Checking-In from Gnomedex 6.0

Just checking in ... Mo and I are sitting in the back listening to some great conversation now that Gnomedex has kicked off. I'll be providing any updates of the presentations here on Blue Dot using the tag "gnomedex live". You can also get a live audio feed @ gnomedex.com - make sure to check back at 5p!!

Launch Day! Blue Dot goes live with placement in the Seattle P-I from John Cook. Presenting at Gnomedex later today.

A couple of the Blue Dot folks (Kabir and Mohit) met with a local technology business writer earlier in the week. Lo and behold, we showed up prominently in today's Seattle P-I. Booyaa!! Hello, world! Later in the day, sometime post-5PM, Kabir will be presenting our launch announcement to the crowd of notable folks at Gnomedex 6.0, right down the street from us here in Seattle. We're going to try and get someone to videotape that announcement. We'll see if we can get it posted.

Putting on the coffee.

Okay, it's past 1 am and I have been sitting at my desk at home since roughly 9am (though I did take a break for dinner). Oh, and I'm about 20% done with what I'm doing - when I wanted to be 100% /sigh. What am I working on? I can't tell you. Seriously, I've been asked not to (those of you that know me understand how hard it is for me to keep this secret). But when I can tell, I promise you'll know, and I promise it'll be worth it. That said, I've done things like this before, and its never taken me this long. Well, frankly this is a different level - but regardless I think this time I've told myself it has to be perfect. Now, the rationale me knows that there is no such thing - and if I continue re-writing every sentence 6 times I'll finish too close for comfort - because perfect does not exist. So, with the miracle of coffee, hopefully I can pull myself together and re-write sentences only twice for this draft :) Oh - and for the weekend update: the wall was finished. It looks awesome. ChrisK and Sung, you guys rule. I'll post a pic of the finished product when I'm in the office tomorrow. The hard work those guys put in definitely shows. Lastly (and a complete non-sequitor because I'm tired) - check out some of the videos I've been dotting lately. There's some winners in there. And sorry if you dont like Indian music. -Kabir.

Fun Ensues.

Yes, you heard right. Fun has ensued that past couple of days here at the Blue Dot World HQ. As many of you have seen, we updated the site (understatement of the century) and added some more beta users. But this is just the beginning (I foreshadow). Mike (investor, and self-proclaimed Blue Dot head cheerleader) wore this shirt yesterday to commemorate the deployment: And then today, we got really GANGSTA around here: tagging. No, not tagging content with keywords tagging - GANGSTA tagging - hitting the walls with spray paint. You know, cause that's how we roll. Sung and ChrisK used their mad skillz, did a home depot run, and started going for it:

The Setup. The Culprits. The Invasion.

Sasquatch next door complained about the fumes in the hallway (boo dont buy their books. jk). I'll post up the pics when they are done after the weekend. And hopefully I'll have more time so I can share a crazy story or two. And depending on the weekend, maybe three. - Kabir.

Blue Dot Release: Awesome: June 14, 2006

We've gone and done it again. Blue Dot is now even more wicked-awesome. The release today includes the following changes: - The site invitations have opened up a bit and you have enough invitations to invite all your friends. You can (and should) invite any of your friends that you think would like to share with you at Blue Dot. In fact, try out our email importer for the quickest way of building your Friend List. - Improved site architecture and design. We've listened to your feedback and cleaned things up significantly. We like it and so do the few people who got sneak peeks. Let us know what you think. - You can now add comments to Dots! Yeah, you heard me right, we've put in the first implementation of our top user request. You can comment on any of your friend's Dots and they can comment on yours. I'm going to start commenting up a storm now. - Search your own Dots, your Friends' Dots, and Everyone's Dots. We've added the ability to search along any of the three main pools of Dots. - We've added User Search under our new "People" tab. You can still explore the friend of your friends by clicking around but there is now a direct way to look for individuals.

Blue Dot going down for a bit... We'll be back up shortly.

Blue Dot is temporarily unavailable while a bunch of us run around making things much cooler. No, seriously, it's going to be awesome. We will return service as soon as possible (certainly within the next several hours). Please check back shortly as it's going to be awesome. Oh wait, I said that already. Awesome.

Finally!

After months of reminders, Eric will be happy I'm finally posting to the blog :) I figured now would be an appropriate time to chime in since he's down in Cali for his little bro's wedding - and well someone should hold down our handy-dandy blog. What really motivated me, is that I wanted to tell everyone about these cookies Jigna made - they're so damn good. I just ate so many that my stomach is starting to hurt /me hopes he doesnt hurl. She just had her 1-year anniversary of being at bd (yay jigs!) and made little blue cookies to commemorate. You should really get in on these cookies - I'll try and save some. I mean the fact that Derek is WFH means that they wont all be scarfed by 5p. Anyways, enough about cookies. I went to the Tech Crunch party last night - I'm sure many reading this were either there or have already read blog posts about it. It was totally sweet. Because we're not officially launching for a few more weeks (hint, hint ;)) I went more to just meet other industry folks, bounce around ideas, and hang out. It was totally awesome - there was someone from pretty much every start-up in Seattle. I met a lot of great people, and successfully avoided the press as I had been instructed :) Everyone I spoke to seemed super excited about our launch, and getting the chance to check out the system and have it OPEN to EVERYONE (hint, again). Anyways - back to getting ready for the main event. Check back here for more update - I'll try to check-in with information about our big launch without giving away all the surprises ;)