Hey bloggers: you want some options, you got some options
As we continue to get awesome feedback from all of our Crank’rs, there’s nothing like implementing a highly demanded feature into production. Knowing that there is a huge need for something, figuring out how to get it developed and getting it out to our Crank’rs - this is something that we’ve done many times over the past several months and this is what keeps PhotoCrank more fun, reliable and easy to use.
One of the latest requests, specifically from the bloggers who have the PhotoCrank Engine running, is that we make a simple way for them to make certain photos on their blog ‘unCrankable’. Even though we all love us some Crank’n, there are definitely times when you may not want someone adding a Crank to a photo. For instance, we had some bloggers who wrote a very serious post about George Carlin passing away and they didn’t want the photo to be Crankable out of respect to the man who came up with the 7 words that you can’t say on TV.
Anyways, there are other reasons why a blogger may not want a photo Crankable and it’s our job to give you that option, so we did. There was a way to do it previously, but it wasn’t nearly as simple as the super-simple way that you can do it now. Here’s how it works:
We have added a new option to the Options Menu, which can be seen by clicking the gray button with the down-arrow on it. Then, go down to the Adminstration –> Allow Image To Be Cranked option and uncheck it if you would like the photo to be unCrankable. This can be done to any image after it is posted to your blog.
Each photo is Crankable by default. Simply uncheck to make it unCrankable.
Hopefully this option makes all of our blogger’s Crank’n experience even better than it has been up to this point. If you are a blogger or a Crank’r and you have something you’d like to see changed/removed/added to PhotoCrank, please feel free to comment here and let us know - we’d love to hear what all of you have to say!
A new version of PhotoCrank means a few changes for the better
At the end of last week many hours of hard work, super long meetings and some slightly heated discussions(aka arguments) resulted in an amazing, new version of the PhotoCrank player being pushed out to the world.
Thanks to some great feedback from all of the Crank’rs out there we have added some amazingly awesome new features to this version of the Crank player - most of which make Crank’n much more fun and much more social.
This is a major step in the direction that we want PhotoCrank to head, which is a direction that makes the experience more exciting and fun for Crank’rs, which leads to a much better overall experience for bloggers who add the PhotoCrank Engine to their blog as a way to add a more interactive experience for their readers.
Some of these new features are listed below and something else that you should be aware of is that with all of these great, new features came a change in our Crank’n philosophy as well, which is that we are no longer allowing anonymous Cranks to be created in Cranktown(our community of Crank’rs). This is because many of the new features listed below require that you have a PhotoCrank profile created and we also feel that the more profiles that are created, the better and more active community that Cranktown will become. We hope that you agree with this change for the better and if you haven’t created a profile yet you can head over here now and get it taken care of in a matter of seconds. We appreciate you taking the time to do this and hope that you find that Crank’n a photo is now more fun than ever.
Now, on to the new features:
Here is a clean view of the new Crank player.
See the numbers below for more info on our sweet, new Crank player features.
1. Previous and Next Navigation Arrows: These allow for quicker navigation when viewing Cranks
2. Crank Replies and Multiple Cranks: Any Crank’r now has the ability to create multiple Cranks on any photo and also the ability to reply to a Crank with another Crank
3. Crank Comments: Like the Crank you’re watching? Want to let other Crank’rs know what you think? You can easily do this now thanks to our new Crank commenting system.
4. Crank Sharing: Let your friends know about your latest Crank by sharing it on your favorite social network or by emailing it out to the masses. Also, copy the code to add your Crank anywhere you want by clicking on the embed code button.
More info coming soon on some other new stuff that you all should know about this new version release, but I think that this is enough to digest for one blog post. Now what are you waiting for? Get to Crank’n, sharing, commenting and spreading that PhotoCrank love!
Any questions, feel free to give me a shout by dropping an email to ryan@photocrank.com. May the Crank be with you.
