Collecta Blog – Real-time Streaming Search

Just a quick note to let you all know about the panels that Collecta will be participating in at SXSW this year.

Sat 3.13.10 @ 11 AM – Jack Moffitt is on the panel “Can the Real-Time Web Be Realized” -
Official Hash Tags:: #SXSW #real-timewebrealized
Follow it on Collecta: http://collecta.com/s/sxsw+real-timewebrealized

Monday 3.15.10 @10 – Don’t miss out on the the second annual Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator. Collecta is a finalist this year so come cheer us on!  The event kicks off on Monday and continues through Tuesday for the finals.  Full schedule available here.
Official Hash Tags: #SXSW #accelerator
Follow it on Collecta: http://collecta.com/s/SXSW+accelerator

Wed 3.17.10 @ 2PM – Brian Zisk is on “Social Networks and the Future for Musicians“.
Official Hash Tags: #SXSW #socialnetworksmusicians
Follow it on Collecta: http://collecta.com/s/SXSW+socialnetworksmusicians

If you are not already, follow us on Twitter for more announcements about whats going on and how to get the most out of SXSW.

Collecta Mobile has been live only a couple of days and it has already proven to be quite valuable to a couple of people. Yesterday JetBlue gave away round trip tickets to people following a special hash tag, if they could find them in NY they would get a tickets.

Its too late for you to win JetBlue tickets, but with SXSW just starting up on Friday, Collecta Mobile could prove just as valuable to you. Maybe you cant decide what party you want to go to. You can use Collecta Mobile to find out where the hot parties are, or find out which ones are over crowded. Or maybe you just want to know where all the free beer or cocktails are, we can help with that too.

We are excited to announce Collecta Mobile is available now for the iPhone, Droid, Palm and Nokia Maemo. Simply point your mobile browser to http://m.collecta.com and you have the power of Collecta right in your hand.

With Collecta Mobile, users can begin their streaming search for any topic of interest — from SXSW and the Oscars to the elections in Iraq and MLB spring training. Collecta pushes a live stream of pictures, news articles, status updates and more right to the mobile device. As a result, people now have the power to watch events unfold in real time no matter where they are.

Launched just in time for South by Southwest, Collecta Mobile offers a real-time window into all things SXSW. Users can stay on top of whatever is said or heard across the web, whether it’s about the festival in general or any given topic, person, panel, band, movie, or party of interest. The mobile app is ideal for festival attendees walking to the next event or waiting for a panel to start, as well as for those who can’t make it to Austin but still want to stay connected.

“The web is alive. At any given moment, new content is published, news is broken, opinions are shared, and thoughts are posted,” said Collecta CEO Gerry Campbell. “Collecta Mobile delivers all the streaming real-time goodness of the Collecta.com site, but packed onto a mobile site that can be accessed anytime, anywhere.”

Today Twitter announced their partners that will get access to the full stream of tweets.  Collecta is excited to be included in that list of partnerships.

While we have always had tweets in the Collecta real-time stream, having access to the full firehose will maximize the experience for our users. Along with our existing network of more than 10 million social media and established news sites, expanded Twitter data will make our real-time results even more comprehensive, and allow us in future to offer some of the additional functionality users have been requesting.

With moves like this, and the resulting excitement in the industry, we can see that the future of real-time search is not only bright, but a potentially phenomenal driver of innovation and value.

For those wondering if the title of this post rang familiar…

Did you know that you could filter your Collecta results by language? Just add language: to your query with a standard 2 letter language code and you are done.  Full list below.

For example, say you’re are following the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, which get a lot of coverage in the international press. You may want to limit your results to just those in your preferred language, perhaps English. Your Collecta search in that case could be: olympics OR “winter games” language:en

If you want to include more than one language, you can do so by using the OR operator.  For example: (olympics OR “winter games”) (language:ja OR language:es)

Language filtering works in all our delivery methods, from the Collecta.com client to the Collecta API to the Collecta widget .

To make it even easier in the Collecta Widget Builder we’ve added a drop-down menu to pick the language, this adds it to the query automatically for the widget you are building.  To find it expand the Advanced options in the widget builder.

Below is a list of the languages we support and their two (2) letter code.  So go forth and filter!

We have widget fever here at Collecta so I wanted to share a quick tutorial on adding a widget to your Blogger account.  This may be old news to most Blogger users but I wanted to put this together just to illustrate how easy it is.

