GoTryTHIS News and Techniques

Since people started installing version 2, we have had various random and hard to duplicate reports that SetupBOT would fail to connect via FTP on GoDaddy hosts. This has finally been solved, requiring several changes to our installer code.

We will be uploading the fixed version of SetupBOT soon. If this has happened on other hosts as well, this fix should likely work there too.

In the last post, I wrote a quick summary of what is new in the last release. Here is a video showing all the changes and the new co-branding bar.

This upgrade is now available for all version 2 users, both installed and hosted. It will soon be available for all version 1 people to upgrade to as well!

We have upgraded the hosted dashboard with a new version, with several changes. This is part 1 of the upgrade. Part 2 is the upgrade for your individual domains, which will be coming next week after we do some more testing of the upgrade procedure. At that time, we will also release the latest version for version 2 installed owners. Once support dies down from that, we will open up the free upgrade to version 1 owners!

What’s New:

1. Easier Cloaking: We made it easier to cloak links, with three options right in the main (“Basic”) tab. So, you can now choose to have cloaking off, on, or on with the branding bar. Then you can go over to the “Cloaked” or “Bar” tabs to further customize the cloaking and branding bar, or just leave it at the defaults.

2. Less Saving: Now when you add and edit a link, you have access to all the link tabs, without saving between each tab. Yes, the way it was drove me nuts too! Now when you save, instead of a popup telling you it saved, a less obtrusive notice appears to the right of the “save” or “update” button.

3. Indicators: When a link is cloaked, has the viral bar turned on, has affiliate information included, or has notes, an orange bar appears above the appropriate tab to indicate there is content there. So, when you move through links in the link list, the indicator bars quickly show you what is on a link. The same style indicators also appear above the “Search” and “Filter” tabs to indicate if the link list is showing only a subset of data.

4. Referrers: The links in the referrer list are can now be clicked to open the referrer in a new tab/window, or right-clicked to copy the link address.

5. Refresh: Each of the grids/lists now has a “Refresh” button above them, which is more obvious than the little ring of circles in the footer of the grids. (Grids show the lists of links, domains, referrers, campaigns, and IPs.)

6. Show All Links: Previously the way to clear filters or tags, etc was to click “All tags” in the tag list, which was confusing. We have replaced that with a “Show All Links” button to the right of the “Search” and “Filter” tabs, so it is accessible at all times.

7. Cheat Sheets: The green “?” button on the right side of the orange header pops open a window. That will soon have quick start cheat sheets to walk you through most of what GoTryTHIS does, without leaving the program. Those are being worked on.

8. Co-Branding Bar: We have replaced the old viral bar. The new version is co-branded with a “More From {custom text}” button, which you can edit per link and set defaults per domain. It also has your affiliate link for GoTryTHIS automatically added! This will not work until you upgrade individual domains, which is the second part of the update, coming next week.

9. Various Bug Fixes: There are various fixes to the dashboard and the code that goes on each domain, so upgrading both is strongly recommended.

This is the version I have been waiting on for doing a bunch of videos, as it is much closer to the release version. Next week, I will write a post about what we are working on next to get us to the release!!!

Thank you all!
John.

The installer will be down for a while starting sometime on Wednesday, during which time we move it to a new server and new domain, get the Zend and Ioncube licenses moved, change DNS, etc. We will try to keep this downtime as short as possible.

I keep hearing of various marketers getting sued for various reasons, mostly unknown to the public.

The latest big one has Oprah and others suing 50 marketers for using their image in their marketing without permission.

This suit targets “deceptive advertising practices in the marketing of acai berry products and other dietary supplements.”

They are suing “for copyright and trademark infringement against approximately 50 companies, including advertisers, suppliers, ad networks, and affiliates.”

There are a lot of examples of practices in the affiliate industry that can get you in trouble. Be careful out there.

First, a big “Thank you” to everyone helping us out with the GoTryTHIS 2 beta and to everyone patiently waiting for their upgrade. In a lifetime of application design work, this is bigger than everything I have managed before – combined – so it is a bit of a learning experience.

Here is where we are at:

1. Schedule
Rackspace Cloud Servers (formally Mosso) had a bad run of things with several bouts of downtime, slowdowns, and various obscure things that work unexpectedly differently on their cloud hosting solution than at any other web host. This created a great deal of extra support and necessitated a lot of extra coding at the same time to combat their systems. It put us at least two months behind schedule. The good news is that they have sorted out their power issues, have added extra capacity, are looking into the other problems their system is creating for us, and are giving us several months of free hosting. Most issues have vanished, which is a promising improvement. (Despite these problems, RackSpace Cloud Servers is a great host for web applications that need to scale. So far, we have not had to do a thing for scaling to meet demands of clients.)

