Blogging Present.ly

We’re always looking for ways to make it easier to keep up to date with your co-workers using Present.ly. Recently I’ve been using the Mac Beta of Chrome and thought a Chrome Extension could be a great way to use Present.ly throughout the day. As of today it is available on Google’s Chrome Extension Directory.

The functionality of the extension is still growing, but you can read and post updates to your network as well as view text attachments. It will keep refreshing automatically and let you know when new updates come in, letting you check in without even opening a new tab!

As with all of our client applications, the Present.ly Chrome extension is available as open source on GitHub. We think it’s a great new way to access Present.ly, and we hope you enjoy it!

Coming hot off the heels of the Presently 2.0 release for the iPhone, comes Presently for Palm webOS. Presently for Palm brings most of the same great features from the iPhone version to any Palm webOS device, such as the Pixi or the Pre, with the unique look and feel of Palm webOS applications.

Some of the great features of the webOS version of Presently include:

• Post and view updates
• View your replies, direct messages, and your feed
• View profiles groups and people
• View updates for groups and people
• Join existing Presently accounts
• Create your own Presently account if you don't have one
• ... and much more

With this latest release you can now keep up with your company natively on the iPhone, Android, or Palm webOS platform anywhere you go. Presently for webOS devices is now available on Palm's App Catalog.

A new version of the Presently application has just been released for iPhone and is now available on the App Store. Presently for the iPhone is the best way to keep in touch with your co-workers where you're not in front of your computer. The new version of Presently brings a completely new application, developed using Appcelerator's Titanium Mobile platform, that is packed with many more features than the previous.

Below is a list of just some of the great new features that have been added to the latest version of Presently for iPhone.

• Completely redesigned user interface
• iPhone 3GS users can now post videos with their update
• Can view a list of all users and groups
• Profiles for individual users or groups
• Follow or unfollow specific users
• Join or leave specific groups
• View followers and whom an individual is following
• Search through all users
• Search through all groups
• View last updates for any user or group
• View mentions for any user or group
• View updates from any of your custom feeds within Sources
• View updates from any of your groups within Sources
• Offline-capabilities for your main feed

The new version of Presently is now available for free on the App Store.

We’re always looking for ways to make it easier to integrate Presently into your day-to-day workflow. Today, we’re happy to announce something that will make it much easier for businesses using Microsoft’s SharePoint to integrate Presently. Starting today businesses can use the Presently SharePoint Web Part.

The Presently Web Part will allow you to view and post updates to your company’s Presently account from directly inside your Microsoft SharePoint portal. For more information on the installation and usage of the Web Part, you can visit the SharePoint application page.

We have also released the source code to the web part, it’s available on GitHub. Please feel free to contact support with any additional questions.

Today, Apple has approved the latest version of Present.ly for iPhone. Included in this latest version is an updated user interface. The new user interface ditches the previous dark theme and replaces it with a look that is more familiar to iPhone users and is easier on the eyes. Uploaded attachments can also be viewed directly from the phone. Updates with one or more attached files are indicated by a small paperclip icon within your feed.

In addition to attaching files, photos from your photo library or the iPhone camera can be added to your updates -- a highly anticipated feature. This version of the app provides a more robust user experience by enabling many of the most useful features of the web client. Present.ly is a free application available in the App Store. To get Present.ly for your iPhone click on the link below.

We released another update last night that included a number of performance enhancements. You should notice these as a general improvement in page load times. Additionally, Present.ly now recognizes and automatically integrates YouTube URLs when they are embedded in an update. Just copy and paste the YouTube link and it will automatically appear with a thumbnail.

Additionally, when you click on the thumbnail, you can see a lightbox-embedded version of the video without ever having to leave Present.ly.

We hope you enjoy the new feature and speed improvements, stay tuned for more new features coming soon!

We’re very pleased to be able to announce some great new features we’ve been working on for Present.ly that are being released today. These features are available immediately for all users.

Helping Those Who Help Themselves

First and foremost, the enterprise-ready behind-the-firewall version of Present.ly is now available as a self-service package that can be downloaded and installed for up to 500 users on Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS 5.

What does this mean for you? It means that you will be able to download, install, and run Present.ly on your own internal infrastructure without the need to contact support, go through a long sales cycle, or deal with quotes, waiting periods, or any other red tape. You can simply download, install, and start using Present.ly.

