I am the non-techy half of the SweepsU.com team. I work full-time in the IT department at a major university so I do know a few things. But all my years at the IT Help Desk couldn't prepare me for the glitch the SweepsU.com team experienced last week. (Scroll down to see the photos)

The techy half of SweepsU.com is Gerald Anderson, a genius in my opinion. Gerald has written almost all of the programs on SweepsU.com from scratch which is why you will not find them on other sweepstakes websites. We are in our final month and a half of Beta Testing and anxious to add more users to really put Gerald's programs to the test. That's when it happened...the BIG glitch...let's call it Sam.

Several CBS affiliates across the country were scheduled to broadcast an interview with Robert and I. We knew it was coming, thought we were ready, but we didn't count on Sam. You see, Gerald and his wife, Erica, have been expecting a baby and last week everything happened at once.

Erica goes into labor...a few weeks early.

A CBS station airs SweepsU.com information a few days early.

Erica requires surgery to deliver the baby.

300 people sign up to be SweepsU.com Beta Testers.

Samuel Gerald Anderson (Sam) is born

Gwen has a problem & can't get the Beta Testers on - non-techy partner...remember!

Sam is moved to NICU

Other CBS affiliates air the interview.

Gerald splits his time between 3-year old Maddie (at home), Erica & Sam

1,000 more Beta Testers sign up

Gerald tries talking me through the problems

More CBS affiliates air the interview

Erica and Sam are released from the hospital

Over 2,000 beta testers have applied

Hallelujah!

It has been a mad house, but Erica and Sam are finally home and doing well. Gerald is trying his best to work SweepsU.com into a very busy schedule...2am feedings...changing diapers...playing with Maddie! This is definitely the biggest glitch we've experienced since we started Beta Testing at SweepsU.com. But what can I say, Sam just couldn't wait to join the team.

Now for the latest report on SweepsU.com from Gerald. He is almost ready to start sending out email invitations, but we need to do this cautiously. Therefore, when Gerald gives the word I will start sending out invitations in batches of 25. We will wait a few hours, possibly more, and if all goes well send out another batch. This will continue until everyone has received their invitations and logged on to SweepsU.com. The invitations will go out in the same order as the Beta Applications were received. No cutting in line allowed! It will take us several more days, but this is what Beta Testing is all about.

Please be patient and keep an eye out for an email from SweepsU.com. We should be sending one to each of you very soon! Now scroll on down to see some wonderful photos of Sam.

Gwen Beauchamp

Who is that masked man?

Sam in NICU.

Finally at home where he belongs!

• Can not remove bookmarks currently, generates an error.
• Home option of top menu stays highlighted when in the Sweeps and Contests area.
• and more.

Next update will have a bunch of minor bugfixes then will attack bookmarks, notifications, and entering contests with a VENGEANCE!

As always we value your feedback on problems you have and thinks you like and dislike.  Please keep the information flowing to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Gerald

So, let's talk about what's changed. Yeah yeah, aside from everything.  Let's get specific on some important points.

Look and feel:   Updated our color scheme and graphics.  Hopefully provides both a more professional and pleasing aesthetic.  This should be a lot better especially for the forums and blog.

Navigation:  Has been re-thought-out from the ground up.  We looked at how we could categorize certain types of information that really didn't belong on the top level and add other important topics.  Now it's not just a bunch of junk crammed on one line.  The top navigation works in concert with a left-side navigation site-wide with the top being general and the left-side navigation offering specific options.

Sweeps Management System:  Completely overhauled with new look and feel.  Migrating towards a more icon based approach to interacting with the system with hopefully very intuitive and attractive icons.  We are not and will never be satisfied with the speed of the SMS and continue to find ways of optimizing the system and the interface where possible.  I think you'll find some nice surprises in this regard as you get back into the system.  There are many more optimizations coming.

So there's a touch on the biggies.  Of course, as you find problems or have questions and comments, please do let us know.  We are always interested.

Speaking of feedback, we did get feedback on some aspects of the new site from some folks earlier on.  Some of you may not see your changes implemented yet.  Honestly, I just ran out of time trying to get everything put together and there are plenty more (minor) changes coming over the next few weeks.  We haven't ignored you, I promise.

