Talk:Viralheat

COI Disclosure

I have submitted this article to Wikipedia through AfC on Viralheat's behalf. I believe it is neutral, well-sourced and an improvement to Wikipedia. It was awarded B-class out the gate, but I would like to bring it up to the GA designation. I would like to make sure any potential GA reviewers know that I am a PR participant, so they can decide if they would like to collaborate with me on the GA review. CorporateM (Talk) 15:52, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion

Just wandered into this via CorporateM's talk page, but I'd suggest including more information about the product's competitors (or other notable products that it's been compared to). This was once suggested on the talk page for a website article I watch (Talk:Etsy#Competition), and I believe adding that information helped put the product in context in a useful way (Etsy#Competitors). Dreamyshade (talk) 17:38, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

The sense I have gotten is that the community feels it is unsavory for a company to add commentary about competitors in a PR capacity. I did make this edit while in AfC based on feedback from Piotrus. I suppose I welcome any improvements along these lines, just not sure I'm comfortable making them myself. CorporateM (Talk) 18:18, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Updates

I would like to request the following updates on Viralheat's behalf

• Updating/correcting the pricing information in the second paragraph of the Features section as follows: "while paid versions are $9.99 or $99 a month." (currently has older information saying $49 to $499 per month)
• Add some of the latest releases to their software at the end of the Development section with something like the following: "In February 2013, Viralheat released a redesigned analytics dashboard called Smart Steam as well as other user interface improvements and multiple account features. Flint 2.0 was released that March with support for Safari and Firefox."
• Add some of the latest Findings that received enough media attention to warrant inclusion at the end of the Findings section: "A March 2013 report by Viralheat found that among major airlines American Airlines had the most positive sentiment on social media and the most frequently mentioned airport was the San Francisco Airport. During March Madness the same year, Viralheat found that the most talked about team was the one from the University of Miami."

Another update since we wrote the article is this comparative review in Network World, but for various reasons, in particular regarding original research we know that would prevent us from being neutral, I felt it was better Viralheat not tackle it at this time.

References

All of the above was posted by CorporateM. North8000 (talk) 11:43, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Most of the above is a description of the nature of intended edits, rather than being a posting of proposed edits. That's fine, as long as it's understood that any feedback is about the former.North8000 (talk) 11:53, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

So, I'd be happy to review the actual proposed edits if you wish to post them here, and right now I'm just giving feedback the above. In short, they are fine from a COI point of view, but in two areas they continue one article quality problem, and one "unusualness".

• IMHO the quality problem is that the product descriptions are vague and thus a lot less informative than they could be. While there is not a neutrality problem, IMHO this is because they are formatted the way self-descriptions by a software/service provider usually are. They describe the intent/desired goal/capability rather than being a description of the actual product. Lack of information is usually via using vague buzz-words to describe it.
• The "unusualness" item is that there is a lot of material which is either basically a statement about something else arrived at via. Viralheat, or merely an instance of use about Viralheat. You might change the format on a few of these. For example, instead of saying "Viralheat determined that people prefer dogs to cats" you might say: "In 2011 the Animal Observer magazine used Viral heat to determine people's animal preferences (and maybe add the results). I think it's also fine as is, but just a suggestion.

North8000 (talk) 12:22, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks North. The exact proposed edits is the content in quotes in the original request at the end of each bullet. CorporateM (Talk) 14:53, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Cool. Then I consider these to be fine with respect to potential-COI and neutrality. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:34, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

I would normally ask at least for a {{edit COI|G}} to grant permission officially, but given how mundane the edits are, I'll go ahead. I'll clarify the Findings section too as suggested (the Findings are analytics published by Viralheat itself). CorporateM (Talk) 00:09, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Updates

I'm storing some sources here for potential, future updates.

• Shu, Catherine (August 7, 2013). "Social Media Marketing Platform Viralheat Launches Advanced Facebook Targeting". TechCrunch. Retrieved August 20, 2013.
• Tweney, Dylan (July 31, 2013). "Bloggers, start your keyboards — for a chance to get published on VentureBeat". VentureBeat. Retrieved August 19, 2013.

