Scouta Help

1. What is Scouta?

   Scouta provides recommendations that are really relevant suggestions of online audio and video, such as podcasts, videocasts, online television, video, etc. When you let us know your favorite online video and audio, by "bookmarking" in or rating in Scouta, your tastes and interests are used to make recommendations specifically for you.

   Scouta also provides a way for you to share your favorite bookmarks with friends, family, contacts or the world. You can create or join groups to share these with others you have something in common with.

2. How Does Scouta Work?

   Scouta makes relevant recommendations when you provide it with information about what you watch and listen to online. You can do this by bookmarking these favorites manually, or automatically. The more you tell Scouta you've watched or listened to, the better it does at finding other relevant stuff for you. Scouta gets smarter as it grows, and as you feed it more. We really need a sign made: Please Feed The Scouta.

   You can also provide Scouta with more details about your tastes by rating the audio and video you add, your recommendations, or anything else added by others. The more information you provide, the better Scouta will do with your recommendations.

3. How Do I Get Stuff Recommended?

   When you join Scouta you're given you're own Scouta web page called "my scouta". When you begin bookmarking your favorite audio and video in Scouta, your very own recommended list begins to fill up with other suggestions. The more you add, or the more you rate, the more recommendations you'll get.

4. How Do I Add Stuff Manually?

   Adding stuff manually is pretty easy. When you watch or listen to something online, simply copy the URL from your web browser, and paste it into the Add A Media Item box on your "my scouta" page. Once you click the add item button it'll be added to your user items list, and Scouta will use it for future recommendations.

   To make adding items to Scouta easier we've created a bookmarklet. Simply drag the bookmarklet link below to your web browsers Bookmark Toolbar. When you find a web page with audio or video that you like, click the bookmarklet and you'll be presented with a Scouta page allowing you to add details about the item.

5. How Do I Use The Browser Bookmarklet

   Drag and drop this bookmarklet to your web browsers bookmark toolbar: Scouta This.

   

   Once the bookmarklet is in the bookmark toolbar, you simply click it when you're on a web page that has audio and video you love. Scouta will then grab the details and allow you to add the page as a favorite bookmark.

6. How Do I Add Stuff Automatically?

   Check out the Scouta Agent. It allows you to automatically check your iTunes application on your computer for podcasts and vodcasts, andautomatically add them as Favorites to your My Scouta account. It also works with your iPod, Apple TV, and even iPhone.

   Scouta also aims to add updates to the software so that it will start working with other types of media players, so stay tuned.

7. How Do I Remove An Item?

   Scouta lets you remove an item from your item list. You might decide that you really didn't like it, and don't want it in you list rather than rating it as "bad," or you might be embarrassed enough that you'd rather no one saw the item on your "my scouta"" page. Either way you can remove an item by selecting it in your list, and on the favorite page there is a "Remove This" button.

8. What Are Groups?

   Any Scouta member can create a Group. Groups allow you to join with other Scouta members with similar interests. You can then check the group for recommendations that are specific to all the members. If you're into the stock market, start a stock market group, if you prefer The O.C., start an O.C. group. You'll be surprised at the recommendations.

   Groups are also a great way to share favorites privately. You can create a private group and invite specific people to join. That way you and the other members can collect favorites together, and benefit from the recommendations of the group, and your own.

9. What Are Tags?

   Tags are keywords that describe an item or a group. Adding tags helps you, and others, when you go hunting for stuff in Scouta. Each favorite or group can have more than one tag, in fact, the more tags the easier it is to find things. So, we encourage members to tag early, and tag often.

   You can add more than one tag by separating each tag with a comma. You can also add multiword tags.

   Lists of Tags, commonly called Tag Clouds, display each tag with a font size that represents how common the tag is. So the larger a Tag's font, the more common the tag has been used on Scouta: essentially showing us the most used words.

10. How Do I Add or Change My Profile?

    When you've logged in to Scouta your "my scouta" page has a User Preferences link. When you click on it a management box appears, allowing you to edit your Display Name, add an avatar, change your email address, change your password, or edit your biography.

