Perfect Review Sharing

We've spent the last few weeks working very hard on improving the sharing functionality associated with various parts of RateItAll - specifically, Lists, Items, and Reviews.

We've focused our efforts on three ways to share in particular:

- Email
- Facebook
- Twitter

If you look at the top of the right hand column of any List, Item, or Review page, you will now see a "Share This Page" module:

First, let's look at the email sharing option.

Let's say I wanted to share my awesome list of Mexican Beer (which I am very proud of) with my friends via email.

Clicking the envelope icon on my Mexican Beer page pops open the following form:



With this form, I am able to type in email addresses one by one, and include a brief note.

I can also pull in contacts from my address books on services like Yahoo! Mail and Gmail by clicking the "Use Your Address Book Instead" button:


This tool lets you select friends from your address book to receive an email with a link pointing to your list (or item, or review).

Now let's look at Facebook. By now, just about everyone has a Facebook account, and Facebook's newsfeed format is a perfect way to share your lists, reviews, or items with your Facebook friends.

Clicking the Facebook Icon (farthest one on the right), will do one of two things depending on if you are logged into Facebook at that moment:

If you are logged into Facebook, you will see a prompt from Facebook that looks like this:



If you are not logged into Facebook, you will be prompted to login to your Facebook account before seeing the posting prompt above:



When you share a RateItAll story on Facebook, your Facebook profile will look like this:



And when my Facebook friends share RateItAll stories, this is what I see on my Facebook home page:



Now let's talk about Twitter. I know that folks on RIA are a bit skeptical, but this service is taking off like a rocket right now.

Clicking on the light blue "T" icon:

Will automatically open up a new browser window that includes a link to the page (list, item, or review), as well as some text that indicates whether it's a list, item, or review that you are sharing. Here is what it looks like - note that the posting field is pre-populated with the link and text, all you have to do is click "update":



One thing to note - you can share any list, item, or review page to Facebook, Twitter, or Email, whether or not you created the page, and whether or not you are even logged in to RateItAll.

These sharing features are available to everyone, and we hope they will be a great way to get more exposure for your reviews and lists.

Please poke around and let us know what you think.

We just pushed a couple of improvements live

We just made a couple of enhancements to the site:

- We added perfect sharing tools on every List, Item, and Review page. You can now push out any of these pages with one click to Facebook, Twitter, or Email, whether you are logged in or not. This will be a full post shortly.

- The home page river now remembers what view you were on if you click away, so that if you click back, you don't have to reconfigure your view. For example, let's say you are on your home river / feed page, and have used the filters to isolate just comments. If you click away from your home page, and then click "back" on your browser, you will see the same view that you left - just the comments. The only view state we are not remembering yet is the paging - this will be added soon. Sounds minor, but this is a big improvement.

- We have created a short form URL of all of our item and topic pages that can be more easily shared. Here's an example of the long form URL:

http://www.rateitall.com/i-839549-should-never-be-used.aspx

And here's the short one:

http://rateitall.com/i-839549

- We have fixed some annoying formatting issues when publishing reviews to Facebook - things like apostrophes and quotations should work fine now.

Quick Update on Sharing Reviews on Facebook

If you see a little FB icon in the header like this:



You are good to go, and can pick and choose reviews to push to Facebook.

If you DON'T see that little "F," you need to click the Facebook Logo in the right sidebar on the home page:


Can people please help us test this feature?

Try logging in with both Facebook and your regular RIA login.

Thanks.

Share your RateItAll reviews with your Facebook friends

For a while now, we've offered the ability for new members of RateItAll to sign up using their Facebook login. This allows these new members to pick and choose reviews that they write to share on Facebook with their Facebook friends.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to offer this functionality to existing RateItAll members, because we didn't have the ability to link an older RIA account with a Facebook account.

This is no longer the case.

We've just introduced the ability for anyone to link their RateItAll account to their Facebook account.

Why would you want to do this? Because it lets you easily share reviews with your Facebook friends, giving your reviews more visibility.

The key aspects of the program are as follows:

- it only takes one click to link your RateItAll and Facebook accounts

- you only share the reviews that you want to - each time you write a review, you are given the option of sharing it with your Facebook friends. If you don't want to, you don't have to - I probably only share about one out of ten reviews that I write.