Each downloadable package comes with a 30 day unrestricted risk-free trial, giving you maximum flexibility to try Present.ly within your organization. For more information about the behind-the-firewall self-installation, visit the behind-the-firewall signup page.

A Real-Time Experience

Present.ly is a real-time collaboration tool, and today we’re announcing a great new feature to help you keep up with everything more quickly and easily than ever before. The new real-time feeds provide you instant updates not only from your home feed, but also your replies, direct messages, custom feeds, questions, urgent messages, and system announcements.

Switching between each of these feeds is as easy and fast as clicking on them, and each feed is immediately updated as new updates are posted. In addition, you can see the number of new updates in each feed as they arrive. This real-time interface provides more choice in how you view your updates as well as a faster experience.

Discover People in Your Network

When networks begin to grow, it can be difficult to always know who you should be following, especially for new members. Present.ly now has two features that help you find the right people to follow.

Suggested Contacts

With the new Suggested Contacts feature, Present.ly will look at the people in the network and recommend new people to follow based on a number of criteria, including how connected people in your network are to that person. This gives you an easy way to find those people that probably ought to be in your network but you just hadn’t thought to add them.

Address Book Import

Additionally, you can now import your contacts from GMail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, Plaxo, or Microsoft Outlook and see which of them are on your Present.ly network. Take a shortcut to connecting to your contacts by using the Address Book Import feature!

The Little Things

In addition to the features listed above, we’ve released a number of small tweaks and improvements to make the overall Present.ly experience better. For instance, Present.ly now supports Gravatars for open accounts, providing an easier experience for new users who don’t have to upload a custom avatar.

If you want to share links quickly with everyone in your Present.ly account, you may now add a bookmarklet to your browser from the Links section to allow you to do just that.

Other additions include hovering over a user’s avatar to see his or her last three updates. Over the next week, we’ll be posting more details of the smaller features on this blog, so stay tuned.

We’re proud of the work that’s gone into this new release, and we hope you’ll take the time to try it out for yourself!

Recently, we announced our new feature that allows you to import feeds directly into your stream. We're continuing with the new feature trend this week by announcing our new Account Statistics available for all claimed accounts. To access it, just go to Admin, then choose 'Account Statistics' in the right hand menu.

Charts Galore

The new Account Statistics provides you with a nice amount of charts that should help you analyze the usage of your overall account, your individual users, or your account's groups. These charts are available in all detail levels within your account statistics. You can even view a map that shows the location of all the users within your account.

User & Group Specific Statistics

You may now dig into each individual user and group in your account and view their update trends. You can also view a table of all users or groups within your account and sort them by various metrics, such as their total number of updates, followers, followings, sign up or creation date, etc.



We will be continuing to add more metrics as time passes. Account Statistics is just another one of the useful new tools that are available for our claimed accounts. We'll be announcing more great new features soon, so stay tuned!

A feature that we've recently added to Present.ly allows any account to add custom external RSS feeds directly into one of your streams. You can add a stream just for your own account or you can even add a stream for one of your groups. We also give you the ability to make the imported stream public or private.



To add a new external feed for your own account, move your mouse over 'External' and choose 'Add New External Feed'. From there you can choose a name for your new feed, provide the URL, a description and other various options. Other users can even choose to subscribe to your feed if they would like to. If you are a manager of a group, you can add a feed from the your group's 'Settings' page.



Now you can subscribe to a user's Twitter stream, a Twitter search, or any other type of RSS feed. A great use of this feature is to stay on top of feedback about your company or your product within Present.ly.


We hope that you enjoy this new feature and be sure to check back soon for some great new feature announcements!

In the June 2009 issue of Inc. Magazine, Present.ly was mentioned as one of the best-bet collaboration tools for mobile users. It's becoming more apparent that companies need online collaboration tools that help alleviate the hassle of back-and-forth e-mail conversations and allow users to share information and documents. The article states that 22 percent of companies use real-time collaboration software and around 24 percent use document-sharing software, which Present.ly supports out of the box. It goes into detail on how to choose the right collaboration software for your company and provides real-life examples from different companies.

We are more than honored to be mentioned in a magazine that we all frequently read. If you get a chance, pick up the June 2009 issue of Inc. Magazine.