Keeping true to some of our favorite missions (making Pegshot the best “placecasting,” “brandcasting,” and “eventcasting” tool on the planet), we’re here to announce that you can now fully customize your Pegshot pages in under 1 minute. This means that every time someone views one of your shots, it will occur within a theme of your choice.
To make things easy on you, we made it possible to simply copy your Twitter customizations. In fact, if you are currently sharing shots to Twitter, we took the liberty of auto-customizing (<—is that a word?) your Pegshot pages for you:
We get really good questions about Pegshot all the time. One of them is “how do I get started?” Easy enough and worthy of a quick blog post to point people to…
iPhone Users
If you are an iPhone user, simply search for “Pegshot” within the app store > download the app > sign in with your Facebook info or create a new account. If you are reading this blog post on your iPhone, and want to download Pegshot right away, Click This Link
Android Users
If you are an Android user and want to get the Pegshot app, search for “pegshot” within the app store and download it. Apologies in advance: you will have application envy if you compare our Android app to our iPhone app. The Android app (as of today, May 7th, 2010) is in alpha form and is in dire need of an update. We are working on it as quickly as possible!!
Start Pegging!
Once you are a new member, simply open the app and start pegging shots! After you take a shot, be sure to make a selection from the “Location: Choose a Place or Event” menu. This way, all of your shots will populate our place and event pages in addition to your Pegshot feed page.
That’s it!! You are now a proud Pegshot member. Enjoy!!
Pegshot started as a simple yet powerful way to share videos and photos of what’s happening where you are. Since our release (in mid-December, 2009), we have found that many of our members are extremely psyched on Pegshot Events. We’re happy about this and wanted to write a brief post about how to organize your friends and team members around your event.
First: What is the Goal of a Pegshot Event?
The goal of pegging shots to a specific event is that you can create a real-time media gallery of your event and drive awareness within the real-time web about what’s happening at your event. Great! What you’ll also have is a historical reference of that event: something to be proud of and refer to whenever you need to (maybe while promoting your next event?).
How to Organize an Event on Pegshot
Once your event is created within the Pegshot app, it will appear for every Pegshot user at the event, behind the “location” or “where are you?” button.
To add your event, simply take a shot within our app > select the “location” button > hit the + symbol in the top right of the screen > add your event
Add your event, with as much detail (#hastags etc) as possible. Now everyone that uses Pegshot will see that event listed within the area of your event. All shots that posted, with your event selected from behind the “location: where are you?” button will hit a pages like these:
Remember: the more detail you add to your event, the better. Hashtags get posted to Twitter, and therefore people following your event there will find shots posted using the Pegshot app if the right hashtags were added.
If you don’t know about PSFK, you should. To us, it means a lot to have them post their thoughts about Pegshot because few teams know more about trends related to branding, culture, design and tech.
URL shortening 101 In the Twitterverse* every little character counts. You have 140 characters to say what you need to say (good luck getting that song out of your head). Consequently, users often engage in URL (link) shortening. Link shortening helps you to compress long links into shorter links via services such as Betawork’s Bit.ly or Hootsuite’s Ow.ly. Using a URL shortener can enable users to include a URL that would otherwise not fit and/or allow them to include more descriptive info in their tweet.
Pegd.at: Your Shots Just Got Shorter Some of you have expressed interest in shorter URLs for your pegged shots. Ask and you shall receive! David (@funnylookinhat) just rolled out our (your) new shortened URL this week.
If you haven’t Pegged a shot recently, give it a go and see for yourself. Here’s an example of the URL in action…
Of all the things that have changed for the better, here is our shortlist of favorites:
It’s extremely easy to connect with your Facebook friends through the “more” tab; all you have is enter your account info for the service and we’ll present your friends that are on Pegshot.
Flickr = done! Post your shots once via Pegshot and auto-share to Flickr (this was added to our existing distribution to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Posterous)
Search: find your pals, find a specific shot, or find all the shots related to a specific place or event.
Game On! Every shot pegged will now earn you points, allowing you to compare yourself to the other shot peggers around the globe. Additionally, the person that posts the first (or most) shots of a place/event is referred to as “The Hotshot” of that location.
The game has already gotten heated for those that have had the app for a couple days. We expect it to become a lot more fun and we expect to apply points in some extremely valuable ways. More on that later….
We were going to wait and show these later, but someone decided to leak them early :( So rather than let them steal our thunder… here’s your sneak peak at the new Pegshot set to launch on April 16th.
