Getting close

So I haven't been blogging about it as much (as I've been busying DOING it), but I've made some very good progress on tagZar.

User login and sign up is done. A listing of possible URL's is in (defaulting to the top one ATM).

The site is up (but password protected) at http://www.tagzar.com/tz.

Paul signed the NDA last week and has been playing with it. He's still debating if he things it's useful :) It actually took a bit to explain what the site does. I REALLY need to be able to (in a few words) be able to describe what tagZar is all about.

The ability to set up a user profile (with photo) is in. I say who first submitted the url/tag combo, and people can view their profile. A "T" icon is next to each known tag. Users can click on that to see detailed info about it - and can comment on the tag.

I've got several ways to browse tags - still working on the big cloud right now.

I've cleaned up the look and feel; it's finally getting pretty set.



I still need to work on user profile, showing what a user submitted and what they voted for. I also need to consider un-thumbsup'ing, or even thumbs down. And I need to look at freshness - over time, a handful of sites will rise to the top, and will be very hard to dislodge (as everyone will just vote for them), so getting "top in the last 24 hours", "top this week", et al. will be very important.

I need to get the patent done - or at least the prelim. I continue to be frustrated by the lack of innovation support in the Columbia area - Even on projects that have been very successful (StationRipper, for example), I've found it tough to get any partners or help. While I realize this can always be true of startups and new ideas, I personally believe a lot of it is just Columbia, SC - I'm not tied into the network here (and probably never really will be, considering I'm from the North). I've tried to get some help working on the patent from a local patent lawyer, and got a "do it yourself" response. Always fun :)

So, just a few things to finish up. Then HAVE to nail the patent so I can go live. Need to consider if I want to just release under the current LLC or form a new one.

Web Site

So this weekend I've continued to crank along - this time on the web site. Paging is solid, listing of tags is working really good (still want to add some snaz to that). The rating of each site is coming back, and voting is working (all AJAX - works really well! Sends the vote back async, and on return updates all instances of that site on the web site with the new # - which may be +1 or could be more, based on what's happened since the page last loaded.

If a new site is detected via "Top" (which does a prefer:site:site instead of straight site: restriction), and the user clicks to vote for it, it asks them to enter in the info (desc, tag) and the site gets added.

Still need to do user login and sign up. And on "Add", I want to auto go out to the site to pick up the description and any meta keywords as tags (and maybe the new tag stuff). I need to have a better way to get the main URL - For instances, as a general .NET resource, msdn2.microsoft.com is great... but is the found page is deep down, I don't really want that full URL... just the top. So I'm going to put in some recommendations to the user and list some possible choices to URL's, and let them pick among that list (sometimes want more than just the top domain).

I've also been thinking about suggesting keywords. If I can track what has been search for under specific keywords (removing any user data), when the user searches for something similar, I'd like to return the search results... and recommend two or three tags that MIGHT be better suited to search under. Need to think about that, as the processing time on that could suck a bit.

Also need to look a "Freshness" on votes. And a few other things, like browsing tags/sites (to add tags), adding tags on the main site, adding a messages for each tag and each web site (e.g., user discussion)

I've switched over the DNS to my dedicated server, so I can get the site to beta whenever. I am still mulling over trying to do a patent on some of this, so will need to do non-disclosures with the Alpha users.

Anyway, very solid progress. The only thing I HAVE to do to start Alpha is the user setup and login. And a way to view and add tags on a site. The rest are things I can continue to work on.

And oh yeah, I need to teach it :) For this to have ANY use, it needs to have a solid collection of tags and sites. Otherwise people will play with it, go yeah cool but doesn't help me find what I'm looking for and go elsewhere. Going to be interesting, as I need a lot of people using it to really get a high quality set of tags and sites... but need a solid set of quality tags and sites to attract users. Fun :)

Off to Bonefish and dinner with B - going to try to work on this more after she goes to bed.

Progress

I've made some solid progress this weekend (mostly Friday night, as B and were doing stuff since mid-day Saturday).

I have done the first pass of: Submitting a new link with tags, relating tags together (I was right, kind of nasty.. and I have more to go), ranking, calling the search engine with the search + restrictions (using MSN right now - st00pid G00gle seems to have turned of access for this kind of thing. Guess only THEY want to do R&D against their stuff). I've also get the front page of the web site with some a semi-click AJAX app to get the top tags... and you can drill down, which shows the drilled down tag with related tags to that drill-down. You can enter a term and click search, get the restricted site search back.

I need to get the drill down slicker, but all in all, the site is usable for straight searching w/ drill downs.

Beyond improving the drill down, I need to get the login working, along with voting and site submission (most of the underlying work is done with that - just need to get the interface).

I've been thinking about this technology for a while - but am still surprised how quickly it is going together. I've thought out most of what I need to do, so it was just a mater of DB design and code.

On the business side, I need to start looking at doing a LLC (might not do under after release, to see how it goes - just use Ratajik Software, LLC). And I *REALLY* would like to investigate a patent on this. So far I have not made public disclosure, but that will change when I start a beta. And this blog is set to private, so unless Google is reading it, I should be ok.