Nifty New Things

by Heather on May 16, 2012

First the bad news: we’re still as anxious to re-integrate with Pinterest functionality as you are.

Next up, we have a really cool UI (that’s user interface) change to tell you about.

The Spinwheel? We moved it to the upper right. Now it won’t get in the way of the pretty.

Don’t worry, that’s not the only new thing we’ve got going. Hang on to your hats, we now have a feature many of you have been asking for: the ability to spin multiple categories. You want Instagram and someecards? You got it. Want to alternate between YouTube Trending and 500px? We’re all over it.

Since we’ve added user accounts, your history is saved from one session to the next! Now you don’t have to worry if you closed your browser window on accident before sharing the awesome.

Facebook and Twitter spinning? You’ve got it! (I already mentioned someecards, that’s new, too)

We’ve also been working on how we pull the information so that we can give you the freshest content possible while avoiding duplicates.

Hang tight, more neat stuff (like Twitter sharing) is on the way.

Spin on!

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We’re on the new server! Hurray! This is fabulous news, you see, when we first started building SpinPicks, we had no idea how quickly we would grow and how quickly that we would max out and strain our old server.

Paul has been working to switch us over from PHP to Ruby based code for our new home in the cloud. We’re now scalable and ready for all the traffic and spinning you can possibly throw our way. We also are now using a secure connection for your spinning safety. Please keep your hands and feet inside the app until we come to a complete stop.

Who am I kidding? There’s no stopping this ride.

With the switch to the new server, you’ll notice that we are abandoning the secret login. You now create your very own SpinPicks account at http://beta.spinpicks.com

What will user accounts allow us to do?

Having SpinPicks accounts will allow us to create a better experience for you as we continue to add features, like ratings, which are coming soon. (Having ratings will allow us to do some REALLY cool things in the future, things that make my little geek brain go, “SQUEE!”)

In addition to user accounts, we’re working to add as many platforms as we can.

As of last night, we’ve added 500px and brand new YouTube categories for your spinning pleasure. 500px is a beautiful photography site and I can’t stop hitting spin in the Editor’s Choice category. (Actually I just have the auto-spin running on my second monitor, which totally messes with my concentration, but OH THE PRETTY!)  Which reminds me, we are now adding multiple categories under the new services.

Later today we are hoping to be able to spin your Facebook news feed. How cool will that be? Hang on and find out.

Finally, don’t worry, we are working as hard as we can to restore access to Pinterest.

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Things Are Temporarily Broken, But We Are Working on It

May 1, 2012

Starting yesterday around 11am Eastern Paul and I began getting many versions of the following email: Hi, I love the free version of SpinPicks, but suddenly it’s not working. Well, at least the Pinterest feeds won’t spin. Any advice? Signed, Spin out in Spartanburg We are replying to these emails with the following: Hi! As […]

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Beware of Spammers, Scammers, and Malicious Links on Pinterest

April 26, 2012

I know we’ve been a little quiet here at SpinPicks, but that doesn’t mean nothing is happening. Paul and I have been in head down work / travel mode. Good things are coming! Also? Jet lag and red eye flights are evil. In the meantime, I want to warn all of you about the existence […]

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Instagram Lands in Google Play and We’re Stoked

April 3, 2012

Instagram has been a hugely popular iOS app since 2010 and I admit to being a little envious of my iPhone toting pals. Well some of you do go a little crazy with the filters, but that could have just be envy talking. After admitting that, I bet you are wondering why are we excited […]

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One Million Spins in Fewer than 30 Days. . . Wow!

April 2, 2012

SpinPicks has had a crazy few weeks. February 8 I sent Paul an article from Business Insider to touch base and see if he was interested in working with me on this project. A few days later the Spinterest Web App was live and being tested by close friends. March 4th Spinterest was released in […]

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And We Spin Madly On

March 30, 2012

That’s madly in the crazy, spectacular, fascinating sense, we’re not angry, not by any means. How are we spinning madly? Or more importantly how are you? You have clicked, tapped, or shaken to spin 878,000 times (I rounded, but by the time I finish this post, we’ll be there.) 96% of those spins have come […]

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Round and Round We Go: What’s Happening at SpinPicks

March 26, 2012

The bad news: Our hosting platform had a three hour server outage on Friday. Yikes! The good news: We’re getting ready to transition to a different (and much better) hosting platform to ensure we don’t have these problems in the future. Paul is hanging out on the West Coast this week, okay fine, he’s actually […]

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Fasten Your Seatbelts

March 22, 2012

Keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times, it appears SpinPicks is taking off. Currently SpinPicks Free is #2 in Google Play for the search term “Pinterest” which is not a bad place to be. As of this morning’s report we have nearly 3500 user installs. On Tuesday we had the honor […]

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Seriously, Let’s Talk About Copyright for a Moment

March 20, 2012

Don’t worry, there will be a TL / DR at the end of this post for Amy and others. Both Paul and I are content creators, Paul, along with others, runs The Digitel Myrtle Beach and I am founder and author of Home Ec 101. Neither one of us are fans of copyright violation, but we both […]

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