Official MadKast Site Now Up & Running Blogs Are Talking About Us Too!

So for the past few week's madKast's home page has forwarded to our blog. As of this morning, however, we now have an actual landing page when you go to madKast.com.


There we have a nifty video which Doug created explaining the high points of madKast, and right next to it we have three ways for you to get madKast: copy the snippet of the code itself, or use our one-click install for Blogger or Typepad. In addition, we have some information at the bottom in the form of contact us, about us, terms, and a link to this blog.

We are now up on approximately 35 blogs at the moment, and I'm happy to report that some people are starting to talk about madKast on their blogs -- largely of their own volition.

Most significant, TechStars' David Cohen wrote about us this morning on his ColoradoStartups website! Thanks for the write up, David!

We're also happy about the fact that Noah Kagan has put madKast onto his site, OkDork. Thanks, Noah.

In addition, two other blogs have written about us in the past 48 hours. First, Carl Lenox mentioned us on his blog about renewable energy called Heliotropic. Second, Amanda Swanson mentioned us on her Pearls and Pugs website.

Finally, we're happy to report that four blogs -- oldebostonbulldogs, towards2012, jennlog, and thedailyvirtue -- have adopted madKast on their own; that means that they either heard about madKast somehow or clicked on the madKast icon on a blog they were reading and clicked "get this on my blog" in the lower right hand corner of the sharing panel. This is the kind of viral adoption we're looking for. Thanks guys!

Put MadKast on Your Blog! Now at The Click of a Button

Excellent news from madKast for all of you out there! We have made it incredibly easy for you to put madKast on your blog and allow others to share your blog content with the click of a mouse.

Whenever you see the madKast icon on a blog (it is now 30 sites and growing) click the icon and it will bring up our sharing panel. The extremely cool new thing is that if you click "get this on my blog" in the lower right-hand corner of the panel, you will see options for ONE-CLICK AUTOMATIC installation of madKast on Blogger or Typepad, or if you have another blogging platform, all you need to do is copy and paste the one line of script that shows up once into header of your blog. That's it; viola!

It could not be easier for you to put madKast on your blog. No registration! No signing up! No username or password. One click install. Get it on yours today.

And tell all your friends, colleagues, family members, and distant acquaintances to try out madKast by sharing blog content on other peoples' blogs or adding it to their blog so that others can share their content.

Below, a list of the current blogs we are on:
MadKast; Feld.com; ColoradoStartups; DevinReams.com; TheCarBlogger; Listoff; David Cohen's blog; TechStars; HelioTropic; ScottConverse.org; OnlineAspect; Dt.Obility; T-Shirts Around the Internet; RNAVentures; SearchforQuality; Liberty Belles; PatrickCameron.com; Filtrbox Blog; ScatteredPaper; DailyPrez; Moonsing.com; NotLikeMinded; Montessori Materials; ZeroLogic; Btared;

MadKast = Fixed

After extensive testing and updates late last week and this weekend, we are happy to report that madKast is up and fully functional again.

Please check it out on the sites listed below. And, as always, spread the word about madKast and badger your friends with blogs to check it out. Finally, feedback is always appreciated: feedback AT madkast.com

Thanks!

The madKast icon is on break

We all need some time off every now and then and the madKast icon is taking a much earned rest for a few hours today.

All this means is that the share icon will not show up on your blog for a few hours. Don't worry, this won't affect any other part of your blog.

UPDATE: We are back up in Firefox on all blogs except for feld.com.

Check Out MadKast On...

It's been less than a week since we announced the beginning of beta testing for MadKast, and I'm happy to report that a lot has happened since then. First, Don Dodge -- the Director of Business Development for Microsoft's Emerging Business Team -- came to visit TechStars last week, and he wrote about us in his blog.

Second, we have nearly tripled the number of blogs we're on right now from the seven we were on last week to about 20 at this time. Remember, since we are in beta testing right now, we are not interested in getting on as many blogs as possible; instead, we're interested in getting on a diverse cross-section of blogs so that we can test how well the product is functioning as well as get as much constructive feedback, from both blog publishers as well as readers, as possible.

Here is a list of the most recent batch of blogs we are currently on. (Don't forget that this does not include the first batch of blogs we got on, as mentioned in the previous post.):

Feld.com; DailyPrez.com; Searchforquality.blogspot.com; davidgcohen.com/btared; notlikeminded.blogspot.com; rnaventures.blogspot.com; listoff.blogspot.com; patrickcameron.com; scatteredpaper.blogspot.com; scottconverse.org; dt.obility.net

Thanks to all those people who have graciously put the MadKast widget on their blogs so that we can test it. Especially since the widget is not working 100% correctly on all of those blogs; hey, that's why we're testing! The fact of the matter is that the MadKast widget does load on all of those blogs -- but on some of them there are some hiccups.

Here are some of the technical problems that we have run into so far in beta testing:

• (1) the share icon showing up on the text in the body (or comment sections) of posts
  
• (2) saved friend contact not showing up the way they're supposed to
• (3) the share icon is sometimes showing up in old/archived posts in the sidebar
• (4) clicking on the share icon brings you to the post itself instead of opening up the sharing panel

Thankfully, our resourceful CTO, Tony, has already made significant headway into many of these bugs. For example, the first bug has already been fixed. In addition, by the end of the day today, when we "push" a new update for MadKast, several other bugs -- including some of those listed above -- will be fixed. In essence, the update to MadKast allows the software to better "understand" the posts so that the widget is much more likely to be placed next to the title instead of in links to archived posts or in comments.

Over the next week we hope to continue to add MadKast to more blogs as well as resolve the remaining bugs that are as yet unfixed. Adding MadKast to more blogs, however, will likely lead to the discovery of new bugs -- but that is exactly what testing is for.

