When One Door Opens…

We first got our feet wet in developing for social media simplification in 2011, with an extension known as Start Google Plus. SGPlus was the result of a desire to be able to streamline the management of multiple social presences and better integrate Google+ with other social networks. Zane’s weekend project quickly became a success and directly led to the beginning of Streamified Inc., in November 2011.

Now, almost 2 years later, we’ve made the hard decision to partially shutter the browser extension. There were a few big reasons behind this call.

The many changes that Google has made to its products, both Google+ itself and the Chrome Web Store, made it difficult to continue to maintain a high quality browser extension. Also, limited programming resources (for the last few months, up until just recently, Zane was our only developer) meant that updating the browser extension in the face of the mutable nature of Google+ put a strain on our team and delayed updates.

As a result, we will try to keep the browser extension updated when able, but it is no longer a supported Streamified product.

What About Mobile?

If you’ve visited our website recently, you’ll also note that links to our apps for Android and iOS have been removed. Both of these apps were not functioning to our standards and we chose to remove them from the platforms’ respective app markets in the meantime, rather than letting them persist to give you a less than optimal experience on mobile. We do plan to rerelease them as soon as possible and we will keep you updated here with our progress.

Let Us Know…

We’re sure you may have questions or comments about these changes to the Streamified suite. Please feel free to get in touch with us by leaving a comment below.

Behind the Scenes: How does Streamified Update?

Updating your streams is one of the most deceptively complex, yet also the most common task that Streamified performs. It look a little different depending on what client you’re using (such as iOS app vs. our web app), but the basic steps are always the same. It’s Zane here to take you through these steps; hopefully by the end, you’ll better understand what’s going on underneath the hood.

1. Streamified Polls the Server

When this is happening, you’ll see some sort of loading indicator. In the iOS app, it appears in the title bar (next to the system clock). In the Android and web app, it appears in the brown header bar.

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The State of Streamified: Where we are & where we’re going

It’s been over a year since Zane released the Start Google Plus extension, back when Google+ was in its infancy. That original extension was originally intended to be a quick weekend project, but it instantly became much more. Start Google Plus became Streamified last fall, when Zane decided that it was time to deliver a more focused effort to developing for a combined social experience.

Now that we’ve released the latest update to our extension, we thought it’d be a good time to take a look at where we are. As you probably know, we spent most of the early summer working on a new API. This is the technology behind the new Streamified username, which lets you access all your streams and synced data by just entering and validating your username. Everything’s just as you last left it, even if you’re going back and forth from a mobile iOS device, your computer, or even a friend’s computer.

(Think about it — what if you’re with a friend and wanted to show them a post you recently bookmarked on Streamified? Just go to Streamified.me, log-in with your username, and go to your Bookmarks. The post is waiting for you.)

Wait, a minute — what’s Streamified.me, you’re asking? 

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Streamified iOS version 1.6 now live in the App Store!

A few weeks ago, we let you know about some new technological advancements that our lead programmer, Zane Claes, has been working on. We’ve been really excited about our new API (click that above link to learn more) and think you’ll really enjoy the speed and performance boosts that it has let us include in the app.

Here’s another run-through of everything that’s new in the new app, too, below the cut — and in the meantime, you can download the app directly from iTunes here!

(And in case you were wondering, you can use version 1.6 to enter our photo contest for the change to win a $50 iTunes card!)

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Looking Forward: More Speed, Syncing with Usernames, Better Notifications

We’ve been quiet lately; there’s been a lot to work on behind the scenes! Here’s a post from our lead programmer, Zane Claes, about some new back-end technical improvements that will be coming soon. These improvements will improve the user experience for the mobile app and, soon afterwards, the browser extension, and will also pave the way to our eventual Android app in the near future. Without further ado—

We’ve had something big in the works now: our new API.

If that sounds a bit mysterious, I’ll try to explain what it means here. Think of the API like the man-behind-the-curtain who pulls the string of Streamified. When you want to get a new stream, post an update, etc. then your Streamified app is connecting to our API.

So what’s so great about the new API, and why did we need it? First, our old API was built on antiquated technologies and was a bit slow. More than just speed, the new API lets us do some really cool things that we could not do before.

Instead of explaining, though, it will probably be easier to show. This is the latest beta version of the iOS app, which I am currently working on. When you first launch Streamified, you’ll now be required to choose a username.

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