Many of the YackTrack users have noticed that there have been some problems on the site. Typically, you may be getting some sort of “Proxy Error” or “HTTP 502″ error. This is all due to performance, mainly the number of services YackTrack supports at this time. I want to continue adding services, but the performance issues obviously take priority. What is the point of a service supporting 40 services if you can never see the results. I have put some minor changes in place in order to eliminate most cases of the errors, but the pages are loading very slowly in some cases. It seems like some queries are taking slightly longer than 3 minutes, which may even timeout your browser.

In the next few weeks, I will be introducing very few new features or services. Most, if not all, of my time will be focused on better performance. Obviously, we are looking at various caching methods, but the focus needs to still be the future of the site. There are still some “big” features planned for YackTrack, and I want to ensure that I can add these features without causing more performance problems.

I apologize for any inconvenience the performance issues have caused, but hopefully the issues will be rectified soon. Also, thank you for your continued support and promotion of the site. I still say that YackTrack has the best users and this support has definitely made the development of YackTrack more fulfilling and exciting. So, keep an eye out for updates her on the blog.

Just a quick note to all the YackTrack users. I received an email from my hosting provider that they will be performing system maintenance tonight, Tuesday June 10 between 7PM and 9PM Eastern time. During this time, there could be a brief outage of approximately 30 minutes. I apologize for the inconvenience but at least the hosting provider actually told us something.

First, I wanted to apologize for not posting much lately. Life has gotten in the way, and I have not been able to get much time to sit and write much of anything. This includes development on YackTrack, which brings me to the point of this post.

YackTrack now has its own feed flare! Many thanks to J. Phil aka Scribkin for creating the first version of the
FeedFlare. So if you have a FeedBurner feed, you can add a personal FeedFlare pointing to http://yacktrack.com/ytFeedFlare.xml. If you have subscribed to this blog, then you should see a “YackTrack This!” link in the feed now.

Disqus support is finally complete for now. Thanks to Daniel Ha for sending me the various ways Disqus commenting is integrated on a site. Now if you have problems with Disqus comments and YackTrack, there is a real issue, not just some “default forum” problem.

Another great note is that YackTrack won a Mashup of the Day award on Friday. I think this is due to YackTrack users continuously saying how great the service is in various conversations. Again, thank you to the users!

In case you have not noticed, this is the official blog of YackTrack. It has been a few weeks, so it is time for another update from YackTrack. We have added TypePad/MoveableType blog support assuming that the comment feed is in the default location. This gives us some support for the three major blog platforms! We have also added support for IntenseDebate, so if you are a DumbLittleMan.com reader, you can follow the conversation from YackTrack.com as well. Disqus support improved some thanks to their team, though we still assume your forum is basically the same as your domain. A few defects that were found by our users were corrected, and some general cleanup was finished as well. The Help page has been updated to better reflect the current state of YackTrack as well.

RSS Feeds and APIs

Yes, that is right, YackTrack now has RSS feeds! Given the type of content YackTrack deals with, the feeds are standard RSS 2.0 but may not be in the best format. The standard RSS format lists each comment from each supported service as an RSS item. This format is not so useful for parsing information, but it should be fine for an RSS reader. You will notice that when you run a query for a URL or a keyword, you now see a subscribe link as the first result.

Given that a normal RSS feed is not very useful for a developer, there is a different, extended RSS format for the YackTrack API. So, if you are a developer, you can take a look at the YackTrack API Description to get a better idea of what data is being provided. On the same page you will see that there is also a JSON API! For developers, the JSON API is probably the most obvious, and is very straightforward as well. Given that this is the first version of the API, the only “real” call is a query that replicates the standard URL and keyword searches.

As usual, please let me know of any feedback or questions you may have, just email feedback at yacktrack.com. Also, a YackTrack FriendFeed room has been created to share ideas feedback and stories. I hope you enjoy the new feeds!

So, two and a half weeks ago I announced the release of YackTrack.com, a service meant to show the distributed conversations occurring on the internet. The coverage and feedback for the tool have been fantastic so far. Given that there was such a good initial response, I decided to take YackTrack into further development. The next phase of development is now complete in the form of YackTrack Chatter.

What is YackTrack Chatter?

YackTrack Chatter takes conversation tracking in a slightly different direction than the standard URL search. Chatter allows you to enter a keyword or phrase to search. Chatter is not meant to compete with Google, but Google does not typically search social media well. So Chatter’s focus is on social media sites, just like the URL search. A keyword search can yield slightly different results because you are not tracking a story or a blog post. You are tracking mentions of the keyword. I even talked a bit about this in The Twitterization of Customer Service, when Michael Arrington had his problems with Comcast.

So, what does it look like and what does it do? Well, it has its’ own tab on the site named “Chatter”. The interface is very easy to use, just enter a keyword and hit the “Search for Chatter” button. The results will look very similar to the URL search as the general idea is the same. Chatter searches on Mixx, Technorati, Google Blog Search, FriendFeed (and whatever services it decides to return) and most importantly Twitter powered by Summize.

As you look at the results above, you will see that some slight interface changes have been added. It gives the sight a cleaner feel, so hopefully you like the new look. Otherwise, the interface is basically the same as the URL search. Keyword results are listed within their reporting services.

Any Other Changes?

Yes, there is more! You will also notice that FriendFeed results are now listed with the actual service that generated the result. This allows for a better viewing experience if there is a lot of information. I have also added Google Blog search and Blogger/Blogspot searches to the standard URL search. This gives a more complete search when tracking a blog post.

Hopefully, everyone likes the new Chatter service as much as they liked the original YackTrack service. More importantly, I hope this gives everyone a good idea on what features they want in the service. I know that blog plugins are a big request as well as saving URLs. Now is your chance, what else do you want?