ZapTXT: RSS Filtering and Notification

The ZapTXT blog has moved to http://www.zaptxt-inc.com/blog

2006-10-05T11:09:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder...

The ZapTXT blog has moved to http://www.zaptxt-inc.com/blog

2006-08-31T11:04:00.000-07:00

See you at the new site!

ZapTXT 2.0 - About this release...

2006-08-28T18:27:00.000-07:00

On behalf of the ZapTXT team, I'm thrilled to announce the new release of ZapTXT.
As Ed mentioned, we have currently opened up registration for the first 10,000 users that sign up. Our current users of course are already registered.

If you would like us to drop you a line when we open up registration, please email us at feedback@zaptxt-inc.com.

Before I get to high-lighting the some of the goodies in this release, I want to say 2 thank you's:

First, we are very grateful to those that provided incredible feedback during testing. We can't thank you enough.

Second, my heartfelt gratitude to our dream team that helped put this together. Alex Wright patiently worked through multiple interaction design and content iterations; Jane Devon brought her amazing talents (as usual) to shepherd us through design directions and Xavier Vanvlasselaer was able to produce the application beautifully and in a very short time frame. Of course Ed rocks. ZapTXT was his baby before I got involved, and I have yet to work with another developer that could so easily be open to fundamental changes put forth by the team and put his emotional attachment to the side as we baked the roadmap for this release. I don’t think developers get nearly enough credit for conceiving new ideas but that's a different show.

For those of you that are new to ZapTXT, a big welcome to you. Here's the skinny on our service: We allow you to create custom keyword searches to track your favorite rss-enabled websites via email, instant messenger or mobile device. For more information, click on the "Learn More" button on ZapTXT.com or check out the FAQ.

Objectives of this release:

- Re-architect the concept of feed monitoring by focusing on why the user really came - which is to monitor specific information for a given task, sometimes across trusted sources.

- Bring the amazing benefits of OPML to the forefront for the every day user.

- Improve usability via the use of widgets, auto discovery and good interaction design to simplify the process of creating, monitoring, refining and delivering your tasks.

Highlights of this release:
The new ZapTask: We've turned the notion of monitoring feeds on its head. With this release you bring your tasks and your multiple trusted rss-enabled sources to ZapTXT, we monitor that task for you and you move on with your life. So search for that digital camera across Craigslist, eBay Stores and CNET reviews at one time and get the best deal available. Get the best out of the web, on your terms - when you want and where ever you are.

We've also made it very easy to edit a ZapTask. You can now change just about anything on a current ZapTask - keywords, feeds you want to monitor and delivery preferences.

Here are some use cases to get your juices flowing:

A researcher, journalist or PR/communications professional can create ZapTasks using specific key words (e.g. CEO, resigns, downgrade, earnings for a company and monitor these keywords across say PR Newswire and the Wall Street Journal or “Joe Lieberman” on Daily KOS, CNN, Digg and Sphere) and receive real-time updates on when news is covered in any of your chosen content sources.
A diabetic can have ZapTXT monitor a new drug, alternative treatment, across the FDA, a set of blogs, the drug manufacturers site and the health section of the New York Times - all as one task.
A sports fan can monitor a team, a player on his/her favorite blogs, news feeds that Fox Sports provides and your local newspaper.
A systems security professional can now know right away if new security holes or virus are discovered and move swiftly to protect against a new threat.
For the shopper or jobseeker or any classifieds user, let the deal come to you and be first to respond. Monitor a job across Craigslist, SimplyHired, Edgeio, New York Times or just about any rss enabled feed. Same applies for that snowboard you want to buy, or that apartment you're looking to rent. You get the idea…

OPML: In the event that OPML interests you, this release brings one of the more user-friendly approaches to importing, creating, refining and searching across an OPML file. So bring your trusted feeds to ZapTXT or create a set within ZapTXT and in a few seconds you have ZapTXT serving as your agent looking for what you consider juicy content across that feed set. No need to browse every day to see what's new and whether you care about what's new. We'll do that for you.

