I wanted to drop in a quick note to those interested in the new iPhone software that comes out today (but I got it understand) to show you some stuff it can do today and were it might be heading tomorrow. Enjoy.
Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The Burst.” Here are some important notes about this episode:
Q&A: http://www.banktastic.com/questions/155-if-you-had-500-000-to-open-a-online-branch-how-would-you-spend-it
JB D. asked a really great question recently on Banktastic. How would you spend $500k if your CEO gave it to you in order to create a virtual branch? A lot of really great responses have come from this question, and you can add yours! Just follow this link and tell us how you’d spend your $500,000!
New Features on Banktastic!
We’ve added a whole BUNCH of new awesome features & goodies on Banktastic lately. We talk about just a few of them in this episode, but you can browse around the site and check them out for yourself!
Reply by Email
This was a big one for us - we’ve released our reply by email feature! This one was in the making for a while, and we’re glad to have it out and working well! When you submit a news article or a question and someone responds, you can simply reply to the notification email you receive. This is going to help the conversation continue on without ripping you away from checking your email. Try it out, and let us know what you think!
Badges for your Blog
If you share a lot of content on Banktastic, we’ve got a little goodie to help pimp out your blog. These badges show that you contribute to our community, and they come in three different colors, so pick whichever suits you best! Check out our About page to pick out which one you like and post it up on your blog!
Tweaked the “Hotness” Algorithm
This feature is a little more behind-the-scenes than the others, but makes a big difference in what you see on Bantkastic. We’ve created an algorithm that determines from all the content what’s hot and what’s not. You should see some differences in how well Banktastic feeds you hot content!
New Error Pages
We’ve put together a really awesome new error page! All the Banktastics have taken some shots that show how we feel when Bantkastic breaks down on us. We’re looking to add your shots, too! Just pick up that camera, open up PhotoBooth, do whatever - just show us how you feel when Banktastic doesn’t work right!
Banktastic’s First Official Private Network!
We are thrilled to announce that we officially have an association coming to the network side of Banktastic! Texas Bankers Association, the largest bankers association in the country, has signed on with us, and we greatly look forward to their arrival! It’s going to bring a lot of people to the conversations on Banktastic, so get ready, everybody. 
Banktastic’s Sticker Fun Flickr Group
We’ve mentioned it before, but we’ll bring it up again just in case you missed it! If you’ve received some Banktastic stickers, take pictures of where you put them and post them up in our Banktastic’s Sticker Fun Flickr Group! If you want some Banktastic stickers, just email lisa@banktastic.com, send your address, and we’ll get some to you in the mail ASAP!
Subscribe to Banktastic on iTunes
All of BanktatsicTV’s shows are available on iTunes now! Click here to access our podcast page to subscribe, or open iTunes and search “BanktasticTV.”
Email Us!
Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “The Burst” to brad@banktastic.com, or post your thoughts on the Banktastic Community.
See you next week!
-The Banktastics
Good morning!
As you know, BanktasticTV has been running episodes of “The Burst”, “The CU Scoop”, and “Roundtable Discussions” for several weeks now. It’s about time for us to get some real feedback from our audience. We’ve created a quick little survey to see what you like/dislike about our shows. It’s really short, so take a break and fill this baby out!
I posted this on my personal blog today and in the spirit of transparency wanted to make sure everyone got to be apart of the exciting stuff going on in our world. Thank you all for the support, together we can change the industry!
After going through a semi-private beta and then the release of Banktastic on April 1st we’ve seen some great progress. We always wanted the product to be free to the individual but have now started selling the product to groups of people (financial institutions, associations, financial services companies, user groups). So I woke up Friday morning @ 4:15a and drove down to Austin to meet with some folks and felt like it was a cool enough moment in my life and for the life of the product to record it. Check it out and thanks for the continued support of me personally and Banktastic!
Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The Burst.” Here are some important notes about this episode:
Q&A: Does the company you work for use Twitter?
