Thoughts and Feelings and Things

Announcing comments on TikiWade. I added a new feature where users can leave comments on listings. Including the listings owners. You can leave comments on any listing, items, real estate, etc... To leave a comment you must have an account and be logged in, but anyone can see the listings by clicking on the number of comment in each listings page.

We will also be adding the ability to comment on a user, but as of right now it is just on listings. Please try it out and if you have any suggestions you can leave me a "comment" at wade@tikiwade.com.

Thanks

Picture this

A picture can be worth a thousand words. Your words can really help describe the item that you are selling, and can point out facts that a picture might not be able to do, like dates, or specs, or sizes, etc... but what a picture does it make the item that you are listing real to the prospective buyer. If they can see that you really have the item, it makes the item more real to them and gives them more enticement to pick up the phone or contact you using he contact link.

Please consider adding photos to your listings if you don't already have photos with them.

Wade

Autumn Update

It's been a great summer, lots of fun and enjoyable weather for relaxing and taking it easy.

I updated TikIWade with some important changes. First, now all those keywords that you have been adding to your listings are now being used in the searches, along with the keywords for ads too. I also added several other little tweaks here and there in the UI that some users have been mentioning, like displaying a hand pointer when the mouse is over the quickview to alert the user that they can click on it. Same with the tiki image in the upper left, and several other little things here and there.

Wade

Tag your it

I updated TikiWade this morning with a very important update. The new addition that you will see when creating a new listing is an entry field for "keywords". These are terms that someone might use to search through TikiWade to find your listing. These are admittedly not used at the moment, but will be very soon. This is just the first phase.

The next part will be when I change the search to actually use these tags to find listings on TikiWade. So please start adding keywords using a semicolon (;) to separate the words or phrases out. An example for a car might be "dodge:charger;sedan;4 door;silver". Adding the same word multiple times (i.e. dodge:Dodge:dOdGe) will not work, only one "dodge" will get entered and all searches are case insensitive anyway.

Some small underlying changes needed to occur to make this work. They should hopefully not have any impact on normal operations.

I also changed some of the queries for the ads to help speed them up, more to come on this real soon.

Thanks
Wade

Thanks

I want to thank everyone who came out to help put together meals at Feed My Starving Children in Eagan last Saturday. We had a great time and were able to be a part of putting together over 26,000 meals.

We were also able to give them a sizable donation thanks in part to you by creating new accounts and listings on TikiWade, all for free. I really love being able to be a part of this.

If you have other ideas of ways in which TikiWade can help please let me know.

Thanks
Wade

Vacation

I was able to take the family to Florida for a little vacation this month. How refreshing and fun, and it gave me some time to think more about advertising on TikiWade. I was able to implement a new approach to advertising that I think will work well. You should be seeing these ads on the site now, as a test.

I also needed to redo statistics gathering for all listings, and you will notice that the number of views is reset. Sorry if that is an inconvenience to you, but TikiWade is still under development, and I will try to keep changes like this to a minimum.

If you are interested in advertising on TikiWade, or have suggestions, please email advertising@tikiwade.com.

Thanks

Feed a Village

We want to feed a village but we will need your help to make it happen. How can we feed a village, by using TikiWade of course. During the month of July, for every new account that gets created and posts a new listing (entirely for free I might add), we will donate $1.00 toward Feed My Starving Children. We will also be having a TikiWade day at their facility in Eagan MN where you can join us to put together meals.

Please help to raise money for this by spreading the word about it. There is also a PDF that you can download and print out and post in any public areas where you can call attention to it.

Flyer

Thanks.

Wade

I Want...

If you want it, just ask... I added the Wanted category under items as a result of a request of a new user. Please don't hesitate to ask if want a category added, chances are someone else would also like that category too.

I also added the category under each listings title in the search results. I think that this just adds a nice touch by giving an "at a glance" to the category in case the description is not enough.

Bug Fixes, I fixed a problem where searches for some of the listings were not using the radius. As a result we decided to set the default radius to all so that you can see everything by default, and narrow down from there. I also fixed an annoying rendering problem in IE where the map was getting wrapped if the browser width was less than 1000 pixels wide.

Security... Like a warm blanket

I have made the security word much easier to read. YAY!! I also fixed a problem with listing job listings, so they should work now, and I added code so that if a listing does not have an image it will provide the "no image" image in the images place. Try saying that 5 times real fast.

I just want to again thank everyone who is using the site. It is exciting to see it grow and be accepted by so many people. Please keep letting me know about your experiences, good and bad, and feel free to leave comments on this blog as well. Together we can change what seems unchangeable.

