Sayabit

Sayabit LogoToday Techcrunch wrote about Sayagle’s first product called Sayabit, a links based file storage service which not only shortens and redirects long URLs but also gives you the ability to upload images, documents & files for sharing via short personalized URLs.

About Sayabit

Sayabit, pronounced “SAY A BIT”, is a links based file storage service from Sayagle which not only shortens and redirects long URLs but also gives you the ability to upload images, documents & files for sharing via short personalized URLs.

  • Upload & store your images, documents, PDFs, excel files & powerpoint presentations
  • Transfer large files seamlessly via email, Twitter & instant messenger
  • Password protect your important documents & images
  • Shorten and redirect long URLs
  • Know when and where your files are being viewed
  • Personalized URLs to easily share all your files at once
  • Access the historical performance of your links & files
  • Monitor Twitter conversations about your links & files
  • Unlimited memory capacity to store as much as you want

Sayabit is powered by Sayagle and headquartered in Cambridge, MA. Sayagle is the first location-based social networking marketplace that allows users to collaborate, connect and communicate with friends and merchants, anytime, anywhere.

Twitter: Getting Younger & Stronger

According to research from Pew Internet Twitter is not only growing fast, as we already knew, but it it attracts a younger audience than the other social networks.

“Some 19% of internet users now say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves, or to see updates about others. This represents a significant increase over previous surveys in December 2008 and April 2009, when 11% of internet users said they use a status-update service.”

“Internet users age 18-44 report rapid uptake of Twitter over the last nine months, whereas internet users ages 45 and older report slower adoption rates. For example, 37% of internet users age 18-24 use Twitter or another service, up from 19% in December 2008.

The median age of a Twitter user is 31, which has remained stable over the past year. The median age for MySpace is now 26, down from 27 in May 2008, and the median age for LinkedIn is now 39, down from 40. Facebook, however, is graying a bit: the median age for this social network site is now 33, up from 26 in May 2008.”

#BostonIsBetter

Over the weekend I decided to launch a social media experiment that would create worldwide recognition, awareness and a fine display of hometown pride for Boston. So with that I decided to tweet the following at 10:18 am Est Monday October 19 via @BostonTweet

Can we do it? Make #BostonIsBetter a No. 1 trending topic & tell the world why #BostonIsBetter than other US cities.

To my huge surprise it worked! Bostonians are raving about their city, NY is getting upset at us and #BostonIsBetter has become the 5th most popular topic on Twitter in just 6 hours! It cracked the top 10 in under 2 hours.

Ahhh, the power of Twitter.

WFNX – My Song is Better Than Your Song

On Thursday I had the pleasure to be on The Sandbox at WFNX for My Song is Better Than Your Song to compete against Boston mayoral candidate Sam Yoon. My choice, U2’s Bullet the Blue Sky – my all time favorite Edge song where he let’s the guitar, distortion and energy rip through his amp via a bluesy strat.

Sam’s choice was Under Pressure by Queen and Bowie. Being a massive U2 fan in Boston, where U2 fans are plentiful, I thought I would easily secure the votes needed to defeat the unstoppable Sam Yoon. However, once again Sam Yoon won handily with a 2:1 victory over BostonTweet. Even with the loss, my time on WFNX was an absolute blast! After a few minutes of butterflies I was at ease behind the microphone and quickly became addicted to being on the radio.

A very special thanks for the invitation to @SandboxCharlie, @SandboxFletcher and Special Ed (sorry Ed I couldn’t remember your Twitter ID).

Sayagle

sayagle_logoAfter more than a year of development Sayagle is almost here. Sayagle is the first location based social networking marketplace that connects consumers with friends and merchants in real time. By integrating the web with mobile communications, social mapping, instant messaging and enterprise level security Sayagle has created one of the safest and most effective collaboration and networking platforms known.


mockup-IM-loginSayagleIM enables friends, classmates and colleagues to communicate across all mediums & networking platforms for unrestricted messaging. With drag and drop file transfers classmates & colleagues can collaborate on files no matter the size or number of recipients. Have an event to promote? Create and distribute the logistics via SayagleIM for broadcast to your connections. Think of SayagleIM as command central that controls all of your communication across the major Internet platforms – while also notifying you of events hosted by friends and discounts from your favorite merchants.