CorporateM (Talk) 01:27, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Viralheat recently appointed a new CEO, which was picked up in a short article in TechCrunch. I was thinking just a short sentence would cover it, like: Viralheat appointed a new CEO, Jeff Revoy, in December 2013 as a result of its new focus on the enterprise market.

CorporateM (Talk) 04:30, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

It looks good to me, so I'll put it in as-is, but... is it possible to expand on what "enterprise market" means in this context? They already serve businesses. going on that latest techcrunch article, perhaps it's worth mentinoning larger businesses. bobrayner (talk) 20:52, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Also, the current article tends to focus much more on the product than on the business. I think it might be a good idea to expand on the latter. (In my eyes, many articles have that skew, so maybe I'm in the wrong here). bobrayner (talk) 20:54, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

For the "enterprise" item, the source says "shifting its focus from small and medium businesses to larger enterprises" according to a company spokesperson. Maybe "larger corporations" would do? I wrote the article as a software page, rather than a business one. In keeping with the format common in software pages, the company info is in the "Development" section. I felt the software was more notable than the company in this case, but it is possible I have shown poor judgement as COIs often focus too much on the product. CorporateM (Talk) 21:25, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Reception

Hi bobrayner and/or others. Let me know if I am piling too much on at once if you want to do one item at a time. I was hoping to expand the Reception section, primarily to add a comprehensive review done by Network World in March. I've taken a stab at a draft below. Given how extensive the review is, it is difficult for an impartial editor to assess if I have fairly summarized the main points. I haven't worked with you before, so just let me know what approach is best for you. There is some slight Original Research in that I happen to know that Viralheat's pricing have increased substantially since the reviews were published, so I put the references to how affordable they are into "as of" type of language. CorporateM (Talk) 21:31, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

draft Reception section

In July of 2009 Mashable said Viralheat had more features than free services, with a lower price than most paid options. A customer review in PRWeek from 2012 praised Viralheat's pricing, customer service and sentiment analysis, but said its filtering tools were "a little rough around the edges." Early the following year, Viralheat was the lowest-cost social media management tool out of eight products tested by Network World. The reviewer found that it supported more social media sites than competitors, but lacked the features to support multi-user accounts needed for use in the enterprise. The reviewer also praised Viralheat for its user interface and easy cross-posting across different social networks, but said its reporting and analytics were limited. For example, only three date-ranges could be selected when generating a report. Viralheat released enterprise pricing and multi-user features in a later release that December. Network World gave Viralheat a score of 3.5 out of 5 in the comparative review, making it tied for third place out of the eight products tested.

Pricing

The article says Viralheat charges $9.99 to $99 a month. This was true when NextWeb reported it in March, but Viralheat's pricing has increased substantially since then. Unfortunately, there are no sources that verify the startup's change in pricing (something I generally wouldn't expect to be covered in RS), except that pricing that was previously listed on the website is no longer there.

Verification not truth and no original research and all that become relevant, but there is increasing support for a little IAR in that the most important thing is it being accurate. So my suggestion was that we simply date pricing information so readers know it is historical.

Something like:

• Remove from the "Features" section, which is usually present-tense: "while paid versions are $9.99 or $99 a month."
• Add to the "Development" section, which is more past-tense: "It was originally described as "social media tracking on the cheap"[1]
• Sometime in the future (perhaps months or years) when new sources are available, we may be able to do something better

I know Verification not Truth has been controversial at times, in particular when the subject of the article contests the accuracy of reliable sources (incorrect birthdates and whatnot) CorporateM (Talk) 15:03, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Since there is logic to limiting it to a time, then just make the limiting edit or remove the sentence (and see if it sticks) - not everything that is sourced needs to be in an article, and in any case should not be misrepresented in the article as if it is the case for all time, when it is not. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:43, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