Here, let me show you how to Crank a photo
As me and the rest of the team constantly continue to improve what PhotoCrank is, how it works and what all it can be used for we have been really focusing on making sure that the fundamentals of creating a Crank are as clear and straight-forward as possible. From our standpoint, considering that we are Crank’n like it’s our job(oh yeah, it actually is), we can sometimes take for granted the fact that there are new people out on the wonderful Web every day who are Crank’n for the first time ever. For these first time Crank’rs we want to be sure that they completely understand how to create the Crank that they are wanting to contribute to CrankTown(the community of Crank’rs and Cranks coined by my friend Scott) whenever the Crankspiration(inspiration to Crank) hits them.
Wow, that’s a lot of Crankified terms - I hope that I haven’t gone overboard, even though I’m suspecting that I have. Oh well, continuing on…
As a way to help first time Crank’rs learn the fundamentals of Crank’n a photo quickly and easily, I created a screencast video(a video of what my screen looks like during a crank, along with voice over) that shows the world what all goes into Crank’n a photo. Honestly, I tried to make it as short as possible and it ended up being around 3 minutes long, which I think(and hope) is bearable for anyone who is wanting to learn about PhotoCrank. Also, I guess that I should mention that this isn’t going on the website like one of last ones did, instead we are embedding this How-To video directly into the PhotoCrank interface(pictured below) that opens up when you begin to Crank a photo. This should make the video more valuable and relevant to the new Crank’rs out there who aren’t completely sure what Crank’n is all about.
Finally, here is the the video that will be added to the PhotoCrank interface, feel free to comment below or email me at ryan@photocrank.com with any thoughts, suggestions or constructive criticism that you may have.
Crank’n a caption contest: A quick example
In my last post I wrote a pretty lengthy explanation of how a blog/website owner can install The PhotoCrank Engine for use with caption competitions that they are currently running for their readers. I won’t go into all of the details of why PhotoCrank adds some great value to these various contests, but instead I thought that I would take a real-world example that I found while cruising the web and show you how Crank’n would look and be used on a contest that a blogger had already posted. Hopefully this will give you all a better understanding of what I have been talking about as far as caption contests go. I have a feeling that I will be doing this several times as a way to show everyone how easily PhotoCrank can take these types of caption contests to a new level of fun and interactivity.
The blog that I have chosen to be my guinea pig for this first go round is WILLisms.com, which is a blog that has a very edgy and entertaining way to cover what’s hot in the political world. The WILLisms blog holds caption contests like this one on a regular basis and I have decided to use their latest one as an example of how PhotoCrank can make a great caption contest even better.
Here is the image that was used for the last caption contest contest on the WILLisms blog, in which he encouraged his readers to give their best shot at being clever…the image is from a protest that took place after three police detectives were found not guilty after a fatal shooting in NYC.
Comparatively, here are a couple of captions that were submitted via the comments on the blog:
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“Leroy Johnson of 443 fifth Avenue is that you?
Leroy: Shhhhhhhhh!
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This guy thinks he is hiding that he is picking his nose. We can see you!
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These are kinda funny, but with PhotoCrank, they could have had even more fun with it. Also, with PhotoCrank the winner of the caption contest can automatically be determined based on the what the viewers vote on each Crank, making it very easy to find a winner. For more information on how to add The PhotoCrank Engine to your blog, head on over to this page on PhotoCrank.com.
Taking caption contests to a new level
Unless you have been hiding under a rock while surfing the Web, I would be willing to bet money that each and everyone of you reading this blog have viewed, participated in or enjoyed an online caption contest that was hosted by a website that you visit on a regular basis. Caption contests are basically designed to play off the fact that everyone has an opinion, thought, comment or other reaction when they first look at an image that has been put directly in front of their face - whether they ever say it publicly or not. Pair this with the fact that most of the posted images are completely ridiculous to begin with and that many of them offer up prizes for the most creatively crafted caption, what you end up with is a fun, entertaining and sometimes very edgy way to get a group of people online to display their cleverness capabilities.