We'd love for you to experiment with the MadKast sharing widget on the above sites (as well as those listed in the previous post) and contact us with any feedback -- positive or negative -- you have have at feedback AT madkast.com. Finally, if you know anyone with a blog who you think might be willing to test MadKast, please let me know at josh AT madkast.com.

Happy Blogging!

Ready-Set-Go: Beta Testing Begins!

Today marks the launch of the beta test phase of madKast! We're very excited about this and have worked furiously over the past few weeks to come to this stage; but we're not resting on our laurels, because we still have a lot more to do to make madKast as powerful as we envision to be.

We are placing madKast on a select number of smaller blogs at this stage, and if you would like to have madKast on your blog, or have a close friend you think would like to test out madKast, please contact me at josh AT madkast dot com.

Our widget is already on the following blogs if you want to give it a whirl:

• Madkast
• Moonsing
  
• ColoradoStartups
• TechstarsBlog
• Devinreams
• OnlineAspect
• DavidGCohen
  

Below, an invitation to test madKast and why it's so powerful:

We’re launching our service, an all in one, free blog widget that allows readers to share blog posts with other people through e-mail, MMS text message, IM, or existing social bookmarking sites, on July 24^th, but I wanted to extend an invitation to you and (your blog) to participate in our “invite-only” beta test phase.

You will want to put madKast on your blog for the following reasons:

• we increase interest and readership in your blog by allowing visitors to share content with others
• we provide you with analytics on who is sharing what and how
• we share ad revenue with you from targeted ads; this supplants your current ad revenue

What’s more, the installation of this widget could not possibly be any easier: all you need to do to put madKast on your blog is to insert ONE line of javascript code anywhere in the template of your blog and our intuitive software will correctly place it on your website. No registration. No signing up. Simple as that.

A few more details on madKast you may be interested in:

MadKast was one of only 10 startups chosen (out of more than 400 who applied) to receive intensive mentoring and guidance this summer in Boulder, CO with some of the top entrepreneurs and technology experts in the region. Please visit TechStars for more information on this prestigious program.

Madkast is truly unlike any currently sharing technology, and we are confident that it is far superior for the following reasons: our widget only takes up a 16x16 pixel space in the header of your blog posts; madKast does not direct users to a separate page, but instead pops-up a small panel on blogs it is on for the reader to share posts; it integrates all pre-existing sharing functions in one simple tool, thereby reducing the typical ‘sharing clutter’ on so many blog sites. Sure, you already having social bookmarking links on your site, but do you know if they’re being used?

I hope that you will strongly consider adding madKast to your blog. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me via e-mail (josh AT madkast dot com).

Happy blogging!

Josh Larson
Evangelist, madKast.com

Ta-Da: Part One!

I promised you in Monday's post that this week would be an exciting one for madKast, and I'm happy to say that I can deliver on that promise!

We have begun the process of putting up our partially-functional madKast widget on a select number of blogs including this madKast blog as well as Johann's tech-startup blog -- moonsing.com. In addition, David Cohen has been kind enough to put it on his ColoradoStartups blog, so check it out there as well. As the week wears on we will continue to add madKast to other blogs for beta testing.

What exactly is the madKast widget, you ask? You should see a small green icon (with the word share next to it) to the right of title of this blog post. Once you click on the icon, a sharing panel will pop up and the rest of the page will temporarily be grayed-out. There you will be asked to enter the contact information of the person or people you'd like to share the blog post with. The neatest thing about madKast is that you have every sharing option at your disposal: e-mail, MMS text message, or instant message.

Even cooler, once you enter a friend's contact information madKast will remember this information. That means that not only the next time you head back to the site you've just shared, but also ANY site that has the madKast widget, your friend's contact information will be saved, so all you have to do is click on their name and hit send. How sweet is that?!

In addition, the full blog post is shared with your friend no matter what sharing method you use. This is significantly different from, and much more useful than, many other sites that allow you to share their content in that madKast sends you the ENTIRETY of the blog post within the e-mail/MMS message/IM instead of just the title, a link, or the first few sentences, like many other distribution "services" do.

Basically, madKast is the easiest and most powerful way to share blog posts. Try it out on this site or moonsing.com now....and we'll let you know as we put it on more and more sites. We are still working on the distribution method, so if you want to add an icon to your blog, send an e-mail to josh AT madkast dot com and I'll email you a snippet of javascript. Remember that we are still in beta, so we'd love to get feedback!

An Exciting Week at MadKast!

First off, you may notice that the icon for madKast has changed in color from orange to green. There were several reasons why we decided to do this -- for one, I'm not sure we were ever that wild about orange -- but primarily it was based on advice from some smart marketing/design/branding people at Texture Media. Among other things, we think that green will probably be less likely to clash with the colors on blog posts than orange. Let us know if you think we made the right decision!

Now, onto even more exciting news: this week is a BIG one for us! We are getting closer than ever to being able to launch a functional, if not 100% polished, product. By mid-week, we hope that we will have madKast up and working on a select number of beta test blogs; thanks, David Cohen, for the referrals. If you would be willing to put madKast on your blog as a beta tester, please contact us! (josh AT madkast dot com)

Tony has been working like mad over the past week (which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who knows him) on dynamic placement of the madKast icon -- which will show up next to the title of a blog's post. In addition, Johann and Tony made remarkable progress during the end of last week in perfecting the method madKast uses for cell phone carrier lookups for MMS messages. What does this mean in plain-speak? Once madKast launches, you will now be able to share a entire blog post with a friend via MMS text message, replete with at least one picture from the post. The key difference between SMS and MMS is that MMS has no character limit, while SMS messages are limited to a measly 160 characters.

We will keep you posted with more information and updates as the week proceeds!