filtrbox blog

Hooked on your Filtrbox daily briefing?  Here are three tips to keep them flowing.

1) Always have articles.  If you have very specific search terms, is it possible there will be no new articles in your account.   If that is the case, we will not send you a blank email (remember - it’s all about more knowledge, less noise).

2) Monitor your FiltrRank threshold to make sure you get the right number of articles.  For your daily briefing you set a FiltrRank threshold and we send only articles that meet or exceed that threshold.  For example if your FiltrRank is set to 9 you will only get articles that score 9 or 10.  You adjust this threshold by going to the Accounts tab (top of page) and “Notify and FiltrFeed”  (center of page).  Don’t forget to click save after any adjustments.

3) Tell your spam filter hands off.  Occasionally we will get caught in an overzealous spam filter.  Adding noreply@filtrbox.com to your address book and asking your IT team to add it to your email white list should solve this problem.

If you are still having issues, give us a shout at support@filtrbox.com.

Just created a killer Filtr but not seeing any results?  What gives?  Below are a few suggestions to help you get your result set dialed in.

1) Adjust the Date and FiltrRank sliders

The two sliders at the top of the article pane are designed to help you restrict your view and see just the relevant information.  They work great and any changes are shown immediately but be careful because being too restrictive can leave you with no articles in your view.

2) Select or de-select sources to help control the noise.  The more sources you selected the more articles we will find.  Twitter and Friendfeed can be controlled at either the global or filtr level.  They can both be a bit noisy so include them at your discretion. Sources can be de-selected by clicking on each radio button to uncheck.

3) Selecting Filtrs - Make sure you have only the filtr topics you wish to view enabled by selecting their radio buttons.  In this example I will see only the articles for Red Sox, Mac and money.

4) In the case of too few articles, you may have overly restrictive search terms.  Remember the system is designed to persistently search for the key word or words in your filtr.  In the example below I will only see articles that include all 5 terms biology, marine, whales, dolphins and plankton.  To be more general you could replace the ANDs with ORs in which case you would get articles that have (biology and marine) or (biology and whales) or (biology and dolphins) or (biology and plankton).

5)  Filtrbox is still searching for new articles.  Unlike web search engines Filtrbox performs persistent search.  This means that Filtrbox will continually search for articles that contain your Filtr until you modify or delete it.  Our searches may take a little time to search the far ends of the internet and start bringing results back to you.

If you have tried these adjustments and you are still not seeing the results you think you should, give us a shout at support@filtrbox.com.

Filtrbox went public last Monday, and has been getting some nice pickups in the press and blogworld in the last week.  Thanks to everyone for your support and feedback so far!  The team really turned themselves inside-out to pull the feedback into the release and get it ready in time (thanks guys!).

It has been wonderful to hear from so many people and see the coverage. We love talking to customers and learning how people use Filtrbox to deal with Information Overload and monitor important topics.  If you haven’t had a chance please login to your account to see the newest version and keep the feedback and suggestions coming - we are listening!

Some of our recent coverage:

Inc Magazine - Searching for the next Digg

Network World - Managing the information flood

VentureBeat - Got information overload?

Mashable (podcast) - Offload your Info Over-Load

Fortune Small Business - Saving Small Business from Information Overload

We are excited to announce the addition of Patrick Cameron to the Filtrbox team. Patrick will be heading up our Sales and Marketing efforts going forward is just as psyched as we are about joining us at this important time. With our public debut barely in the rear-view mirror, you can bet there is plenty for him to do!

Patrick has a broad base of experience in sales, product management, and marketing and shares the same entrepreneurial passion as the rest of the team. He was at Akamai and Accenture during the go-go days for both companies and understands how to take great care of customers and grow a business. Bonus: He can keep up with Ari on a bike too