- once you have linked your Facebook and RateItAll accounts, you will be able to login to RateItAll with one click

To link your RateItAll and Facebook accounts, click the Facebook icon on your home page:


Here's what the Facebook prompt looks like after you write a review:



Here's what a shared review looks like on a Facebook news feed:



I really hope that you will try this feature out. One of the fun things about RateItAll is the "instant feedback" aspect of the site. We write things, and people react to our opinions.

This new Facebook feature increases our collective reach to include our Facebook networks. Folks can even "like" and comment on your reviews right on Facebook.

Let me know if you have questions.

Logging in to RateItAll with Your Facebook Account

A few days ago, we introduced something called Facebook Connect.

Basically, what it does is allow you to login to (or join) RateItAll with your Facebook login information. It also gives you the choice if you want to publish any of your RateItAll reviews on your Facebook page.

I use this feature all the time; because A) it's easier to login with one click than to fill out the fields; and 2) Sometimes I like to share my reviews with my FB friends.

Want to try it out? Try clicking the Facebook logo on the RateItAll login / registration page:



Here's what you will see if you are not logged into Facebook already (if you are, it will just log you into to RIA):



And here's what you see if you write a review while logged into RateItAll via Facebook Connect:



If you choose to publish your review to Facebook, here is what your Facebook profile looks like:



And the link goes right to your review on RateItAll - you don't have to deal with any apps.

The only problem some of you might run into is if you didn't merge your RIA account to Facebook back when we were pushing the Compatibility App. In this case, Facebook Connect might set up a second RateItAll account. If this happens, you can just back out.

Date-Able App for Facebook

Aileen, RateItAll's awesome intern, has built an application for Facebook around dating called Date-Able.  There are a bunch of dating related quizzes on there that will help you find (or avoid) that special (or unspecial) someone.

Facebook users can click through to add the Date-Able app.

Oh yeah, if you have ideas for more apps or quizzes, talk to Aileen.

App to show off your RIA Reviews on Facebook

RateItAll's friends over at iWidgets built us a neat little app that shows off your recent reviews on Facebook. Here's what it looks like (and you can add it yourself, here):

Obama and Fear

OK, we have a couple of new quizzes live on MS and Facebook. An Obama VP quiz based on GTH's Obama VP Candidate list, and a fear test based on Jamie McBain's list of things you are afraid of.

And to my conservative friends out there, please don't read anything into the juxtaposition of the "Fear" and "Obama" quizzes.

MS-XXXXXXXX, FB-XXXXXXXX, and RateItAll.com

There's been a bit of confusion recently about what's up with all the RateItAll accounts beginning with "MS" or "FB" that occasionally show up on the Hottest Reviewers section of the home page.

This is related to the feature that we recently launched for MySpace and Facebook that allow folks to read and write reviews from their MySpace account, as well as to take compatibility tests.

The short version is that users with an "MS" user name are folks who have not explicitly joined RateItAll.com, but are using the site's functionality via MySpace. Similiarly, folks with an "FB" user name are people that have not explicitly joined RateItAll.com, but are using our functionality via Facebook.

If somebody who is not logged into RateItAll.com adds our feature on Facebook or MySpace, we automatically create a RateItAll account for them starting with "FB" or "MS." Existing RateItAll members should make sure to merge their RateItAll / MySpace or RateItAll / Facebook accounts in order to avoid having two different accounts - to do this, just click the "Merge" tab on the Facebook or MySpace feature.

Recently, a RateItAll reviewer accidentally set up an MS account in addition to his / her RIA account, without merging it with their RateItAll account. This resulted in two different, active accounts on RateItAll. By itself, this is not a TOS violation.

However, some way or another, the RateItAll reviewer's "MS" account then applied more than a thousand "helpful" votes to that same member's RateItAll account. The only way this could have been done was via manual clicking of the helpful button on each review. It probably took a long time.

And because we have IP tracking, we know that the vote giver and vote receiver were operating off of the same Internet connection - in this case, the RateItAll reviewer's home.

This is where we run into trouble. While accidentally creating duplicate accounts via MySpace or Facebook is totally understandable, using this dual account status to pad your account with helpful votes is not.

As a rule, I don't like to make disciplinary discussions public. But in this particular case, the reviewer involved made some pretty outlandish claims that their account had been "hacked" as part of a conspiracy against them, and that the 1,000+ helpful votes that had been padded onto their account were a result of a glitch in the system.

