PondBlog

New LinkedIn features - photos and links

chbm — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:17:05 GMT

Now when you share links on LinkedIn Pond will create a thumbnail and a summary of the page you're sharing, just like Facebook. That means you can share your cool new designs or your new toys on both LinkedIn and Facebook with just one click - and both sites will get the same content.

That's not all. We wanted to go the extra mile for the professional users and now you can share your photos directly to LinkedIn. Pond will upload them to the cloud and share the link to your photo in LinkedIn complete with thumbnail.

Twit Pics

chbm — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 09:59:48 GMT

Don't you get annoyed when you can't one click your mobile photos to all your accounts ? Well, not anymore. Now you can post photos directly to Twitter from your mobile. Just chose your twitter accounts when posting a photo and Pond will make sure it gets there.

Happy mobile uploads!

New Facebook features

chbm — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:57:41 GMT

Pond has a couple new Facebook features. The first you probably used already, if you do a status update including a URL Pond will automatically share the link instead of plain old booring update. You'll get the site thumbnail and description just like any other link share in Facebook instead of plain text.

The other you probably haven't noticed yet, you can now post notes to Facebook from Pond. Navigate over to "Text Post" and you'll notice you can select your blogs and Facebook accounts to post your longer texts. No more posting to blogs and then copying over to Facebook. Or you can post to your blog and then simple share the link in Facebook. You choose!

Update to our Publish by e-mail: Select which service to publish

Shrike — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 17:52:57 GMT

Having a posting method which won't allow the user to select where the post will be published can lead to complications, as we soon proved.

We couldn't let this stay like this and so we built a quick hack by which you can select which accounts will get published to.

If you go to your account configuration in your Pond account, you will notice that each account has a name, which you can even change by pressing the rename button on the right-hand side of the list of accounts. This name is there to facilitate finding out, when you look at a list of events, which account did the event come from, but it will now also be useful in selecting which account will we publish to.

Let's imagine, as an example, that your Publish by e-mail address is blue25orange@pondapp.com, and that you have three accounts, a personal Twitter account named MyTwitter, a personal Facebook account named MyFacebook and work Twitter account named WorkTwitter.

If you wish to publish to your personal Twitter account, you would use the name portion of your e-mail (blue25orange in this example) plus (+) the name of the account (MyTwitter) resulting in blue25orange+MyTwitter@pondapp.com. For the other accounts, the e-mails would be blue25orange+MyFacebook@pondapp.com and blue25orange+WorkTwitter@pondapp.com .

You can also get creative and "add" more than one account, such as blue25orange+MyTwitter+MyFacebook@pondapp.com.

There are some restrictions to this: only alphanumerical characters are supported in the account name part of the e-mail, as well as underscore. No accented characters, please, convert them to the unaccented versions before using. Thus, an account named Zé's Account (personal) added to the above example, would become blue25orange+ZesAccountpersonal@pondapp.com. An account named João_has_an_über_twitter will become blue25orange+Joao_has_an_uber_twitter@pondapp.com.

Yes, it's a bit geeky, but I'm sure you'll appreciate the extra flexibility.

Enjoy.

New (BETA) feature: Publish by e-mail

Shrike — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:20:09 GMT

So, you wish to post to your networks using good, old-fashioned, e-mail?

Maybe you want to automate postings (please don't spam) or ... maybe, just maybe, you wish to cross-post from Google+ to your other networks and don't know how to: Pond is here to help.

All you have to do is add an email to one of your circles, and whenever you post to that circle, we'll re-direct your post to your other networks.

Before we show you how, let us list the warnings (please read them):

This was a 24-hour hackathon. This means that our testing might not have been as thorough as we like, and there might be bugs.
We will (for now) blindly post to all accounts with support for status updates, namely all Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. If you have more than one of these, all will get the post. Those of you who have a "work" Twitter or Facebook account, please take heed.
For now, we only post a short status update. We add a link to the original post if the mail comes from Google+. We plan to add a lot of functionality, but for now this it.

