Recently a digital content creation company called Tipping Point Labs set up an interview with Schmownce co-founder ME. The ensuing conversation was published as a podcast on the company’s blog. The interview was conducted and subsequently edited by Andrew Davis of TPL.

We realize that some of you aren’t used to using Schmownce, so we thought we would create a handy primer to give you some perspective.

Most of the posts you will create are when you want to share a link or file, but Schmownce is pretty useful for messages as well. For us, the most useful thing is to use the Schmownce This bookmarklet which makes it easy to Schmownce stuff quickly.

Posts can either be Public or Private. They are public by default, but can easily be made private by selecting someone from the Send to: dropdown. Public posts are accessible to anyone and also appear in the Public Timeline

The Public Timeline is a great place to discover fun content and also meet other Schmowncers.

Once you add a few people, you can segment them into groups. If you want to send a private post to more than one person, you would send to that group.

If you’re not a content generator, you can also be a passive Schmowncer. You just add friends, let them contribute content, and then just comment on stuff that they post.

Ok, that’s about it for now. Enjoy Schmowncing. You are now a bonafide Schmowncer!

So we’ve gotten a lot of questions about what we use here at Schmownce, so here’s a big fat post for all you.

Schmownce was written in Ruby on Rails. It’s served up via Apache and Passenger

MySQL for our database.

AWS for all our file storage. It’s super cheap, and super simple.

Shoulda for testing.

TextMate as our editor.

Git for our SCM, and host it via GitHub as well as our own local Git server.

Lighthouse for our ticket management.

Hoptoad for bug management. Their new integration with Lighthouse is supreme.

For communication we couldn’t live without Campfire, but we definitely couldn’t live without Propane (OSX Campfire client).

Hope that answers everyones questions! Let us know if you’re curious about anything else.

Remember the old process of uploading links and images to your social network site?

1. Find something worth posting.
2. Copy the URL
3. Open a new Schmownce window
4. Click the Link button in the post box.
5. Paste the URL into the link box, (Whew, are you tired yet?!)
6. Write a nifty description of the link for your friends.

For all we know, you ain’t got that kind of time. For all we know, you may be Fred Savage and you are too busy collecting royalty checks from movies you made 20 years ago.

Well, Fred, you are in luck. For you, we created the “Schmownce This” bookmarklet. Simply go to the Tools page of our site and drag the “Schmownce This” button to the Bookmarks Bar of your web browser. Then as you as browsing the internet you can click “Schmownce This” from any site, and we will automatically open a new window with that link in your Schmownce link post box. Add a description (or not) and submit your post. Close the window and you’re back on your way! Lickety split.

Here’s a video walkthrough of what it is, and how to use it (Be sure to check it out in HD):

Many people have asked us for a Public Timeline for the purpose of discovery. We’ll be honest, at first we were reluctant to do it because we thought it would look sad that we were the only ones using Schmownce. But now that we actually have a decent number of people up here posting and using, the Public Timeline adds a pretty cool element of discovery to this community. So without further ado, we unveil the Schmownce Public Timeline!

http://schmownce.com/public_timeline

Posts and replies are both eligible to show up in your Private timeline, and there are some visual cues to help you distinguish between them. These comments will automatically show up if you are the originator or the post.

If you are not the post originator, then you need to subscribe to the post for the comments to appear on your Private timeline. You can subscribe by going to a post page and clicking Subscribe to this post, or by leaving the Subscribe to this post checkbox checked when you comment on a post. You can also unsubscribe from any post, including your own.

Oh, and also, on your Profile page, you have the option of whether or not you would like to show comments in your timeline. You can still get comment e-mails so you’ll know when people comment, and also there is still an indicator of how many people replied to a post in your timeline, so go nuts, it’s up to you!

Tired of getting notification e-mails every time someone posts or comments on your posts? Depending on how many friends you have, this may get overwhelming. Well, if you’re a user of the wide world of RSS, then have we got a solution for you!

Each user gets their own Private RSS feed. This is an RSS feed of your private timeline. There is a link to it in your Profile page.

By default, we don’t include your own posts and comments, since you are the one who made them, and we are guessing that you don’t need to be notified of them. But if you want them in your RSS, there is a checkbox for that on your Profile page.

Ooh, fancy.

Dear Schmowncers,

Thanks for your patience with us as we work to create a viable and useful community for us all. We wanted to keep you as up to date as possible regarding the development and usage techniques of Schmownce, hence this blog.

So first things first. Schmownce allows you to:

• Send Files, Links, Messages, and Events
• Pownce Import (if you exported your Pownce file)
• Friend finder + inviter via Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo
• Your own private and public timelines
• Notification emails and RSS

That was what we needed to start. We’ve gotten some great feedback since and we are looking forward to getting more feedback from you guys!

Say hello to our shiny new blog! Keep your eyes peeled for all sorts of fun info here.