    You also have the option to hide your profile if you'd rather others not see any of your details, or you can hide your item list, so that people can't see what you've been watching or listening to.

11. What is an Avatar, and How Do I Upload One?

    An avatar is an icon that is individual for every member. We give you a standard icon when you join, but you can upload any graphic or photograph that you think best represents you. This could be a photo of yourself, a cartoon, or an image of your favorite celebrity.

12. What Are Favorites?

    When a member adds a media link to Scouta, manually or automatically, it gets added to their favorite list.

    If you'd rather not share your list with others, you can hide it by making the selection in your User Preferences on your my scouta page.

13. What is My Scouta?

    My Scouta is your personal page. It shows your favorites, recommendations, groups, and allows you to edit your profile and add more media links and groups.

14. What Favorite Bookmarks Can I Add?

    Scouta doesn't restrict you in what bookmarks you can add, but we recommend you use it for video and audio because we think you'll find it more valuable in the long run.

    We're also making it easy to view or listen to the media right here on Scouta. So if you add a .mp3 file, a Play button appears on the favorites page. We're also busy adding embedded players for video, so far we've added players for links to YouTube, MySpace, Google Video, Veoh, Metacafe, Revver, iFilm, Grouper, Guba, Jumpcut, MSN Soapbox, Liveleak, Brightcove, and Superdeluxe. More are being added constantly.

15. How Do I Search Scouta?

    You can search Scouta a few different ways.

    The quick and easy way is to use the quick search at the top of every page. Add a keyword or more and click search and you're browser will redirect to the search results page.

    Alternatively you can search by selecting any tags you see. Click a tag and you'll be presented with a list of bookmarks or Groups that has the same tag.

    A third way to search is to select the group section on the top navigation bar. You can then browse groups by tag, or their alphabetically by name.

16. What is RSS? How Do I Subscribe?

    Using software like iTunes, video and audio will be delivered to you ready to watch or listen when you're ready.

17. How Do I Subscribe in iTunes?

    The shiny smart people at Apple provide a way in iTunes to subscribe to any RSS. If the subscription mentions an audio or video file, like the Scouta subscriptions, then iTunes will automatically download them so you can play them in iTunes, or in some instances on your iPod.

    If you have iTunes installed on your computer, you can subscribe to one of Scouta's many subscriptions by clicking the "itunes subscription" link on "Favorites" and "Recommendations." iTunes will then launch and prompt you to add the "feed."

18. What Are Podcasts?

    Podcasts are audio, and sometimes video, that you can subscribe to online. They usually allow you to receive the files automatically with software like Apple's iTunes.

19. What Are Videocasts?

    A videocast is a common name for a video podcast. They are also known as vodcats, or vidcasts.

20. What Spiders Does Scouta Use?

    User Agent: ScoutaBot/0.1
    Crawls the web looking at all Favorites that have an unknown type to determine the file types, such as MP3, MP4, M4A, M4V, etc. Does a HEAD request only.

    User Agent: Scouta_MP3_artwork_spider/0.90"
    Crawls all Favorites of that are audio or quicktime that currently have no album art associated with it. It then downloads 100k of the URL and tries to extract header information (specifically the 'APIC' tag).

Scouta Agent

1. Why use the Scouta Agent?

   

   Scouta can give you new recommendations based on what podcasts or vodcasts that you have in iTunes, on your iPod, Apple TV, and iPhone. The Scouta Agent allows you to update your My Scouta account automatically with all the podcasts and vodcasts you listen to or watch with iTunes, and Scouta will base its recommendations on your iTunes subscriptions. Each one that it recognizes it will add as a favorite to your account.

   Because the Agent does this automatically in the background, it means you don't need to worry about looking for new podcasts or vodcasts that you might like, because the agent allows you to receive personalized recommendations without any extra effort.

2. What do I need for the Scouta Agent?

   Currently the Scouta Agent works with iTunes on OS X (10.4) and Windows (XP, Vista), which means that it also works with your iPod, Apple TV, and iPhone (if you've scored one). Next all you need to do is make sure you subscribe to a few podcasts or vodcasts, and if you haven't already, register to join Scouta.

