Hear ye, hear ye!  Taptu is hiring!

Are you a smart cookie in addition to being a brilliant code monkey?  Our development team is looking to add a great guy or gal to their team.  You’ll be based in our Cambridge office and have a track record for delivering well-written code.  Additionally,  you should enjoy being a star in a fast-paced and well rewarding environment.

To be a Web App Developer at Taptu, you should be a well rounded programmer who has experience in web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Taptu is a start-up meaning we work hard and play harder.  We have fun in our work but we take our work seriously.

If you are interested in applying, please email us at givemeajob@taptu.com.

Here’s the full description:

As we continue to increase the web functionality and performance of our mobile web search applications, we are again looking to add further great engineers to the talent in Cambridge. With a track record of demonstrable initiative, self direction, ability to deliver well-written applications, and a real love of modern web development technologies, you will use your skills and experience to design and develop world-leading mobile front-end web server technologies

We have a culture of empowering our developers to make the critical design decisions. With this comes the great satisfaction and responsibility of seeing your ideas and technical decisions become reality worldwide.

This work will make the most of your current and past experience in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, working with modern frameworks and libraries. Underpinning your successes will be beautifully written Java and solid experience of the supporting tools and environments.

We will be expecting multi-threaded and distributed application server development to be in your comfort zone. Familiarity with several programming languages, including scripting, C/C++, and functional languages are all big positives.

A degree in Computer Science, Maths or Physics is ideal; however degree-calibre candidates with the track record to match are equally valued.

For more information, or to be considered for the role, please contact givemeajob (at) taptu.com.

Strictly no agencies.

Our Taptu Search App, version 1.4.3, has been released into the wild iTunes App Store.  This new release addresses a few issues and harnesses some exciting changes on the backend as well.

Here’s what to expect in the newest version:

• 1.4.3 fixes a few memory leaks associated with prior versions.
• Minor design tweaks
• Bug fixes.

On the backend of our search service, we’ve made some more hearty changes that will improve your Taptu user experience.  First of all, we have added thousands and thousands of sites that are touch friendly, making your search results richer.

Also, we have tweaked our engine to allow genre searches.  To check this new feature out – check out our Halloween special that will show you apps and other touch-friendly content with a spooky feel.

As always, we absolutely crave feedback.  Please get back to us if you have any comments or questions.  You can email me at jason@taptu.com or catch us on Twitter as well.

Have fun with the new version of the Taptu Search App!  To give it a whirl, go to the iTunes App Store.

Taptu is hiring!

We are looking to take our Wapedia iPhone application international!  Taptu seeks contractors to help us translate our Taptu Wapedia application into the languages listed below.  Depending on how it goes with our Wapedia application, we might enlist your help in translating the main Taptu application as well.

Here are the details on what we’re seeking:

Seeking speakers in: Dutch, Russian, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hindi, Swedish, Greek, Finnish, Czech, Norwegian and Spanish (from South America or preferably Mexico).

You should use the web frequently, especially Wikipedia, and should know Internet terms and have some experience in translation or Computer Science (students are preferable). We’re not offering full time employment but work as either contractor or on pay roll (for UK residents). The wage depends on the amount of work to be done.

If you are interested, please send your CV and cover letter to givemeajob@taptu.com.

Please NO Agencies – We WILL route you to /dev/null

Back in July, we announced the availability of our fun music trivia game called Music Cube.

Since then, thousand of people have downloaded Music Cube from the App Store and enjoyed the addictive game that tests their knowledge of music and artists in a fun visual puzzle game.

To help spread the love and put Music Cube into the hands of more people, we’ve made the App free.

So, if you were holding out,  fire up the App Store on your iPhone or iPod Touch and get to challenging your musical brain with a great puzzle game!

To grab Music Cube for yourself, use this link.

We have been working hard at Taptu to refine our application on the iPhone and iPod Touch platform.  We believe our app is a great addition to the touch web and brings all the highlights of touch-friendly content to your fingertips.

With that in mind, we’ve released a new version of the application into Apple iTunes App Store.  There are a few notable changes.

User Interface Improvements:

These include a few minor changes to make it easier to utilize all the functionality of the Taptu Search Application. The most notable change is that the “Orbital” function is now an actual button.  This feature was present in the last version of the application, but many users missed it because it wasn’t visibly noticeable as a click-able (tap-able) button.

Now, if you click on the button in the upper right – you can see the awesome functionality which lets you refine the scope of your search by just searching images, twitter, and so on.  Also, you can see related search terms based on what you enter.

Finally, we’ve implemented a new Settings tab in the App that lets you refine how the Taptu Search App behaves.  The new tab will allow you to set user preferences in the App, without having to go to the iPhone’s settings bar.

