RSS feed for InstantSpot site Aaron Lynch

InstantSpot.com is open for business!

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:56:00 GMT

You might have noticed, ever since our Version 2.0 release, InstantSpot account creation has only been available for those with a valid invitation code.

Well, that is a thing of the past.

Thanks to all of our testers/users for helping us sort through any bugs encountered along the way. As always, if any issues are encountered please feel free to contact me directly or use the link in the control panel to report problems.

So what are you still doing here??! Go create your 'Spot now!

"Friend Only" Blogging...A New InstantSpot Feature

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:08:00 GMT

Example of one of the levels of permission that can be applied to blog entries on InstantSpot.

Last Day for Open Sign-Ups

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 15:41:54 GMT

Today is the day!

What day you ask? The day we are making the DNS change to direct you, the InstantSpot.com visitor, to our new and much-improved version of InstantSpot.

What does this mean? It means that today is the last day we are accepting open sign ups and going to Invite Only registrations.

As Dave has mentioned "Our DNS TTL is an hour, so for many people the change will show up almost immediately." and we'll be making the switch late tonight so be sure to check back tomorrow for the new site.

For our current members, we have taken every efffort to make the switch as backward compatible as possible. Your current site should look largely the same, only better! :)

JOIN NOW If you'd like to create your own free InstantSpot blog.

Blog Wars - Unbiased InstantSpot review

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 14:47:05 GMT

While doing some ego-surfing on InstantSpot 's behalf, I came across a blogger doing a review of some of the free website/blog tools available on the web today. At the time, what I found was part 1 of a 3 part series on the apps read here for part 1 .

Somehow, InstantSpot squeaked its way in to the author's review getting tossed into the competition with Blogger, Wordpress, Vox and LiveJournal.

"I also found this one called InstantSpot after my testing. I know nothing about it but may set up a blog on it to test it. Then I’ll update this list with my Instant Spot blog."

COOL!!!

Part 2 of the review concentrated mainly on Blogger and Wordpress and the pro's and con's of each.

Part 3 discussed the "others" (that means InstantSpot!) I have grabbed the author's review of our beloved 'Spot and you can read it below:

"Instant Spot:

* can edit .css
* allows google adsense (just click in ad manager)
* tracking script manager works with trackers like g analy, feedburner, etc
* host header mgmt allows redirecting to a host domain name
* definitely looks geared towards tracking, marketing and promoting
* has large set of social networking icons (like digg, etc) at bottom of each post (many of which I have never heard)
* tag line is “Get spotted now!
* seems to be highly customizable judging by looking at other instant spot blogs. Not sure how though.
* has ads on page

Instant Spot was the only other blog engine that looked intriguing to me. I could see it being useful for people who are selling or promoting something and who want a very nice looking site (not sure of the effort involved though) and who want to be able to market, track and promote their site. If you had a club or small business, this seems like a good site.

We teach Aikido and I could see easily setting up a website for our Aikido club on this. Here is an instant spot site that is for a fitness class that is not fancy and was probably easy to set up, but is a decent site for their classes. (I don’t know or endorse these people, just thought it was a good example of a not-too-fancy, easy to set up, useful site). And here is a really nice looking blog .

Instant Spot seems to have some definite possibilities.

Well, that is it for my review of blog engines. Google Blogger for balance between being easy and having functionality, WordPress.org (self-hosted wordpress) for total control and flexibility and Instant Spot for an easy (I think) website for a club, class, non-profit or small business."

COOL...AGAIN!!!

NEW FEATURE: File Sharing on InstantSpot

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 18:22:28 GMT

Until now, users haven't had an easy way to upload and share files. (other than images). Now, thanks to Box.net we can embed a widget that will allow our users to share all sorts of files with their readers.

The Box.net account is free (for up to 1gb) and it is so easy to embed.

If you go to create an account with Box.net, you will have the option of creating a widget. Once you have done so you will see an embed code, use the value after widgetHash=

Example: [ box thewidgethHashboxgivesyou]

(in order to make the embed actually work, remove the space before "box")

[box 8j9dpnqgss]

You could also create a page on your spot to serve as your file browser, like this sub-page of my site for example

School Projects: Another great use of an InstantSpot.com site

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 13:49:32 GMT

This week we had a user create an account on InstantSpot.com, and do something that hasn't been done yet. He used his Spot as a medium to present data for an Accounting project at his school.

Some of the things he did was:

I never thought about how well an InstantSpot.com site would work for a school project, but I am happy to see this user did.

Embed InstantSpot slideshows in your blog or pages

Tue, 29 May 2007 23:35:39 GMT

InstantSpot users have enjoyed the ability to upload pics, and group them as they please into photo galleries (as seen here http://aaron.instantspot.com/index.cfm/event/galleries ).

One of those obvious (well, it was obvious to every one but us apparently) things one might want to do with these slide shows is to embed them into a page, or a blog entry.