The funny thing is that although the technology and interactivity that is now available for web users has changed dramatically over the past few years, it seems that caption contests and how groups of people can choose to participate in them haven’t. Considering that the types of people who are out Crank’n photos every day are also most likely to be the people who love to play along with caption contests, this really got my wheels turning about ways that PhotoCrank can take these old-school caption contests to the next level for those who create and manage them.
Here is how a caption contest would normally play out on someone’s blog or website:
1. A ‘caption-worthy’ image is posted online and everyone is asked to post their best caption into a text comment that can be entered in below the image. For instance, the image below was posted over on The Anti-New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest on radosh.net and everyone was instructed to ‘Submit the worst possible caption for this New Yorker cartoon.‘ This is basically a play off of The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest that is posted each week.
An image that was posted in the latest New Yorker Cartoon Caption contest with captions posted below
2. Captions are submitted, normally through some type of text commenting system that lists them on top of one another down the web page. Depending on the number of captions, this list can grow to be very, very long, which can make scrolling from the posted image to the caption very difficult and annoying. Also, since the comments are text-based and depending on what all is going on in the posted image, it is sometimes difficult to describe who or what is doing the action in the image when creating the captions. This sometimes results in longer captions being needed just to make it make more sense to who is viewing it.
3. After the captions have been posted, the person who is managing the contest is then taxed with the job or searching through all the posted captions for the one that is most deserving of the top spot. This can be very time consuming and is quite a task depending on how many captions were submitted. Also, the people who captioned the image and who are regular visitors to the website have played no part in determining who the overall winner is, which results in less buy-in from those who are involved with the caption contest (readers, contributors, random visitors, etc.).
4. After going through all of the captions a winner is finally selected and is announced on the website. Since no one besides the person who manages the caption contest had a direct say in who was chosen as the winner, the only people who are truly interested and excited about the results of the contest are those who are chosen as the winners. If others could vote up their favorite captions, I would assume that the level of user buy-in and interaction with the contest would be much, much higher.
5. Steps 1-4 are repeated for the next caption contest that is run by the website.
Like I said, pretty old school, right? Thousands of these caption contests are created every day all over the Web and they all pretty much follow the steps above. Crazy, I know - but it’s how these things have always been done and I’m guessing that the people who manage them have never really been informed that there is a better way to do it, an easier and more interactive way to do it, a more fun way to do it. This, of course, is the PhotoCrank way to do it.
Here is the PhotoCrank way to run a caption contest and be sure to pay attention because this will be a pretty quick explanation:
1. A ‘caption-worthy’ image is posted online and everyone is asked to Crank their best caption on top of the image by using PhotoCrank. Everyone is also told to vote for their favorite Crank even if they didn’t Crank the image themselves, which creates a fun and interactive experience for everyone involved whether they are clever enough to come up with a caption or not. I’ll use an image from a New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest as an example again:
2. The image is Crank’d with entertaining captions that everyone can view, vote and Crank withouthaving to scroll down the page and since they can Crank directly on top of the image, the caption is spatially relevant, meaning that those who caption don’t have to describe who is saying what to whom within the caption - they just Crank the captions directly to the image in a relevant way. This makes viewing and creating the captions much, much easier for everyone involved.
3. After the Crank’d captions are completed, the winner is determined by which Crank was given the highest average vote, making it ridiculously easy to determine the winner. No more scrolling through 100 captions to choose a winner that people probably won’t agree with anyways. Let the people decide who has the best Crank and save a ton of time in the process.
4. Announce the winner and post another image whenever you’re ready to have users Crank another caption contest. Almost too easy, isn’t it?
So that’s it, if you are currently managing a caption contest on a regular basis then I think that it’s about time that you give PhotoCrank a shot at making them even better for you and those who are participating on your website. If you need help getting the PhotoCrank Engine up and running on your website so that you can start Crank’n your caption contests, you can check out this page for more info or you can just send me an email at ryan@photocrank.com and I’ll help you out, no problem.
