by Trish Fontanilla, Community Manager at Vsnap

I felt a little like a 90s R&B group when I was thinking through the beginning of this post… 

“Hey user, 

I know there are a lot of other apps out there… running around and sharing things you don’t want to be shared. Well, I’m here to tell you that I’ll never do that. No no nooooo…”

Okay, perhaps I got a little carried away there. But privacy has been the topic of conversation among some of our new users visiting us from the Twitterverse. And while I know that most of the auto-share talk has been around apps integrated with Facebook, I thought it’d be helpful if I broke it down for our users what Twitter permissions Vsnap uses and how we use them.  

So whether you sign up on Vsnap with your Twitter account or you decide to link to it later (under the Account tab), you’ll come across the page I posted above. The main purpose behind the authorization is to make it easier for you to log in, so that you don’t have to remember yet another password. The secondary purpose is so that you can easily share your vsnap to Twitter. More on that in a sec.

First, the permissions. Without getting too specific, Twitter has us post all of the permissions listed on the authorization page, even though we don’t use them all. Like:

• Read Tweets from your timeline -We don’t use this permission. 
• See who you follow, and follow new people - Or this one. We will never follow people on your behalf. 
• Update your profile  - Nope, not this one either. We will never update your profile. 
• Post tweets for you - Annnd yes. This is the one we use. Do we post advertisements or promotional tweets for you? Absolutely not. You are in control of what is posted via Vsnap. 

So when you get to the share page in the vsnap creation process, you’ll notice a tweet link underneath the “Share” and “Skip” buttons. 

When you click on “Tweet”, this is what the actual box looks like:

We add in some language plus the title of the vsnap, but it’s totally customizable for you. We also shorten the vsnap URL so that it’s Twitter friendly and we give you light analytics on how many people have clicked on your vsnap: 

That’s based on the shortened link, not any Twitter information we’ve gathered from your account. 

And like it mentions in that first picture… we will never:

• Access your direct messages
• See your Twitter password

Hope that clears up some of the hesitation that people have when thinking about integrating their Twitter account. 

Bonus info (but kinda unrelated) - If you are one of those users wondering how to limit what your Facebook apps can do, you should read this: How to Control Your Facebook Privacy Settings. 

Knowledge is power. 

Keep those Vsnap questions coming via the comments below, Twitter, or email. We love hearing from you!

Peace… (I think that’s how Boyz II Men would have ended this post)

Hello vsnappers!

Here’s an update for anyone that is running Windows and using Firefox as a browser. 

Issue: 

If you’re using Adobe Flash Player 11.3 and Firefox while running Windows, you may be experiencing some crashes. The issue stems from an incompatibility with the RealPlayer.

Here’s the note from Adobe:  http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/2012/06/update-on-flash-player-11-3-and-mozilla-firefox-issue.html

Resolution (for now): 

If you can, use Internet Explorer 9+ or Google Chrome. Although if you can’t live without Firefox, here’s a workaround: http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/flash-player-113-crash-mozilla.html

Adobe is working on fixing the issue and we’ll let you know when we have more details. If you have any additional questions, I’ll do my very best to answer them. Send an email or vsnap or comment below! 

Have a great day, 

Trish Fontanilla, Community Manager at Vsnap

http://www.vsnap.com

By Dave McLaughlin, Co-Founder & CEO of Vsnap

Thank you to the folks at Xconomy for inviting me to present at XSITE, their annual summit on innovation and technology. Lots of great folks there, lots of great conversations. (Go here for some pictures).

Here’s a 3-minute clip of me presenting Vsnap to the crowd in their Xpo session with Polaris Ventures’ Gus Weber as emcee. Vsnap won the audience award — thanks to all the clappers! And great job to the other presenters — they were awesome. 

(If you can’t see the video, click here.)

The audio’s not awesome in this clip, so I just want to make sure the reference to Terrafugia makes sense. They’re an amazing company that has built and is commercializing a flying car. Their CEO Carl Dietrich spoke a little earlier in the day. If you haven’t seen what they do, you’ve gotta take a look at their site. 

http://www.vsnap.com

by Dave McLaughlin, Co-Founder & CEO of Vsnap 

A great night for the whole tech/creative community. Here are some of the highlights from the program.

GO BIG

That was the opening admonition from MITX President Debi Kleiman that started off the 2012 Innovation Awards program.

MEGAPHONES

Debi followed that up by saying that the award plaques were still in a warehouse in Ohio, so her team had scrambled and were going to give out old school cheerleader megaphones to each of the winners. It was clever, fun-spirited, and captured the sense of community that was at the heart of the event. As well as the feeling that everyone was rooting for each other, and the idea that along with winning comes the responsibility to champion the community.

CONVOCATION ORATION

The awards were hosted by Jeremy Weiskotten of Terrible Labs (aka @doctorzaius and host of Scotch-O-Clock) who rocked a super-original, very funny riff in which he used 75 or so words that ended in “-ation.” Like, “Innovation is the salvation of our nation” and “any limitation is a figment of our imagination.”