A short while ago we announced ‘Place’ pages on Pegshot. A place page is created every time you peg a shot and tag it to a place (business, park, school, etc.) within the Pegshot application on your mobile phone.
What Makes a Place Page Special? Place pages help us all spotlight and celebrate our favorite local businesses. Shots (videos & photos) pegged to the same location are bundled together on each place page creating a community driven real-time media feed for that place.
In the example above, Christian pegged three shots @ Wahoo’s Fish Taco. Now let’s say you decide to visit Wahoo’s next week to participate in your friends annual taco eating competition. Peg a few videos of the mess fest and your shots will automatically be included on the Wahoo’s Place page on Pegshot! Additionally anyone who visits Wahoo’s page on Pegshot can pronounce their appreciation by clicking on the ‘Like’ button. Watch the video above to learn more and get pegging!
“Newcomer, PegShot, did a superb job identifying our POI. This app is fun, simple to use, and accurate!” - LBSZone.com
The LBSzone just rated Pegshot #4 among popular location based services for accuracy! While our focus is not really on check-ins, we are supremely interested in helping you showcase what’s happening where you are (via Videos & Photos). In this case accuracy matters. We’re proud to be listed and ranked alongside many of the companies we admire including Yelp, Foursquare, Loopt, BrightKite and GoWalla. Thanks to LBSZone for taking the time to share their results!
NOTE: The post you are about to read was written back in 2007, however it was never published. This is the original post. I’ve only updated the links as a few had expired. I’m hoping to post a 2010 follow up later. ~ Phil
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In 1979 a British group called ‘The Buggles’ released a song, “Video Killed the Radio Star”. The prophetically titled song was the to first music video to broadcast on MTV and ushered in 20+ years of music video marketing. The irony here is that video did not kill the radio star one bit - it simply extended their reach and influence. For the first time, a small band with even a modest audience could seemingly release a video one-day and become bonified superstars the next. Sure the music wasn’t always the greatest but who cares, you got to see them play on a Television right there in the comfort of your own teenage bedroom. All of America bought in and records sold like never before.
But you still needed serious money to shoot a video. The equipment was expensive, airtime cost a fortune, and the label controlled everything.
Then came the Internet
Yeah it sucked at first, 56k modems, waiting hours to download one song let alone a video. But the potential was there. Fast forward a bit, it’s now 2007. Technology has caught up with inspiration. The kind of professional equipment that used to cost 50k now cost less than the TV your shooting it for. Sites like YouTube and MySpace have popped up enabling any band with a computer and an Internet connection, to shoot and upload a video.
Why does this matter?
Now a small band can seek success without relying on a publisher (major label) to connect/find their audience. The band self-publishes and lets their audience find them. And they’re doing it droves. Just look at the numbers, according to Reuters, ‘there are over three million indie bands on MySpace’. And each one of those bands can now reach over 100 million people.
Music Lessons for Local Business Owners
Local Businesses (especially new ones) have a hard time finding an audience. Just like a local indie band, customers are not going to find out about you if spend all day playing in your own ‘garage’. Corporate America (franchises, chains, etc.) is beating you but not because they have money, droves of human capital or global market dominance. No, you’re getting beat because corporations invest in marketing (i.e. hiring ad firms, publishing commercials, branding everything and everyone) while you stick to the status quo. You sit there in your store, waiting for customers to come in and buy your products. Ok perhaps that’s not 100% accurate. Of course you publish ads in newspapers, coupons sent out in mail (that go right in the trash), handout flyers on the streets and stuff SALE signs in your front window; I could go on and on. All this money spent just to get them inside as ‘potential’ customers, and most people still have no idea what makes you any different than that ‘Starbucks’ around the corner. Let’s face it; instead of publishing a song or album, you’re too busy practicing in you’re own garage.
You have a story. You know why people love your business. I’m willing to bet you have customers that come in every day, most of them even know you by name. You probably sell something that can only be found in your neighborhood. Or maybe it’s just your service. Everyone loves your service. Whatever it is, it’s local and part of the fabric of your community. One band’s song is another business owner’s story. Tell your story online with video. What are you waiting for rockstar?
Pegshot helps you instantly share any video or photo and its location straight from your mobile phone. Show off what's happening where you are on Facebook, Twitter and more. Get started →
Pegshot helps you instantly share any video or photo and its location straight from your mobile phone. Show off what's happening where you are on Facebook, Twitter and more.