Getting STIRR crazy in Palo Alto
The amount of intelligent, driven and innovative people that I am beginning to meet and actually connect with here in Palo Alto is amazing to me. I have called Palo Alto home for nearly a month now (am I a local now?) and I am finally starting to see the very beginnings of my new ‘real world’ or offline social network starting form in front of my eyes. I wanted this to happen over night, but building a truly valuable and meaningful network takes time, effort and a true sincerity of purpose behind the relationships that you’re building. In other words, don’t be a business card exchanging whore for the sake of simply getting your name out there. Take time to get to know the person that you’re giving your card to and hell, even get a little crazy with it and suggest someone they should meet, give them a new angle to pitch their wares or give them a few additions or thoughts on their current offering. I mean, if you’re going to be a business card exchanging whore, at least be a helpful one with a purpose.
People like it when you help them out, I promise.
One of the main reasons why I am now beginning to notice my fresh and new offline social network is that I have been hitting up tech events around Silicon Valley like it’s my job. Oh wait…I think that actually is party of my job and I guess that should be part of everyone’s job, right? Meeting new people, making new contacts and tightening up your pitch is never a bad thing and the number one way to hit all of these at once is by attending a few events and throwing yourself out there to the masses. I know that online interaction is one of the main reasons why most of us are out here in Silicon Valley, but we need to make sure that we never forget true, face-to-face interaction and the impact that you can have on someone because if it. Meeting someone, chatting with them and engaging them in an actual conversation is powerful stuff and it provides a great foundation for the online relationships that develop from them. Real people rule.
I bring all of this up because last night I attended an event called STIRR: DealHacks right here in Palo Alto. I had no idea, but the event is produced by a guy named Sanford Barr whom I met at the Ash Bash last weekend, where he was walking around with a hat collecting some cash from the party goers - securing funding for the cocktails and BBQ, if you will. He was a super cool guy and even though we only chatted for a few minutes, I could tell that he was someone I wanted to stay in touch with. Little did I know that he ran one of the best events in town - who would’ve thought, right?
The STIRR: DealHacks event describes itself as ‘[an event that] brings together founding teams of startups to connect and forge relationships.‘ They also emphasize that this is not a pitch session by openly stating ‘This isn’t a pitch session and please don’t attend if your only goal is to find funding.‘ Personally I found this event to be very, very valuable and well worth the $20 tickets that got me and my fellow PhotoCrank’rs in the door. Hearing the VCs talk about their experience with startups and how their brains work when it comes to bringing a new team on board was very interesting and engaging, but a little short-lived in my opinion(about 5 minutes). I think that it would have been nice to have a little bit of dialogue or Q&A with them after they spoke as well. I think that this gives the audience a great opportunity to get instant feedback from the VCs that they most likely showed up for in the first place. A little value-add never hurts and it could be implemented very easily.
In Twitter speak (140 characters or less) here is what I thought about each of the presenters in the order that they spoke:
- Jeff Clavier: A down-to-Earth guy who came to the States to fulfill his startup passions. He now runs a VC that is a startup. Has an awesome French accent
- Rob Hayes: He really emphasized that he is looking to not only bring on startups with amazing ideas, but with amazing people who he likes working with.
- Adeo Ressi: Not a fan of the VCs ‘true’ intentions and emphasized that startups do their VC homework. ‘They’ll tell you everything that you want to hear
Also, here are a few images that I Crank’d according to the situation and people that are included in them. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand Cranks (or more).
Tyler (with the burly beard) talks about Involver to his adoring fans.
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Pascale Diaine,a fellow evangelist from Orange, poses with me for a shot.
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Sanford nicely tells the crowd to shut the hell up.
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Meet A Techie Tuesday: Abdo Achkar
In my attempt to write something daily in this ridiculously awesome blog, I have made the official decision to designate today(and every Tuesday from here on out) Meet A Techie Tuesday, where I will attempt to introduce you and the rest of the word to an interesting ‘techie’ that I have met while hanging out here in Silicon Valley. This will give the blog some consistency and hopefully some value to people outside of PhotoCrank, which I think is always a great idea. Plus, who doesn’t like meeting a new and interesting computer geek every now and then?