This was planned yesterday around lunch time, written during the afternoon, tested this morning and launched now, so pay close attention to that BETA tag, please.

Now that we have got that out of the way, how do I go about setting it up?

Simple, go to accounts and read the "Publish by e-mail" section, which will tell you your very own, unique, publishing email. Anything sent to this e-mail is published on your networks, though currently only on those that support status updates.

To cross-post from Google+, just add this address to one of your circles. Anything posted to that circle will appear on Pond. Keep in mind that Google+ sometimes takes hours to send the email out, so an ocasional delay is inevitable.

Keep this email address to yourself. We trust any e-mail sent to this address as being yours, and will publish anything on it as being your own, so please don't tell other people about it. If you feel your email has been compromised, you can go to your account page and reset your e-mail address to a new one. We will promptly drop the old one from our list.

Hope this is useful, we definitely had fun doing it.

New feature in webapp: Blacklist

Shrike — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 11:15:55 GMT

We added a new feature to the webapp which we call Blacklist.

You can now add words to the Blacklist box on the right-hand side of your screen. This Blacklist will remain active during your session and any event with words contained in the Blacklist will be blocked.

You can any content from one of your events, including the names and usernames of your contacts!

The list will be reset at the end of your session. Do you want some word for longer? Here's a trick to achieve this:

1 - Write the required words in the searchbox at the top right of your screen, with a minus sign (-) in front of each (ex: "-cucumber -tomato")

2 - In the Timelines box, press "Save" and give a name to this timeline

3 - There you go: select the new Timeline any time you wish for some peace :)

Yes, it's a "hidden feature" of our search

Webapp updated

pedrocs — Mon, 23 May 2011 17:02:17 GMT

We updated the Webapp with two new features:

- Targeted events - now, when a friend writes on another friend's FB Wall, you can more clearly see to whom the message was intended; this also reflects Twitter replies.

- Save timelines - Pick some filters or a search term and save that as a new timeline, great for keeping your most used searches handy or creating timelines with your favorite services or accounts

Go try it out! http://web.pond.pt

Facebook notifications in your Pond inbox

pedrocs — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 13:02:36 GMT

We've been making some changes to Pond for the past weeks and are beginning to implement them. One of the ideas we've had for a while was to transform the "events for me" timeline into an inbox, enriching the content you can get there and improving the overall experience.

For when you really can't be bothered to read a timeline, but want to quickly check if anyone has specifically interacted with you on a given network, having an inbox is essential.

It would be very valuable if you could, at a glance, see all your Twitter mentions and DMs, comments on your Flickr photos and YouTube videos as well as all of your Facebook interaction, like when someone posts on your wall, comments or tags you in a photo.

Working towards that goal, we've just lauched an update to the webapp that allows you to see all sorts of interaction your friends have with you in Facebook. You don't have to do anything if you already have your Facebook accounts authorized in Pond, just go to "events for me" (soon to be renamed "inbox"), and see Feed and Photo Comments, Tags, Likes and Posts your friends make directly to you.

Hit "see original" to be sent to the content in Facebook if you want to further interact with it. You can now also use filters on the "events for me" timeline if you want to show/hide Twitter and/or Facebook interactions.

With this update we've brought into Pond another valuable feed of information, neatly organized for you and we hope to be bringing you more of this kind of updates, soon.

Immediate registration

pedrocs — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 22:35:36 GMT

We've changed the way you register so that you don't need to confirm your e-mail address for 7 days, meaning you can start using any Pond app straight away!

This is particularly useful if you're one of our mobile clients like TMN Pond (for Android, iPhone or WRT), or registering through our mobile website at m.pond.pt.

Just fill out the registration form (which is convenientely simple and short), login and start getting everything in one place.

You will still receive a confirmation e-mail, of course, and you are still required to click the URL we'll send you in order to make sure no one's abusing anyone's inbox. :-) But you'll have a week to take care of that, so, everything is much more comfortable now.

Please notice, though, if you do not confirm your e-mail address within the seven days, your Pond account will be suspended.

Happy Ponding!