Widgets: We've brought some of the widgets that were previously hidden in the application to the forefront. So no need to come to ZapTXT every time you find a site that has useful information. Add the ZapTXT bookmarklet to your browser and just click on it - the feed passes automatically into ZapTXT. Simply enter your keyword filters, pick your delivery mechanisms and frequency and your done.
Publishers can also add the ZapTXT button to their sites to allow users to be able to monitor their blogs for topics of the users interest.

Delivery Mechanisms: In addition to Gtalk and Jabber, this release also allows for MSN and AIM to be used for IM alert notifications.

That's a lot for one post. We can't be more excited about this release and what's to come in bite size pieces over the next few months.

Thanks for stopping by,

Sameer

New Release!

2006-08-28T17:12:00.000-07:00

The new and improved Zaptxt is live! I took the first version as far as I could, but I am an application developer, not a designer or UI expert. With the help of a talented team, we created the new version which is a much more user-friendly application and one that truly brings the benefits of RSS to the everyday user.

Keep an eye out for Sameer's upcoming blog that will give more details. And a big thank you to everyone that worked on this roll-out.

By the way, this is a beta release, open to the first 10,000 users.

eduard

ZapTXT Update

2006-07-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

Hello ZapTXT users. Its been quiet on this front for a while but not for nothing...

ZapTXT now has a real team behind it! I'm thrilled to announce a big development here at ZapTXT. Sameer Patel of SpanStrategies (www.spanstrategies.com) agreed to invest in ZapTXT and partner with me on driving the functional roadmap and building out a stable and reliable set of services that are needed by everyday users. Sameer has spent the last 10 years helping user communities at leading organizations improve communication and collaboration via the use of emerging technologies. Sameer formally got involved in late May but began advising me for a few weeks before that. We are both co-founders of the new ZapTXT Inc.

I'm really excited to have him come on board, not only because of the direction he's given the ZapTXT product development roadmap in the few weeks before jumping in formally, but because together we can really do some exciting things to make ZapTXT a very useful service.

I've always felt that ZapTXT has only scratched the surface on how to make the content available on the User's terms. Now that we have an expanded team (more on others that are involved when we release) to execute on product development and interaction and visual design, we are closer than ever to making a real go at it. Thankfully, I can focus on architecture and development going forward.

We've been quietly working away at a lot of exciting things over the last 2 months but the end is in sight. I'll post about our next release in a few weeks. The new ZapTXT team will be blogging collectively going forward.

Happy Zapping,
Eduard

OPML Export

2006-04-05T08:45:00.000-07:00

ZapTXT now allows you to export your OPML. To export, go to the "My OPML" screen. Next to each OPML, there will be the option to export. When you click "Export", ZapTXT generates an OPML script that you can save to your hard drive and use with your RSS reader.

What's next?

2006-04-03T19:10:00.000-07:00

Now that the first version of ZapTXT OPML filtering is released I would talk about what's coming next. There are three things that I wanted to include in the first release, but I decided to wait and see the reaction to version 1 before I add them.

1. Ability to add individual feeds to existing OPML.
2. Ability to export existing OPML.
3. Ability to import "external" OPML to ZapTXT.

It seems that John Tropea from Library Clips had the same idea when he mentioned that it would be nice to have these features.

I am working on these features now and will post when they are live.

ZapTXT OPML Filter

2006-04-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

I finished the first version of the ZapTXT OPML filter. Now users are able to build an OPML file with the feeds that were added and tagged by other ZapTXT users. Search keywords, frequency and delivery method for notifications are applied to the whole OPML file. Every feed in that OPML will "inherit" those attributes. It's great if you want to filter many feeds for the same keywords.

I tried to make this feature as flexible as possible. Users will be
able to do the following:

- edit OPML
- deactivate OPML
- re-activate OPML
- delete OPML from the system
- edit individual RSS feeds in OPML
- remove individual RSS feeds from OPML and from the system

Click here to see images of what it will look like.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

1. It is possible to use the same feed to create a ZapTask and in an OPML. If you have the same search keywords, you will get duplicate alerts. To avoid this, remove one feed, either by deactivating the ZapTask, deleting the feed from the OPML, or not adding the feed to OPML in the first place.