Other Changes

We have also made an effort to tidy up the Sharing options. As before, you can still share out your results via email and SMS, or on your favorite social network such as Facebook or Twitter.  We just cleaned up the interface a bit.

In another change, if you launch the App after having it closed – it will load up the last search you executed.  This change is a direct result from user feedback we’ve attained since the App debuted in July.

Please Give Us Feedback!

As you can see, this minor update addresses a few of the concerns our users have given us since the launch of our iPhone/iPod Touch application.  In fact, two of the changed items mentioned above came about because of feedback I’ve received from our user community.

So, the bottom line is – we’re here and we’re listening.  So please connect if you have issues, comments, or concerns about our application.  We’re always looking for ways to make our applications and service better!

To grab the latest version of the Taptu iPhone App, follow this link.

Get in touch with us by emailing me at jason <at> taptu <dot> com or via our Twitter account.

Jason

US Community Manager – Taptu

As you all know, we’re really excited about the utilizing the touch interface to it’s fullest extent.  To this end, we’ve taken a project of ours, The Music Cube, and ported it to the iPhone.  Our new application is now available in the iTunes App store.

How does The Music Cube work?  It’s a fun game whereby you analyze an image puzzle and try to guess the artist/band/song  based on the visual image(s) you see.  It’s challenging, addictive and works  well on the touch interface. So if you have an iPhone or Touch and love music then give it a spin.

Music Cube on the iPhone was a little side project here at Taptu.  As linked above, the desktop web version was produced a while back and proved so popular we just couldn’t resist porting it to the iPhone.  When so many Taptuans rally behind an effort, its hard to hold them back.  Our lead engineer on the project was Telmo Menezes (since crowned King of Open GL) with Matt and Marc on the design side.

Astonishingly, the Music Cube iPhone app was pumped out in just four weeks.  Pretty cool, I think!

The intent of the Music Cube is to provide a fun game to pass the time while you’re waiting in a line, riding the bus, or otherwise have a few spare moments to challenge your music knowledge.  Also, if you get stuck, you an always rely upon Taptu Mobile Search to help guide your way

Be sure to check out upcoming versions of the Music Cube app for additional, more challenging questions.

Today, after two years as Taptu’s Community Manager, I’m writing my last post here. It’s a very odd feeling, like getting sudden vertigo after realising that I’ve climbed to the top of a mountain.

I look back at all the things we’ve achieved in that time and am simply amazed at the growth. When I joined, a few engineers were throwing ideas around about a mobile search and we had a pile of mobile phones sitting on a desk, which we used for testing. In October 2007, the first iteration of Taptu went live, and like a very nervous parent, I watched feedback begin to trickle in.

Since then, it’s with great anticipation that we’ve rolled out numerous feature releases, all with very entertaining naming conventions, bought vast amounts of hardware and … also bought vast amounts of beer on evenings out with the fab community we discovered. Working with a startup is head-spinning and heart-pounding, with team meetings putting rollercoasters to shame sometimes. And now, it’s time for me to hand over the reigns to a new (soon to join) Community Manager.

Armed with great experiences and knowledge, I’m by no means disappearing off the map. With many projects in constant evolution, I’ll be flitting around Cambridge and London and, of course, organising some further Cambridge Geek Nights.

And so, on this note, I hang up my hat (which is obviously bright pink and fluffy) and head into the sunset. Thanks everyone and see you around! (By which I mean, on my blog, on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook )

Have a great summer,

- Vero

Earlier this week, we launched our iPhone app with much excitement – it was the culmination of many months of work, so we couldn’t help being curious to see what people thought.

Ewan at Mobile Industry Review says:

“[Ed note: In the context of your average mobile search engine] It’s incredibly annoying to have to click, click, click on a mobile device, irrespective what type. There’s a cost in terms of time and battery (assuming you’re on an unlimited data plan) to every single tap or click.

So they’ve tried really hard to get it right first time. A total godsend for any mobile user. [...] Nice work Taptu!”

Scott at MobileCrunch says:

“Another great feature of the current version of the Taptu app are context sensitive search filters included beneath the default search filters. As you can see, my search for beer produced a number of beer-related links. Mmmmm…beeer.

Bottom line: Taptu is a pretty slick mobile search solution.”

What’s On iPhone says:

“Google works just fine on the iPhone, especially now that iGoogle is back on line. But is it the only choice of search engines for the device? NO WAY!

Taptu brings a unique aproach to web searches on the iPhone with its new search engine. Designed to be finger friendly, it is intended for small screen. And it shows.”