More to come

I love all the feedback that you are giving as you use the site and uncover stuff, hopefully some hidden treasures too;-) I just updated the site with some minor things. I changed the tagline, hope you enjoy it for a while. I also fixed a bug where it would report an error in the Core if a zip code was used for searching that TikiWade did not know about. If you get this error, please try another zip code that is near yours as we work to get all zip codes into our database. There was also a problem where the error was not being cleared properly so it would continually be in the search results when searching... I fixed that as well.

There are a number of people who find the security word hard to read, I agree, I'll get working on this ASAP.

Thanks again for using TikiWade, we really appreciate it and look forward to watching this grow.

Announcing... Announcements

Now you can create announcements on TikiWade. An announcement can be a garage sale, estate sale, community event, auction, etc... There is some categories to choose from, and if you would like a category added to announcements, just ask. I also added some bug fixes.

No Account Required

A tiki user suggested to me yesterday that tikiwade would be easier to use if you didn't have to have an account and log in to send a communication to another user. What a crazy concept! Who would think up something like that... Hey... wait... they might be right.

So, thanks to you, the tiki community, you no longer are required to have an account or log in to contact a listings creator using the contact link, or to email a listing to someone. You just need to enter in your email address.

This is a perfect time to let you know that I am listening. Please make suggestions and give me your feedback. I will try to accommodate all requests that seem appropriate and that seem to benefit everyone. Also, categories... if you need a category that does not exist, let me know. I can add new categories as needed.

My email is wade@tikiwade.com

Thanks

Wade

What are you waiting for?

The word is spreading about tikiwade. People are starting to use it, traffic is up on the site, and the media are starting to notice to. Thank you to everyone who is using the site now to try and sell some stuff.

This last week turned out to be an exciting one. Marigale called me to tell me about a radio show on WCCO radio where they were talking about online safety, and suggested I listen. I unfortunately didn't have a radio handy, so I called and asked Brad to listen. About half an hour later Brad, and Marigale, called me back to tell me he had just been on the air!! And that he talked about tikiwade.com as being an alternative to other listings services. WooHoo! Thanks Marigale.

We also had our article printed in the Prior Lake American newspaper, which was also very exciting, and had also helped to get the word out about tikiwade.

We will continue to do our part to get the word out, and I would like to ask everyone who uses tikiwade to also do the same. The more people who know about it, the more it will get used, and the more it will work for everyone.

List it like you stole it

In case you have not noticed, I have been having a little fun by changing the sub heading under the "Your Community Marketplace" for a few weeks now. This week it is the same as the heading for this blog post.

A lot of new and exciting things happening. First off I updated the site last night, changes include a new "Invite" tab on the My Tiki page that you can use to invite others to use tikiwade. We will send an email out to your friends inviting them to use tikiwade. Added a new press release regarding the TikiWade Foundation. Some bug fixes, and some ground work on some bigger up and coming changes.

We also are now in the TechCrunch CrunchBase. TechCrunch is a company that reports on startups and other tech companies. We are excited to be in their company of companies. We are also continually looking for ways to get the word out about tikiwade through news outlets, so if you know of someone who may be interested in doing a nice story about us please don't hesitate to mention us.

'Back' again

A couple of people have noted that to be consistent with the "shopping experience" it would be nice if when you looked at a listing on page 4 of the search results that you searched for, whether it be from a category, a search term, or a combination, that you be returned to the page you were on rather than the initial page. Well... ask and you shall receive (as long as its within reason).

I also took some advice from my good friend Brian Bezanson and added the ability to sort the results by clicking on the column header in the search results, thus getting rid of the need for the individual search buttons and cleaning up the main page. Thanks Brian!

Other enhancements involve removing the min amount/max amount from the search criteria, now that you can sort items by price, and the removal of voting, vote totals, and viewing a list of search results sorted by views (favorites) as I think that this does not add to the experience of using tikiwade.

There is still some more really cool changes that will be coming soon. Stay Tuned!

Fixed...

We found that people were unable to sign up to use tikiwade.... Not good!! So I was able to fix that last night. Whew! Now on to business. I am having a lot of fun on twitter. There is a lot of cool people using it and I can catch a lot of interesting tidbits from other users that I have followed in the past, but not in real time like this. It is a lot of fun.

I have some ideas for some new enhancements for tikiwade, but I'll keep them under wraps for the moment, but there are some really cool changes coming soon.

Also, Brad and I are being interviewed by the Prior Lake news paper. I'll post a link to the article when it is available online, but in the meantime here is a link to the paper doing the story http://www.plamerican.com/.

We get down to Business

Some changes that have happened since the last post. First off, you may now change your email address, that was not possible before. We also are also implementing the ability to have a "TikiNews" mailing that will go out to users. I will just use it to let you know of changes. If you do not want to receive emails from me, you can just log in and go to the "My Tiki" -> "Settings" tab and un-check the "Receive TikiNews" box. No other action is required. We added a few new pages too. You will notice the links at the top have changed, we have added press releases and thanks.