2. Currently I limit the number of feed you can have in OPML to 10. I'll change that later.

3. Please be patient and let me know if you see any bugs, so I can improve it.

Marshall Kirkpatrick also mentions ZapTXT

2006-03-30T12:14:00.000-08:00

Marshal Kirkpatrick from Social Software also talks about OPML filtering and mentions ZapTXT. I am glad to hear that there are other people who are interested in this kind of RSS filtering.

I am currently developing features, but I want to make sure I am upfront about the details. My first step will be to allow users to create OPML files based on the pre-existing, tagged RSS feeds in the ZapTXT system. (Read my previous post to get a better idea of how this will work.) After I have completed this, I will start working on allowing users to upload their own OPML files and filtering them with ZapTXT.

John Tropea from Library Clips wrote a review on ZapTXT

2006-03-30T09:13:00.000-08:00

John Tropea from Library Clips wrote a review on ZapTXT. You can read it here.

In another post John talks about filtering OPML and being able to define one search criteria for an entire OPML file. It's interesting because this is exactly what I am working on right now. The next feature that I'll add to ZapTXT will allow users to combine several RSS feeds into one OPML file and then define search criteria for that file.

The way it will work is something like this. When a user clicks on a Tag he's interested in, say technology, he'll be presented with a list of RSS feeds that other ZapTXT users tagged as technology. Next to each feed there will be a check box. The user will be able to select any number of feeds and will, in essence, create an OPML file with them.

After a user clicks submit, s/he will be presented with a screen where they can define the search criteria for that OPML file.

What's coming up

2006-03-29T09:54:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I added support for tags. Here are a few things that will be added to ZapTXT in the next couple of days as a result of introducing Tags.

Now, when you create a new ZapTask, you'll see a Tag Cloud that will look like this:

This Tag Cloud will help users discover RSS feeds that they might be interested in. For example, if you click technology, you'll see a list of latest RSS feeds that were tagged as Technology. And with just one click you'll be able to create a new ZapTask. Here's what it will look like:

In a day or two I'll write what else is coming up. As always, if you have any question, please email me at info at zaptxt dot com

eduard

Steve Rubel blog about ZapTXT

2006-03-28T20:04:00.000-08:00

Steve Rubel from Micro Persuasion mentioned ZapTXT in his post today. Steve has a really good technical blog, one that I monitor myself.

I wrote the first version of ZapTXT a year ago and went live in September '05 so it's nice to get some recognition of the service. I am the sole developer and it's nice to get more and more people using ZapTXT. Because of the great feedback I have received, I am working on a few new features that should bring even more functionality to ZapTXT.

Thank you, Steve, and thank you to all my users!

eduard

Job Search with ZapTXT

2006-03-24T16:31:00.000-08:00

Robert Wilson has been running a series on Top Ten Sites For Semi-Active Job Search which is an interesting read for anyone who's looking for a job. He started with 10 job search sites. As he says: "Each site was reviewed for options to receive job ads via email and RSS feed; and where possible, a search was saved on each site for auto sales jobs in Boston, MA. The results from these saved searches were compared based on the number of matching jobs returned, and the percentage of the jobs that were in auto sales in Boston. Bonus points were awarded to sites that made it easy to create and manage saved searches."

While reading Robert's posts I kept thinking how ZapTXT is perfect for anyone who's looking for a job. You can define a ZapTask with search keywords for each of the job search sites (craigslist, indeed, hotjobs, etc) and let the system monitor and filter jobs for you. ZapTXT will notify you as soon as it finds a new post containing your search criteria. All you need to do is define the ZapTasks and check your email for results. In addition, your alerts will be stored on the ZapTXT server, so you can review all of your results in one place from any PC and, if you install the ZapTXT Mobile Widget, from your mobile phone. As a matter of fact, that's exactly what I do when I look for new contract work. It saves me a lot of time. I don't have to go to 10 different sites and search for new posts, because I know ZapTXT will do it for me. Instead, I can spend the time doing something I enjoy.

