I mentioned in a previous post that Ember, a great-looking photo sharing site, was one of the many image hosting services that I wanted to incorporate into Snaggr's growing list of supported providers. Unfortunately, at the time of that posting, their API didn't support image search. I really liked the look of the site and the mix of submissions, so I went ahead and asked them if they planned on adding this functionality into their API. This was about a month or so ago. 

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A few things, which were of higher priority, came up over the weekend that took up quite a bit of my free time. As a result, some API updates didn't make the weekend's tentative deadline. Not such a huge deal as it's currently the holiday season and bug testing search integration stuff isn't the biggest thing on people's minds at the moment. I think I'll set a more realistic goal to finish documentation and do a closed beta test before the end of the first week of 2010. I have a few days off and won't really have much else to do during the day, so I'll just save most of the work for then.

This should relieve some of the self-imposed stress I've been having about getting the documentation rolled out. I'll just release a few pages a day until everything is sealed up nice and tight. As always, suggestions and critiques are welcome.

Oh, yeah. Speaking of which, I activated Tender Support's email forwarding feature. This should allow you to post suggestions, ask questions and report bugs directly from your email client. I had to upgrade to Tender's "Plus" package, but I think it's a worth-while investment.

As always, be sure to follow us on Twitter and check the site out!

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I've been searching for a decent and, most importantly, simple wiki solution now for the past few weeks. I needed something easy to use and manage for Snaggr's documentation. All of the potential software I found were either too bloated or too shithouse to use.

Maintaining documentation using a simple medium with a decent built-in search and suggest system is pretty important. Especially when it comes to writing pages upon pages of instructions and standards for something that's constantly changing and growing. I shouldn't have to think about how to use the software, I just want to fucking post shit and easily organize it.

Even though I'm on a pretty tight, self-imposed, deadline for the API, I actually took the some time off yesterday and began writing my own wiki solution on top of the Kohana framewok. Three hours into it I decided to take a small break and search around on the net for other APIs I could potentially integrate into Snaggr. I happened upon a nice little service named Ember.

According to Ember it's:

"... the best way to share your design inspiration with the world - from webpages to screenshots, design to illustration, Ember is built for creatives looking to build an online design scrapbook."

Ok.

Well, the screenshot and illustration part caught my attention and I quickly discovered they provide a simple API. Unfortunately, according to it's online documentation, it doesn't support text-based search, but that's besides the point of this post. I noticed that Ember's support documentation is externally hosted by another service; Tender Support.

Apparently, it's by the same guys who created Lighthouse, which is an issue tracking system I used to use. I really liked working with Lighthouse and figured if it's by the same guys, Tender Support must be alright as well. I signed up for the 30 trial and began working.

Tender pretty much has everything I need to get the documentation up and running quickly. It's also very simple manage all your data. It even has built-in discussion forums for support and feedback as well as issue tracking. This is perfect for API support when things go wrong. So, what the hell, I liked it so much signed up for the basic plan.

A very large chunk of the API documentation has already been completed and I'm hoping to get most of it done by this weekend. Hopefully, if all goes well, I can get a few people together to begin testing the API out.

Stoked!

As always, be sure to follow us on Twitter and check the site out!

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So much progress has been made within the past week and a half with Snag.gr it's unbelievable. It's pretty obvious by now that my original timeline was a little too ambitious and I apologize for that, but it's only because I needed this platform to work perfectly. If all goes well, this system will need to process thousands of API calls an hour, so I had to make sure it was designed to handle this kind of load.

To accomplish this, I essentially had to rewrite the entire system from scratch. From an architectural standpoint, this is probably some of my best work. This system is quite flexible and was built for growth. Also, an indirect benefit resulted from all this trouble. I've added so many layers of abstraction to this system that it's basically an API platform. So, in the future, if I want to provide another online service which could benefit from the use of an API, I can easily plug this into the application's existing infrastructure and, shazam, I have a turnkey system ready to use! All that's needed from this point is to create site-specific API service modules which,  thankfully, is an incredibly painless process!

Naturally, a big shout out needs to go to the Kohana team for creating such an easy-to-use framework. It seems as though it was tailor-made for projects which require rapid development cycles. Thanks, guys! If it weren't for you, this endeavor would have taken far longer than it already has.

I'm actually in the middle of writing up all the user documentation on how this platform will work for the public, but I'll be posting new entries for each service in the coming week. Once everything's all nice and written up, I'll be posting it to the documentation area of the main site.

I also thought you should all be made aware of the fact that private testing should, hopefully, begin this upcoming weekend. So, if you're keen, and I hope you are, I'll provide you with temporary API keys!

As always, be sure to follow us on Twitter and check the site out!

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I've been doing some thinking for the past few days about the initial direction of the Snag.gr project. Originally, I had intended for this project to be a publicly accessible image search engine and, for a short while, that's exactly where it was going. But, recently, I began wondering about how others might want to use something like this. Maybe, there's a use for an API that 3rd-party developers could plug into which provides the very same service as Snag.gr. Then again, maybe not.