Next is the bigger change. We changed the title "Services" to "Business" as that seems more appropriate for the types of listings that are going into that category. We also worked very hard to beef up the list of business categories for that section. As always, if you don't see one that you need, just drop me a note and I can add it.

Enjoy, and thanks for using tikiwade.

Long Night

It was a long night while I was online watching the tweets fly by on twitter and enjoying watching the race between Ashton and CNN when Dave Grohl, at least I hope it is really Dave Grohl, came online. He finally responded to one of my tweets and we were able to have a little conversation, I even uploaded some photos for him to enjoy. It was really cool being able to connect to someone whose music I enjoy so much and with whom I would normally not have such access. That is what makes twitter exciting for me. If anyone can verify the "reality" status of @davidgrohl I would appreciate being in the know too.

Have Dinner on Us

We have begun our very first contest. We will be having a weekly drawing for a gift card to a local restaurant, and a tikiwade sweatshirt (sizes and colors vary). All you have to do is create listings on tikwade. For every listing you create, you are entered into the drawing. There is no limit. The more listings you create, the better your chances are at winning. Please see the contest rules here: http://www.tikiwade.com/tikiwade/inc/contests.jsp.

Cleaning the Clutter

Some exciting changes on the site over the weekend. First I increased the text size on the search results, and on the 'My Tiki' listings. I also added a 'contact seller' link on the bottom of each item listings description text. The reason was that it was not obvious to select the button with the question mark to contact the seller.

The BIG change was with the 'My Tiki' page. I separated out all the categories (Items, Real Estate, Jobs, Services) into separate tabs, to allow the user to narrow their view. I also added pagination to the listings so that you are only presented with 10 at a time, like the search results. This will greatly increase the page load time and cut down on scrolling through listings.

Some more minor changes, I removed the listings end date displays and instead chose to put in start date's. I am still displaying the number of day left, which changes to hours:minutes:seconds when there is less than 1 day left. I think that overall it provides more valuable information and cleans up some of the clutter.

Everything in Between

Some more minor updates. First off I added a First and Last button to the page controls under the search listings. I think this will help make page navigation a little easier. Next, I changed the controls under the photos to similar numbered controls, to make it more obvious that there is more than one picture. Also, if you click on the picture you will be brought to the listing.

You will now notice that the first listing will always be loaded into the quickview, so the quickview should never be empty. For those new to the site the quickview is the viewer on the right side of the main search page.

The logo has also been updated. We added a 'TM' next to the tiki guy and made the word BETA smaller. Thank you so much Kara for all your hard work on this. And to Ben for creating the original logo.

More to come, we are really starting to kick off marketing tikiwade. In fact, there is an article on tikiwade in the classifieds section of the latest Midwest Mopars newsletter. I am so excited. This newsletter goes out to around 500 club members, myself included because I am a member! Thank you Marigale! And Midwest Mopars!

If you would like to learn more about Midwest Mopars you can go to the clubs web site at http://www.midwestmopars.com

Feed your RSS

This weekend I was able to update a few things and make a few changes based on user feedback. The first is that the pagination controls on the bottom of the search results now work properly. Now that we have more than 10 pages of listings I was able to find and fix that bug, thank you to everyone for all the listings!!!

RSS Feeds are now live and working. The system will go through every 10 minutes and update the RSS Feed for all listing types (Items, Real Estate, Jobs, and Services) So you can just select the RSS button in the upper left hand corner of the search results to subscribe to the feed. Note however that the feed os of all listings, it does not just show a feed based on your search results, at least not yet.

We changed some wording, you now need to select the "Post To Classifieds" link to log in, on that page is a sign up page if you do not have an account. There are some more changes in this area that I won't mention here, but you may notice.

Please keep adding listings, we really appreciate it.

Midweek update

I know, I usually only post update on the weekend but I wanted to get this out now. I added a new feature to tikiwade that should bring in more outside eyes to all the listings that we are creating. It will allow the google search engine to see the actual listings that you create, and should hopefully increase exposure of these listings.

What this means to you!!! You need to try to be very descriptive words in your listings, words that will match what other people might type into a search engine when looking for what you are creating a listing for.

Oh, and as a result, there is a background processing feature that is also up and running that will expire your listings and send you an email when they do expire. I'll continue to add features to this.

Just for U and I

A couple small UI changes that you may not even notice without me telling you about them. First off, when you put your mouse over the search results you will notice that the quickview (the view on the right side) will instantly (high speed internet) get updated with the larger photo and detail. Also, If you just click on the item in the list you will be taken to the page with the full details.

