In this issue:
A Special invitation related to Twitter
CitySpeek cross posting to Twitter
CitySpeek iPod winner
New groups
We know that many CitySpeek members are also Twitter users. On Tuesday June 16th at 2pm PST, Twitter will go offline for 1 hour of maintenance. Why not use that time to come build your network on CitySpeek and take a few of our features for a test drive? Accept friend requests, join a group or post a picture. We promise not to get mad if you go back to Twitter after their maintenance.
Speaking of Twitter, don’t forget that you can have your speeks posted to your Twitter account as well. To enable this feature: Log into CitySpeek, click “Settings,” select “Social Network Settings” from the drop down, enter your Twitter credentials and make sure to check “Send messages to my twitter.com account” before clicking SAVE CHANGES. Imagine how powerful this feature is if you use CitySpeek with an IM account!
A few months back, a loyal CitySpeek user approached us about donating a prize to a fitness challenge that was utilizing a CitySpeek group to keep each other motivated. Of course we said yes and offered a new iPod Nano to the user that logged the most days with a speek in their private group. The challenge is over and the lucky winner is CitySpeek user @Josh (http://www.cityspeek.com/profile/josh). If you are interested in running a similar contest, let us know by emailing support@cityspeek.com.
CitySpeek adds new groups almost daily. Some of the newest groups include: @beer, @Overheard in PDX and @Obama Followers. To sell all groups, click through to http://www.cityspeek.com/groups.
That’s all for now, thanks for your support of CitySpeek.com!
http://www.CitySpeek.com
General
CitySpeek, Groups, instant message, ipod, newsletter, Twitter
For the second time in less than a week, the industry leading microblogging site Twitter will go down for maintenance during peak hours. Last Friday Twitter took their site down for over two hours while the performed database maintenance.
Twitter plans to take their site down again this Wednesday May 15th at noon PST (3pm EST). CitySpeek would like to invite you to use this as an opportunity to check out CitySpeek and see what we have to offer. In addition to being available when you expect us to during the middle of the day, we also offer some neat features that Twitter does not:
- Groups, both public and private
- Pictures in messages
- Translation in over 30 languages
- and so much more!
So give CitySpeek a try tomorrow at noon pacific, 3pm eastern and see what you think. Don’t worry, we wont be offended if you go back to Twitter when they come back online…whenever that will be. We think you’ll be back soon 
-The CitySpeek Team
General
downtime, maintenance, Twitter
We received a great compliment today when the popular blog Max Gladwell made mention of CitySpeek on Twitter today. A few weeks ago Max Gladwell posted their top 10 predictions for the coming 12 months.
Number 6 on their list said:
Regardless of who acquires Twitter, viable Twitter rivals will likely emerge. As micro-blogging becomes as popular as social networking, Twitter will become a too generic and one-size-fits-all for many. Twitter will launch a groups feature in an effort to combat this, but people tend to like their niche products and communities. We may see a Ning-like platform for micro-blogging, which fragments this trend into hundreds of thousands of unique mini Twitters. A couple rival startups might actually gain traction by adding value in new ways. We saw several Twitter wannabes fail already, but that was before micro-blogging went mainstream. Indeed, “status updates” will become a standard feature for any type of community-driven site.
Today Max Gladwell posted on twitter that CitySpeek was an example of this:
CitySpeek (http://www.cityspeek.com) is a lot like what we talked about in our predictions for MG01 (#6)
So a big thank you is in order for Max Gladwell. Make sure to check out the blog on social media and green living, its a great read.
-The CitySpeek Team
General
blog, max gladwell, prediction, press, Twitter
We made a simple but important update to CitySpeek.com this evening. Many of our users are also Twitter users that choose to have their speeks cross-posted to Twitter. When speeks including integrated media were cross posted to twitter, confusion ensued because only the text was available to Twitter users. You might say “check out this funny picture” and your Twitter friends were left wondering what you were talking about.
Starting tonight however, speeks with media that are also cross posted to Twitter contain a linkback to your original speek. This will allow Twitter followers to easily see your integrated pics or video without being left to wonder what you are talking about. You don’t need to do anything different, the link will be added by us before your speek hits Twitter. Speeks without media will not include a link and longer speeks will be truncated on Twitter to make room for the link.
Give this new feature a try and let us know if you have any questions!
The CitySpeek Team
Pics and Video, Social Networks & CitySpeek, Updates
enhancement, feautre, improvement, link, media, pics, Twitter, video