YapYapOK UK Free Ads Alexa global rank 454,290 - UK rank 26k. The last few weeks have seen some subtle development work on the site. I actually get involved with the developer and we program together. More often than not these development changes have to take into account that some users will have little knowledge of uploading adverts, so we make it as easy as possible. For example, every free advert has a default category and sub category now. This enables ads to be found in the correct master category should the user not continue through the editor, prior to this they would exist but could not be found. Another improvement was the currency sign. Whilst the intention was to have a UK Classified site, other advertisers from the US and Europe have been advertising with the pound sign. Todays improvement however was the most exciting & also frustrating. I had wanted an auto Twitter feed which enabled both the title and the price of ads to be sent to Twitter together with a link back to the advert. One (of many) complications was the fact that the links are generally sent as shortened links since the URL itself may be over the 140 character limit imposed on micro blogs. We had also to allow that some titles would exceed the character content allowed by Twitter. We did not want to impose a restriction on the Free Ad title as that is the main selling headline that the seller chooses to market his/her ad. By using an api from a short URL exchange and incorporating that with an auto Twitter api we were able to create the correct program with which to post a link to the correct page. We selected the specific parts of the editor and programmed in a contingency allowing characters for our shortened URL as well as the price. Therefore should the title exceed the prerequisite characters which added with the link and price then it drops the price and the tail end of the title to allow the main part of the title and the link to the advert. Whew! I can't tell you how my brain was scrambled after this session. My understanding and respect for C# is at an all time high. I also have an even higher regard for the patience of my developer and her incredible neat approach to how she "files" her systems. Even I can identify the individual pages and programs in her system such is her attention to tidying and labeling everything into its correct location. Every piece of open source used has a reference so that she knows where it is from. It is this constant filing & referencing that makes the tasks in hand a little longer. In programming mode she gets carried away coding quickly as she sees the code in her head come to life on the page. But immediately after it is tidied, files and referenced, never does she put it off to forget to do it later. This constant attention to detail is predisposed by her birth sign (virgo). Mine on the other hand is far harder to control (leo). I fight all natural instincts in order to pay attention to the finer details. My ideas are never ending, my demands overwhelming and my patience.......hmmm what patience? I look forward to next week with some new changes which I am incredibly excited about. i would love them to be implemented now (patience) as I feel that they are such a compliment to the site. Our Free Ad site is already setting a superior standard. No other Free Classifieds has this much functionality or gives every free advert so much exposure. All ads are free and all appear on the home page, are sent to social media and have the same RSS opportunity with no fees what so ever. Tomorrow I will be writing articles on the new site functions and hoping for an increase in hit rate. How did I forget to mention that yesterday was another record! YapYapOK Free UK classifieds. Where Free Advertising is viable!
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