If you are unfotunate enought to be using IE 6 you will notice the 2 main logos in the header will no longer have that grayish background.

There is some other work that I did that you won't see. I added some UI to our reporting so that we can see some of the usage information within the tikiwade server, and I added some more to the rating system, which is adding the ability for users to rate other users. This will be coming soon.

tweet tweet

You can now follow me on twitter!!

Can you say 'Analytics'?

I added code that is now collecting more data on tikiwade site usage that we will use to monitor the growth and usage of the site. Data mining of this sort is often referred to as analytics as it is used to build a profile of a web site and to try to determine what draws users to a particular page or part of a web site. We will be using this data to monitor the sites growth and usage. I am also collecting search terms that we will use to see how people search and what they are searching for on tikiwade.

I loosened up the character checking for listing titles.If you are a geek like me you can now enter HTML in this field when creating listings, but more importantly you can enter in non alphanumeric characters. A few more categories have been added, again please drop me an email at wade@tikiwade.com if you feel a specific category should be added. I also created and added 2 new default photos, the ever popular "No photo Available" photo and the ""Photo Coming Soon" photo. Please email any photo ideas that you may have to me as well, I will review them and add them if I like them :-)

I also found a fun little bug it in the search code that took a while to track down. It was a misplaced parenthesis that was causing quite a problem as it was preventing searches from working properly, but searches still ran without any errors...FUN!

We continue to see listings being added to the site. This is great, please keep adding stuff and help us all to make tikiwade successful.

Wade

Updates

Moving right along now... We had our first meeting with some sellers this last week that went extremely well. Everyone was positive about the site and the potential that they saw in it. As a result of that meeting a few changes were made, and one bug was found and fixed. First off, I added the following item categories, clothing: Boys, clothing: Girls, Sporting Goods, and Vintage. I also fixed a bug where the items list was not properly sorted when searching for "most recent" items, which was also the default search. Also, when you are the high bidder on an auction, and you get outbid, you will now receive an email letting you know that you have been outbid. tikiwade of course still has the live auction in place, so when you are viewing a listing, if the price changes the web page will notify you through a dialog and you will see the price change.

I also worked on the iPhone interface and have this farther along, and working better than it was before. I have not made it live yet, but I'll keep working on it and release it when it is ready.

Other suggestions that were made include not showing the map, because it seemed distracting, and just showing it when someone clicks on the city and state. Creating a user rating system, that has been mentioned a couple times now so that will probably get done sooner rather than later.

Thanks for using tikiwade!

Wade

Listings...

We are in the process of trying to get as much content (item listings) on the site as we can. We are doing this by reaching out to our friends and the community that will ultimately make tikiwade successful, and are also the target for tikiwade.

We of course do not want to leave out the other categories (Real Estate, Jobs, and Services), please also add listings in these areas as well, or if you know of others who work in these areas, please suggest that they take a look at tikiwade an put their listings on tikiwade, it is free, and it is a tool that they can use.

So please create an account on tikiwade if you don't already have one and create some listings for some stuff that you want to get rid of. This includes stuff that you might want to just give away.

Thanks!

Wade

Ready...Set...GO!!

We are giving it a green light for launch. I have been working really hard on getting the final touches of the new tikiwade core server engine wrapped up and I think I like what I am seeing. The code it way faster than it was before, and can now handle a lot more traffic. Brad did a lot of testing on it over the weekend and agrees that it is ready, so... Here it is.

www.tikiwade.com

Okay, so tikiwade is a listing site for hooking up people that are selling stuff with people that are buying stuff. How is tikiwade different from craigslist and eBay? Well first off tikiwade is 100% free. You can post as much stuff as you want, you can have up to 4 pics or a video of the item you are selling (quicktime only for now, we'll add other formats as we grow). You are able to manage your listings in a very elegant account manager. All listings, when they are created, must be given a zip code, this indicates what area the item is located in. All searches for items on tikiwade are performed around a zip code, so you look for what you want and choose how far you are willing to go for it. Listings can be auctions, and there again, tikiwade is free, no listing fees. tikiwade also has some social tools too, for instance you can vote on listings, I know it might sound a little weird at first, but hay, lets see if people can vote their own listing to the top of the favorites pile;-)

That's it, it is that simple, but the difference is in the experience. I think that you will find that tikiwade is much more user friendly that some other sites that perform similar functions.

We need you! Yes tikiwade needs you in a BIG way. All the content on tikiwade comes from you. We need you to choose to use tikiwade over the others, we need you to try it out and not just try it once and give up. We need you to try it and tell others about it, spread the word in your little circle that there is something better than the other that is free, and safer (tikiwade does not contain personals).

Please give it a whirl and let me know (wade@tikiwade.com) what you think.

Thanks,

Wade