ZapTXT - OPML

2006-03-23T20:13:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about the way I define ZapTasks and the sites that I monitor and I realized that all of the ZapTasks I've defined with ZapTXT fall into two categories: technical blogs and classifieds. I often use the same search keywords for several different ZapTasks that usually fall into the same category. For example, if I want to monitor digg, slashdot, and memeorandum for posts that contain words "Mobile, RSS, OPML", I have to create three ZapTasks, one for each site, with the exact same keywords ("Mobile, RSS, OPML"). Of course, right now it's not that big of a deal; creating a ZapTask only takes a couple of seconds.

However, what if I wanted to monitor 50 or 100 different blogs and filter all of them with the same keywords? This kind of monitoring might be interesting if you want to see how the news spreads in the blogosphere. Creating 100 ZapTasks with the same keywords doesn't sound all that appealing to me. Instead, I would like to create one ZapTask that would apply to all of the RSS feeds that I want to monitor.

That's when OPML might be perfect. I can create an OPML file that will contain the 100 sites that I want to monitor and define one ZapTask for that OPML file. I would still get notifications from ZapTXT each time it finds a new post with my search criteria, but the process of defining ZapTasks would be much simpler.

Of course, an average user will probably not need this feature, but certain power users might find it useful. I created a working prototype that I am using for myself. If this idea generates enough interest I might add it to ZapTXT.

Let me know what you think.

Grazr

2006-03-21T10:10:00.000-08:00

Very cool product!

Use ZapTXT with Publi.sh

2006-03-16T20:10:00.000-08:00

From publi.sh: "Publi.sh is the easiest possible way to create a web feed for personal or group use..." This is a great tool. I went to their site, created a feed and added a new entry. It was as easy as they said, you don't need to have any special technical knowledge. Then I went to ZapTXT and created a ZapTask for the feed that publi.sh generated for me. A few minutes later I got a ZapTXT notification on my IM about the new post. That was cool!

Imagine you have a group of friends, every time you want to go out, you need to call every one and coordinate. That takes time. Now you can go to publi.sh, create an RSS feed for your group, send the URL to all of your friends and ask them to create a ZapTask for that URL at zaptxt.com. Next time you want to go out, all you need to do is add a new entry to your group feed at publi.sh and ZapTXT will send notifications to all of your friends. If your friends choose to have an SMS notification method with the "as they appear" frequency, they will get notified within minutes of your post.

You can apply the same logic to any group of people.

ZapTXT adds support for IM notifications

2006-03-15T11:04:00.000-08:00

I added support for IM notifications. Currently Jabber and Gtalk are supported. The rest of IMs (Yahoo, MSN, AIM) will be added soon. Now you have an option of choosing between email, SMS or IM notification methods. Thank you everyone who suggested/requested this feature.

Blogger - 403 Forbidden

2006-03-11T17:33:00.000-08:00

Anyone knows what's going on with Blogger?

I started getting a lot of "You don't have permission to access /atom.xml on this server." errors.

ZapTXT no longer requires cell phone verification for registration

2006-02-28T12:24:00.000-08:00

Quite a few users have suggested that we remove the cell phone verification. After some debate, we agreed that it was a good idea and decided to do away with the required phone verification as part of the registration. However, a user must still verify their cell phone if they want to get alerts via SMS (see FAQ for why we must have a cell number verified to receive SMS).

Although our focus in the beginning was on RSS to SMS, we realized that the broader issue here is the ability to screen information. We are all on information overload. If people want to bypass their cell phones and just use ZapTXT to filter their RSS feeds into email, that's fine with us.

Use ZapTXT with Edgeio

2006-02-27T08:53:00.000-08:00

The much anticipated Edgeio launched today. It's an interesting service that allows anyone to publish content through their site.

The site constantly monitors RSS enabled sites and publishes posts with the "listing" tag. The posts are then organized by tags using the Edgeio taxonomy. The idea for sellers is that they can reach a broader audience without any additional effort. For buyers, the draw is that they can find items for sale regardless of geographic location and without checking multiple sites. According to Edgeio, they currently monitor 28,954,323 websites.