Webapp update

pedrocs — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 11:37:12 GMT

We have just updated the web app with three changes:

- The publishing box on the timeline now auto-hides when you are not using it, leaving more space for content. If you mouse over it or place your cursor on the typing box, then the publishing options will expand and you will be able to pick which accounts you want to publish to, see a character counter to guide your tweet writing and...

- ...add an image or video to your status updates. That's a new feature, which we will be expanding to our mobile apps soon. Pick an image or video file to upload, send it to one of your accounts and get a shortened URL back in the status update box.

- Finally, we made some cosmetic changes to the timelines in order to simplify the views and improve legibility. As Pond evolves to support more content and more actions over that content, we will be simplifying the UI so it stays out of the way of the user's interaction with said content.

We hope you like the new stuff, we'll keep on updating the apps and letting you know. Have fun!

Pond User Survey

pedrocs — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:35:09 GMT

After a few weeks of beta testing and having formed an initial idea of what the users' main suggestions and criticism are and having designed a rather detailed plan for 2010, we decided this was the right time to make a quick survey to find out what our users want and need.

We'd appreciate it if you could take 5 minutes of your time to answer a few questions about Pond as it is today and about our plans for the immediate future so that we can offer you what you expect instead of just some ideas we cook up all on our own :-)

The survey is in english, since Pond has gone international and can be filled out at the following address: https://www.survs.com/survey/VIJK0DHJBH

Thank you for your input!

New "stay logged in" feature

pedrocs — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:11:22 GMT

We've just released a small update to the webapp that allows a user to stay logged in until he/she explicitly logs out.

If you have security concerns or share a computer, then this feature isn't for you, but if you have a safe environment and a private computer it's a rather comfortable option. Just go on to http://web.pond.pt, fill in your username and password, check the "stay logged in" option and click "login".

Now, whenever you return to Pond, you'll be instantly logged in and in your timeline view. To logout, just click the logout button and not only will Pond log you out, it will also de-select the "stay logged in" option for some extra safety. Just check it again when and if you want to.

You may also notice a few minor changes on the homepage, just to announce our SXSW participation. Soon, there will be a completely new and improved homepage. Stay tuned!

Vote for Pond in the People's Choice Awards

pedrocs — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:46:32 GMT

As we've said before, Pond is a finalist in this year's SXSW Interactive conference under the Technical Achievement category. However, that's not all: we're also up for the People's Choice Award and that is entirely up to you!

If you want to support Pond, just sign up as a voter at the SXSW People's Choice Awards page. You will receive a passphrase in your e-mail that you can use to vote. What's really cool is that you can vote every day from now until the Awards Ceremony on March 14.

So, please, go to http://sxsw.com/peoples-choice, sign up and start voting for Pond!

Thank you.

Pond is a finalist in this year's SXSW

pedrocs — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:22:54 GMT

We're very proud to announce that Pond has made it to the finalists in this year's SXSW Interactive, under the Technical Achievement category.

The finalists have just been posted on the SXSW website and we're excited to be among such great projects, namely, Wolfram Alpha.

Whoever wins, this is already a great moment for the team and everyone who helped and believed in Pond from the start - we hope to deserve this honor even further during 2010, as we have a lot in store for our users.

Thanks, everyone!

Links para página de Twitter na timeline agora funcionam correctamente

pedrocs — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:44:30 GMT

Acabámos de resolver um pequeno bug em que clicar no "screen name" entre parênteses à frente do nome e um amigo de Twitter enviava o utilizador para uma página de resposta básica feita para servir quem não tenha JavaScript activo no seu browser.

O comportamento correcto seria enviar o utilizador para a página de Twitter correspondente ao "screen name".

Na ausência de conversas encadeadas por enquanto (in reply to...), funcionalidade planeada para este ano, esta passa a ser então uma forma mais prática de seguir o rasto a um Tweet bem como consultar o perfil de um amigo no Twitter.

Esperamos que este pequeno 'fix' seja útil.