Due to the fact that I came up with this blog idea about about an hour ago, today’s techie is what you could call ‘the low-hanging fruit’ of the selection process because he is a friend and co-worker of mine here at PhotoCrank. But, believe me when I say that this guy is definitely worth telling you all about and I have no doubt in my mind that you’ll understand why I chose him after you finish reading the following paragraphs. The guy is awesomely amazing.
The techie that I am talking about is my friend, homie and legendary Lebanese phenomenon, Abdo Achkar (Email, Facebook, Twitter). Abdo is an implant from Philadelphia, PA (Villanova University grad) and before that he was an implant from Lebanon and he’s now a developer for PhotoCrank right here in Palo Alto, CA. Here is some more info that you all should know about Abdo - some techie and some not-so-techie.
Abdo loves the outdoors
Although his favorite outdoor activity is playing soccer, Abdo just basically loves anything to do with getting to run around like a crazy man while outdoors. This can include camping, riding his bike, hiking or simply walking from his apartment to Pizza My Heart on University Ave. in Palo Alto.
Abdo likes to climb things
Like I said, Abdo loves the outdoors and for some reason he really likes climbing random things around the Palo Alto area, such as trees. As you can see, I sometimes like join him in his climbing adventures.
Abdo is smarter than me
Abdo is a super intelligent guy and it never surprises me when we’re chatting and he brings up a topic that I have no clue about. I mean, I’m not saying that I don’t know some pretty interesting things, I’m just saying that he knows a lot of them. As far as developing goes, Abdo programs mainly in .NET, but he has an arsenal of other flavors of programming that he’s familiar with - not to mention that he likes to pick up new ones here and there whenever he feels like a little challenge. I guess that smart people do that type of thing.
Abdo can eat and eat and eat and eat…
Whether he cooked it (Abdo’s a great cook, too) or is just eating it, Abdo can put down some food with the best of ‘em. I’m not really sure where all of the food goes though because ‘large’ is one thing that Abdo definitely is not. He must burn it all off while playing soccer and climbing trees?
Well, that’s a little bit about Abdo, our first official techie for the soon-to-be-Internet-famous Meet A Techie Tuesday. I plan on picking a new techie each week depending on who I meet throughout the week, but feel free to send me any suggestions that you may have over to my electronic mail account: ryan@photocrank.com.
Oh, and be sure to send Abdo a hello as well - I’m sure he’d love to meet all of you, too.
Teaming up with ClearChannel and WiLD 94.9
A partnership between the ClearChannel station WiLD 94.9 in San Francisco and PhotoCrank officially kicked off with some major excitement a week ago. To be more specific we teamed up directly with The T-Man Show, which is a top 5 morning drive program in the Bay Area that reaches millions of listeners each and every morning of the work week. Like I said, pretty exciting.
We worked with The T-Man Show from the standpoint that we can add an entirely different way for the listeners to interact with the radio station through the use of the PhotoCrank Engine on their website. Just like many morning radio programs, The T-Man Show has always had various segments that are based upon current hot topics in pop culture or that are created spontaneously due to an interesting call from a listener with an over-the-top opinion on something. In each of these cases usually some type of photo is posted onto their website as a way to let the listeners get a better feel for what they’re talking about that particular morning. We realized that PhotoCrank could be easily and quickly added to each of these online photos each morning, allowing each listener to not only view the online photo, but Crank it as well. This would make each of the photos even more relevant, fun and interactive for the listeners who pulled them up on the T-Man website.
The first week of the partnership has definitely shown us how PhotoCrank can add to any radio station/major media’s online experience by allowing some of the online photo content that is already being posted to be Crank’d by the listeners who want to take their opinions to the next level. This results in more interaction and time on site for each online user (whether they are viewing or Crank’n) which also means a deeper level of connection and loyalty with the radio station as a media outlet. I think that they call that a ‘win-win’ in the biz, right?
Be sure to check out the video below or over here on YouTube to get an even more exciting view of the success that we had with this partnership.