   Windows members also need to make sure that .NET Framework 2.0 is installed. Vista should already have this. XP owners can check in your Control Panel. Start -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs and look for Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. If it's not installed you can get it from Microsoft at .NET Framework 2.0.

3. How does it work with my iPod, Apple TV, or iPhone?

   iTunes is a clever little application - it collects information from the iPod, Apple TV, and iPhone, and stores it all on your computer. So, when you listen to a new podcast on your iPod, the next time you sync with your computer, it will store that in the iTunes Application.

   After syncing any of these devices, the Scouta Agent will find the new podcasts you've consumed, and update your My Scouta account the next time it syncs. That means that you don't have to do anything different to have the Scouta Agent work with any of these devices.

4. How do I install the Agent?

   

   After downloading the Agent from our Downloads page, you double click on the .dmg file (for Mac) or .msi (for Windows).

   On a Mac a new window will open with the Scouta Agent file, and a short cut to your Applications folder. All you do is click, hold, and drag the Scouta Agent icon across to the Application folder icon, and your computer will copy across the files. After installation you can run the application by double clicking the Scouta Agent icon in your Applications folder - or your preferred shortcut for launching applications - and the Preferences window will open to allow you to add your Scouta member name and password. If you've forgotten your password, just click the "Forgot Password?" link. Once you've filled in these details you can close the Preferences window and you're all prepared to sync.

   With Windows, a welcome screen will be displayed. Click next to choose where the Scouta Agent should be installed. Follow the prompts and once the Agent is installed you can select to automatically launch the Agent after the installation is complete, or just select Scouta Agent from the Applications folder or double click a shortcut.

5. Agent Preferences

   Preferences can be accessed at any time by clicking the Scouta Agent icon in your menu bar or task bar, and selecting Preferences.

   * Note: If the preferences window is open the Scouta Agent will not try to sync with Scouta.

   Preferences have several options:

   General

   

   Start at Login: when this check box is ticked the Scouta Agent will start when you login to your computer, such as when you restart, or reboot. This saves you remembering to launch it yourself, and will keep the Agent running as often as possible so you don't miss a sync.

   Update to Scouta every x hours: tells the Agent how often it should automatically sync with your My Scouta account. If you're a heavy consumer of podcasts and vodcasts then you might want this set for every few hours. If not, it might be best to set it to every 12 or 24 hours. It's default is every 6 hours.

   Account

   

   Login Name and Password: when you start the Scouta Agent for the first time, you can add your Scouta Login Name and Password so that it can access your My Scouta Account. If you haven't registered for a Scouta account, then click the "Join Now" button and your default browser will open the registration for on the Scouta web site. If you've forgotten your password select the "Forgot password?" link.

   Subscribe to Recommendations: when you login with the Scouta Agent for the first time, or re-register, it will ask if you'd like to subscribe to your Scouta Recommendations in iTunes. That way you'll automatically receive any podcast or vodcast recommendations straight to iTunes, iPod, Apple TV, or iPhone.

   Details: when you've logged in to the Agent with your Login Name and Password, your Login name is displayed.

   Change Account: allows you to login is as a different Scouta member. If you change your password or want to login with a different Scouta account, then clicking the "Change Account" button to enter these details again.

   Software Updates (Mac only)

   

   The Scouta Agent is constantly updated with new features or bug fixes. You can check for yourself at our Downloads page, or allow the Scouta Agent to automatically check for you. If there is an update you'll be notified and you can choose to download or ignore the new version.

   Check At Startup: will check for any new versions whenever the Scouta Agent restarts.

   Check for Updates: can be set to check for a new version of the Agent Daily or Weekly.

   Notifications (Windows only)

   

   The Scouta Agent will alert you about it's progress from the system tray, if you choose to. Choose to notify you when it syncs with Scouta, only for errors, and when it is started. You might choose to have no notifications, because you can still see when it's syncing because the Agent icon will change from gray to color.

