G-Snap!: An Interactive Live Blogging Platform

Hello everyone, hope you’re having a great Thursday!

Today, we wanted to let you guys know of a quick product update for our embedded widget. It is now possible for your readers to share your event with their Facebook and Twitter contacts directly from our widget. Our hope is that this gives you additional incentive to host your live events with G-Snap! and embed them on your own websites – where your regular visitors can help spread the word.

So, what’s the best way to leverage this new feature?

1. Go to http://gsnap.com and create your event
2. While filling out the Create Event form, make sure to specify your “live event url”. That is, the URL or the page where are you going to be embedding the event. eg. http://mysite.com/live
3. Grab our embed code (from the right hand side or the bottom of the page) and insert it into your site

Once you’ve done that, your regular website visitors can share your event to Facebook or Twitter by selecting the icons in the footer. That’s all it takes!

Enjoy folks. More good stuff coming soon.

Greetings everyone,

We’re excited to share with you some innovative enhancements to our service that are truly fantastic. If you haven’t come by to visit us lately, come on over and take a look at http://gsnap.com. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how far we’ve come.

Engaging Your Readers
Our goal at G-Snap! is to create the tools and user experiences you need to give you a better way to connect with your readers in real-time in order to build deeper, longer lasting relationships. We do this in the hopes of opening up new revenue opportunities for your business. We believe the more engaged your readers are, the more value they get, the more likely they are to come to your future events and engage with your business model, ads, or sponsors.

Feature Update
As a result of our focus, today we are proud to introduce G-Snap! Polls. Polls will be a phenomenal new tool in your live blogging arsenal to help you reach your audience in new ways. Create and manage up to twenty polls, include one question, up to six answers, embedded media or even a YouTube video. You have to give it a try to see just how great – and easy – it is.

Secondly, launched just about a month ago, we developed a better system for your readers to comment in your events without requiring a G-Snap! account. This fundamentally removes any barriers that might have otherwise prevented them from participating. Coupled with our advanced moderation features, you are still be the one who decides who and what goes into your event.

Lastly, based on your great feedback, we have also released the ability to change the scheduled start time of your event and delete an event. As always, these exciting new enhancements are live today and available on our web, mobile, and embedded widget experiences.

Looking Ahead
The second half of this year contains some exciting new updates that will drive even more engagement with your readers. Until those are released, continue providing the valuable feedback you have been as that’s a big part of how we prioritize the product we’re building for you.

Thanks everyone. We couldn’t do it without you!

Ramsey Ksar
VP Product
G-Snap!, Inc.
http://www.gsnap.com

Hi folks,

Today we have a quick update from G-Snap! HQ regarding some exciting product upgrades that are now live.

Prior to today, commenting in a G-Snap! Event required your readers to have a G-Snap! account (or connected via Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo!) before they could submit their comment.  While this enforced a certain level of quality control, it restricted the flow of potential users who wanted to comment but didn’t want to bother with registering with yet another new service.  As a result, the new upgrades available today allow your readers to join your event, pick a nickname and send in a comment  – all without requiring an account.

As most of you know our focus is laser-like when it comes to designing the best experience for our users – especially for those that run events.  These event hosts should be pleased to know that there is *NO* incremental overhead as a result of these upgrades.  That is, comments from users without accounts can still be trusted, banned, followed, etc just as before.  This was not a trivial task but we’re glad we made the “experiential” investment.

Here are a few other upgrades that made it in to this release:

• For those of us who like a clean workspace, a delete button is now available in the pending comments list
• Accounts are no longer required to RSVP for an event (this should help you increase you event attendance)
• Performance and stability improvements (web experience loads much faster)
• Custom skinning of our widget experience (contact us for details)

As always, these upgrades were released on our web, mobile, and widget experiences.

The G-Snap! Team
http://gsnap.com

PS.  Just around the corner is a VERY cool upgrade.  I’m giddy just thinking about it.  $5 per hint.