At least for pricing stuff, I guess appending "In 20xx..." would work, although that has downsides (it's cluttery, and when you run across stuff such as "As of 2006, blah blah blah..." (as one does) it's kind of sad. But it'd be accurate. Herostratus (talk) 01:39, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm here due to a request by CorporateM on my talk. I support the idea of keeping the March 2013 prices in the article but treating them as historical. For instance, say these are the prices as of March 2013. Would be open to any reasonable wording that makes this clear. It's good to have prices in articles because promotional material often tries to hide the price. We should tell it like it is so people know what general bracket this is in. $99 a month sounds surprisingly cheap for this kind of product, which is being sold to businesses rather than consumers. Their web site now says "Trusted by over 25,000+ businesses and agencies worldwide." At least one of the references (#16) calls their pricing 'affordable,' but that may only be the early positioning. EdJohnston (talk) 03:43, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Ed. For context, $99 is very cheap for this kind of product. The pricing was the primary thing they were notable for. However, I'm told they now charge typically in the thousands as they shift to targeting enterprise customers. Since charging the same price as everyone else is not exactly newsworthy, I don't expect we'll have an updated source for it in the near future. Are you comfortable making whatever edit you feel is appropriate? CorporateM (Talk) 13:15, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Viralheat/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Has Potential but needs work

I feel the page a is a little lacking. Here is my evaluation based on the Good Article Criteria:

1) Well-Written - Lacking There are several instances of grammar mistakes. In some cases it looks like the page is just a mesh of different sources. Examples:

• "It tracks the number of mentions an individual or company receives on digital properties and analyzes factors such as influence, sentiment and language."
• "A free version can manage up to seven social media accounts, while paid versions are $9.99 or $99 a month.[7][8][9] and developer accounts are free."

 Done I have given it a good culling-through for basic grammar and other copyediting issues. Though I don't think I made any changes to the second sentence used as an example. Looks ok to me. CorporateM (Talk) 16:45, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

2) Verifiable - Good I feel a lot of the sources mentioned were pretty good and none of them seemed original. Most of the feature mentions are directly from their site and I see some reputable sources i.e. TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Mashable, and other Tech-related news reporting sites.

 Done Looks like a clean bill of health on this point. CorporateM (Talk) 16:45, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

3) Broad in its Coverage - Lacking Even though there reliable sources I feel the coverage is a little lacking. For software that has been out for nearly 4 years, we only have two evaluations and two reported uses.

 Not done I can see how it might appear this way at first-look, but it is a small company in a crowded space. Based on the source material available, I don't think it would be proper to expand it further. CorporateM (Talk) 16:45, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

4) Neutral - Good After reading the article I did not sense any bias towards the software whatsoever. It felt primarily objective and the evaluations sounded fair (crediting strengths and weaknesses of the software).

 Done Looks like a clean bill of health CorporateM (Talk) 16:45, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

5) Stable - Unsure After checking the history and the edits made, it seems things have not changed too much. However, there are a variety of topics being discussed on the Talk page so it is uncertain if this article is stable. Some of the discussion included

I will see if I can find someone willing to edit boldly on this. It is difficult to resolve issues where editors may reasonably disagree where I cannot edit boldly on account of my COI. CorporateM (Talk) 16:45, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

6) Illustrated - Lacking Little to no pictures which may be helpful to the article.

It's pretty standard fare to have a UI image on software pages and that's probably the only image needed for such a small page, but we could take the UI image out of the infobox and place it into the article-body (making it larger) to give the article a more illustrated feel. Thoughts? CorporateM (Talk) 16:45, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Overall, I think this article has some potential but it is lacking in some areas. Perhaps if we could fix them, it would be a good article nomination? First time reviewing so go easy on me :) Augbog (talk) 05:51, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Reviewer: Augbog (talk · contribs) 05:51, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Augubog! I started on some grammar fixes and copyediting, but I gotta run. I'll keep working through it later today. CorporateM (Talk) 13:46, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Since the review's been abandoned, I'll do a look through myself and make a decision on the article. Wizardman 01:27, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

I went and did a small amount of copyediting, and would like to see the lead expanded a bit. Besides that, this looks good to me, so I'll pass this. Wizardman 00:48, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Hey Wizardman just wanted to thank you for doing that. Sorry I have been busy with work and school so I never got a chance to come back around to it! If it helps, I looked a the article again and it looks solid. Sorry about that! Still kind of new to Wikipedia >< Augbog (talk) 01:12, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I propose that Viralheat be merged into Cision. Viralheat no longer exists as an independent company. It is now part of Cision. Andrew³²⁷ 17:22, 9 November 2018 (UTC)