WEEKLY STATUS REPORT: NEW PET QUEST BUNDLE, NEW PET QUEST BADGE, GUILD SPOTLIGHT, CONTRIBUTOR SPOTLIGHT
Whoa, it’s Monday already! And as ever, we’ve got a roundup of all the exciting things going on in Habitica, just in case you missed anything while you were busy being productive.
First up, if you are looking to add some magical pets to your Habitica stable, you're in luck! From now until February 28, you can purchase the Mythical Marvels Pet Quest Bundle and receive the Gryphon, Sea Serpent, and Unicorn quests, all for only 7 Gems! That's a discount of 5 Gems from the price of purchasing them separately. Check it out in the Quest Shop today!
Next up, we've released a new achievement so you can celebrate your successes in the world of Habitican Pet collecting! Earn the Legendary Bestiary achievement by collecting all Habitica's mythical Pets and you'll earn a nifty badge for your profile.
There's a new Guild Spotlight on the blog that highlights The Anxiety Alliance, one of Habitica's active Guilds for mental health and self care. Check it out!
We've posted a new Contributor Spotlight on the blog! Check out out interview with gawrone to learn more about his contributions and how he uses Habitica.
That’s it for now, but we’ll be back next week to let you know about any new developments!
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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We’d like to extend a specially sweet cheer to the user Bibble#12093 for their efforts on making friendly topics that aim to uplift the community!
Every day when she’s not caring for her menagerie of sweet old ladies, Bibble posts helpful and positive messages on their Bib’s Daily Positivity topic, but they have also started The Do-Good List, where you can leave a special thank you to that one person who might’ve lent you a hand or helped the community in one way or another.
We hope to honor you here in our little blog, thank you for helping Dappervolk be a brighter place, Bibble!
Those who contribute to Habitica are very special to us because they help make everything possible as well as contribute to the friendliness and warmth of our community. See what some of our Habiticans had to say in this use case spotlight article. Consider contributing to the Habitica community yourself!
Did you know that Habitica is translated into more than twenty-five languages, and all the translations are done by talented volunteers? Get to know one of Habitica’s linguistic scribes, Blablux! From translating the interface to offering advice to the community to creating guilds and challenges in other languages, there is so much linguistic scribes can do on Habitica.
Blablux’s greatest contribution to Habitica? “I made Habitica a welcoming place for french-speaking people.”
Read Blablux’s interview to get inspired and maybe help out translating some of Habitica into your language!
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
This is a post from Denise Chan, Content Marketing Manager at Bitly
At Bitly, we’re lucky to work with users from all around the world who come from a variety of industries and company sizes. We are constantly inspired by the innovation and creativity happening across the Bitly Network.
Every day, businesses find new and novel ways to use Bitly to create unique digital experiences for their customers, optimize their content, and streamline internal workflows.
This week, we sat down to chat with Ken Borruso, Founder of TexTopia.Net, a text message based marketing service.
What does TexTopia.Net do?
Ken: TexTopia.Net helps businesses communicate with their loyal subscribers in real-time through a “text keyword” approach that generates an instant text reply containing pictures of promotions and hyperlinks that aim to increase sales.
Businesses can capture cell phone numbers from subscribers across all platforms, from online ads to offline promotions by publicizing their custom keyword to our virtual SMS exchange. We also have an integrated Wait List Me program that businesses, like restaurants, use to inform guests when their table is ready. TexTopia.Net provides the capability to send images and text messages to thousands of subscribers at a time, with a logo and a personalized Bitlink CTA to brand and track the effectiveness of the campaign.
How do you use Bitly?
Ken: When a business first joins TexTopia.Net, we generate a Bitlink specific for the keyword they are following and the guest’s ID. Using Bitly’s Short URL API, we create individual shortened links for these businesses to send to thousands of customers on the fly, while gaining instant access to a complete list of all of the activity generated by the guest in the Bitly dashboard.
Bitly also helps us build stronger relationships with our customers. Often times, a business will ask us, “How many people have seen my information?” or they might question, “They received our TexTopia.Net message, but did they open it?”
TexTopia.Net hosts the landing page, so we can track engagement through the page stats, but Bitly is an independent, third-party platform that adds a layer of credibility to our tracking. So we can use our Bitly dashboard metrics to match up against our own page stats and show proof of ad placement to a given subscriber.