When online SayagleWeb combines your real world with the virtual one by being the first platform to effectively create a symbiotic relationship between merchant and customers. This symbiotic relationship enables customers to request bulk discounts from merchants by forming influential buying groups centered around a specific product or service. For merchants, Sayagle’s advanced coomunication tools give you a direct form of communication with users to broadcast last minute specials & bulk discounts to customers.


mockup-phone-iconSet to launch in September 2009, Sayagle Mobile integrates SuperDeals with the communication features of SayagleIM and the mapping of Sayagle Web. On Sayagle Mobile SuperDeals are published to you based on both your home address and your current physical location. Sayagle Mobile is also highly focused on security! With the Sayagle SOS button users can instantly notify emergency contacts of their exact whereabouts in times of distress – giving everyone peace of mind.

Sayagle is the brainchild of Ken Huang who built Sayagle on robust clusters of state-of-art server infrastructure with high availability and implemented with the latest stable enterprise level virtualization technologies and SAN storage. Ken leads a team of experienced professionals who individually have at least 13 years of IT infrastructure experience, 10 years of R&D experience and 8 years of business experience.

For media inquiries please contact me, Tom O’Keefe, at 617-947-8071. Sayagle is currently self-funded but we are seeking additional financing. If interested please also contact Tom.


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Virtual Goods & Profits

Sayagle was once again mentioned in the latest Mass High Tech article on virtual goods. The article focuses on the Cambridge based Viximo but includes the following about Sayagle:

Sayagle Inc., a location-based services provider, launched in private alpha last month, has future plans to reward frequent users with virtual ‘pets,’ endowed with artificial intelligence designed to fetch and filter desired goods and services. 

Sayagle in Mass High Tech

Sayagle MHTSayagle is featured in this week’s edition of Mass High Tech.

The application will let users get together based on location and common interest, to form ad-hoc buying groups that can use the leverage in their numbers to negotiate special offers on goods and services — everything from lunch to concert tickets and big-screen TV’s, said company founder Ken Huang.

“Sayagle is a real-time communication platform,” Huang said. “It actually brings the consumers and merchants — the two sectors — together.”

Huang, who is also a co-founder at the web-based annotation service WebNotes Inc. admits it will be difficult to draw users away from established location-based networks like Google Inc.’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) Latitude and Boston-based uLocate Communications Inc.’s Where application. He hopes to do so with a built-in instant-message application that integrates with AOL, Google and MSN chat networks, and allows users to quickly post photos and screenshots for friends.Sayagle bridges the real world with the virtual one unlike any application previously known.  By integrating the web with mobile communications, social mapping, instant messaging and enterprise level security Sayagle has created the safest location based social network ever known.

Citizen Journalism for Bostonians

BostonTweet Header

Over the weekend @BostonTweet and @SJCallan launched a new section on BostonTweet that enables any Bostonian with a Twitter account to index traffic, MBTA updates, news, music and other updates to BostonTweet.com.

By including @BostonTweet and and any of the below hashtags in a new tweet, Bostonians with Twitter accounts can instantly update the below pages on BostonTweet.

  • #Traffic – post up to the second traffic updates on the Boston roads and highways
  • #MBTA – real time updates about delays and breakdowns on the T and commuter rails
  • #News – reports on local news as it’s happening – anything you feel is newsworthy
  • #Food – food reviews, specials and any post that talks about food & restaurants
  • #Drink – drink specials and any tweet that deals with going out for drinks in Boston
  • #Music – gigs scheduled at the bars, clubs and music venues in greater Boston
  • #Sports – any tweet talking about social sports or the Pats, Red Sox, Bruins, etc.
  • #Sale – tweets about retail sales in Boston
  • #Tweetup – a listing of Tweetups scheduled throughout the Boston metro

Twitter Your Way to Bargains

MSNPicture 6Thanks to @MelindaFumer of @MSNMoney for including @BostonTweet in the MSN Money article entitled Twitter Your Way to Bargains:

And don’t forget to follow some local tweet aggregators in your city if you want to find deals at restaurants, happy hours at bars, free concerts, cheap haircuts or just new, inexpensive places to shop.

