Zaps-related project reports and updates

This is an update on where I am with my various Zaps-related projects. They're pretty much complete with a little tidying up left to do.

Ausome

I started Ausome to help take the tedium out of tracking down interesting news and breaking stories in my niche areas. Those sorts of articles are the bread and butter of building a social following.

A typical social interaction goes like this. Someone sees something interesting on your blog after somehow bumping into it. They're passionate about it so they make a comment. You see their comment and reply. A bond is building...

Take a look at that for a moment - most of your time is spent finding and posting the article - the reply takes no time at all. When I was deciding what I needed Ausome to do for me, I thought that if it could save me the time tracking down the info and sharing it, then I'd be devoting my precious time to what really matters, socially interacting.

Now, depending on what stage of building your following you're at, it may be that only one in 30 posts attract a comment. To get the comment you'd need to find and share those 30 articles. A huge investment in time for so little reward.

So automating with Ausome will gift you that time to do other things that will build your following and accelerate you to the point where your blog is performing as you always hoped it might.

Well, that's the theory ;)

So where am I with Ausome?

• It's complete and is now part of Zaps.
• It's also available to buy separately.
• I've got a logo for it (above)
• I've set up the required pages on my ZapMeCash.com website
• I've made it available as a product on E-Junkie for my Zaffpro affiliates to sell and earn a commission from
• I promised my affiliates a while ago that I'd put together a video of where to get the different types of link code from their E-Junkie account. I've now done this.

Still to do: at the moment, anyone buying Ausome is emailed a list of instructions that includes watching some material aimed at the free Ausome, together with some specific instructions for the full, paid-for version. I need to make the material specific in its own slideshow and just point people to it.

Collections / Sets

I must admit to feeling a little jealous when Zazzle announced thier collections feature, and then felt ok about it when I saw it was really all just smoke and mirrors.

But anyway, it got me to thinking whether or not I could do the sort of thing implied by the name 'collection' as part of Zaps. Two intense weeks later, I'd worked out the framework but sometimes I was getting unexpected results.

I began to suspect that something was up with Zazzle's RSS feeds and in the odd moments when I occasionally came up for air, I did some asking around and digging. Turns out that Zazzle was having a problem (still is at the time of posting) with store feeds and searching in general. Whew, it wasn't me!

So I've worked my spluttering magic and the Zapsters community now has a sets / collections feature, called "My Zazzle Sets". You can see examples of things it's posted for me here: http://pillowsulike.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=%23collection

The final enhancement added templates for the output and you can see examples of the different ones at that link.

Next Steps

Personally, I'm going to continue to use the sets to create lots more for my various blogs and social media channels.

As for these projects, well this latest spurt of activity has all but closed them off; they're live and in production, my affiliates can sell on my behalf and have the material they need to support them.

Job done :)

I can get back to designing gear for my Zazzle store!


comments, likes, +1s, tweets are always welcome! :)