Sound interesting? I think it's a great idea, but again, I don't want to have to sift through any more data. This is where ZapTXT comes in. You can enter RSS for any Edgeio category and your keywords and get notified whenever there is a new post. And, of course, with ZapTXT Mobile Widget you'll have access to your Edgeio alerts from your mobile phone. If Edgeio turns out to be as powerful as the hype says it's going to be, ZapTXT is the perfect companion to harness all that data.

ZapTXT and personalized RSS feeds

2006-02-24T14:05:00.000-08:00

Ash Vasudevan wrote a interesting blog, "Personalization of RSS Feeds," about the promise of RSS and the potential drawbacks of the current focus on publication and syndication. As he says,

"Unfortunately today, beyond url based subscription, there is very little room for personalization. An ideal solution here would be one that allows me to drop the universe of unique content sources I encounter into an rss repository, and have a personalization engine that monitors the repository and feeds me the information that matches my requirement (eg. send an sms message if it is content related to VOIP+published by Om+published by Andy+ is on acquisition; to my MP3 player if it is a relevant podcast, and otherwise just preserve the content on my rss url for me to consume when I have time). Think of it as a TIVO like solution for digital content, one which allows users to receive and consume content based on their preferences."

This is exactly what ZapTXT is offering as a service. ZapTXT allows you to monitor any RSS feed and get notifications via SMS or email when a new RSS entry matches your search criteria. Instead of being overwhelmed with new posts, you get the information you want, when and where you want it.

eduard

ZapTXT Mobile Widget

2006-02-23T09:02:00.000-08:00

ZapTXT Mobile Widget is a bluepulse widget designed to bring the functionality of zaptxt.com to your mobile phone. The widget allows you to get your ZapTXT alerts in full text and, if it's a Craigslist post, to respond to the alert.

To get started you set up a task on zaptxt.com that will monitor and filter RSS feeds and send you notifications via email or SMS when a new RSS entry meets your specifications. When you get the SMS notification, you start the widget and then you can read the whole post and take action on it. Instead of having to work within the confines of an SMS message with a maximum of 160 characters, you can read the whole text in a convenient format.

More information and instructions on how to install ZapTXT Mobile are here.

Bluepulse wrote a profile on me.

2006-02-20T08:04:00.000-08:00

You can read it here

Interesting RSS feeds

2006-02-16T12:05:00.000-08:00

Basement.org has compiled a list of RSS feeds, which gives you some ideas on new and different ways to use ZapTXT

Track Job Openings. You can easily keep tabs on openings for particular positions in particular locales with Indeed's simple job searching site. Or try Hotjob's feeds through their service (any search can be delivered as a feed).

Log Referring Links To Your Site. Here's a cool one for blogs. Track who's visiting your site via Referrer Madness. Simply drop one line of code in your pages and track the link provided. No account required.

Be A Knowledgable Citizen. Stay on top of important government news and information with FirstGov's RSS feeds.

Recipe Syndication! Track 4 and 5 star recipes or subscribe to the recipes of your favorite chef's with Big Oven's RSS feeds.

Get Your City's Latest Traffic. Traffic.com delivers RSS feeds of traffic information for most major U.S. cities.

Track Movie Openings & Reviews. Find out about theatrical and DVD releases as they happen (as well as reviews and upcoming releases) with Movies.com's feed list.

Keep Tabs On Medical Information. Hubmed.org delivers Pubmed (a service of the National Library of Medicine) search results in RSS.

Stay On Top Of Virus & Security Threats. Sophos (feeds), Trend Micro (feeds) and Viruslist.com (feeds) all provide feeds to stay on top of viruses and other security threats.

Download TV Shows. This is a bit more involved than just subscribing. RSS & Bittorrent make a nice match. Here's a quick tutorial on how to subscribe to your favorite TV shows.

Bring Humor Into Your Life. Yes, RSS can deliver joy (maybe) into your life with a joke a day. Joke feeds are provided by Yahooligans and Comedy Central.

Pull In Those Video Snippets. Our ever-shortening attention spans are loving those 1-2 minute video clips flying around. Youtube provides RSS feeds of all their major categories. del.icio.us also has a popular videos feed.

Sticky Notes + RSS. Webnote (warning: the yellow on this site is downright painful) allows you to keep notes and subscribe to a feed that delivers them.