Bitly also tracks dark social, web traffic from outside sources that web analytics tools aren’t able to track. One example of dark social is when someone copies the link from the text message they receive and sends it to their friend. In the past, that friend’s open rate couldn’t be measured, but Bitly is able to attribute that additional click to the campaign as well.
Why is mobile important?
Ken: Current stats are showing that email marketing campaigns on average are opened less than 25% of the time. However, when people hear a ding that their phone received a text, almost everybody looks at their phone to see the message. The average open rate for text promotions/offers is 98% and they are read within 3 minutes of being sent!
The numbers also show that millennials are using their phones a lot. Over 85% of Generation Y owns a cell phone. Texting allows us to connect with them in a meaningful, engaging way.
We are so excited to be working with Bitly, because we believe that messaging to everyone from Millennials to Baby Boomers across many channels, will be the ‘in thing’ for the long haul. With Bitly, we are able to deliver these solutions to small and large businesses as the new way to uniquely reach these spontaneous customers in more creative ways than just plain text alone, And that’s fantastic news for our clients.
What are some helpful text messaging marketing tricks or best practices?
Ken: We follow a three tier approach: Engage, Stimulate and Grow.
For a campaign to be successful, you will need to engage the users by capturing their subscription. When you create media messages, include the option to join your VIP club with a Keyword from TexTopia.Net. Using print and digital signage in strategic locations in your store can give your text messaging sign-ups a huge boost as well as offering verbal incentives for guests to join while they are at the point of sale. A restaurant may have their hostess and wait staff ask guests to sign in while they wait to be seated and offer them immediate rewards for joining.
Mobile is also a great tool to stimulate traffic and increase website and recurring store visits. You may invest a lot of money on your website, but people today may be too busy to check for promotions on your website. It’s the tree falling in the forest syndrome. You can update your website and hope that they come back, but nobody will know to check unless you tell them with a text. If you send them a short TexTopia.Net message with a Bitly link that drives them to the exact web promotion you published, they’re more likely to visit your store and ultimately this adds to your sales growth.
What’s an example of TexTopia.Net in action?
Ken: We work with a number of businesses – some are restaurant franchises, supermarkets, live professional sporting events as seen in the example above for a restaurant, and some others of which may seem more surprising. For example, an interesting case example is a B2B wholesale food company. You might think, why would they use texting? They’re B2B.
But when you’re a territory manager and have to oversee 100 different restaurants with 5,000 different products, making sure everyone gets the right delivery on time involves a lot of communication. You have to communicate the specials of the week, and then arrange meetings with the customers to get their orders. Since email is not being read and business owners are too busy, they benefit from instant messaging solutions.
This is where TexTopia.Net messaging gets the job done – in a far more immediate manner than making repeated phone calls or sending un-read emails. We connect people faster with telephone integration and call center features. It is simple to build a customer loyalty program through TexTopia.Net messaging, and a more productive method to manage sales for B2B.
Want to learn more about Bitly’s suite of APIs? Head on over here to check out our documentation.
Pictured above are Peanut and Andy, Shari's partners in Shifting.
In August of 2012, Shari, who had already entered the world of crowd-sourced mobile work, searched online for more ways to make money with her phone in her city of Seattle, Washington. One year later, after finding and reading an article about a startup in San Francisco named EasyShift, Shari is one of our power Shifters, has NEVER had a Shift rejected, has completed over 400 Shifts for us, and is an integral part of the EasyShift community.
I spoke with Shari recently and asked her some questions about her experiences with EasyShift.
Shari's favorite thing about EasyShift is the ability to make supplemental income without the stress of a conventional 9 to 5 job, and especially appreciates Shifts like our Sports Drink Check that have clear instructions, are easy to complete, and pay well.
Although the EasyShift discussion board is the first online community that Shari has participated in, she's already proven herself to be a crucial member due to her cheerful nature and willingness to help others with questions about EasyShift. Shari told me that her favorite thing about being a part of our community is helping new Shifters and the clever humor often on display in discussions. Shari is looking forward to increased abilities in the community, like voting up other posts and the ability to edit your own posts. (So are we, Shari!)
When asked if she has any advice for new Shifters, Shari wants them to know that they are not alone or without resources. "There are fantastic and knowledgeable veteran Shifters ready to help and offer advice in the discussion boards if you are willing to listen to them."
