Monday, March 27, 2006

Hello University of Washington!

The Blue.Us Crew threw on some cheap t-shirts and grabbed piles of fliers to go see a bunch of students at the Unversity this morning. For you UW students who saw us there, thanks for taking fliers. We felt silly but got some great reactions from you. My personal favorite was the two guys who ruined a whole batch of people walking towards us near frat row. Thanks to you guys saying "no gracias" at the front of a large column of people, you ruined our stats for that group. It was actually quite funny. I also got a kick out of hearing Jigna say that she was following people and saying "I know you don't want to talk to me..." Geez. Talk about humiliating. Getting the word out ain't easy! And no, we did not pay really good-looking students to hand these out - it was us! The developers, the PM, the designer, the CEO, the VP of Engineering, the well-dressed business dude who made a couple ladies blush. Hehe. It's great to trying to give away an iPod Nano and see that half of the student body already owns an iPod of one sort or another. Well, you can always put the winnings up on Ebay. So here's the deal for UW folks. Make sure you create your account using your UW email address. Get on Blue.Us. Create 5 Dots by April 2nd. That makes you eligible. One of you will win an iPod Nano. The odds are going to be pretty good.

Friday, March 17, 2006

St. Paddy's Day Thoughts

Happy St. Paddy's Day! Another week at BD HQ and things are going swimmingly. We started giving out invitations to Blue.Us just this week and you can see the user total on the site growing by leaps and bounds. Woohoo! It's been really rewarding to see the invites getting slurped up, people posting them on their blogs to their friends, etc., and a crush of new people coming in and Dotting. We'd love to hear from you about how your friends are doing with the product. We're constantly working on making it easier to pick up and use but we value tremendously the privilege of talking to people with fresh sets of eyes. We're so deep in what we're building that it's hard for us to see things which are sometimes quite obvious to a newbie. So when you have ideas, or new user experiences to relay, please make sure to click the feedback link on our website. We read it all and take it all to heart, I promise. So, I guess the only other thing I'd like to point is a bit about how you can get your own invitations. Here's a clue - Dot and find people on the system to befriend. That's it. If you do this, the invitations will be forthcoming. We're still very early in the development of our company and are tickled to have you along for the ride. We love what we're building and we love you too.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Einstein's Famous Blue.Us Discovery

Who knew that Einstein also worked on Blue.Us? Raise your hand...

Monday, March 13, 2006

Your invites can now be used for anyone!

Just in case you missed it in the announcement last week, any invitations you're sitting on can now be used to invite anyone (at least anyone with an email address). It's important that the new people we bring on are able to see new Dots and learn how to create their own Dots. So keep Dotting, let your friends know how to start Dotting, and also be sure to tell them which of their other friends are on Blue.Us. Cheers!

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

We're back up.

The site is back up and it looks a little bit different than before. Yeehaw!

Blue.Us Temporarily Down

We've taken the site down for a little bit. We should have it back up within the next couple of hours. Thanks you for your patience! We'll try and make it worthwhile for you...

Thursday, March 02, 2006

The Story of DDot

Well hello there. I'm Chris, one of the developers here at Blue Dot (a.k.a. "bd" as we all affectionately call it). My job is to make Blue.Us do its thang, be fast, and not lose any of the sweet stuff you decide to share! But enough about me, I think I'll take a moment and tell a little fictional story about a little Blue Dot. I'll call him "DDot". Once upon a time, DDot lived in a deep dark forest with lots of things to see. There were brown trees, red trees, blue squirrels, orange apples, green monkies and so many more things in this forest. DDot liked some of these things, but not all of them. Even more, DDot had some friends, EDot, and SheDot. The three of them would spend a lot of time running around in the forest, looking at things, learning, and then sometimes coming home to share some of the things they learned. Unfortunately, D, E, and She would learn so much during a day, it became overwhelming to try to remember and share everything. So, during their meetings, they tried to share only the things that would be most interesting to their friends. None of them knew everything that their friends could have shared, and they had no easy way to explore all of the information that their friends knew. Then, one day, D was wandering around in the woods when he came across a scarey Dot Eating White Owl. D knew that this Owl meant trouble, but he managed to get away from it. He wanted to remember to share that he saw the Owl with E and She so they could be careful. But, a little while afterwards, D came upon a shiny yellow kitten! The kitten was sooo cute, and he couldn't resist playing with it! It jumped around, played with string, and purred so nicely! After a few hours with the yellow kitten, D had forgotten all about the White Owl. When D, E, and She got together that evening, all D could remember was his time with the Yellow kitten, and how everybody should go and play with it! He forgot to mention the White Owl to his friends entirely! The next day, D spent an uneventful day in the woods, and when he came back to meet E and She for another one of their long sharing sessions he found himself alone. He waited and waited. D became extremely worried when suddenly he remembered the White Owl. This made him even more worried! If only he could have remembered everything he found in the woods that day! If only he could have shared the yellow kitten AND the White Owl. Maybe then E and She would be ok!! Just as D began to panic beyond control, E and She burst into the room shouting "Surprise!! Happy Birthday!!" D totally forgot that it was his birthday too!! E and She were holding a big purple birthday cake with his name on it. The cake had 1000 candles!! E and She were late because they had to stop off and pick up the cake, not to mention all those candles! D was so happy to see his friends he almost forgot to tell them about the White Owl this time, but he finally did manage to get it out. DDot, EDot, and SheDot spent the evening laughing and telling stories like they usually did, but they all couldn't help wondering if there was something they could find in the forest to help them remember all of these wonderful and important things they were finding out there... ---- Fin I won't spend a lot of time explaining the symbolism in this story, I'll just let you sit back and enjoy it, and maybe even make your own interpretations... Life is a journey, Let's live it together...

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Nikki Chau for Blue Blog

Hi! Hello. Um, hola! (No, too bold). Hi there. (Too weak). Heeey, how yuuu doing? (Nah, too cheesy). ... 10 minutes (or so) later... Hi! (Ok, I am just plain trying too hard now). You know, this first-post-introduction thing is hard! I'm all of the sudden nervous and self-conscious, like that feeling you get on your first date or on an interview--trying to be yourself and trying to make a good impression at the same time. So, I'm Nikki Chau. I'm helping the Blue.Us crew with bringing our really awesome product to more people and figuring out ways to make it even more awesomer (I'm pretty sure my English professor will cry reading that). In other words, I want to find out what's working and what needs more work, and my goal is for you to have a killer experience using Blue.Us. My interests include User Experience and Interaction Design. I love rock climbing and travelling, and in general seek amazing human connections and experiences. I'm looking forward to hearing from you, either through this blog or in person. IM/Email/SMS me, let's grab coffee and talk. Um... adios! Ciao! (too much?) See ya later gator... (err... high cheese factor?) Okay, here's my last try I'll be bock!