Technically Speaking

Where else do you think I end up when I leave the STL for a short trip?

Fun in the sun is over, and back in the STL again since Tuesday. Even though I was enjoying some time away from the STL weather, I was still working a bit.

While the coverage today of my company Lookery reaching a billion ads served a month earlier than we predicted, it wouldn’t have happened if the team I work with wasn’t as dedicated as we are. Without all of us on this great team of 6 busting our collective asses every single day, we would have probably not reached our goal this quickly.

Now I still do receive press releases and information that I could blog daily, if I had the time and energy left to do so. There are a few items I want to cover before I disappear heads down as Lookery heads for 2 billion ads served or whatever goal we want to snatch from the mouth of our in awe doubters and onlookers.

First item: Planypus. These guys so rock. I received this news release a couple days ago, and Alex - back in the day, I probably would have been the first to report your news. Planypus mobile is now live. Now I have really been a supporter of Planypus for quite some time now. I know there are many out there who think it’s this service or that service that does it better.

Is that the reality, or is it that they haven’t given these guys from Chicago / Washington DC a real chance? Take a look for yourself because somebody is going to “get it”. This is the service that should be making the TechCrunch reviews and everyone should be putting them in the same leagues as some of the other (should I dare say laughable) competitors. When that somebody “figures it out”, it will be too late. Just like MySpace wasn’t worth a dime as a bridesmaid to Friendster a few years back, currently two cowboys are sitting pretty with million dollar bank accounts, while one guy tried bar ownership only to try to come back and …. I’ll leave that one alone.

Next Item: Blogged.com - seems to have my blog (yes the one you are reading) ranked in at a 9 out of 10 on their blogged scale. Quite interesting, as I guess they may be reading my back catalog of articles. As many of you know, I haven’t had the time to be one to play beat the clock anymore and get the story out first. As far as the site goes, it is well designed and is a good resource to find new blogs to read.

As we all know, and confirmed by an article I found on RWW, blogging has started to trend downward. Do I believe it’s time for a blogging union? Not at all. For me personally, blogging was just another way of me using it to step up to bigger and better things. I currently use other skills besides writing to entertain the readers, and that is fine.

It did however take blogging to get me here; or at least launch me on a path to where I wanted to be again. If I was still blogging full time, I’d definitely have branched out into the more interesting areas of live video blogging such as what my bud down in the Big D has been up to these days. I hear he has all sorts of radio show, and live blogging offers rolling in now.

Technically Speaking, I have probably taken up too much of your time and it’s actually time I finish up some work . alcohol rehab

Planypus, a site that lets friends make collaborative plans, announced the closing of its Series-A financing. The round was over-subscribed and funded exclusively by private investors.

The Planypus service is designed around a shared discussion space that allows participants to make plans together. Users are able to suggest and vote on event details, make comments, and invite friends. With the ability to access the service via website, a mobile phone interface, text messaging, calendars, and RSS, even the busiest of people always have a convenient way to stay updated with friends’ gatherings.

Planypus is the product of Fifteen Reasons LLC, a startup based in Chicago and Washington D.C.

Full Disclosure: Technically Speaking, the Planypus guys are sponsors of this blog; and I have asked, but they are not allowed to release the amount of the funding. They are also better set up than a lot of these so called services that seem to be more popular. My theory - just because they are in Chicago /Washington DC and not Silicon Valley, which I think is the other investors loss - I’m so glad that they were able to get their funding, as they are much more deserving of it than some of the pretenders out there that have already received money.

Covered earlier on Mashable.

Better than having to buy Da Vinci baby furniture!

Episode 23 notes:

LinkedIn up 323%

Have you been getting a flurry in LinkedIn invitations in the past few months? I have been receiving a few requests a week, so I wasn’t surprised to find that the market share of US visits to LinkedIn was up 323% in the past year (week ending 7/7/07 vs week ending 7/8/06), and up 17% in the past four weeks alone (week ending 7/7/07 vs week ending 6/8/07). As of last week, LinkedIn ranked at #23 in the Hitwise Employment and Training category.

iPod is charging - iPod #1 of 2 that I won playing Jambaz.

Planypus shirt - Great sponsors of this blog for a long time, just north of here up in Chicago.

DivShare FREE this weekend

DivShare, one of many services that offer to host your photos, videos, audio and slideshows, is running a special offer this weekend: DivShare Direct, the site’s service for custom-branded video and audio players, is going free.

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Planypus, the Chicago, IL based event planning company is launching a new look today. The team has aggressively responded to their users needs and suggestions. In my mind this makes Planypus the leader in the event planning sphere.

While other event planning sites seem to gain all the press as well as the VC funding, Planypus moves forward and addresses the issues that their users find. This company has been a favorite of this blog as well as a sponsor (disclaimer) but from the first time I viewed them, I saw a winning product.

They don’t remain stale, old, and uninviting. In fact the new look along with new ideas has bolted this company into first place over other event planning sites. You can have all the VC funding in the world, but if your product is not up to par, it will fail. Money isn’t a key to building a winning product.

The team at Planypus responded to suggestions from its users, both new and converts from its competitors, and added the ability to:
• See old plans
• Vote not only on dates and times, but also on miscellaneous ideas
• Tag friends in bulk
• The ability to send friends private messages
• Merge multiple emails into one account
• Chose new, fun icons
• A complete restyle of user profiles

In the current online event planning industry, other companies are still stuck in the announcement state of mind. They help their users announce their plans but stop short of allowing the group of friends to collaborate and discuss details. According to one observer, “Planypus is on the cutting edge of event planning.”

The team at Planypus listened to its users, and over the last month added a large variety of new features, visual uplifts, and performance enhancements. Yan Pritzker, CEO and founder stated that the, “passionate users have been the single most important factor of our success. They give us ideas, yell at us when we have done something wrong, and shape Planypus into what it is today.”

Planypus is the product of Fifteen Reasons LLC, a startup based in Chicago and Washington D.C. The company was started in 2006 by five seasoned software engineers and entrepreneurs, with backgrounds including IBM, KPMG, and Orbitz, who share a vision to drastically simplify the way people make plans together.

Socializr and Evite look to be ready for round 2. The picture that is posted on the article is quite amusing. This is almost like a “nyah, nyah, nyah” event in the making.

Jonathan Abrams has now posted this on his site, a diatribe against Evite, and it’s quite humorous. I can see the funny, but let me tell you all something that you already know. There are better services out there.

The only reason Socializr is receiving half the coverage is due to the fact of their site being run out of the land of golden eggs. Silicon Valley. What about a service that already does all this, and more? What about a service not being scrutinized for snowflake stealing? What about a service that has a really cool mascot?

You know which one I’m talking about. Well if you are a regular reader here, I already know you know of the guys from Chicago. The guys that have taken a simple animal and turned him into the champion of good vs terrible send ups of event planning. Who am I talking about?

Planypus of course! Can you get any cooler then their mascot? I bet they never even considered using any snowflake on their site, period. Why is it that they are ignored by the blogosphere? I think that when the day is done and you have had your fill of fun seeing the above funny pictures over on Abrams’ web site, you need to really head over to Planypus to make your real event plans.

Technically Speaking, the only reason sites like Renkoo (that is just plain UGLY!) and Socializr have any press at all is due to their location. Location that costs a ton of money to live actually. Chicago’s Planypus is riding the new generation of “you don’t need to be in the SV” to have a great service. Original is good. In fact originality rides higher on my list of must use or must see sites.