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!