en.dorse.me moves to public beta

A lot has happened since en.dorse.me took its first tentative steps into the public eye 6 weeks ago.The good news is that the distribution methods that en.dorse.me relies on are now implemented and robust enough for us to move to a public Beta.

As well as a lot of work on the underlying infrastructure of the application, we’ve also localised the interface into Dutch, French, German, Italian and Spanish with more languages to follow.

For new users, the sign up process has been greatly simplified and existing users will notice how much easier it is to create and distribute a campaign.

We’re evolving the application so that independent workers, and crafts and trades people can use en.dorse.me to get testimonials and recommendations from their customers.

So where does en.dorse.me go from here?

Well the road map for October is very clear. We’re going to:

• add more distibution channels starting with Netlog and then moving on to Orkut, Hi5 and other “OpenSocial” networks
• launch a series of widgets that can be embedded on external websites to collect feedback
• redesign the front end of the site
• create screencasts to support users
• translate the interface into more languages such as Arabic and Chinese
• create a dedicated blog for en.dorse.me

In the longer term we may also add support for multiple IM services and SMS invitations and we’re seeking Linked-In approval for integration.

So السلام عليكم and 喂 until the next update and enjoy using the service. You can view campaigns and create your own right now over at en.dorse.me

Online for 6 weeks – en.dorse.me – Redesign for success

If nothing ever changed, there’d be no butterflies.

Endorseme is online for 6 weeks and we want to thank you for all the very exiting feedback we got.

From listening to you, we have learned that …

• in its current form, en.dorse.me must be slightly redesigned in order to be successful
• as you have all confirmed that you love this concept very much, we know we will be successful when we apply those changes

The good news is that these changes are never fundamentally changing the model nor the architecture of the application. We think that it’ll take us about 4 weeks to get the new version up and running and another 2 weeks to do some basic (online) testing which would mean that we could go into “beta” in the first half of October.

Here is a quick overview of the changes we will be working on during the next couple of weeks:

• Simplify the creation of campaigns i.e. one title, one body
• Simplify the website design i.e. drop the multiple layouts, just use the en.dorse.me layout everywhere and go from black to white
• Clearly explain en.dorse.me
• Don’t use en.dorse.me to explain en.dorse.me, it just complicates things
• Add internationlization. English, French, German and Dutch to start with
• Simplify the messaging service i.e. try creating a one-click service
• Add an API for creating and exporting feedback
• Offer widgets for creating and exporting feedback
• Create Facebook apps for creating and exporting feedback

For those of you who have already created campaigns, don’t worry, we will make sure that your campaign will be converted to make it fit in the new version of en.dorse.me

en.dorse.me … the 2 seconds pitch

Found it! Finally The 2 seconds pitch about en.dorse.me is …

Describe your idea and ask the world for feedback

Online for two weeks – en.dorse.me – new features

The past two weeks have been very exciting ones for us at Virtual Sushi. We learned a lot and a bunch of courageous users did use en.dorse.me, some of them as creators of endorsement campaign, most of them as providers of feedback on those campaigns.

Every day of these two weeks, we streamlined the en.dorse.me application, we changed some existing features and we added a bunch of new ones.

Here is an overview:

• The entry barrier for registering has been lowered by showing just five text fields in stead of eight.
• A lot of CSS tweaking was needed to make every page a nice one
• JS validation was added to the html forms of the most important pages (registering and feedback)
• The “Feedback Request Generator” now shows all your Twitter followers in stead of just the first 100
• “About” was added to the site
• “FAQ” was added to the site
• Some filtering and sorting was added to the “Campaigns” page
• The “View profile” and “Edit profile” links were activated
• The quantity of feedback entries was added to each campaign on the overview page
• When creating a campaign, users can now use an inline WYSIWYG editor
• When adding feedback, users can now use an inline WYSIWYG editor
• Inline help (?) was added to the most important entry fields
• Campaigns can now be saved as “Draft” which makes visible only to the creator
• “Feedback moderation” was added to be able for campaign owners to remove unwanted feedback
• en.dorse.me has an API!!! Feedback entries on campaigns can now be downloaded as xml documents or json objects to make them available outside of the en.dorse.me shell

A lot of stuff remains to be done before we can actually move into public betat on the first of September.