Track Ebay. For person that just can't stop buying porcelain puppies, you can track ebay auctions via RSSAuctions.com and feedback.net.

Bluepulse for better interactivity?

2006-02-09T17:16:00.000-08:00

We spent the last two days working through a number of interesting ZapTXT challenges, and creating a roadmap of sorts for our work going forward. One of the issues that's been vexing us since day one is the mobile user experience.

Initially we built custom commands that required users to send an SMS to our service. While this all works great, it's just not feasible in a usability sense. Even we don't really want to be typing in URLs and email addresses on our mobiles!

So we're really quite intrigued by bluepulse. We've created...ok, more accurately, Eduard has created a bluepulse widget that we think might be a better model for interactivity with ZapTXT. As always, cell phone compatibility and U.S. carrier restrictions are the challenges.

Private RSS with ZapTXT

2006-01-23T14:57:00.000-08:00

I added support for private RSS, so if your RSS requires HTTP authentication you can use it with ZapTXT now.

eduard

Bloggers starting to pick up on ZapTXT!

2005-12-31T16:11:00.000-08:00

And the word is starting to spread -- Microsoft's inhouse blogger / technology evangelist Robert Scoble posted briefly about our service.

A couple others have also picked up on it, so now we've got to get going on the usability front. It's not just a prototype anymore!

Alert Me! bookmarklet

2005-12-30T18:33:00.000-08:00

To simplify the process of defining a ZapTask I added a
ZapTXT bookmarklet. Also, for those who would like to offer RSS update notification services for their readers, I added the "Alert Me!" button/bookmarklet. You can copy this code and paste it anywhere on your site. The button will look like the "Alert Me!" button on the right. (NOTE: You have to be logged into ZapTXT in order for this bookmarklet to work).

eduard

RSS to SMS alert frequency/schedule

2005-12-26T10:22:00.000-08:00

We have added a few new options to the alert notification schedule based on requests from users. Now we have:

- as they appear
- once an hour
- once a day
- once an hour between 8AM - 10 PM (PST)
- once an hour between 6PM - 11 PM (PST)

ZapTXT continues collecting all new RSS entries that meet your search criteria during your "quiet time" but will only send them during your "active time". For example, if you defined a ZapTask and scheduled alerts to be delivered "once an hour between 8AM - 10 PM (PST)", at 8AM ZapTXT will send you all the alerts that have accumulated since 10PM the night before. You won't lose any interesting RSS posts; you'll just receive them when you are ready for them.

eduard

RSS and SMS for groups.

2005-12-19T20:24:00.000-08:00

We're testing a new service at ZapTXT: GroupFeed.

What is GroupFeed?

The GroupFeed service allows you to create or join a group, in which every member is subscribed to the same RSS feed (GroupFeed). (ZapTXT will create the GroupFeed for you; You don't need to know anything about RSS.) Every member of the group has the right to update the GroupFeed (unless that right is revoked by the owner of the group). Every time a GroupFeed is updated, all members get an SMS notification with the update. You can update the feed from your computer at ZapTXT.com or from your cell phone by sending an SMS to the address that ZapTXT will provide.

more information in a day or two...
eduard

Article: SMS and A2P

2005-12-16T07:43:00.000-08:00

It looks like there is a term for what we are doing -- A2P!
"Application to person (A2P) and interactive messaging will become increasingly important as new services such as mobile marketing and delivery of rich content come on stream."

Check out the full article:

"Stats & Research: SMS to remain key revenue driver to 2010"

eduard

Salesforce to SMS - Testers needed.

2005-12-11T12:02:00.000-08:00

I'm looking for Salesforce users who can test my "Salesforce to SMS" service. This service sends an SMS alert each time a new Lead or Case gets inserted into the user's salesforce account (I can also easily add other SForce objects). I am looking for feedback and ways to improve this service. If you're interested, please email me.

eduard

How I am using ZapTXT

2005-12-09T17:56:00.000-08:00

I've been interested in old and rare books, so I set up a ZapTask for Craigslist. Everytime a post comes up on Craigslist that has the words "books" and "rare" or "old" I get an e-mail. If I wanted I could set it up for SMS but for now I'm just seeing how it goes with e-mail. Wow! I got tons of stuff and it was EXACTLY what I was interested in. Now with SMS I can get these notifications on the road and even send an e-mail back from my phone . . . pretty cool.

