GoTryTHIS News and Techniques

Here is a video showing our new time-limited and quantity-limited scarcity links.

These are a brand new concept for marketers. How will you use them?

We have just released the latest update for the Installed users to get them caught up with the hosted users. From now on updates will follow fairly shortly on the heels of the updates to the hosted version.

This update includes:
- one click updates for future domain updates
- domain problem scanning and alerts
- scarcity links
- new options for multiple links
- various other enhancements and bug fixes

(Note: We are no longer selling the installed version.)

Yesterday we released another new version with some brand new types of redirect links. We just disabled the upgrade temporarily, due to a small bug found. We’re fixing that now and then releasing it again. So, if you did upgrade yesterday you will need to upgrade again today when we turn it back on. (So happy about the new one-click updates!)

The new features will be disabled until you upgrade all your domains.

Scarcity Links:
We’ve added limited-time links, which expire at the date and time you specify. Once expired, they redirect to a second link. Example: Send out an e-mail about a teleseminar, and once it is over, the link is preset to start redirecting to a second offer.

Similarly, we added limited-quantity links, where you set how many people can click. Once reached, they redirect to a second link. Example: Get your list used to opening up your e-mails and clicking quickly, with links that only the first n people who click get a bonus. Let us know how that works if you try it.

Random, Sequence, and Cycle Links
When you add multiple links into the “to url”, up until now, it distributed visitors to each link evenly, in order to split-test affiliate links. We have now added several other options to select from, including sending visitors to a random link, sending them to the first link on the first visit, the second one on the next visit, etc, and then either repeating the last one of the sequence or starting the cycle again.

Why? I don’t know, but we had lots of requests for these and it fit in with what we were doing with the scarcity links, so we added them now. How will you use them?

Updates to the interface:
We have removed the “options” tab and a couple of things in there that were holdovers from the previous version and really did not have any purpose. We replaced it with the “Scarcity” tab for the time-limited and quantity limited links.

We also moved a number of other things around in the “basic” tab, to make important stuff easier to access.

We also added tooltips throughout, so you can figure out what to do with it all.

That’s it for now. I’m working on a new newsletter and a series of videos to show people how it all works.

John.

I’ve starting a monthly video newsletter, which is now popping up in the dashboard when you login, so you know what is going on.

In the May issue, I discuss:
- Why it’s such a long beta
- New version: Bug fixes, domain checking/alerts, one-click updates
- Upgrade frequency for the next while
- Request for feedback
- Need programmers? I’ll hook you up.

Press play below if you haven’t seen it yet. Comments are most welcome.

We have a major new release coming. Everyone needs to upgrade soon! Please take a moment to read about what we have been working on.

THE PROBLEMS:

1) Rare bugs
Over the majority of the beta period, we have been working on various issues that affect less that one percent of users – various server incompatibilities that created serious problems for just a handful of servers each. This is a big source of support for us, slowing down more interesting progress everyone benefits from.

2) Upgrade frequency
Some clients install on dozens or hundreds of domains. Even with 1 minute updates, only about 50% of our clients upgrade each time we release a version. This means we have to group updates together with fewer releases and that half our clients are running versions with known issues.

THE SOLUTION:

1) Problem scanning and alerts. (done)
We have identified 15 issues that can potentially cause problems, and their solutions. These could appear due to changes in your server environment, updates to your .htaccess file, or various odd server configurations. It also checks for any corruption that has occurred for whatever reason, such as links being broken.

This new release will scan each of your domains twice a day. If a problem is found, it will e-mail an alert to you and popup a notice when you login to the dashboard. The notice will have instructions on how to fix it, with many of them fixable through SetupBOT or with just a single click.

If someone discovers a new problem, we add it to the scanning for everyone, so it gets fixed right away without a major upgrade being released.

2) Auto-updating (almost done)
Once updated to the new version, all future updates are automatic!

When installing a domain or this final upgrade, you will be given an option to choose to turn on fully-automatic background updates if your server supports it, do one click fully automatic background updates, or to use SetupBOT as you currently do.

This means we no longer have to group upgrades together, with updates many months apart. Instead, we can release each new feature as soon as it is ready!

WHEN WILL IT BE RELEASED?
We expect to be done the auto-updates in about two weeks. This is a major update that we have been working on for around five months, and has various other things in it as well. We will test it on a handful of people, create a new feature, push it out and test. Then we repeat the process with a few dozen people, and then release to everyone. So, in about a month or less it will be released to everyone, along with two new features.

The moment I read about Google Buzz, my first thought was that it sucks to be Twitter. Then I realized that it is even worse to be Facebook. This is Google’s first iteration of Buzz and it has many benefits due to its design and integration with other Google products. I suspect some people will switch to Buzz from WordPress and other blogs as well.

Here is an article on Buzz versus Facebook I found. (It totally backs me up.)

Most of those arguments also apply to Twitter. Another big problem for marketers using Twitter is that you need short links, which is fine, except they are branded to someone else and do not have keywords in them for marketing. We recently added the ability to shrink GoTryTHIS links onto our twe.to domain so that you can use the same link there. Just like on your normal GoTryTHIS links, the short links are privately tracked live in detail, can be edited, can split-test traffic from Twitter to multiple affiliate programs, and can tell you which tweet to the same link sent the most traffic with campaigns.

However, with Buzz, you no longer have a 140 character space restriction, so you can use your regular GoTryTHIS links, branded to your domains, with your custom keywords in the links. While Twitter is not going anywhere soon, this aspect of Buzz is much better for marketers.

If you have not seen it yet, FastCompany wrote a great Buzz Tutorial.

Our programmers will be off on Thursday December 31st for five days, returning Tuesday January 5th and 6th, and then taking Thursday January 7th off as well.

Please refrain from doing anything to critical installations just before and during that time, just in case something requires their attention.

Happy Holidays for those of you taking them. 2010 will be the year of GoTryTHIS. The best is yet to come!

Thank you all,
John.