So here we are, looking better and living large.  One has to ask, "What's next?".

We are looking at late June for launch at the moment.  Here's a quick list of items we are wanting to complete by then:

• Implement saved preferences for interface items and list sorting.
• Implement geographical eligibility requirements that allow for filtering lists based on content eligibility locations. 
• Quick Ending calendars for picking a date on a graphical calendar and seeing contests that end on that day.
• Have the ability to print or email a PDF newsletter (like old-school paper newsletters) based on current search criteria (and in the future saved search criteria)
• Implement billing and subscription system. . .hey, we all gotta eat.

There are tons more things in the pipe but that's the goals we have to wrap up beta and move into production.

As always we appreciate you guys helping us out and continuing to provide us feedback and bug reports.  If you have any comments or questions please comment on this blog post or email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Evening folks.  Well, black Friday really did turn out to be black for us here at SweepsU.com.  The update we released had a number of unintended side effects (read: bugs).  I think I've got just about everything squished so if you find something that disagrees with this posting, please do let us know ASAP via replying to this blog entry, the forums or community messaging (real live support email address coming this week or so, just need to train folks on ticket system).  Anyway, here's the skinny:

• The new paging system was flawed.  This caused problem with the page selector dropdown, and the items per page dropdown not working.  This also caused problems with bookmarking such that it would send you back to page one of the sweeps list and had a chance of bookmarking something other than what you clicked (usually the first entry on the first page).  Check your bookmarks, make sure you've bookmarked what you intended over the last 4 days.  I've reverted to the old paging system and all of these problems should be fixed.
• There were problems with the new authentication system where by it was slow getting authenticated from time to time.  This could also cause entering a contest from a bookmark notification to fail.  It was very rare, but happened a few times.

I think that covers everything I've heard about or noticed myself over the last couple days.  If you do see something else, or see one of the above still broken, please let us know.

Thanks!

Gerald

Deployed a couple quick fixes this morning to issues mostly related to the new authentication system.  Here's what they were:

• Fixed issue where beta applications could not be submitted due to errors in email verification.
• Fixed issue (hopefully) where entering a sweep/contest from the email notification was failing periodically.
• Removed SMS Change Log from the SMS menu.  I think the blog is probably a much better way to communicate the most current changes.  Feedback welcome.
• Other minor back-end and administrative changes.

Good afternoon all, hope everybody's having/had a great black Friday.  I've been sitting here for the past 8 hours and 18 minutes tweaking stuff for you guys so you could kick your heels up when you finished fighting the crowds and get some sweeping done.  Here are the details on the changes:

• Completely rewrote authentication system.  That CAS login screen is no more.  Instead we'll use the native login for the content management system (website) and if you're reading this, you've already figured that out ; )  Also the synchronization problems between the Sweeps Management System and the website should be eliminated (ie. if you're logged in to one, you should be logged into both)
• Along with the changes to the authentication system the session lifetime is now set to 4 hours.  This means that once you login, unless you close your browser you won't be logged out until 4 hours of inactivity.  Every time you do something that timer will reset.  If you do close your browser, your session is terminated and you'll have to log back in.
• Removed the old chat system and replaced it with a new system that should be more appropriate.  While many of you dropped by the old system with some consistency it was extremely rare that others were on at the same time.  This new chat system is tied into the Community system and can be seen and used on the Community page.
• The Invite a Friend feature wasn't correctly validating emails.  It was possible to send an invitation to someone who had already received an invite, or was already a member of the SweepsU.com community.  This has been corrected and it is no longer possible to send invitations under those circumstances.
• Took another swing at the issue with the paging on lists like the sweeps list, and the bookmarks list, etc.  I think I've finally got the final solution in place.  When you use the arrows to navigate between pages it will now do a complete page refresh sending you back to the top of the new page.  NOTE:  This is only for the arrow navigation (First, Previous, Next, Last), the drop down menus to go directly to a page, and the items per page drop down work the same as always.  I'm trying to figure out a solution for those, but haven't yet
• Have added an Announcement Bar to the site.  It is an area toward the top of the page that is bordered in red (under main navigation).  When there is something important to communicate to you guys we will put it there.  We will only leave any given announcement up for a couple days so that it doesn't become ignored.  This means that if you see it, please read it.