MITX MAN

That’s what I’m calling the voice-over guy whose disembodied voice read off the finalists, Oscar-style. Company name and product name. But for probably 75% of the finalists, those names were the same. So there was a lot of, “And the finalists are: Vsnap. Vsnap. Privy. Privy.” And so on. Pretty hilarious.

By the way, my personal favorite voice-over is the one on Frontline. (Okay, I love Ron Howard on Arrested Development too). And FYI, that actor who does the Frontline voice is based in Cambridge. Will Lyman. Maybe hire him next year? Not only is he an awesome performer with an instrument for a voice, I think it’s also very hard to imagine the whole room snickering at the Frontline guy.

HALL OF FAMER

I think everybody’s favorite part of the night had to be Bill Warner’s speech after being inducted into the MITX Hall of Fame. Here’s the audio for those who missed it.

Bill made this amazing statement that he invests only in intention. He actually finds looking at the product a distraction from his ability to understand a founder’s intention. He used the Declaration of Independence as an example of how powerful a statement of intention can be, how inspiring. To read more about Bill’s use of the Constitution as a metaphor for what happens with a startup, check out this post. And to learn more about his ideas about building your startup from the heart by checking out these videos here. (Thanks, Bobbie!)

MR. CHAIRMAN

Finally, props to MITX Chairman and Mullen CEO Joe Grimaldi, who got pretty damn fired up in the remarks he made before giving out the last few awards. The quote I liked was something like “The future of everything is starting right here in Boston. Just like it has in the past.”

Amen, Joe. Amen.

Huge massive congrats to the MITX team on a great night, and thanks to all of the sponsors. Congratulations also to all the winners, and to all of our fellow finalists. We’re really honored to be working alongside you in this amazing startup community.

And let’s none of us forget the words that framed this whole night: GO BIG!

(For a list of the evening’s winners, check out MITX’s Winners Circle.)

By Joe Nigro, Business Evangelist at Vsnap

My grandfather, Donato Gattineri came to Massachusetts from Italy in the early 1920’s. He worked for his father’s tailoring business in a small town north of Boston. When given the opportunity to take over the family business, he accepted.

There were many great tailors that provided a great price and great quality. My grandfather focused on standing out by really understanding what made his customers tick.

THE SOLUTION:
Donato believed in enhancing the customer experience and here’s how he did it. 

• He fixed buttons on every piece of clothing for free.
• He created the first delivery service in town.
• He would employ only his 7 kids so there was a sense of family when you walked into the store.
• He would also send notes to customers to thank them for their business and their friendship.

Donato understood that he had to do this because there were so many good, affordable tailors within a close distance. In other words, his customers were empowered to choose his competitors. This is true today more than ever. And the only way companies can endure is creating personal relationships with their customers.

Not sure how to do that? Start by looking at your customer experience. Are you going above their expectations or just meeting them? 

by Trish Fontanilla, Community Manager at Vsnap

We always talk about the hows and whys of sending a vsnap, so I figured I’d switch it up this time and give you some information on what the receiving side is like and how to tailor that experience. 

If you choose to send your vsnap via email, the recipient will get an email notification like the one above, minus the red arrows and numbers of course.

1. The subject line of the vsnap notification email will always be: Your full name (or whatever you’ve entered in as your company or brand name) + “sent you a vsnap”. As a premium feature in the future, we’ll allow you to edit that.
2. While the From email says, no-reply-vsnap@vsnap.com, if the recipient hits the reply button in the email, whatever email you’ve associated with your Vsnap account will show up so that they can reply directly to you. 
3. We’ll always add in the title of your vsnap so people know what the video is about. That’s why we encourage you to make your titles descriptive and snappy (you’ve got 90 characters). (Read: Coming Up With a Vsnap Title)
4. The URL is unique to each person you send a vsnap to, that way we can track who has opened the vsnap and display that information under the “Details” button (which only the senders can see). 
5. The email will always be signed with your name (or whatever you’ve entered in as your company or brand name). In the future, there will also be a premium feature that’ll allow you to brand this area of the notification email.
6. A thumbnail of your signature vsnap will be added to the end of the notification email so that people will be more inclined to watch your video. (For more info: Signature Vsnaps 101)

Now if your recipients have PowerInbox installed, the picure above is what they’ll see when they receive a Vsnap notification. What’s different from the regular notification email?

1. They can play the vsnap right in their email interface. 
2. They’ll also be able to download whatever attachment (if any) you’ve added without having to visit Vsnap.com.
3. Your username is also clickable and the recipient may watch your signature vsnap within their inbox as well. 

Lastly, if you purposefully/accidentally delete your vsnap, your recipient will see this page. 

Hope I answered everyone’s questions! If I didn’t or if there’s a Vsnap topic that’s on your mind, please comment below or send me an email. 

Oh and if you’ve never received a vsnap and would like me to send you one, I’d be delighted to! Just send me an email. Alternatively, you can follow us on Twitter because I send a personalized vsnap to everyone that follows us. 

Have a great day!