Pequenos fixes de CSS na aplicação web

pedrocs — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:28:55 GMT

Procedemos ontem à correcção de dois problemas de contexto na CSS da aplicação web que impediam que browsers baseados em Webkit (Safari, Chrome...), mostrassem correctamente a lista de serviços e fontes associadas a um amigo na página de opções deste.

Indo a amigos e fontes > clicar num amigo > opções, a listagem de contas associadas a esse amigo aparecia desformatada e agora está organizada por linhas com um rectângulo branco a envolver cada item.

Além disto, notámos que estes browsers estavam com problemas a fazer o render do border branco de um pixel em volta dos botões com cantos redondos em toda a aplicação.

Optámos então por remover este border.

São apenas pequenas melhorias, mas que nos pareceram importantes corrigir.

TMN Pond na Ovi Store

pedrocs — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:51:51 GMT

A aplicação TMN Pond para terminais Nokia com suporte para WRT já está disponível na Ovi Store, a loja de aplicações oficial da Nokia.

Este lançamento trouxe muitos novos utilizadores, sobretudo de fora de Portugal, pelo que podemos dizer que o Pond está neste momento presente em mais de 100 países.

No topo dos downloads encontram-se o Reino Unido, Índia e Itália, entre outros.

Pond na web

pedrocs — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:44:33 GMT

Hoje chegou à nossa atenção mais um artigo que menciona o Pond. Trata-se de "7 Tools to Better Manage Your Social Networks", por Kristin Burnham e foi publicado no site CIO.com e também no InfoWorld.

O Pond está referido no ponto número 6 como uma das sete aplicações que podem ajudar a gerir de forma mais simples a informação que chega das redes sociais.

Pond 2010

pedrocs — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:39:23 GMT

2009 foi um ano memorável para o projecto Pond. Conseguimos, no espaço de um ano, por uma ideia em movimento, formar uma equipa e lançar múltiplos clientes nas suas versões Beta, primeiro privado, depois público.

Em nome da eficiência e rapidez de execução, ficaram de parte algumas ideias e no decorrer do desenvolvimento e na interacção com os beta testers surgiram outras. A lista de melhorias e novas funcionalidades é muito grande e queremos fazer as melhores escolhas, baseadas naquilo que os utilizadores precisam.

Estamos assim em grande discussão interna, tentando ouvir quem já testou o Pond, lendo críticas, sondando no Twitter, tentando saber o que é prioritário, o que é interessante e mesmo, porque não... o que é 'cool'.

Se 2009 foi o ano do surgimento do Pond, queremos fazer de 2010 o ano em que o projecto atinge a maturidade que merece. Se tiverem sugestões, ideias ou críticas, deixem os vossos comentários.

Obrigado e um bom 2010 para todos!

Pond Beta aberto

pedrocs — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:58:49 GMT

Abrimos hoje as portas ao Pond Beta a todos os utilizadores.

A única coisa necessária é um endereço de e-mail válido e contas num ou vários dos nossos serviços suportados (SAPO Fotos, SAPO Vídeos, SAPO Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr e YouTube), ou, em última análise, feeds RSS que costumem seguir.

Basta ir a http://web.pond.pt e registar uma conta. Atenção, as contas têm que ser activadas usando o link que é enviado por e-mail após a criação.

Para actualizações e informações, aconselhamos que sigam o Pond no Twitter: http://twitter.com/pondapp

Obrigado a todos os beta testers da primeira fase, o input constante permitiu-nos resolver alguns dos problemas principais do serviço. Esperamos agora nesta segunda fase pública resolver muitos mais e arrancar para novos desenvolvimentos que façam do Pond aquilo que os utilizadores desejam.

Convites Pond Beta para clientes TMN

pedrocs — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:28:28 GMT

Se querem experimentar o Pond Beta e são clientes TMN, não percam a oportunidade de obter um convite. Basta registarem-se e receberão um SMS com o dito.

