Hi, I'm A Blog

Hi, I'm back from Boulder, CO!

Well, not JUST back.  It’s been over a week actually.  But we’re just now getting the chance to blog about it.  As part of our prize for winning the 2009 Rails Rumble, we (me, Jonathan, and Max) got to spend a week out in Boulder, CO at TechStars meeting people and working on Hi, I’m.

Our host for the week was Andrew Hyde.  Andrew manages community for TechStars and runs Startup Weekend.  He set us up for some meetings with some incredibly smart and insightful people who shared their startup stories, gave us some great advice, and answered our questions.  Big thanks to David Cohen, Eric Marcoullier and the Gnip Team, Derek Scruggs from SurveyGizmo, Allison Kent and the crew at Boulder Digital Workshop, and Jeremy Tanner for the conversation and rides to and from the airport (we owe you).

We also got to spend a few days with our heads down working on the Hi, I’m product.  We’re trying to keep making progress on fixing bugs and working in the features we want to build while still maintaining the commitment we have to our Koombea clients.  Getting a week to focus on Hi, I’m was great and we were able to squash some bugs and launch the new customization feature which was incredibly well received.

We came home as excited as ever about the future of Hi, I’m and we’re looking forward to getting a lot done in the days and weeks ahead.  We’ve got some pretty big ideas for where we want to go and can’t wait to keep building Hi, I’m into the best way on the Internet to introduce yourself to people.

Things Should Be Peppy Again

We were able to track down the source of the problem this morning to a database query that wasn’t working right.  We fixed it and everything should be nice and quick again.  If you’ve got any issues, please let us know at help@hi.im.

The Database is a Bit Slow Today

This morning, we sent out our first big email update to Hi, I’m users.  There are quite a few of you and the response to the new customization features has been a bit overwhelming.  So much so that the database is having a hard time handling all the requests.  As a result, a lot of people are getting errors or pages not loading or seeing music videos.  We’re working as fast as we can to get things back up to speed.  Thanks for your patience.  We’ll update again once we’ve got things stablized.

Make Your Hi, I'm Page Awesomer

Starting…NOW!…you can customize the way your Hi, I’m page looks.  Check out our designer Max’s page.  You can now add colors and backgrounds to make your page even more about you.  We also cleaned up the layout a bit.  Just log in to your Hi, I’m page, click “Edit My Page” and then go to the Appearance tab.  If you run into any problems, please let us know by sending an email to help@hi.im.

We’d love to see what you do with your page, so if you customize it, leave your Hi, I’m URL in the comments.  Have fun!  And be awesome.

Hi, I'm The Blog.

Hi!  We’ve finally got a blog up.  It’s not pretty, but we’ll spiff it up a bit as we go.

If we haven’t met yet, Hi, I’m Ryan.  I work at Koombea with Jonathan, Max, and the rest of our team.  We built Hi, I’m in 48 hours for the 2009 Rails Rumble.  And wouldn’t ya know it, we won!  There were a ton of cool apps built that weekend and we’re honored to have been a part of the competition.

Since we launched after only 48 hours of development, there were naturally a bunch of bugs and a lot of things we never got around too.  Well, we’re pleased that we’re getting around to them.

If you created your page before today, you could only add one account of each network.  Today we launched a new networks page that allows you to add multiple accounts for each network type.  Do you have three Twitter accounts?  No problem!  We also added a Share tab that makes it easy for you to share your Hi, I’m page with your friends on Twitter or Facebook.  To edit your networks and share your page, just login and click the Edit My Page link next to your name.

If you don’t have a Hi, I’m page yet, don’t just sit there!  Go!  In just a few minutes you could have a sweet URL like http://hi.im/somenameyouliketobecalled.

We also wanted to let you know what we’re working on next.  Our first priority is bugs and making sure everything works the way it should.  If you find one, please let us know.  There’s a Help link at the bottom of each page.  Next, we’ve got some services that only show up as links, but don’t import the feeds.  We’re working on fixing that.  After that, we’re going to be adding new networks.  If you’ve got a request for a network, let us know.  We get a lot of requests so we can’t make any promises, but we like to know what everyone wants most.

Hi, I’m is our nights and weekends project for now, so we’re going to be updating as often as we can.  Our first priority is to our Koombea clients who are so kind as to keep us fed and the mortgages paid, so we appreciate your patience while we keep working Hi, I’m when we can.  In the meantime, we always love to hear from you and hear your ideas, questions, or gripes.  We’ll do our best to get things right for you as fast as we can.

We’ll be back again soon.  In the meantime, nice to meet ‘ya!