Scruddle

How do you help a startup, or any company that needs it? You want to give aid or advice, but you need concrete examples. Let’s break it down, and show you how both easy and significant they can be.

Some of you may recall that, when Scruddle started 5 years ago, the goal was to be a social media aggregator. Obviously, things changed. So what happened?

Since November 2016, we’ve been bombarded with headline after headline, touting how “fake news” ruined our trust in news, and even crippled our democracy. But what is the actual problem, and whose problem is it to solve?

Our primary goal is simplifying how you find, organize, and share the stories and headlines that matter most to you. It’s taken time, but we’ve steadily moved toward that end - with each new feature, each new release, each line of code. 

Behind the scenes, what we’re doing is pretty complicated - finding news publishers from around the world, and building the tools for you to see what you want, organize it how you need, and share it as you like. But you shouldn’t know or care how complicated it is for us, as long as we make it easy for you. 

As part of that aim, to make it ever easier, we’ve added a new wizard to Scruddle Inbox for Android. It walks you through the process of finding local news, finding the categories that interest you and matching some publishers for you, and then creating the funnels to organize it all. For new users, it will launch automatically; but even if you’ve already signed up, you can get to the wizard in the app menu. 

Find it on Scruddle Inbox for Android on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.scruddle.inbox

We set out to build a better way - a simpler way - of finding, searching, organizing and sharing news and social information. It’s fitting that today, which has generated so much news and discussion across the political, business, and social spectrum, we announce Scruddle Inbox for iOS. 

Scruddle gives you a way of getting the news you want to see, organize it the way you see fit, and share it where you think it will matter most.

Find Scruddle Inbox in the app store, and try it today!

First of all, thank you! Our hope is that we can provide you with a better, clearer picture of news and information, by helping you streamline and organize what you see, when you want to see it.

1. Add your profiles

Profiles define what information flows into your Scruddle inbox. You set these up in the Manage Profiles page, from both the website and mobile apps. The type of profiles you can set up include:

news and information - CNN, Fox News, ESPN, Wall Street Journal, and more

social media - Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and LinkedIn

custom RSS feeds - the same feeds you plugged into Google Reader and Feedly

email

News and information profiles

We retrieve a wide variety of news and information from news publishers around the world, and you should be able to find news that you find interesting or useful. To learn how to add these news profiles: https://scruddle.com/Home/FAQ?question=how-do-i-subscribe-to-news

Social media profiles

By adding your social media accounts, you can see updates from Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook in your inbox, as well as cross-post and share news those same profiles, and to LinkedIn. To learn how to add social media profiles: https://scruddle.com/Home/FAQ?question=how-do-i-add-a-social-network-profile

Custom RSS feed profiles

If we don’t already have a news publisher you would like to subscribe to, we give you the ability to add custom RSS feeds. These work the same way at Google Reader or Feedly. To learn how to add custom RSS feed profiles: https://scruddle.com/Home/FAQ?question=how-do-i-add-a-custom-news-feed

Email profiles

Scruddle is not designed to be an email client. However, having access to email profiles can be useful for sharing information from social media, or for emailing news articles to yourself or others. 

2. Get organized with funnels

We believe funnels are what make Scruddle better. Scruddle gives you access to a lot of information in your inbox, but without any sort of organization, the meaningfulness of that information becomes whitewashed in the noise. So, funnels help you organize what you want to see, when you want to see it.

Profile funnels

For example, suppose you’ve added profiles for business, technology, entertainment, and sports news, plus your Tumblr and Twitter social media accounts. During the day, you may only be interested in seeing the business and technology news, while on the weekends you are more interested in sports and Twitter.

The solution here is simple. Create a new profile funnel with a meaningful name (”Workday”, in this case), and add the business and technology news profiles. Create another profile funnel with the name “Weekend” or “Sports”, for instance, and add the sports news profiles and Twitter profile. Or any other combination, based on what you want to see. 

Contact funnels

What if there are individuals on Twitter that you want included in your business/technology news funnel? Again, the solution is easy. 

Create a new contact funnel, instead of a profile funnel, and add the business and technology news profiles. Now, search for contacts by name or Twitter handle, and select the contacts that will be included in this funnel.

Choosing a default funnel

You have the ability to choose the default funnel, both for the mobile apps as well as the website. In the website, navigate to Preferences under Manage Account; from the mobile app, choose Preferences. Now, select the Preferred Inbox Funnel for both the website and the mobile app. (You can also change your timezone and city.)