Atenção, os convites serão enviados em "ondas" (no pun intended), portanto só de x em x horas sairão convites para quem se registou no período anterior. Não é um processo totalmente automático, portanto pedimos alguma paciência (só mais um bocadinho) :-)

Problemas, bugs e afins

Shrike — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:35:39 GMT

Primeiro que tudo, obrigado pela resposta entusiasmada ao (cuidadoso) abrir das portas do Pond.

Este projecto foi o foco da nossa existência durante o último ano e observar esta reacção é deveras gratificante.

É, no entanto, um projecto feito em tempo recorde com um âmbito "galactico" como diria o Pedro e está um pouco verde em algumas áreas (eis por que razão tem o "beta" no nome).

Infelizmente, apesar dos nossos esforços vão existir algumas áreas mais instáveis ou com comportamentos não planeados. Vamos fazer um esforço por ser directos e documentar problemas e eventos que ocorram no serviço para vos manter informados e para recebermos feedback, não só sobre os problemas mas também para vermos se as nossas soluções realmente... solucionam.

Note-se que alguns dos problemas acontecem em situações de difícil reprodução (exemplo, quando o vento sopra de leste e o utilizador está em pé coxinho enquanto canta o hino nacional da Nova Zelândia).

Para primeira leva, eis os problemas que temos detectado:

1 - Erro de 502. Ocasionalmente ao adicionar um serviço, apanhava-se com uma página a dizer "502, bad gateway" ou algo similar. Deve estar resolvido e queremos saber se mais alguém ainda recebe isto.

2 - "Lag" ou demora a receber eventos: os eventos e updates estão a ser recebidos em levas com muito espaçamento, 20 minutos em alguns caso. Estamos a tentar identificar o que está a causar isto.

3 - Ordem de eventos estranha: Por razões de performance, mostramos os updates na ordem em que os recebemos e não na ordem em que são publicados no serviço. Vocês falam muito , recebemos literalmente milhões de updates por dia e estar constantemente a ordenar os eventos causaria um peso demasiado grande. Para evitar o problema da ordem diferente, vamos buscar os updates muitas vezes. Mas... ver o problema acima.

Iremos tentar manter-vos a par dos nossos problemas e espero que este serviço seja suficientemente interessante para que valha a pena ajudarem-nos com o vosso feedback.

Lançamento de beta por convite

pedrocs — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:25:37 GMT

Foi ontem, finalmente, que foi lançado para um grupo de utilizadores que se tinham pré-registado o primeiro Beta público do Pond.

Ao fim da tarde disparámos umas centenas de convites e em pouco tempo começaram a entrar os primeiros registos.

A recepção que o Pond teve ultrapassou todas as nossas expectativas. Sobretudo no Twitter e Facebook, mas também em alguns blogs que começaram a publicar curtas análises e screenshots; as opiniões foram esmagadoramente positivas e algumas mesmo entusiásticas.

Estamos agora atentos ao feedback dos nossos Beta testers e a preparar-nos para enviar mais uma fornada de convites para clientes TMN.

A nossa lista de desenvolvimentos futuros é enorme e estamos cheios de vontade de matar os bugs e abrir o serviço para, com ajuda dos nossos utilizadores, fazermos do Pond tudo aquilo que sabemos que pode ser.

Obrigado a todos pelo vosso apoio e esperamos que continuem a ajudar-nos a melhorar.

Countdown

pedrocs — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:30:38 GMT

Estamos a entrar no countdown para alargar o nosso beta ao público que mostrou interesse nas últimas semanas. As revisões de alto abaixo resultam em listas cada vez mais pequenas de problemas, bugs ou coisas incompletas e começamos a sentir que a luz vermelha está prestes a acender-se no nosso frágil avião sobre a Normandia e que em breve... vamos ter que saltar. :-)

Beta testing

pedrocs — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:59:57 GMT

We had a round of internal alpha testing which was pretty fruitful. Most people found the same bugs and issues and nobody found a big hairy beast that we didn't know about.

So, that's a good sign.

Meanwhile, this weekwe started a private beta round and invites are being sent out to a wider audience. The bug tracker is being filled with reports and we're keeping on top of it.

If all goes well, we're looking at a release date very soon.