Well, ask and ye shall receive (maybe). Using our bracketed notation, you can embed a slide show anywhere you please. In the 'Photo Galleries' section of your admin, you will now see a code you can paste into your page/blog post and it will embed the slide show for you.

[slideshow 4]

Google launched Google Talk Widget...now, InstantSpot does too!

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 16:57:55 GMT

Just a quick shout-out to announce the ability for an InstantSpot user to embed a Google Talk widget on any page in their Spot.

Simply type:

[googletalk]

and you get your very own gtalk client on your spot.

see a vid here:

[youtube oPTP3rXKHvc]

Read more about the new feature on the InstantSpot Staff Blog

Thanks to Todd Sharp for placing the request for this feature. If you have any other feature requests please let us know !

InstantSpot.com - Seeking Giveaway Sponsors

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 17:07:06 GMT

As many of you might know, we recently ran a giveaway contest in the month of January. That contest was for a free iPod Nano, to be given to the InstantSpotter who generated the highest number of referrals.

While that contest was deemed a success (hey, we can "deem" something), we also realized that spending any money on a very-worn shoestring budget was a little painful to say the least.

This brings me to the topic at hand...we are looking for sponsors!

We would like to begin a more regular contest cycle, perhaps every month(?).

The nature of the contests is up for grabs. We could do a "Best InstantSpot design" contest and some lucky person could win a free dream home (what? I can have big dreams...really, I can), or maybe a t-shirt/hat/etc. Or, maybe we could do a "Most commented blog post" contest and we could give away a [insert awesome thingy here].

One segment of the population we'd always like to work with is the small business owner. Is there some service you can offer in exchange for our promoting your business for that month? Maybe we could add in an advertisement for your company into our ad rotation on all of the sites in our network?

If you'd like to offer a give-away prize, or find out more info please contact us here

InstantSpot: Changing your style now easier than ever!

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 19:56:35 GMT

Over the weekend, we started smoothing out a couple of the processes on Spot. And one of them was the interaction between an external style service (namely InstantSpot Design Exchange - www.ISDX.net ) and your InstantSpot site.

One of the cool features we jointly offer, is the ability to preview an ISDX style on your actual site before deciding if it is the right one for you. Newly added, you will see a button just below the toolbar that says "Apply this style to my site".

A simple click on that button will take you to your control panel where you can verify that Yes, I really do want to apply this style. And whammo! the new style is applied and you can go see the change immediately.

Don't have a "Spot" yet? Get one now , its 100% free.

NOTE I stole the below from Todd Sharp , it was too "right" not to reuse:

InstantSpot is a next generation Social Blogging/Networking site - but it's not just a profile page or a blog - it's much more. InstantSpot is a completely free entire website for you and your family/friends. You can blog, interact with your friends via messaging, post photo galleries, manage an online calendar, even customize the look and feel of your Spot via the Style Manager. Don't know CSS? No problem! Head over to the InstantSpot Design Exchange at http://www.isdx.net and check out some of the cool custom CSS templates that our users have uploaded. There's a growing library of templates to choose from, and if you sign up at ISDX you can even preview any of the designs live on your Spot before taking the plunge and installing it.

CodeShare for Spotters

Tue, 23 Jan 2007 05:04:37 GMT

Just a quick note for all the code-posting people...

InstantSpot now has a slick way to post code shared via codeShare by everfro..

just type in [ codeshare andyourshareid] and you get this

[codeShare nov3629f]

For those who don't know. InstantSpot is a free social blogging network. Please feel free to join now and see what we have to offer.

InstantSpot iPod Nano giveaway

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 14:54:44 GMT

As if we didn't get killed enough yesterday with all of the Saddam execution video traffic, we are pleased to announce the first of (we hope many) promotions for InstantSpot.com.

Here is our blurb from the site:

"In case you haven't heard about InstantSpot's iPod Nano giveaway, we will be giving a FREE Nano to the spot user who refers the most new active Spots. For complete details on our contest, go read this entry on the InstantSpot Staff blog."

InstantSpot Design Exchange Launches!!!

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 14:27:54 GMT

Todd Sharp (cfsilence ) has just rolled out the first incarnation of what I'm SURE is going to be the ultimate source for sharing InstantSpot designs.

Enter ISDX.net

The nuts and bolts of this new site...

InstantSpot users can go create accounts at ISDX.net and browse through different designs and (are you ready for the sweetness?) preview the designs live on their Spot!

I am very excited about what this means as far as the future of InstantSpot is concerned. Dave and I both have faith that our network is going to continue to grow, but it is such a great reinforcement to have another developer agree with that sentiment enough to launch a spin-off (or sister, or something) site that works in tandem with "the Spot".

I created a new section in our forum specifically for ISDX ( clicky) for questions, ideas, feedback, etc. I'm sure Todd will be checking in from time to time, so feel free to let him know what you think.