That's the big stuff, there was also some template tweaking and administrative system tweaks, etc.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, or if you'd like to make a suggestion regarding SweepsU.com please don't hesitate to contact us via the forums or community pages.

Thanks!

Gerald

and the SweepsU.com Team

P.S.  Please go vote for Erica, only two days left!!

Another fairly big update today, but mostly stuff for the SweepsU.com Team and internal stuff.   One big requested feature for you guys though!  Click Read More below for the list of changes:

• Changes to the Beta Registration URL and related changes to invitation email
• On Bookmarks list, remove Last Drawing (will be used again later) and added Bookmarked On date.  This is a sortable field and you can now see your most recently ordered bookmarks (Thanks Mike!)
• Fixed database problem with Report a Problem which was keeping us from seeing the problem reports.  Made application changes to fix actual problem and added email notification to SweepsU.com support team on problem report submission.
• Added instructions for SweepsUFound under the prize box, hopefully it'll make a bit more sense now.  Also added email notifications to the SweepsU.com moderators on SweepsUFound submission.
• Added a number of tools to help keep SMS user accounts synced with website user accounts.

I've got a really busy month coming up so this may be the last big one for a couple weeks.  As always, please let us know what you think, like, dislike, etc.

Gerald

I know that as a software developer I often work off of a vocabulary that isn't familiar to folks that aren't in my line of work (lucky, lucky folks) and though I try to minimize this, it still happens from time to time.  One of the things I'm bad about is speaking casually about the software development cycle.  This is the process by which software is designed, implemented, tested, and released.  There are a lot of formal definitions out there if you're interested, but as project with a single designer, engineer, tester, and product manager, the formal definition becomes much more of a rough guideline than a reality.

Specifically we throw the words "alpha test" and "beta test" around quite a bit.   Here's a nickel definition of each:

• Alpha Test:  Alpha testing is the first phase of software testing usually by in-house testers, developers, and users.  On occasion outside people are brought in, but the application is by no means complete from a feature perspective, stable, or even working at all.  The purpose of alpha testing is to find serious errors and other bugs in the application.
• Beta Test:  Beta testing is the second round of testing often including an increasingly large group of actual users to determine how usable the application will be to real consumers.  The application is generally somewhat feature complete and reasonably stable but can still have features lacking, have significant errors and stability issues.  The purpose of beta testing is to solicit feedback on application functionality and features while having errors and other problems reported back to the developers.

Those are my personal definitions, but I think they'll hold up pretty well against the more formal definitions out there.

Right now we're calling you newer folks Beta Testers.  In reality, we're probably somewhere closer to in-between; not quite alpha and not quite beta.  There are still a number of launch required features that will be added before we go into production, the interface is still clunky, performance a little too slow, etc.  In general not quite what I would personally consider beta level.  However, even as such we are still on par with our peers from a functionality standpoint and Gwen and I are both very excited to get this thing in front of people and get feedback on what they like, don't like, think is broken, etc.  So maybe we're moving a little fast with what we're calling things, but we are really using your feedback to try and build a better, more personal application.   We really are taking your feedback and using it as we plan the future direction of SweepsU.com.

Now that all this is said there are two reasons I wanted to say it.  The first is that even though we're offering use of the product for free, we do desire your participation in the discussion; we WANT to hear what you like, don't like, about errors you've found, etc and I think we've been very good so far in being responsive.  The second reason is that I am beginning to feel as though some folks are becoming frustrated.  I think this is primarily due to a misunderstanding about where we are in the process.  That we are testing an application that we KNOW isn't finished, doesn't work 100%, isn't pretty, etc.

Hopefully that helps clarify things just a little bit.   This is a part of our business that is both frustrating from time to time and extremely rewarding the rest of it.  It is really and truly fun to see you guys using the application, responding to us in the forums and blogs, and helpful when you let us know that something isn't quite right or comment on features and aesthetics.

If you have any questions or comments about this (or anything else ; )  please do leave a comment to this post or in the forums and we'll be happy to continue the discussion.

Thanks!

Gerald