RSS + SMS Use Cases

2005-12-08T10:21:00.000-08:00

Several people have asked us why they would want to use ZapTXT. ZapTXT offers several services: Any RSS Service, Craigslist RSS Service and Salesforce Service. Here are a few use cases:

Craigslist* Service of ZapTXT:
Let's say that you are looking for a killer apartment on Craigslist. Naturally, you want to be the first one to respond to the posting. You create an alert on ZapTXT. You select which Craigslist City, Housing Category specifying "Apartment" as your keyword. You can even use Boolean logic with multiple keywords to specify exactly what kind of apartment you want! For example using the keyword “Bay View”. When there is a posting on Craigslist for your city with an Apartment with a Bay View, you will receive an SMS text message on your phone. If you set up a response email template, you can automatically send it from your phone. The email might say something like, "I would love to see the apartment. Please contact me at ---."

Any RSS/ATOM Service of ZapTXT:
Calendars -- You love your local grunge band and never miss a show, but you're tired of keeping track of where they are playing next. You create a ZapTask using the RSS feed for Upcoming.org (or whatever calendar your band lists with that supports RSS) and list the band name as the keyword. Whenever there is a band engagement coming up, you get an email and/or an SMS alert on your phone. You can then notify all your fellow groupies and make plans for the show.

OR

Social Butterflies -- You are the queen or king bee of your social group and where you go, the others follow. Update your RSS-supported blog with your social plans for the evening or weekend and have your friends create ZapTasks with your RSS. From then on, they'll be notified via email or SMS of your plans and be able to bask in the presence of the queen or king bee.

Salesforce Service of ZapTXT:
You are a salesperson in the airport. Suddenly you receive an SMS message. Your ZapTask has sent you this message to tell you that a new sales lead has been assigned to you. And here is the phone number. You dial the number and you have your new prospect on the phone in minutes!

eduard
ZapTXT

* ZapTXT is in no way affiliated with Craigslist

SMS Cost

2005-12-07T19:02:00.000-08:00

One issue that has been mentioned frequently is the potential expense of all these SMS messages on your cell. Yes, this could really add up at $0.10 per message. However, most carriers now offer special SMS plans, which cost about $15/month for unlimited messages. This may not be for everyone, but for people who want the flexibility and efficiency of alerts on their phone, it will be worth the cost.

eduard

RSS and SMS

2005-12-06T09:46:00.000-08:00

There has been a lot of talk about RSS to SMS these days, especially on Russ' blog, because of the new Yahoo service I have been excited by this technology for quite some time and working on implementing it. I think there are some serious concerns, however, that need to be addressed with this technology.

We all complain about the sheer quantity of information in our lives -- television, email, internet, cell phones -- so a major issue with RSS to SMS is managing this data. We want the technology to provide a helpful tool, not overwhelm us with more data. Also, obtaining information more efficiently is fine, but being able to act on the information makes the whole process much more powerful. I have tried to address these two areas at ZapTXT in a variety of ways.

-- Information Management - I have added a filter that allows you to specify exactly the information you are looking for. We want to be able to screen the mass of information on the Internet and only get what's important to us on our phones, right? ZapTXT 's goal is to allow the user to get SMS messages only on something they want to *act on*, time-sensitive, valuable informtion.

-- Response - Time sensitive, valuable information delievered to your cell is great, but then what do you do? I want to be able to take action on that information using the same tool, my cell phone. I created commands as part of ZapTXT that allow you to instigate an action. (For example, you are looking for an apartment and you get an alert on a promising flat. You send a command to ZapTXT that will send a pre-defined email to the landlord.) Responding to alerts is the area that is still in its infancy. The first command I created enables the user to deactivate all of his/her alerts so managing data from the phone gets even easier. Beyond this, I have done more situation-specific commands like in the example above. I continue to work on this, but I would appreciate any suggestions on how to better take action on an alert.

eduard