Banktastic’s own Community Manager asked a question recently to learn more about Twitter usage among our members’ companies. We got a lot of varying responses where people ran their company’s twitter, only used a personal one, or had none at all.
I personally think that each company should give Twitter a solid chance. Aside from the fact that it’s free to use and connects you with an enormous audience, it’s a great way to put a personal touch on your brand. You get to communicate on a very casual (and fun) level with your customers with Twitter. Handle customer satisfaction issues, troubleshooting, promote new products or services - use Twitter anyway you want for your company. Seriously, give it a shot.
BarCampBankDallas on June 21 & 22
If you haven’t already penciled this into your calendar, do so now! BarCampBankDallas is going to be held on June 21 & 22 (Sat. & Sun.) in Frisco, TX. It’s not too late to register! Just visit the BCBD site to sign up now!
We’ve got a great group of people already signed up for this event, so try to get in on the fun if you can! All of the Banktastic crew will be in attendance, so come hang out and meet us.
We’re also still accepting sponsors for the event. For more information about sponsoring BarCampBankDallas, please email lisa@banktastic.com. We’ll see you there!
The Banktastics to cover Finovate 2008
It’s official! Mark & Lisa will be attending and covering Finovate 2008 held in NYC in October! We had a great time covering FinvoateStartup, and this time it’s going to be even better. If you’d like to meet up with us at Finovate, just contact us before hand and we’ll make sure to work something out. We’ll keep you informed about any more developments regarding covering this event.
Banktastic Sticker Flickr Group!
Wanna show your love for Banktastic? Why not use one of our stickers to spread the word?
We started the Banktastic Sticker Fun Group on Flickr for our members to show us the coolest places they’ve put our stickers!
If you’d like to get your hands on a couple of Banktastic stickers and a few of our awesome Moo cards, just send an email to lisa@banktastic.com with your name/mailing info, and we’ll send some to you ASAP! Once you get them, stick them some place awesome and add your pics to our Flickr group!
Subscribe to Banktastic on iTunes
All of BanktatsicTV’s shows are available on iTunes now! Click here to access our podcast page to subscribe, or open iTunes and search “BanktasticTV.”
Email Us!
Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “The Burst” to brad@banktastic.com, or post your thoughts on the Banktastic Community.
See you next week!
-The Banktastics
The Banktastics got together again for another casual roundtable discussion. This time the topic was the personalization of Banktastic. Each of us puts in a lot of personal effort to continually make this site better. From the “Welcome to Banktastic” emails to fixing bugs on the site, one of us is working hard behind the scenes to get that content to you.
Watch the video to get a more in-depth look into how we work to make Banktastic a great community for everyone.
Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The CU Scoop” featuring Mark McSpadden. Here are some important notes about this episode:
The Future of Credit Unions
The CU Loop, run by Andy LaFlamme, recently made an interesting post about how credit unions will look in the year 2020. Andy made a little commentary on an article posted that forecasted the credit union future, which can be read here.
Andy makes a lot of great points from the diversity among all credit unions to tackling the issue of mergers. We’d highly suggest you check out Andy’s great post and get in on the discussion. While you’re at it, subscribe to his RSS feed - you won’t be disappointed!
Micro Community Grants
CU Communicator, run by Jeff Hardin, featured a post this week about Carolinas Credit Union Foundation and their recent presentation of nearly $10,000 to help the struggling and homeless get back on their feet.
A contribution like this is a great way for a credit union to really get involved with their community. We applaud this foundation for doing something really great to help out the local community.
You Can Sponsor The CU Scoop
The CU Scoop and other BanktasticTV shows are looking for some sponsors! if you’d like to sponsor any of our shows, shoot an email off to lisa@banktastic.com. We have several sponsorship and advertising opportunities available, so email us if you’re interested!
You can be on The CU Scoop!