Todo stuff:

• Testing the app on other “Grade A” browsers
• Adding plenty of nice campaign icons
• Adding a few very nice campaign templates (css)
• Should we change the look and feel?
• Extend the API. Adding feedback should be possible from ouside the en;dorse.me shell (Facebook, Twitter, widgets, …)
• Activate campaign spreading through Facebook and LinkedIn

Why don’t you try it yourself? Describe your idea and ask the world for feedback!

Online for two weeks – en.dorse.me – lessons learned.

What we’ve learned from the past two weeks that the en.dorse.me proof of concept was online is that it was a mistake to create an endorsement campaign about en.dorse.me itself. It just makes things very confusing. That’s why we’ll be taking the en.dorse.me campaign off line before we go into public beta on the first of September.

Our biggest challenge now is to market this concept without using it ourselves. For that, we are currently looking for innovative people and/or entrepreneurs who are willing to create an en.dorse.me campaign and to use the “Feedback Request Distributor”.

If you are such a person or if you happen to know someone with an idea that is worth spreading. Please, register at http://en.dorse.me/, create your campaign and ask the world for feedback.

Read about the new features we introduced during these last two weeks.

en.dorse.me … what’s in it for me?

From previous posts, we know that en.dorse.me is about generating “Viral Feedback”. We know that through this new service, one can easily create a webpage that describes a concept, an idea or a plan. In fact, one can use this application to get feedback on just about anything. We also know that the “Feedback Request Engine” uses your social networks and email contacts to send messages that contain feedback requests and reseeding requests.

But what does that mean practically?

Here are some examples where en.dorse.me really makes a difference.

1. Job Search

When I want to hire someone, the thing that interests me the most is what other people think about that person. Having multiple positive endorsements from colleges and employers on previous jobs has far more impact than a nice CV.

2. Craftsmanship

I was looking for an electrician. Not just any electrician, I wanted one experienced in installing solar panels. I selected this company that sent me a link to their en.dorse.me page on which some people I know gave some very positive feedback. I just contacted them and they definitely suggest I should select them as they offer a superb service.

3. Local services selection?

A friend told me about the en.dorse.me page of that school I was going to send my kids to. I checked it out and really, I saw some comments of parents that weren’t happy at all about the a lot of the teachers. In one comment, I found a link to the en.dorse.me page of another school just half a mile further away and according to the feedback, that seemed to be a much better choice.

4. Feedback on crazy ideas

I had this crazy idea to hitch hike my way through the US during the next summer holidays. I posted this idea on en.dorse.me and at first, I got some feedback from people around me that had some ideas but later on I got feedback from people I didn’t know but that offered me very detailed information on places to visit, some even with addresses of local hotels and others with invitations to spend the night in their homes if I were to pass in the neighborhood. I decided to go ahead with my crazy plan

5. Global services selection?

I am the owner of three leisure wear stores and I’m thinking about starting eCommerce but I really don’t know where to start and what to expect. Does anyone have any experience with this? That was the feedback request I posted on en.dorse.me. Soon after that, lots of colleges from all over the world had posted their feedback on my page and most of them suggested that I shouldn’t buy eCommerce software as they didn’t manage to be very successful for different reasons I didn’t even think of. Anyway, some told me about the “Merchant Solutions” offered by Yahoo and that really was what I was looking for.

en.dorse.me is a “Public Proof of Concept”.

The en.dorse.me application will be launched in a couple of days and I think it’s important to emphasize that the current version is a Proof of Concept.

Up until know, en.dorse.me has been developed just by me, Jef, a Brussels based freelance Java and JavaScript developer and web entrepreneur (more info is on my site)

Current startup stage

For those of you, not familiar with the different stages of a startup, here’s a little cheatsheet:

Normally, the first time that a startup puts its application online is when moves it to private beta, which is an intermediate stage that precedes the normal beta stage. During this stage, a selected panel of users is asked to use and test the application. In this stage, users should be aware of the fact that once in a while, bugs may appear and they silently agree to send useful feedback to the creator.