2. Known issues
We have a handful of known issues, which we are working hard to correct. The biggest is these random “data transfer” and “The requested operation cannot be completed because the connection has been broken.” errors within the dashboard. We are running various tests to find the causes. There is also some work being done on counting unique people (not clicks) when using an image with a GoTryTHIS link to the image. We are also investigating one server compatibility issue where links do not redirect instantly as they should. The slow link issue has effected less than five installs so far and we believe we have just identified the server environments that this happens on, which is a big step forward to solving it.

3. SetupBOT enhancements
We have been working on some changes to SetupBOT so that it can identify any problematic issues with your server configuration in advance. Now, if required, SetupBOT will tell you what to ask your web host to enable, before it does anything. (We have not added the slow links issue in yet, as we just identified the reason.)

Our aim is to make it so that every install works perfectly, first time, on any server. If it cannot, it will tell you in advance what to change to make it so. This is no small feat with such cutting-edge software and such a diverse number of servers out there, but we are getting much closer. Thank you to everyone who helped us identify compatibility issues so far. Later we plan to have SetupBOT check for conflicts with other software on your site as well as server compatibility issues, so you know in advance if a WordPress fix is required.

4. We have another programmer!
We have been looking for the right talent for months and I’m happy to announce, this week we have been training a new programmer. He will be taking over while our main guy is on vacation for a few weeks and mostly working on support and identifying the causes for the three known issues above. If all goes well, the new one will be staying on when the lead returns. Two programmers is the first step in rebuilding the bigger team I used to have working on this, with different people specializing in different areas. Want to help make that a certainty? Tell your contacts why they need to get GoTryTHIS and help get the last of the half priced ones sold. (By the way, this is a well deserved vacation. He has been working very hard and delayed his vacation to get us through those hosting issues.)

5. Free upgrade from version 1
We would like to get the issues above resolved before releasing the update, so it will happen sometime after the main programmer returns. Then we will have two programmers, Robyn, and myself to deal with support as you upgrade, no major issues, and SetupBOT identifying most issues in advance of an upgrade.

6. Sales
I have not been pushing GoTryTHIS 2 in beta hard, partially because of the hosting issues and knowing this vacation was coming up. Things have been pretty stable for a while now, with over 400 clients and many more installs than that. Still, the big push will not happen until we have a real launch, many months from now, with several new features in place and case studies back from you.

As one person recently wrote in,

“Rest assured that within some of the “insider” IM circles your tracking service is highly regarded and quite indespensible.”

So get in while you can and please help us out by promoting. Once the last of the 750 half price spots are gone, it goes off the market until the official launch. And no, it will not be half price then. Tell your friends.

Thank you,
John Reel.

I wrote this post yesterday and had not published it yet. Then today, conveniently for me, and very unfortunately for everyone using it, tr.im drove point 4 below home, big time. Check out what they say on their site!

You need to have a plan for monetization, not a hope that something will work out like so many of these link cloaking services. Even the market leader in free link shrinking services, bit.ly, does not have a strategy to make money in place yet, only plans and hopes!

Link shrinking/cloaking is a vital part of marketing. Before you choose a link shrinking service, ask yourself these questions:

1) Do the links with that service brand you or someone else? Every link you publish improves someone’s branding. Is it yours?

2) Do they have stats or not? Without stats, you have no idea what is working or not.

3) Are the stats open to the public? For instance, with bit.ly, your competitors can go in and see your stats for every link you publish.

4) How do they make money? Is the service a lost leader with the hopes to make money somehow, one day? What happens to your links if they fail to monetize them?

5) Are the links meaningful? Keywords in the link give people some idea of where the link goes, increasing trust.

6) Are the links working from your site? If the service goes under, do your links go with them?

GoTryTHIS brands your sites, has live stats, the stats are for your eyes only, it has a small monthly fee to keep the service up and new features coming, the links are custom and keyword rich, and they work from your own sites! If we ever do go out of business, the worst that happens is you stop paying, and we’ll give all the hosted users their own dashboard license so they keep full functionality.

End result? You cannot lose with GoTryTHIS.com! And it is made for marketers, so it does a lot more of what you need!

Get yourself a spot in GoTryTHIS 2 beta, while they are still available, and half price… if you are not one of the 400 or so people who already have made that brilliant decision.

When the first 750 are gone, we stop sales and start adding new features just for you, until we’re good and ready to launch.

Pass this important information on!

Update: Tr.im has been resurrected for now, but the point holds true.

Thank you,
John.