I got a note in this morning from Carl Uminski, CTO of Trutap. I caught up with Carl very briefly at CTIA in San Francisco last month and he showed me a demo of the next version of Trutap — it’s going to be quite stunning. IM, Content, Social Networking — all aimed at the emerging markets (and India in particular). I think that kind of audience will eat up Trutap.
Part of the new roll-out — including this whizzy new client I saw — includes offering Trutap users the ability to subscribe to and receive content.
Carl’s got some news about this:
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Hi Ewan,
How’s things?
Neil told me about a little trial you were doing regarding PR and press releases, so i thought i’d drop you a quick email to tell you about our new content subscription system, HORNET!
Firstly, what do you think of the name?
We built Hornet because it was a great way for us to supply our users across the world with the kind of content they’ve been asking us for. We’ve been working away behind the scenes to sign deals with a load of major content publishers around the globe. Hornet will let those partners plug in text, images and advertising into their content for free and off-deck – cool eh!
The first publisher we’re rolling out on Hornet is Goal.com. Users who subscribe to the Goal.com free alerts will get breaking news stories and scores from the English Premiership at least three times a day. Goal.com is live across the service right now and it won’t cost the user a penny to subscribe – remember the world loves the english footie!
I don’t want to give too much away but along with rolling out additional content providers, we’re going to be announcing some more fantastic stuff in the near future, I will be sure to let you know when we’re ready… also, when you get time, we should catch up on our new version, the UI has come a long way since we met in SF, not long till launch.
Stay tuned 🙂
Carl.
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Carl, thanks for writing — and thank you to Neil and yourself for giving this new format a try. I think it’s a lot more useful and relevant for our readers.
To answer your point, Carl, I reckon HORNET is a wicked name. Good choice. I like the energetic connotations!
If you’ve got content (RSSable) that you think might be relevant to the Trutap audience, I definitely recommend you talk to Carl. Mail me and I can connect you.
Woop! Trutap (client) appears on MIR with the launch of Hornet and roll out of Goal.com. Check it out http://is.gd/3HMc. Nice work guys 🙂
why is trutap calling something HORNET? hmm….
Woop! Trutap (client) appears on MIR with the launch of Hornet and roll out of Goal.com. Check it out http://is.gd/3HMc. Nice work guys 🙂
I think it's an attempt to distract people from noticing that their “multi chat” IM client still can't connect with GTalk or Jabber accounts…
It's coming!
2008/10/8 Disqus <>
Yeah, Ewan. That's exactly what they said just over a year ago when I beta-tested Trutap…
Let's get an answer from Carl then. Carl?
2008/10/9 Disqus <>
@HeavyLight – you are right, when we first launched we expected to have GTalk sooner and have never released a launch date for it. However after reviewing our options for this connectivity, we decided to change our infrastructure to give us a lot more than GTalk (which is still small, but growing in emerging markets which are our focus). As a result we've spent time bringing our existing user base (who use the worlds largest IM transports) the content they desire and then over the next few weeks you will be seeing a lot more than just Gtalk, for real!! Why Hornet? Well that has to be to do with the greatest football team in the world 😉
@HeavyLight – you are right, when we first launched we expected to have GTalk sooner and have never released a launch date for it. However after reviewing our options for this connectivity, we decided to change our infrastructure to give us a lot more than GTalk (which is still small, but growing in emerging markets which are our focus). As a result we've spent time bringing our existing user base (who use the worlds largest IM transports) the content they desire and then over the next few weeks you will be seeing a lot more than just Gtalk, for real!! Why Hornet? Well that has to be to do with the greatest football team in the world 😉
I just checked the Hornet content platform. Seems good.