For en.dorse.me, the Pre-Alpha stage is still a far away goal! The application that is (will be) online is just a proof of concept of an idea I had about two months ago.

Why this premature launch then?

Because I want to know what people think of this idea and this is what en.dorse.me is all about, in fact it’s an inverted catch22.

The best way for testing this app’s “viral feedback” concept is by using the app itself. I will be asking the social networks close to me and those not-so-close to me for feedback about en.dorse.me itself.

And if that turns out to be a success, …

I will be needing help

• The app needs to be completed therefore I will need extra Java and JavaScript developers

• The app needs to run on highly available and scalable servers, it should have unlimited resources and it should have load balancing and fail over. Therefore I will need people that are experienced in creating apps on Amazon’s EC2 platform.

• Lots of extra campaign icons and html templates have to be added to the pool of selectable resources, therefore, I will need graphic designers and web designers.

• I will need money, of course, there’s always the money to be able to cover all these expenses.

• And I will need buzz marketing and therefore, I count on all the Techcrunches of this world to start blogging and twittering about en.dorse.me.

• And finally, I will need a lawyer who will help creating the company and who will protect the company by attacking other lawyers and by defending it from attacks by other lawyers. Strange world we live in

Those of you who like this idea and this venture, please feel free to contact me to discuss possible ways of collaboration.

en.dorse.me in 120 words

... in 120 words (created on http://wordle.net)

Check the source on wordle

Go to en.dorse.me

About http://en.dorse.me

Twenty days from now, I want the proof of concept of “en.dorse.me” to be up and running somewhere on a testserver.

EN.DORSE.ME IS ABOUT GETTING FEEDBACK ON SOMETHING ONE WANTS TO DO, WANTS TO CREATE, WANTS TO BE, WANTS TO TRY, …

WHY IS THERE A NEED FOR BEING ENDORSED:
Satisfaction of the self-esteem (cf. Abraham Maslow)
When Physiological Needs, Safety Needs and Belongingness and Love Needs are more or less satisfied, people will have a need or desire for a stable, firmly based, usually high evaluation of themselves, for self-respect or self-esteem, and for the esteem of others. This 4th Maslow level of needs is the first level that is not being satisfied for more then 50% of the people in the Western world.

EN.DORSE.ME HAS TWO COMPONENTS:
1 – A website that offers the possibility for people to create a personalized page where on the top part, they describe an idea, concept, plan, … and where the bottom part can be filled with feedback elements.
2 – A “Feedback Requesting Engine” that uses the social networking messaging systems (mail, webmail, Facebook, Twitter, Netlog, …) to send feedback requests that contain …

• a) a request for feedback
• b) a request for spreading the current request

Sample feedback page: http://www.virtualsushi.be/foundation/endor/

I NEED HELP:
I’m working alone on this project and I even if consider myself as being a very good project manager and a fairly good web craftsman, I’m also a lousy marketeer, a bad graphical designer, a social disaster and I really suck when it comes to creating the buzz. So if you believe in the concept and you are a bright marketeer, a fantastic graphical designer or a VC with some sleeping seed capital, please get in touch. It’ll be my pleasure to tell you about the business model behind “en.dorse.me” and maybe we can work together on a first private beta.

Enter the social entrepreneur

All this Meltwater and Ghana stuff from the last couple of months got me thinking about having a bigger positive impact on the world around me. OK, my wife and I are Plan parents, we donate to Unicef, we have helped refugees, we sold one of our two cars, we placed solar panels, … So you could say that we are Socially Conscious Citizens, right? But maybe there was even more to be done.

I started reading…

Then, I decided to become a social entrepreneur which is according to wikipedia …
… someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change.
And according to Ashoka, social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems. They are ambitious and persistent, tackling major social issues and offering new ideas for wide-scale change.
So now I’m a social entrepreneur. I only need a business plan to get things started. Well I do have this idea that I’ll talk about in the next post.