Skimmer

FAQ

What is Skimmer?
Skimmer is a desktop application that was conceived and designed to be an improved experience for the common, day-to-day, lifestreaming activities in which many of us are engaged these days. There are some great services out there with lots of robust features, but most of us don’t use all those features every single day. Skimmer is intended to complement the big services by enhancing our experience of the handful of activities we all do every day.
Is Skimmer another social network? Don’t we have enough of those?
No, it’s not, and yes, we probably do. Skimmer is merely a new way to interact with the services you are already using.
No ads?
You will never see ads on Skimmer, ever. Just the content your friends are broadcasting. That’s it.
Do my friends also need to have Skimmer?
Absolutely not. Once you let Skimmer know which services you use, it will automatically import all your friends and contacts from those services, and you can start seeing their content the Skimmer way, right away. That said, there are a lot of perks for you if your friends are also using Skimmer:
  • Bigger, cooler avatars
  • Ability to see all of your friends’ social activity across all the services they use, summarized nicely on one screen.
  • A single username will represent them in the feed no matter what service they are posting from. No more keeping track of or struggling to decipher unintelligible account handles.
  • You can put your friends into groups (coworkers, family, etc.) and filter your feed by group.
  • You can see which services they’re using, which ones you’re not yet connected to, and add those services right from Skimmer. Make sure you’re seeing all the lifestreaming content your friends are generating, no matter what kind it is.
How do I add contacts or find new friends from Skimmer?
Skimmer is designed to be a specialized tool for interacting with your existing friends on these services. Anything beyond that is best done on the services themselves, including finding new friends and adding new contacts. Once you have added new contacts, Skimmer will automatically show you their updates and let you interact with them.
I had to use my e-mail address to register for Skimmer. Why? Are you going to send me spam?
Absolutely not. The only time we will ever use your e-mail address is to send you a new Skimmer password if you ever forget it.
I had to use my Twitter and YouTube passwords to give Skimmer access to those services. Has my privacy been violated?
No. The passwords you entered are encrypted on our servers. Some services require this in order to give Skimmer the ability to pull content from those services.
Who do I ask for help if something seems broken or if I want to request a feature?
Fallon is a creative marketing agency, not a software vendor. That, plus the fact that Skimmer is completely free, means we won’t be offering the same level of support you might expect from a software vendor. That said, we made Skimmer for you, and if you are having problems or if you have thoughts on ways to improve it, we’d love to hear from you. E-mail skimmer@fallon.com and speak your mind.
Can I use more than one Twitter/Facebook/Flickr/YouTube/Blogger account?
No, Skimmer only works with one account per service. If you have multiple computers, obviously you can use a completely different set of services with a different Skimmer account on your second computer.
What is Adobe® AIR™?
Skimmer is built using Adobe AIR. Adobe AIR is a development platform that enables rich Web applications to run on your desktop without a Web browser. Read more about it here: http://www.adobe.com/products/air/everyone/
Is Skimmer open source?
Not at this time, no.
Does Skimmer run on Macs?
Skimmer runs on both Macs and PCs (as do all AIR applications).
How do I invite friends to use Skimmer?
You can e-mail them the url to the download page via the “send to a friend” link on the “About” screen, or you can just IM/tweet/e-mail them the link directly: fallon.com/skimmer.
What are the dots or little diamonds that sometimes appear in the feed?
Those indicate new updates. Since Skimmer organizes updates chronologically, sometimes a new update will drop into the feed behind one you’ve already seen, so we use these icons to let you know what’s new.
Do you have plans to support any other services? What about an iPhone or Android version?
We have lots of great ideas to grow and enhance Skimmer. The best thing you can do to can help us improve it and make it mobile is by using Skimmer and telling your friends to use it. The more users we have, the more likely we’ll be able to improve it.
Why don't all my contacts show up in the Address Book?
Skimmer will give you updates from all your Twitter/Facebook/Flickr/YouTube/Blogger friends, but the address book is exclusively for the friends you have who are also using Skimmer.
Do I have to upload an avatar? I already have avatars on all my services.
No, you don’t have to take advantage of Skimmer’s awesome, super-sized avatar canvas. But what’s wrong with you? Why wouldn’t you?
How will I get the latest updates?
Any time we release an upgrade to Skimmer, you will be automatically notified when you launch the app. The update process is extremely quick and painless.