Survcast – New Survey and Site Performance Upgrades

Survcast.com is pleased to announce the release of a new build that provides substantially improved site performance, survey related upgrades and now operates in the cloud.  Due to traffic load and some technical issues we found a number of bottlenecks that have been addressed.  We have also improved the survey taking experience by incorporating the latest technologies, and by adding survey results graphics.  We are working on improving survey results graphics further and adding reports, but for now at least results appear within a few seconds, or in some cases immediately after submission of a survey.

If you are an existing Survcast.com user please visit the new and improved site, and let us know if you experience improved performance.  If you are a new user let us know if you had a pleasant experience – we would love to hear from you.

Please take a moment to provide your feedback via this Surv™:

Survcast.com shatters traffic expectations, causes site performance issues

As many of you know Survcast.com launched our feature limited alpha test site and used Twitter as our primary promotional channel beginning March 2011.

Survcast.com quickly ramped to millions of page-views from over 130 countries.  This traffic shattered our estimated traffic load during alpha, and caused slow page loads as well as numerous site outages.  We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused our users and  are doing what we can to address this matter.  We are also amazed by the global interest in our service.

The image above shows Survcast.com  traffic averages from  May through August 2011.  During this period Survcast.com averaged 109 thousand visits and over 858 thousand page-views per month.  Over 700 contributors have joined and continue to create Survs™.  A “Surv” is a user contributed content survey  relating to pre-existing news, blog and/or video content.  Bloggers, journalists, editors, activist, and people from many diverse backgrounds continue to contribute in spite of of our site performance issues.

Clearly people all over the world are interested in leveraging the first online service designed to give them control of the news analysis process.  Our alpha test proves that people will take the time to create and take news surveys.  We look forward to seeing you on Survcast.com.

Thank you for your ongoing support!

Try it yourself click the Surv it™ button below to take the Surv for this post:

New workflow features make taking Survs easier!

In this post we will explore recent changes  to Survcast.com and as always provide a Surv™ to enable you to weigh in with your opinions.

New story workflow:

If you are a regular user the first thing you may notice is that our button labeled ‘opinions’ has been removed.  To access the user created content survey a.k.a. Surv™ all you have to do is click the story title, or the ‘surv it’ button. This action takes you to our details page where you can take the Surv™ and review results.  To access the source content locate and click the button that says ‘read-full-story.’  This action takes you to the story on the source website.  The “read-full-story” button can be found on Survcast.com summary pages that display lists of stories and on detail pages, which include the Surv™ for each story.  We include this button on our summary lists so that you can link to the source content at any time without having to access the detail page first.  You can review the location of these buttons in the image associated with this post.

Short link:

Each story details page that includes the user created Surv™ now includes a short link.  This feature converts the details page long URL into a short URL.  This makes it easier to share the Surv™ on social networking sites and to embedded a link to the Surv™ within content such as blog posts.  To locate the link look for the ‘short link’ label click it to expose the link, copy the link next to the label and past it wherever you want.

We made these changes and additions to help our users locate and share Survs™ more often while supporting ways for them to easily access the source content.  The more people learn about the power of community controlled news analysis provided by Survcast.com the sooner our Surv it™ process can help benefit society by measuring and exposing public opinion about popular subjects.

Try it yourself click the Surv it™ button below to take the Surv for this post:

Welcome to the Survcast.com blog

On behalf of the Survcast.com team, welcome to our new weblog.

First, we would like to thank our growing community of contributors and users that have supported us during our wildly successful alpha test, which was in full swing by April 2011. As of August 2011 Survcast.com has averaged over 109k visits and 858k page views per month.

Our alpha test proved that people will take the time to create and take Survs™. A “Surv™” is a user generated news survey.

Survcast.com is a free user contributed content sharing platform designed to enable users to refer content such as news articles, and compose their own surveys using a multiple choice Question and Answer format. They share their story/survey combination e.g. Surv™ with  their social network and our community. Each time a user takes a Surv™ results are published and it’s popularity increases. Each week Survcast.com opens polls. At this time the system notifies our community members and invites them to take the the most popular Survs™. This process increases exposure for source content providers and the contributor. It also provides an incentive for users to contribute quality Survs™. At Survcast.com we believe that the best way to discover what people think about subjects expressed within news, blog and video content is to let them ask each other in ways that measure and expose opinions while preserving anonymity.

To learn more about Survcast.com click here and for more about our features  click here.

Our patent pending Surv it™ process provides ways for the public and commercial entities to monitor Surv™ results to gain deep visibility into the interests of any audience. This way companies can learn what people really think about their products and services including their employees. Politicians can find out quickly if the public supports statements they make to the press. Activists can generate awareness and increase support faster. Bloggers can learn more about the interests of their readers by reviewing Surv™ results instead of oodles of comments, and leverage free ways to grow their audience – publishers can do the same.

To learn more about how Survcast.com can help you gain unprecedented visibility into reader interests and expand your audience click here.

We built Survcast.com for you, the people! Let us know what you think. We look forward to watching the site evolve based on your contributions.

Thank you for your support!

The Survcast Team!

Try it yourself click the Surv it™ button below to take the Surv for this post: