Brand X on Road Rage

Michael Shen, who runs the L.A. Can’t Drive blog, wrote a piece for Brand X on sites like Zapatag.com:

Ranting on the internet is as common as ice in a freezer, but the possibility of diverting one’s anger away from the driver’s seat and toward the webisphere is an intriguing concept and one that could actually reap tangible results in the real world. Intuitively, this might make sense to a lot of people. But is there data to support it?

I concede that Zapatag.com probably won’t make roads safer… but it still feels good to report bad drivers.

Site of the Day at AskMen.com

Cool beans. Zapatag.com has been named the Site of the Day for July 7, 2009 at AskMen.com. AskMen.com is an online magazine acquired by gaming and publishing powerhouse IGN in 2005 and boasts a monthly readership of over 7 million. Thanks to Gregory T. for suggesting us, and to AskMen.com’s Miranda Lightstone for the 9 out of 10 rating!

Gravatars and Editable Zaps!

Not everyone uploads an avatar to Zapatag. For users, it’s a pain to keep your avatars up to date across dozens of web services, and for visitors, a row of generic, gray silhouettes isn’t particularly interesting to look at. So we’ve implemented Gravatars, or Globally Recognized Avatars. With a Gravatar, you can use the same avatar across the web, automatically. And if you don’t upload an avatar, we’ll assign you a simple “identicon,” a unique, colored geometric shape.

Much like cut-and-paste on Apple’s iPhone, we’re also thrilled to announce a feature that should have been included in the first release of Zapatag: the ability to edit Zaps! Did the map pin end up on the wrong side of town? Did you misspell “idiot”? Want to delete, or add, a photo? As long as you’re logged in, you can go to a Zap’s detail page and click “Update or Edit This Zap.”

As a new feature, it may not work exactly as intended, so please do file a bug report if something goes wrong. We’ve already noticed that if you edit a Zap submitted via Twitter, the system may re-import the original Zap, creating a duplicate. We’re working on fixing this now.

Zapatag has been growing nicely since March. We’ve received over 800 Zaps from 47 different states (c’mon, Arkansas, Vermont and Wyoming!). We’ve gotten some great reviews (from friends as well as tech blogs), and we’ve quickly climbed Google’s search results for “report bad drivers” (even after I stopped running Google AdWords). I keep thinking I should be doing more to promote the site, but it seems to be doing pretty well on its own.

We’ve got other improvements in the works, from better highlighting of photos to adding Canadian provinces to the list of states. If there’s anything you’d like to see, don’t hesitate to let us know!

Zapatag.com on WCBD

Technology commentator “PC Mike” produced this fun segment on “revenge sites” for NBC affiliate WCBD in Charleston, SC. Zapatag.com is featured!

Link Love

Over the last couple of weeks, there have been some great write-ups of Zapatag.com. Here are a few of them, though certainly there have been many more!

• Download Squad: Zap-a-tag lets you publicly shame bad motorists
• Autoblog: Zapatag lets you shame bad drivers online
• Geekologie: Zapatag Calls Out Bad Drivers
• Google Maps Mania: Report Bad Drivers on Google Maps
• CenterNetworks: Zapatag Helps You Track Reckless Drivers
• Switched: Report Bad Drivers Online at Zapatag
• sub5zero: Bad Drivers Beware – Web 2.0 Taddling With Zap-A-Tag Puts Idiots on Blast
• Roadtrippings: Zapatag: The Wall of Shame
• Pixelated Geek: Zapatag – A way to call out bad drivers on the internets
• GPS Obsessed: Zapatag lets you map your road rage online, saves you from an assault charge
• Coolness Roundup: Zapatag, where dumb drivers get publicly humiliated
• SLABUP.com: Zapatag Calls Out Bad Drivers
• PriceWheels Blog: Zapatag Gives You a Public Outlet for Roadrage
• The Tech Desk: Zapatag Lets You Passively Express Your Road Rage

Thanks for the reviews and thoughts!

Baby Pictures

I was finally organizing some of the files scattered throughout my hard drive, and came across the below image. I think it was the first mock-up of Zapatag.com, thrown together in the spring of 2007, soon after I’d decided I liked the name better than Streetr.com.

I’d been on Twitter for a few months, so you can see how the “big form front and center” was already set in my mind. But I’d devoted most of the homepage to “featured” content (the old-fashioned editorial guy in me), and put the activity feed in the right sidebar. I also had more prominent images… something I’m still pondering for the site. What stands out the most for me, of course, is the stereotypical turquoise-and-pink Flickr-inspired color scheme.