There is no glitch in the system. The only way to access somebody else's MS account is to know their MySpace.com login. The only way to give another user helpful votes is to manually click the helpful buttons associated with their reviews. And our IP tracking tools leave no doubt as to the fact that the votes were given and received from the same location.

So what's the lesson here? Well, the first one is Please Don't Cheat. Our tools will catch you, and it might be embarrassing. The second one is that if you are using our MySpace and Facebook features, it's probably a good idea to merge accounts so that you are not diluting your reviews over two different accounts.

I hope that helps.

How to Merge Your RateItAll account with your Facebook RateItAll Account

1) Go go Facebook and open the RateItAll Compatibility App.

2) Click on the "My Reviews" tab

3) In the right hand column, click on the link that says "Join RateItAll"

4) Scroll down and fill in your RateItAll login information in the section that says "Merge your Facebook account...."

That's it, your done.

New RateItAll Group on Facebook

Guys, I've found a better tool for us RIA members to find each other on Facebook - it's the RateItAll Group.

It's an open group - anybody with a RateItAll account can join.

Join Us.

Music Compatibility Test is now live

We've turned on a Music Compatibility test on Facebook. It's a long one - 28 items I think - but should give you a good idea of who your musical neighbors are.

As always, to check your compatibility, add the RateItAll Reviews App on Facebook, and become a fan of the app on the same page so that other RIA'ers can find you.

Movie Compatibility Test Live on FB!

Check it out.

This link will only work if you have joined Facebook already and added the Reviews feature.

Compatibility Test Results Now Displaying on FB Profile Pages

Check it out

Lots More Compatibility Tests on FB

We've launched a few more compatibility tests for our Facebook App:

• March Madness Compatibility
• Test in Men Compatibility (I did not make this test, not that there's anything wrong with that)
• NBA Compatibility
• Web 2.0 Compatibility

We have more in the works as well.... Star Wars (thanks for the suggestions Numbah), Movies, Music, etc..


To check them out, add our FB app.

If you are on Facebook....

.... please become a "Fan" of the f the RateItAll App here. This way RIA regulars can find each other on Facebook.

Also, feel free to post your RateItAll nickname in the thread so that folks can decide whether to add each other as friends on Facebook.

Why would you want to be friends with RIA'ers on Facebook? Because we have these cool Compatibility Tests on RateItAll for Facebook that allows you to check how compatible you are with other folks in things like Politics, Taste in Beer, etc.

Wiseguy is completing the politics compatibility test now... and we'll find out once and for all how politically compatible we are. I'm not overly optimistic that we're going to be very compatible :)

Some Small Fixes / Changes

Couple of things we've been working on:

• You can now read RIA's entire database of reviews on Facebook. Before you could only read your friends' reviews and write reviews. Try it out - the easiest way to see the new functionality is to try searching for something, then click "read reviews."
• We've fixed a design issue that caused the hottest reviewers section on the home page to occasionally jumble.
• Also on the Facebook App, we've made it easier to see what your friends are reviewing. To try this out, click the "Friends' Reviews" tab.
  

Watchmouse: RateItAll Trounces Facebook in Terms of Performance

There was an interesting study recently published by a company called Watchmouse that looked at some of the biggest social networks and how they did in terms of site speed and staying up.

I'm happy to say that RateItAll trounced Facebook in terms of overall performance.

I'm less happy to say that of the 104 major social networks profiled, RateItAll is one of the slowest and one of the worst performing.

When RateItAll is sluggish, it's something that literally makes me sick to my stomach. If you ask RateItAll's developers, or RateItAll's host, or my wife - they'll all tell you.... I turn into a monster when the site is down, or when pages aren't loading as fast as they should, or when things lock up. It's such a basic thing - a slow loading site can ruin even the best features and content.

Over the past year or so, we've tried everything. We've brought in database experts. We bought a massive, state of the art, quad database. We've added load balancing across three web servers. We've removed features and functionality.

I think we're making progress, but we're still not there yet.

But trust me... making RateItAll faster is something that is almost always on my mind and we're going to keep plugging away at it.

Invasion of the FB'ers

The RateItAll Facebook application is starting to get a little traction. The swarm of new members with nicknames starting with "FB" are all using RateItAll for Facebook.

I think what we're seeing is a glimpse of what RateItAll would be like if it were a mainstream site with hundreds of new reviews posted per minute.

If you play this out, it would seem that the ability to filter the recent reviews page by your trusted network would be an important feature.

Our Facebook Promo