Search for people by your city name and look for users posting deals in your area, such as @BostonTweet and @NewYorkology, to find gems like this: “@Bostontweet: Free burritos today at the Natick @Boloco from 11am-8pm.”

Improper BostonTweet

Improper BostonTweetThe most recent issue of the Improper Bostonian is all about Boston’s best restaurants, bars, shops and more. I’m (aka @BostonTweet) ecstatic, and grateful, to be featured at the beginning of the list.

Thank you Improper Bostonian (@TheImproper) and thank you Kimba (@KimbaKimba) for the photo.

Twitter Down

BostonlogoOn Sunday Twitter accidentally suspended thousands of accounts including my @BostonTweet. Of course this came as a great to surprise to me and “scared the bejesus” out of me until I realized that I hadn’t done anything wrong. What also came as a (pleasant) surprise were the numerous “Free BostonTweet” tweets and the article from the Boston Phoenix about my “downtime.”

In response I commented that I took the evening off and went to JP Licks with a friend but due to my “suspension” I was forced to contact that friend via the ancient form of communication known as the telephone. This was yet another revelation on how reliant I’ve become on Twitter as a mode of communication – a form of communication that takes precedence over email, text messaging and the telephone. So with that the below headline is hilarious but sadly true.

SHOCKING: Boston man’s Twitter account suspended, uses TELEPHONE to ask friend out for ice cream

Restaurants on Twitter

On Monday the Boston Globe published a feature article about the increasing number of Boston restaurants using Twitter to connect with their customers. In addition to talking about local restaurants the Globe also interviewed BostonTweet about my support of everything Boston. Below is an excerpt from that article, which thanks in large part to John Pepper @Boloco includes BostonTweet:

When Boloco wanted to set up focus groups, market research that would have cost thousands of dollars, the company turned to Twitter. Pepper contacted Tom O’Keefe, an online business developer (and avowed fan of Boloco competitor Anna’s Taqueria) whose Twitter stream, @BostonTweet, has more than 6,000 followers. “Within one hour we had 50 people,’’ Pepper said. “It not only saved us all kinds of money, but it turned out to be an amazing group.’’

O’Keefe says he started BostonTweet as a way to create awareness for local restaurants and bars in the down economy. BostonTweet hosts frequent tweetups, events where those using Twitter, a.k.a. tweeps, meet in real life.

“It’s great for business,’’ he said. “It gets people in and they spend money, but it’s also a very vocal group. People talk about the event leading up to it and while they’re there,’’ posting to Twitter via cellphone.

It’s also fun. “I meet so many great people,’’ he said. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.’’

Article Source: The Boston Globe and GlobeDevraFirst

iPhone OS 3.0 Software Release

promo_iphone_os3_image20090317The iPhone OS 3.0 software upgrade will be available on June 17th.

Boston News

Widget1Over the weekend @SJCallan and I launched the BostonTweet Widget. This widget is powered by Twitter & BostonTweet.com and gives anyone with a website the ability to add the Boston news feed to their website.

Not only does the widget pull information from @BostonTweet but it also allows anyone to post Boston news to the app by creating a new tweet with @BostonTweet in it. 

Get the code to spread the Boston Twitter community.

BostonTweet Widget

BostonTweet will soon be releasing a widget which can be embeded on your website and be updated by you for broadcast to all the embeded widgets. The BostonTweet widget enables anyone with a Twitter account to report Boston news & events directly to the widget by creating a new tweet with @BostonTweet in it. Currently you can broadcast updates directly to BostonTweet.com in the same manner but with the new widget we bring Boston news & events to a much larger audience!