Now, we have also had a few bits of criticism from some iTunes reviewers, who have flagged up that our index isn’t up to scratch for every type of search term. That’s a fair comment – our index is growing every day and will continue to improve as we keep plowing more material into it. In fact, you can help improve our index by recommending the best mobile sites out there if we don’t already list them.

Our thanks go out to everyone who’s taken time to look at the app, reviewed or commented (positively or negatively constructively) over the past few months. Now, how about I go get one of ‘em new 3GS iPhones and test that Taptu works properly on it? Oooh shiny!

Today we are launching the Taptu search app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. For us it’s the culmination of a 6 month effort to create a new kind of search experience that’s optimised for touch devices like the iPhone.

This search experience starts from scratch with a new mobile search index – an index of as many touch-friendly Web pages as our crawlers can find. By touch-friendly we mean not only a Web page that is optimised for mobile but also one which is easy to navigate with your finger without pinching, scrolling or zooming contortions. (We’ve talked in depth about this concept of touch-friendly search in our recent white paper “Exploring the Touch Friendly Web”)

Over the last 12 months we’ve seen an exponential growth in the number of touch–friendly Web sites. They’ve multiplied more than 10-fold (Taptu estimate) as site owners begin to focus more and more on building their mobile audiences. Some are doing this in anticipation of an expected surge of e-commerce activity on mobile phones (the same surge that has already happened in Japan and South Korea). Touch phones with their bigger screens, better browsers and all-you-can-eat data plans are where this wave is going to hit first in Western markets.

It’s hard for users to explore the touch-friendly Web. The well-known search engines take you to desktop site results, sometimes auto-transcoding them for your phone. Start-up players have indexed the older-style mobile sites designed for phones with their smaller screens and their keypads. But until today nobody has offered a search engine especially for the touch-friendly Web.

Our touch-friendly index is still young and growing by leaps and bounds, but it’s now big enough – 3m+ pages – to be really useful. It’s available for you to play with right now. Just download it from the Apple App Store onto any iPhone or iPod touch. We’re keen to get your feedback, so please let us know what you think.  Email iPhone [AT] taptu.com, @taptu on Twitter or use the feedback forums you’ll find in the About section of the App.

And watch out for updates and other new developments from Taptu coming soon.

[the full press release is available here]

Links:

• Try the App now : take me to App Store
• Follow Taptu on Twitter: http://twitter.com/taptu
• Join Taptu’s Facebook group: http://bit.ly/woxVg
• See Video of the Taptu app: http://tinyurl.com/ktkg4p

Always dreamed of being the Community Guy/Gal for a cool startup in its prime? Taptu is looking for a new full-time Community Manager – Could it be you?

We are looking for a Community Manager, based in either London or Cambridge, with a dynamic personality, great communication skills and experience working with the community. You’ll manage all aspects day-to-day community life for Taptu through a wide range of channels, including this blog, Twitter and Facebook. You’ll get to contribute to the development of some fun campaigns and attend some great events.

Below is an official job description, but nothing is ever the same in real life as it is on paper. As I step down from the role after two years as Community Gal, if you think you’ve got it in you, drop me a line on Twitter directly with your questions.

It’s your chance to take the torch and carry it forward, so go on, apply by emailing givemeajob@taptu.com!

NO AGENCIES PLEASE

- Vero

Community Manager role

Objectives of role:

• To increase usage of Taptu across all mobile devices and loyalty of users
• To be an authentic voice of Taptu externally and representative for the community’s needs internally
• Build trust in our brand

Responsibilities include, but not limited to:

• Communicate with our users whenever and wherever appropriate on a personal level through the blog & social networks
• Identify and analyse issues, patterns and trends in community requests & product performance
• Identify ways to improve the speed in which Taptu responds to user feedback
• Be an evangelist for Taptu online and the first point of contact for the community
• Take part in relevant events, such as mobile conferences, BarCamps and impromptu gatherings with fellow bloggers (will often involve alcohol)
• Liaise with UK & US PR agencies, occasionally helping manage Taptu events
• Work closely with our US Community Manager
• Manage a small dedicated User Help team in Cambridge

The successful applicant will need to demonstrate the following skills & experience:

• You love helping people and find it rewarding to solve people’s problems
• Fluent, fast and engaging writer; from authoring long articles to creativity in less than 140 characters
• Understanding of and enthusiasm for social media (Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Digg, blogs etc..)
• You probably already have your own blog or an established online presence and have an understanding of blogging in the business context
• Excellent project management skills: experience managing multiple projects simultaneously and working effectively across departments (engineering, operations and commercial)
• Practical knowledge of basic web tools: HTML, image manipulation and video editing
• Some experience of web analytics software such as Google Analytics and Mint would be good
• Existing contacts in the media or mobile would be useful
• Experience working in a start-up environment would be a bonus
• Degree educated