You can see Todd's blog post about it here

Google Video Too!

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 13:42:36 GMT

We just rolled a ton of new features, and included in that list were the ability to embed YouTube videos. In that same vein, we just added in the ability to embed Google videos with our bracketed notation. [ googlevideo 1384277706451157121]

[googlevideo 1384277706451157121]

YouTube for InstantSpot Blog and Pages

Sat, 02 Dec 2006 08:13:21 GMT

You can now embed YouTube videos in your Spot.

Just make use of the brackted notation like so... [ youtube PK12XrnHcxs]

where the info after "youtube" is the video id from your YouTube video.

(except remove the space before "youtube")

[youtube PK12XrnHcxs]

Get your InstantSpot now!

How do you manage DNS?

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 22:54:42 GMT

This afternoon our DNS service for InstantSpot.com seems to have either died, retired, or took a nap. (we use everydns.net) This "inspired" us to quickly create a couple additional DNS service accounts for failover protection. We have NEVER had any issue with everydns until today, so it made me wonder...

What does everybody else do in order to protect their sites from this loss of DNS?

ps...sorry to all of our fellow 'Spotters. I hope DNS resolves ASAP!

Full access to your CSS: AKA New features for InstantSpot

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 13:18:50 GMT

Over the weekend we released several new features for InstantSpot (along with a few little "fixes") and we are really excited to see where it takes us.

The most interesting feature we released is the "Style Manager" which is pretty much 100% access to your site's stylesheets. Don't worry, you can always use the reset button to change the CSS back to default settings.

We rolled the changes to production last night and we already have a user going full steam ahead with his styling. (see http://chris.instantspot.com ).

Also among the new features:

- Ability to change your site's category(ies)

- Tracking script support. Currently we support Google Analytics, IceRocket, MyBlogLog, and Blogbeat. If you have another you'd like to have added just let me know.

IceRocket follow-up: Is it really real-time?

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 18:36:42 GMT

Just a quick follow-up to my previous post on the newest free stat tracker I am running on this site.

Like other stat trackers, IceRocket has the site's statistics broken out in to various tabs to allow more focused info.

Summary - Summary of hits and unique vistiors. Hourly, Daily, Weekly, or Monthly with the ability to select date ranges and such.
Rank - Daily Rank trend. IceRocket ranks their tracked sites. (not sure exactly what it is based on...visitors? hits? some combination?)
History - Daily History trend. This is somehow related to ranking...not sure.
Content - See what pages are being visited on your site. Daily or Monthly with the ability to selecte a date range.
Referrers - Just what you think it is, what site referred that visitor. Daily or Monthly with the ability to selecte a date range.
Keywords - See what searches you are turning up in. Daily or Monthly with the ability to select a date range.
Countries - See where your visitors come from. Daily or Monthly with the ability to select a date range.
Last Visits - THE ONLY REAL TIME SECTION - See what new visitors are rolling in. This is real time and pretty neat to watch on a heavy traffic day. Details what link was clicked, the source of that link, the user's OS, the user's browser, the user's screen resolution, the user's country of origin and their IP. Daily or Monthly with the ability to select a date range.

I think I still like IceRocket better than Google Analytics...for its simplicity and at least part of it is real time. If you only check your statistics every few hours then IceRocket would appear nearly real time to you. I think they update the other sections (the tabs other than "Last Visits") every couple hours or so.

It takes more than just good code and determination

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 14:05:12 GMT

You need electricity too!

If you happened to try to visit InstantSpot.com or any of the member 'Spots over night, you will have noticed that our server was down! Our colo facility had a power outage that was resolved sometime during the night.

The good news is we have a really stable, healthy application on our hands. We announced the beta release of InstantSpot.com on 9/12/06 but we were running alpha testers well before that, and this power outage was the first time we had ever "needed" to restart anything (server, ColdFusion, etc).

I guess it's official...

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 12:20:11 GMT

Over the weekend we issued a press release, via PRWeb, in order to start really trying to spread the word on InstantSpot.com. PR is something new to both of us (Dave and myself) but hopefully it won't stay that way.

Here is a snippet from the release:

New Social Networking Site Launched by World Wild Web Systems, Inc.

World Wild Web Systems, Inc. announced today that their new social networking site http://www.instantspot.com is now available to the public. They are also making the framework available to other companies who want to offer the same functionality to their members and associates.

Dallas, Texas (PRWEB) October 22, 2006 -- World Wild Web Systems, Inc. announced today that their new social networking site http://www.instantspot.com [Instantspot.com] is now available to the public.

Instantspot.com allows individuals and/or small business professionals to set up their own customizable, multi-page web sites with blogging capabilities. Each site has its own integrated calendar of events and visitors can subscribe to blog feeds through RSS syndication or by email. Each site can also be easily monetized by using the individuals very own Google Adsense account.

Link to full release on PRWeb