Step 1: Go to widget.collecta.com and build your widget.

Step 2: Go to your Blogger account and log in.

Step 3: Click on layout.

Step 4: Decide where you want the widget and click “Add Gadget”

Step 5: Click on the HTML/JavaScript link.

Step 6: Paste in your code from widget.collecta.com and click save.

That’s it you are all done, your Collecta widget will now deliver real-time results to your Blogger page.

You can always go back and edit your Collecta widget from the layout page by clicking edit on the widget.

There are a lot of Lost fans out there and we have some in the Collecta camp as well.  So in celebration of the season premiere of Lost tonight we built a special Lost widget.  Check it out and grab one for your site.  http://widget.collecta.com/lost

Our free and easy-to-use widget tool brings the vibrancy of streaming customized results to any website or blog.  The widget is based on Collecta’s leading platform that brings together real-time content from a network of more than 10 million social media and established news sites.

Your streaming, real-time widget can be created in seconds. Simply go to http://widget.collecta.com and enter the desired search term(s) — whether it’s ‘Haiti’ or ‘Haiti Red Cross’, ‘taylor swift’ or ‘NBA all-star.’ Then grab the code and paste it anywhere to instantly liven up a site or blog with real-time content.

While there you can also look at some example widgets to grab for yourself or help you with your ideas. Examples there carry public postings about the Lost season premiere, about the upcoming Big Game between the Colts and the Saints, and about South by Southwest (SXSW).  Or you can check some examples of other sites that are using the Collecta widget right now.
MySpace Breaking News, BlueIon, TheTofu, Egronomixpr, Future of Money, Afraid Of Sharks

Additional instructions.

* To add Collecta to your WordPress.org (Self Hosted) blog, use our WordPress widget plugin.

* To add Collecta results to any web page using an iFrame, go to http://widget.collecta.com and follow the instructions below.

Step 1 – Pick your search terms. Test some different combinations of terms to find the ones that give the best results for you.  The same operators that work on Collecta.com will work here.  This blog post has some details on search operators.

Step 2 – Decide if you want to add any customization to your widget. We make the widget easy to size and with a transparent background so it’s easy to use on most sites, or we allow you to apply your own custom CSS.  You will need to visit this page for more info on the elements used for your CSS.

Step 3 – Click “Build Widget” and check out the preview, copy the code from the “Grab the code” box and paste it into your blog or site. Any site that supports an iFrame should support the Collecta widget. Voila, Collecta live results for your query streaming updates in real time.

Most browsers limit the maximum number of connections to the same domain from a single page. Therefore if you put too many widgets in the same web page, they will not receive real-time updates properly. This is a browser limit that varies between browsers, not a Collecta limit.

Feel free to drop us a line (to help @ collecta dot com) and let us know where you are using the Collecta widget.

We put you in the front row, so you can follow everything that happens at the Globes live — from the red carpet to the awards ceremony and parties.

Our streaming real-time search platform provides a uniquely comprehensive and instantaneous glimpse into every comment, reaction, trend, and image from across the web.

All weekend long we will focus our hot topics around the Golden Globes.  So check back at Collecta.com over the next couple of days during the lead up to the Globes, and then again during the show itself, to see what’s hot or  click on one of the topics to follow along in real time. Just start us up and let the real time results come to you.

This weekend is the first weekend of the NFL Playoffs, and while we know everyone within range of a TV will have the games on, the real-time web adds a whole now layer of awesomeness to  live sports.

Where else does real time matter more? You want to know what’s happening now, who’s winning, who’s losing, and who just made the TD of the year right now. Not have to wait and read about it tomorrow.

And since we post photos from sites like Twitpic and Flickr live in real time, as well as videos and more, you might even find some content from fans live at the games, content you wouldn’t have found anywhere else – streamed to you automatically in real time.

Check out the following searches for this weekends game and keep up with all the talk surrounding the game. Click on the game links to follow the action in Collecta.

Saturday January 9
NY Jets vs. Cincinnati Bengals – 4:30pm ET

Philadelphia Eagles vs. Dallas Cowboys - 8:00pm ET

Sunday January 10
Baltimore Ravens vs. New England Patriots – 1:00 PM ET

Green Bay Packers vs Arizona Cardinals - 4:40pm ET

And remember, you can make your own searches for your favorite players, or other events, just use the Real Time Search box at the top left of the Collecta.com page.