Luckily, there was already a "sort-of" API in development for a potential, unannounced, partnership with another image service. With this in mind, I thought it would be an even better move if I built the API functionality first and then built the public search engine on top of it. It doesn't make much sense having 2 completely different systems performing the same functionality within one site. At least this way, the underlying search functionality will be tested and proven enough to provide a reliable starting point; the rest of the site will only be a layer on top of this API.

So, with that said, Snag.gr is to release an image search API. I've been working on some finishing touches and, within the next day or so, the site will have the initial API fully documented and ready for public viewing. The actual API should be ready for private testing within the next week.

When I'm ready, I will post an announcement asking for testing participants. At  this point, they will be given an API key and user account on this site so they can interact with and manage their searches. I'll be honest with everyone, I'm not sure if I want this API to be a 100% public offering or if I want to give full access to a limited selection developers. We'll see in the end, I suppose.

You will also notice a few updates to the site. It's much more responsive now and you will see I've added a few new sections in preparation for the actual launch of the service. The original microsite was just a placeholder which pulled the latest tweets and blog entries for the service. The updated version uses the Kohana framework and contains all the brains of the upcoming API!

More to come, so in the mean time, be sure to follow us on Twitter and check the site out!

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I spent a few hours today throwing together a microsite for Snag.gr. Nothing too special, but it's a decent placeholder until the new functional parts of the search engine are ready to go. It just lists the latest entries from the Snag.gr Twitter account and Posterous blog at the moment, but I might add a Flickr photostream down the road for interface updates and whatnot.

We'll see what happens, but in the mean time, go ahead and bookmark the site!

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Looks like 101Domain finally submitted my request to fully register Snag.gr and it finished propagating last night. Nothing up at the moment but a simple splash page, but I plan on throwing up a microsite this weekend that will pull the latest blog entries and twitter updates for the service. I have some big things planned for this, so, hopefully soon, I'll be able to throw up the new version and start building a roadmap.

I went ahead and setup a Twitter account for the site. So, if you're interested, go ahead and follow @SnaggrTweets. I'll be posting more updates on this and other upcoming services very soon.

Stay tuned!

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I realize you all could probably care less about play-by-play logo concept updates, but I appreciate any feedback I can get. I just took my previous draft and made a few updates to it. I think it's turning out quite well and I am, for the most part, happy with it. I've included the first draft for reference.

   

Click here to download:

Snag.gr_Logo_Draft_2_tags_Deve.zip (9 KB)

I'm a bit torn on a few things, though. At first glance, you can tell that some bits have a drop shadow while others don't. Everything has a glossy finish to it, but while it's a very hard edge effect on most of the text and shapes, the blue dot has a curved one. It's a bit inconsistent, but we'll see what happens in the end.

Who knows, maybe I'll just end up hiring this guy again and be done with it.

Tell me what you all think!

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I think I made a great decision the other day when I purchased a new domain name; snag.gr. I figured it would be the perfect choice to replace the name of my poorly-titled pet project; Imaggregator.

For those of you who don't know what Imaggregator is, think of it as an image search aggregator (hence the name). Say, for instance, you're looking for a nice stock photo of a Mustang. What do you do? Well, you search for one on the web. But, where do you search? Flickr, Google, Bing, Picasa or Photobucket? In most cases, you'll end up searching multiple sites individually until you find a suitable image with the appropriate license. Not that big of a deal unless you find yourself doing this multiple times a day. Searching all these individual sites can be a serious inconvenience.

I figured people shouldn't have to search in all these places. So, with a bit of thought and research, I came up with a way to pull results from all these sites with a single search. It's much easier just typing in what you want and then have the ability to browse the results from multiple sites on one page.

So, what's the problem? The problem lies with the name of the service. In it's most basic form, Imaggregator is an image search aggregator; it pulls search results from multiple sources and aggregates them into a single page. The name makes sense, but you have to admit it's a pretty poor choice. It's too long, difficult to spell and say, not very attractive and a bit too nerdy. When I refer to the service by name, people usually give me that "what the hell were you thinking" look.

"It's a brilliant idea, but the name is fucking terrible.", is the usual verbal response. So, I set out in search of an appropriate replacement. The new name needed to be short, catchy, fun and, most importantly, inexpensive. I mean, let's face it, the project isn't making any money at the moment, so I don't really feel like dropping $1,200 USD a year (ahem, swi.pr) on a domain name. After a few hours of brain storming with mind maps, a thesaurus and the help of Doma.nr, I came up with a brilliant name: snag.gr!

It's a play on the word "snagger", as in to "snag" or "take" something. In this case, at least for the first phase of the site, it snags images from multiple sources. I think this is a perfect replacement for the service. Lucky, too, as it isn't even finished yet which means I won't have to worry about search engine indexing issues and what not.

It will take a few days for the registrar to complete the process and I'm stoked you can register Greek domain names without any registration restrictions. Got it at a very fair price from 101domain.com for $79 USD for 2 years, too, so I can't complain. Personally, I think it's a great investment as I plan on spending quite a bit of time on this service. It's a great idea and I believe people will find it to be useful.

I also went ahead and threw together a little logo for the site. I wanted to keep it simple and I think I pulled it off. Maybe later on down the road I will hire a real designer to give it, and the rest of the site, some flair. I guess we'll see what happens!

Comments and critique are always welcome!

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