Switching funnels

While you are viewing your Scruddle inbox, you can easily change funnels on-the-fly. From the mobile app, click the funnel icon and select the funnel to view, or from the website, select the funnel from the drop-down at the top of the inbox page. 

3. Patiently wait :)

While news from your news subscription profiles should show up almost immediately, it will take a little time for Scruddle to retrieve and processes news and updates from your social profiles, custom RSS feeds, and email. 

You can hit the refresh button in the app to check for new messages in your inbox.

4. Let us know what you think

We want to build a product you will use, and enjoy using. Please let us know what you think, and how we can improve. By listening to your feedback, and incorporating what you would like to see, we think we can build something even better. 

Twitter: @scruddleinc (https://twitter.com/scruddleinc) Facebook: Scruddle (https://www.facebook.com/scruddle)

The year was 2013, and Mark Doyle, my across-the-street neighbor and friend, had just come back from the hospital. His wife Susan had just delivered their twin girls, and we poured TX in honor of the event. It was then when he told me about his new internet start-up company that would integrate social media and news feeds for the savvy internet user. We also chatted about kids and life. After all, he was now the father of TWIN GIRLS.

I was intrigued about this Scruddle thing, but didn’t know what to think. After all, I’m not really a huge social media user, and I get my news from basically one favorite newspaper and one favorite TV network. I'm a simple man. But Mark convinced me the need was there, and I soon discovered the need was there even for me. It was cool — this idea that I would be able to curate my newsfeed only for the types of news I felt like reading at that moment. I also liked the idea of wading through the clutter, and then, if I wanted, sharing the gems I had found across my social media world with one elegant click. It just sounded...simple. Simple, like me. Like a clearer way to get what I wanted from the Internet.

I was in.

Mark and I continued to chat about next steps, about how we would not only need money but also someone who could "shake the bushes," as it were.

"Gordon, that’s not me. I’m a programmer," said Mark.

Which is a gross understatement.  Mark's skill and vision is what really sold me on this company. He is why I believe in Scruddle's eventual success, and why I said yes to being the business end of the operation.

We soon partnered with Mark Flanigan, an exceptional patent attorney and someone who also saw the value in our little start-up.  Eventually, we partnered up with Code Authority, a respected app developer out of Frisco, TX to create our iOS App. We're closing in on a product that will make the way people do the Internet just a little simpler, a little more elegant.

We hope you enjoy our product and that it simplifies your life as much as it has ours.  Watch our informational videos to learn more. Better yet, shoot us an email and let us know how you like it!  Scruddle comes straight to you from the "cyber prairie" so we always welcome feedback.

You might have seen our big news lately, that Scruddle Inbox for Android is now available in the Google Play store [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.scruddle.inbox]. As we were marching toward this milestone, we heard several people ask why we didn’t launch Scruddle for iPhone and iPad first. The answer is two-fold.

First, Mark Doyle, founder, is the software developer behind the website and services, and knows enough Java, the Android programming language, to be dangerous. Worse yet, he doesn’t even have a Mac on which to develop iOS apps...

Second, the Android development and delivery timeline is much shorter than building apps for iOS, because of the flexibility of the Android platform. Rather than going through Apple’s approval process each and every time, even for beta releases, Android apps can be compiled and “side-loaded” quickly and easily, accelerating the feedback loop on new features and functionality.

Mark and Gordon will be manning the Scruddle table in the Deal Maker Expo at this year’s Code Launch - http://www.codelaunch.com/. It’s being held on Wednesday, August 17, at the Dr. Pepper Arena in Frisco, TX.

Development is officially underway on the Scruddle Inbox for iOS. Scruddle has partnered with Code Authority [http://www.codeauthority.com/] out of Frisco, Texas, to complete the app, and is tentatively scheduled for early June.

We've been very busy migrating Scruddle to a more stable code platform, and will be pushing the new version to BETA (https://beta.scruddle.com) today, November 2, 2014 at 2PM CST. Unfortunately, you may experience issues trying to access the BETA website, because, well, it won't be there for a while.

As we wrap up beta and prepare to launch, we would really like your feedback. We have developed a series of surveys to gather that information.

If you have signed up on the Scruddle Beta site (http://beta.scruddle.com) and complete both surveys, you'll get a lifetime Scruddle Premium membership when we launch!

Beta Experience & Usage Questions - https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KJH7FB2 The first page of questions pertain to your impressions upon hearing about Scruddle, and similar platforms or services for managing news and social media. The second page of questions pertain to your experience signing up, configuring, and using Scruddle. If you signed up some time ago, and don’t remember, please log back in and refresh your memory; your feedback is very important to us!