   Advanced

   

   Growl Enabled (Mac Only): check this box to have Scouta provide notifications using Growl.

   What is Growl, and how does it work with the Scouta Agent?

   "Growl is a notification system for Mac OS X: it allows applications that support Growl to send you notifications."

   In the case of the Scouta Agent, it will display a notification when it starts to sync with your My Scouta account, and provide other details like errors or other status details.

   "Notifications are a way for your applications to provide you with new information, without you having to switch from the application you're already in."

   Where do I get Growl? (Mac only)

   

   You can download Growl from their web site: http://growl.info/.

   Update with diagnostics (Mac only): will log diagnostics when the Agent performs a Sync to the Scouta server. Used for diagnosing problems or for viewing what information is sent during the Sync process. There is probably no need to check this unless requested to by someone at Scouta when trying to help trouble shoot problems.

   Diagnostic mode (Windows only):

   • Diagnostics mode: When selected extra information is returned to the client after a Sync has been completed.
   • Log Level: Sets the verbosity of the logs. When set at Debug logging is very verbose. Info is the recommended setting, it informs of events without too much detail.
   • View Log: Clicking this button will open the log in the users default text editor.
   • Clear Log: Deletes all current logging.

6. Sync with Scouta

   The Scouta agent uploads information about the podcasts and videocasts that you have subscribed to in iTunes, even if you haven't watched or listened to them. However, it will only rate one as good if you've listened or watched most of it.

7. My Scouta

   Selecting the My Scouta option in the drop down list will automatically open your My Scouta page in your preferred browser.

8. Does the Scouta Agent include music I have in iTunes?

   The Scouta Agent doesn't include music from your iTunes library. Scouta currently focuses on podcasts and video content, however, if enough people beg for the feature, we might consider it, maybe.

9. Will the Scouta Agent include Movies, TV Shows, and Music Videos I've bought in iTunes?

   At this stage it doesn't include Movies, TV Shows, and Music Videos. But it will shortly.

10. What Recommendations do I get through iTunes? Why am I not getting YouTube, MySpace, etc. videos?

    When you first sign in to the Scouta Agent, you have the option to subscribe to your recommendations in iTunes. This means iTunes will automatically download any Recommendations from your My Scouta account. This means you can simply "set and forget" Scouta: the more podcasts or vodcasts you consume in iTunes, your iPod, Apple TV, or iPhone, the more personalized recommendations you'll automatically receive back in your iTunes library. You'll never have to search for another podcast again.

    Keep in mind that iTunes does not work with every media type. For instance, iTunes can not play YouTube, MySpace, Metacafe videos, etc. So not all recommendations will be downloaded. You can check for any of these, and play them, by visiting your My Scouta page.

11. The Scouta Agent didn't add some podcasts or vodcasts I have in iTunes?

    Sometimes the Scouta Agent can't find the location of the podcast/vodcast on the Internet. This might be because it has been removed by the creator, or it could mean that the details aren't stored in iTunes properly.

    If you're concerned that it's en error, please feel free to send us a feedback email.

12. Not all Favorites added to My Scouta by the agent are rated as good?

    The Scouta Agent will add all your subscriptions in iTunes to your My Scouta account. However, it might be that you haven't consumed some of them, and so Scouta doesn't rate these as good.

    It only rates favorites as good if you've listened to most of it. After all, if you haven't listened to it, it can't be that good.

    If you later listen to it, it will change that rating to good automatically.

13. How do I uninstall the Scouta Agent?

    Mac: All you need to do is drag /Applications/Scouta Agent.app to Trash. If you like you can also delete ~/Library/Preferences/com.scouta.ScoutaAgent.plist, ~/Library/Application Support/Scouta Agent, and ~/Library/Caches/Scouta Agent.

    Windows: Simply select the Scouta Agent from the Add/Remove Programs application. Start -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs. Then look for Scouta Agent and uninstall.

    If you decide to stop using the Scouta Agent, then please email us at feedback@scouta.com, and let us know why. Even if it's harsh we love to know what people are thinking, so we can improve the service as much as possible.