We’re interested in your thoughts on topics and trends in the credit union industry. If you want to be a part of our show, record your own video (roughly 2-3 minutes long) and upload it to our Viddler.com account. Here’s the log-in information:
username: thecuscoop
password: markymark
Remember the rules: 1.) no bank bashing, and 2.) don’t self-promote too much. If you have any questions about sharing your video with The CU Scoop crew, send an email to mark@banktastic.com.
Email Us!
Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “The CU Scoop” to mark@banktastic.com, or post your thoughts on the Banktastic Community. We’re always looking for your input.
See you next week!
-The Banktastics
Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The Burst.” Here are some important notes about this episode:
BLOGS!
The topic of this week’s episode is some of the best banking blogs that you need to read! Check out the blogs we’re featuring, and go subscribe to them!
NetBanker, run by Jim Bruene, is a great comprehensive banking blog. They have lots of great news about finance, mortgage and much more. They update daily to give their readers the absolute best, up-to-date news.
Run by Colin Henderson, The Bankwatch is a great bank news website that features a lot of great social media & research information. This was actually the first blog that Brad ever subscribed to.
The Story is run by Jeff Stephens at Creative Brand Communications. It’s a fantastic blog about marketing techniques for banks. They’ve also got a lot of really great posts about branding and social media. Be sure to check them out!
Marketing ROI is run by a familiar face around Banktastic, Ron Shevlin (aka - The Shevlinator). This blog is a great source for trends in all things related to marketing. Ron updates very frequently, so it’s a great addition to your RSS reader. Go and subscribe now!
Payments News is run by Glenbrook Partners. We’ve done a little research, and it turns out that most of the articles posted on Banktastic come from Payments News! They post several times a day with the latest and greatest banking payment news. If you want to keep up with what’s going on with payments in the banking industry, we highly suggest you subscribe to their RSS feed!
They’ve also tapped into the Twitter world! Follow their updates on Twitter: paymentsnews
Subscribe to Banktastic on iTunes
All of BanktatsicTV’s shows are available on iTunes now! Click here to access our podcast page to subscribe, or open iTunes and search “BanktasticTV.”
Email Us!
Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “The Burst” to brad@banktastic.com, or post your thoughts on the Banktastic Community.
See you next week!
-The Banktastics
Thanks for checking out this episode of BanktasticTV’s “The CU Scoop” featuring Mark McSpadden. Here are some important notes about this episode:
Age Is Just a Number
An issue arose in the online credit union world when Trey Reeme was misquoted in the CU Times as saying, “60-plus-year old directors looking at the industry’s future should seriously consider stepping down to make way for a generation more connected to new technology.” (I’m not even going to link to the original article, here’s Trey’s take. You can get to the original from there.)
Of course Trey didn’t say that at all, but a great conversation about ages & trends in credit unions came of all of this. You can find the base of the conversation in the comments at Ron Shevlin’s Blog and there are other links within that thread that are worth checking out. (Also worth noting, Ron has a classy apology to Trey that is worth a read as well.)
You can be on The CU Scoop!
We’re interested in your thoughts on topics and trends in the credit union industry. If you want to be a part of our show, record your own video (roughly 2-3 minutes long) and upload it to our Viddler.com account. Here’s the log-in information:
username: thecuscoop
password: markymark
Remember the rules: 1.) no bank bashing, and 2.) don’t self-promote too much. If you have any questions about sharing your video with The CU Scoop crew, send an email to mark@banktastic.com.
What’s on the whiteboard this week?
See what’s behind Mark’s head this week!
Email Us!
Feel free to email comments or suggestions about “The CU Scoop” to mark@banktastic.com, or post your thoughts on the Banktastic Community. We’re always looking for your input.
See you next week!
-The Banktastics
The Banktastics also got together to discuss openly our new private messaging feature on Banktastic.com. We really appreciate the feedback we’ve gotten so far about whether or not to make messaging completely open. We wanted to take a few minutes and share with you our own personal thoughts on the messaging system we’ve implemented.
Watch the video and let us know your thoughts on the private messaging system on Banktastic!