Blog Us, Wear Us!

I just got my first Zazzle-printed Zapatag.com T-shirt in the mail, and it looks pretty good. So, of course, now I want someone else out there to have one!

The two things I crave most for Zapatag.com are greater exposure and usage, and perhaps moreso, thoughtful feedback. The site is still in its infancy, but I’ve collected a lot of great ideas so far via GetSatisfaction, and I’ve received tons of advice from friends. As resources permit I’m planning on making several improvements to the site, but I know there’s always more I could do.

I’d love it if you’d take Zapatag.com for a test drive, then write up a short review for your blog. What do you think about the overall idea? What do you like about the site, and what would you change? Whether three sentences or three paragraphs, I’m curious about what you think.

Post your “Report Bad Drivers” Zapatag.com review by April 30, 2009, and you’ll be entered to win a Zapatag.com T-shirt. Light or dark color, basic or women’s cut, your choice of size. Just be sure to let me know where I can find your post!

Entries:

• Road Rage by John
• My new Driving Therapy: Zapatag! by Elizabeth “Biz” Kellam
• Zapatag.com site review! by nvix
• Zapatag review by Cara
• Zapatag! Don’t Get Mad, Get Even! by Evelyn Hunter
• Zapatag! by pehea ‘oe
• Zapatag by Kyle Nishioka

Zapatag Shirts!

Thanks to online apparel outfits like Cafepress, Zazzle, Spreadshirt and Printfection, you can have promotional “swag” before you have anything to promote. So, in early anticipation of Zapatag.com becoming the next internet sensation, I’ve made some basic Zapatag T-shirts for people who want to show off their inherent coolness.

• Zapatag T-Shirt in Light Colors
• Zapatag T-Shirt in Dark Colors
• Women’s Zapatag T-Shirt in Light Colors
• Women’s Zapatag T-Shirt in Dark Colors

You can even customize your shirt to add your preferred slogan (I couldn’t decide)… or even other images.

Real Geeks Ride

Zapatag is still but a baby, an amoeba, an early effort that’s barely begun. But that doesn’t mean it can’t step up and support a good cause. Especially when that cause is advanced by two great guys and meshes with Zapatag’s goal of making our roads a better place to travel. So Zapatag.com is proud to support Real Geeks Ride.

Real Geeks Ride is a cross-country bike tour by two geeks — Joe Philipson and Carlos Urreta — who hope to inspire other geeks to bike to work instead of drive. They are not hardcore or even serious cyclists, and they plan to learn about bikes and the biking community as part of their 3,000-mile journey. They’ll be fully “geeked out,” of course, and will document every step of the trip online.

The ride begins May 20 in Pennsylvania, and ends August 2 in Seaside, Oregon. Hopefully, they’ll be “zapping” plates along the way. We look forward to watching their progress across the country, and in getting more geeks onto two wheels.

Unfuddle

I’ve used countless bug tracking, ticket tracking, help desk tracking and general project management solutions. Some were overly simple, and some were overly complex for what we needed. All were great, essentially, provided you were using the right tool. Examples include Bugzilla, Flyspray, Dotproject, and Trac (installed), or BaseCamp, TestTrack and TargetProcess (hosted).

For Zapatag, I decided to try yet another option: Unfuddle. Why? Well, they’re a local company, for one. Two, they’ve got a great name. And three, their solution includes subversion and Git integration. Of course, I’m a beginner when it comes to subversion, and I’m not using it to develop Zapatag… but it seemed to be a differentiating feature that could matter down the line.

I wanted a basic, fairly customizable ticket tracking system. Something that was a step up from the static Microsoft Excel spreadsheets that my development team was haphazardly compiling from e-mail conversations and updating only periodically. And Unfuddle was the perfect choice. It has an elegant, straightforward interface, but with all kinds of granular functionality for those who need it. Tickets tied to milestones tied to projects, and a wonderful array of categories and other options to organize everything.

And I’m only using the free version, which allows only two users (my development team and I), doesn’t support file attachments, and a number of other advanced features like time tracking. But looking at the various plans, they seem well structured to allow a project to grow without breaking the bank.

Anyway, if you’re looking for something on the simpler end of the project management scale, but with lots of room to grow, check out Unfuddle. I’m glad I did.