Socialcam

The official blog of Socialcam

Top Ten Socialcam Celebs

Britney

Britney Spears

http://www.Socialcam.com/BritneySpears

Floyd

Floyd Mayweather

http://www.Socialcam.com/mayweather

Fareastmovement

FarEastMovement

http://www.Socialcam.com/FarEastMovement

Shane

Shane Battier

http://www.Socialcam.com/shane

Omar

Omar Salazar

http://www.Socialcam.com/omarsalazar

Chris

Chris Daughtry

http://www.Socialcam.com/daughtry

 

Soulja

Soulja Boy

http://www.Socialcam.com/SouljaBoy

 

Carl

Carl Thomas

http://www.Socialcam.com/carlthomas

Mc

MCHammer

http://www.Socialcam.com/mchammer

Lupe

Lupe Fiasco

http://Socialcam.com/lupefiasco

 

Mobile A/B testing made easy

We do a lot of A/B testing at Socialcam. Web optimization and testing is a mature field, with many great articles (http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2991-behind-the-scenes-ab-testing-part-3-final http://20bits.com/articles/statistical-analysis-and-ab-testing/) These techniques require a little tweaking in a release-software model where new code can't be pushed every day. We've built a fairly simple system that allows us to run mobile A/B test with minimal friction. A few people have emailed about how we do this. I'll describe the entire system here.
 
The first piece is analytics. We use Mixpanel for this. It's a great product. Mixpanel allows us to log events with associated properties, and provides a web interface to slice and analyze the results. Basically, Socialcam is chock-full of mixpanel events. Now, this does get expensive (especially given our recent growth! Ouch Mixpanel bill!). Rather than reduce our logging, however, we decided to sample users. That is, only one out of every N users logs anything to Mixpanel. We get complete data on a sample of our users.     
 
The next component of our testing system is our configuration manager. The configuration manager is a simple class that, on app launch, sends a MAC address (unique device ID) to our server and pulls down a JSON dictionary with key-value configuration pairs. Then, it provides a bunch of accessor methods like:
 
- (id) objectForKey:(NSString *)k default:(id)d;
- (int) intForKey:(NSString *)k default:(int)d;

Each accessor takes a default value, and returns this default if no configuration value is found for the provided key. This allows us to sprinkle server-configurable values throughout the code. Anytime we write code with a value that might ever need to be changed, we wrap it in a configuration manager call, passing in an initial value as the default. This is easy, requiring no work outside of a source file we're editing, but means that we can change the value later by returning a value from the server. In fact, we consider every string in the app changeable, and wrap every one in a macro that maps to a config lookup with the string as the key and default. Thus, any text, button color or cache time can be changed on the fly, without a code push!

So, using Mixpanel we have a detailed record of every user of our app. And with our configuration manager, we have the ability to make major UI changes in a per-device basis without pushing code. All that remains is to track those changes. To do that, there is a special dictionary that is pulled from the configuration manager on app launch. This Experiments dictionary is just a set of key-value pairs that are registered as super properties with Mixpanel (properties that are included in every event). So, if we want to test making the login button red (or giving the video capture view a snappy title; or suggesting more user on account creation) we set config keys on a sample of users to make this change, set a 'button_color':'red' pair in the Experiments dictionary. Then, to evaluate the results, we go into Mixpanel, and slice our existing funnels on the 'button_color' property. No code pushed. The full power of Mixpanel funnels to evaluate the results.

Problem solved!  

Ammon Bartram - CTO Socialcam

 

Socialcam 3.2 - Video Sharing Made Even Easier!

With this version of Socialcam we wanted to make it faster and easier to share your videos with friends and family.  Now you can send a link to your Socialcam videos to anyone in your contact book or anyone you are connect to on Twitter and Facebook.  All you have to do is type the first couple letters of their name and we do the rest.

In addition to sharing there are a bunch of smaller improvements:

Comments now appear in the video feed
New user profiles
Request videos from friends
Share videos on Facebook pages
Significant speed improvements
Fixed video focus
Other assorted bug fixes

Thanks for using Socialcam!!!

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Socialcam filters take off!

 

Here are updated numbers in the 2 weeks since launching filters:
45% of videos shares on Socialcam have filters
400k downloads
84% increase in daily app opens
69% increase daily video viewers
50% increase in video creation
Most popular filters: 70's & Electronica 

To celebrate we are releasing 2 new filters:
Cartoon (experimental filter)
Iowa (vintage filter) 

Here are some features that have been released recently:
Facebook videos now appear in Socialcam (with synced comments/likes)
Socialcam videos can now be uploaded to Youtube 
Video analytics are now available on the Socialcam website 

Thanks for using Socialcam!

 

Socialcam 3.0 with filters!!!

Socialcam_filters
(download)
Socialcam 3.0 features: 

Vintage filters: 1970’s, Bohemian, Noir, Sepia, Rouge
Experimental filters: Electronica, Acid, Foil

Fixes for Twitter and Tumblr sharing
Bug fixes

Download here: http://bit.ly/pEICUT

Enjoy!

Socialcam 2.6 - Launch to camera!!!

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Last week we launched version 2.6 that had a feature that many video creators were requesting: Launch to camera!  Now you can choose to have Socialcam launch straight to the camera view allowing you to capture video faster and get back to having fun.  We also snuck a like button into the video player to make it easier to give your friends a high five for taking a cool video.  Finally, we knocked out some of those annoying bugs.  Enjoy!

 

Socialcam Newest Release - Version 2.5

Hello folks.  In this release existing Socialcam users will now see that comments/likes on their videos are synced between Socialcam and Facebook.  In addition we’ve added a badge to our app icon that tells you the number of unread activity feed items you have.  For new users we’ve dramatically improved the sign up flow - ensuring a better experience and a higher likelihood of finding friends on the app.  For families interested in privacy we made the private account toggle a bit easier to find and we also made it easier to block followers you don’t want from your followers list.  Finally, for everyone we fix a number of nagging bugs and added some polish.

Thanks again for using Socialcam!

- Michael

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Socialcam for iPhone v2.4 Now Available

We've heard you loud and clear that you want privacy features. Now you do! With the release of Socialcam for iPhone version 2.4, you can make your videos private, approve followers before they follow you, and unfollow your contacts should you decide to. Update now! 

To turn on your privacy settings, simply go to the "Account Settings" tab, and toggle the "Videos are Private" option. 

 

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