maroc app features a collection of stations to choose from, including but not limited to:

• Radio Mars
• Luxe Radio
• Casa FM
• Amazighia
• Atlantic Radio

Each station is equipped with an Action Bar, turning it into an entity that can be liked, commented on and shared to Facebook, Twitter, through email and SMS. Listeners can chat with one another about their favorite stations and see which ones are the most popular with the view counter. And since each share, whether it’s the entity itself or the comment posted, includes several links to the app’s SmartDownloads page, they promote the app to drive new installs.

Take a look at the screenshots below to see how the Action Bar has been installed on each station, and all of the features that come with it in action. And if you’re up for some Moroccan jams, download Radio Maroc for Android here.

Tons of different stations.	Action Bar on each station turns it into an entity.
Music lovers chat over each station.	Post your own comment to join in.
Authenticate through Facebook or Twitter.	Subscribe to comment threads with SmartAlerts. You'll receive a push notification with activity alerts.

Watch this video to see how Socialize president Sean Shadmand leverages the power of Formstack Mobile Forms to poll a specific app user through our App Intelligence Dashboard.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s what it looks like to create the MicroTargeted SmartAlert through the dashboard:

Creating a User MicroTargeting SmartAlerts

Here’s what the notification and mobile form look like on the user’s phone:

Here's the SmartAlert on the user's phone

Here's the underlying SmartAlert URL

The Entity Landing Page in Socialize's SmartDownload system

A referral occurs when Socialize introduces a prospective user to your app.

The existing users in your app are your most passionate marketers. We help you put them to work by giving users the ability to Like, Comment and Share your app’s content (which we call entities) to their friends and followers via Facebook, Twitter, SMS, and email.

Each user’s social actions create Referrals that drive installs from new users, and re-engagement of existing users.

Not only do we make it super simple for users to take social actions on your entities, but we provide a great home to your content outside of your app, with our new Entity Landing Pages — part of our SmartDownload system.  Above is an example of this entity landing page, for The Hobbit movie trailer by MoviePal.

You may also notice that the URL for MoviePal’s Hobbit movie trailer entity has some special tracking parameters.  Here’s the full URL:

http://r.getsocialize.com/e/6233257/?&propagation_source=facebook&activity_type=comment&activity_id=535808.

This is what we call a SmartURL, and it’s generated by our system so we can track each social action back to a specific user of your app.  In this way, we are able to help you find your most valuable users.  If you’d like to learn more about this, take a look at ten important questions we help you answer about the users in your app.

Twitter’s 436% Advantage Over Facebook, SMS and email

When users take a social action in your app, they can authenticate via Facebook or Twitter to propagate that action outside of the app.  They can also choose to share your entity via email or SMS.  So how do those various referral sources stack up?  It turns out that Twitter wins by a landslide.  We use Splunk to help us track detailed sharing data, and as you can see in the screenshot below, Twitter’s Referral rate is 436% that of Facebook.  Sean Shadmand, Socialize’s co-founder & president believes this is why:

“My theory is that Twitter is a better platform than Facebook when it comes to broadcasting content. Twitter was built differently than Facebook — social connections are “followers,” not “friends” and so users are willing to post quick thoughts and interests without being concerned with the sanctity of the post. We also see more people click on the SmartURLs posted via Twitter vs. Facebook.  The reason could be simple: There is far less data given about the item posted, so clicking is necessary to know what was posted, whereas Facebook gives more information about the entity and social action in the wall post.”

Twitter vs. Facebook Referral Sources

We could all do with a little inspiration throughout our day, and with The Bible Verse iOS app delivering continually updated verses straight to you, it’s never far off.

The app is as simple as it is powerful—swipe through an endless number of quotes and verses to guide you, perk you up, keep you grounded, or whatever the words mean to you. The app is intended for the Christian community to further keep them connected to their faith in the age of the iEverything.

Having placed the Action Bar on each verse, users can connect with one another to form a community in and around the app. They can like and comment on their favorite verses, or share what it means to them by taking part in the comment thread. They can also share each verse by email or SMS, or post to their Twitter or Facebook walls to share with their friends and followers. By authenticating through Facebook or Twitter, they can keep sharing the good word by having each like, comment and share automatically posted.

Each verse has been made into its own entity so the developer can see the social actions around each verse to see which are most popular, what’s being said about them and who their most active users are. With this information, they can easily MicroTarget their users and send the most active ones special updates, quotes, or messages to acknowledge them and encourage app loyalty.

You can download The Bible Verse app here for your daily dose of inspiration. And to install a social layer in your own app, download the Socialize SDK here (it only takes 5 minutes)!

Verses continually delivered to you	Each verse is an entity with the Action Bar
Share via multiple channels	Join the conversation
Post your own comments and share them	Authenticate through Facebook and Twitter
Track your own activity in your profile

Have you ever wondered what it would look like if you had a baby with Obama? Or Spiderman? Do you wish you had your own personal game of “If They Mated” in the palm of your hands? Then the FaceMod iOS app was made for you.

Have fun creating facial hybrids of celebrities, people you know, and more by copying features from one face to another. See what you and your friends will look like with your favorite celebrity’s eyes, mouth, hairstyle, what have you. You can also choose from ready-made masks that come with the app, or create your own for a customized look.

Each finished concoction is its own entity that can be liked, commented on and shared to social networks. For the developer, this means each social action is tracked for every image, so he can see what content is most popular and which comments and shares are driving the most downloads.

Speaking of the developer, Ramin, he had great things to say about the Socialize SDK’s easy implementation and the difference it’s made in his app:

“With so many apps in the App Store, the most effective way to get noticed is through recommendation by friends. We tried direct advertising and it simply does not work. Socialize is cost effective and it gave a new life to my app.”

“It’s super easy to integrate (it took me ~15 minutes) and it worked on the first try. The support team is very responsive. More importantly, it gives the user of my app a sense of being connected to a group.”

This is a fun app that brings out your creativity to make some really hilarious, cool-looking and yes, downright hideous hypothetical babies. Or, if you don’t want to go the mad-scientist route, you can use it to see what you’d look like with purple eyes or a fancy beard. It’s up to you. Download the app here to start playing around. (But just so you know, we won’t be held responsible for you not getting any more work done this afternoon.)

Check out the screenshots below for a few examples. And to download the Socialize SDK for your own app, click here.

Choose from photos	Give yourself some alien eyes!
You + Spiderman = ?	Share your post-workout body with friends
Or your sweet new contacts...	Share with everyone, in every way!