MyPunchblog

Happy International Talk like a Pirate Day. It’s a pretty special day around MyPunchbowl. We have lots of users who are planning pirate festivities (it helps that International Talk Like a Pirate Day is on a Friday this year). By my count, there are at least a couple hundred pirate-related events being hosted by MyPunchbowl users. This morning, people are walking around our office singing pirates songs, and our lead developer is speaking in pirate. Our home page has been updated with an appropriate pirate greeting, and we’ve maxed out our search engine marketing budget for the keyword “Pirate Party Planning.” Hopefully we won’t blow our entire funding in one day.

Here’s a screenshot of our updated MyPunchbowl home page greeting:

TechCrunch has an article this morning about other sites that are celebrating International Talk Like a Pirate Day. It’s nice to know that we’re in the company of Facebook, FriendFeed, and Google by celebrating this esteemed day. Check out Google’s Pirate search. Brrrrriliant!

It’s not too late to join in the festivities.  Head over to MyPunchbowl and bring your friends together tonight to celebrate this (important) day. Our resident party planning expert Penelope shares her favorite pirate party invitations but I’ve got mine (see below). Whatever you choose, have fun. Arrrrrr!

Sean here, the other founder of MyPunchbowl.

It’s been a while, but I was inspired to write a blog post. You see, in the last year or so I’ve had a few moments of clarity about myself. When you have these moments like I did, you realize that they don’t come along that often. Get ready because this is some really deep stuff (ahem).

1 - I like food that is small in size, but large in quantity.

Yup, read it again. I know your next question: what are some examples?

• Sprinkles. I love sprinkles. I’ve been told that I have sort of a problem. I don’t think I do- they’re sprinkles! …  brightly colored, crunchy, small, and completely edible! I mainly eat them on ice cream (but i won’t claim i’ve never eaten a straight spoonful). I prefer rainbow, but chocolate are cool too. I used to buy the small tin at the supermarket for $3.49 but then I got smart and ordered bulk quantities on eBay (6lbs of rainbow sprinkles for 12 dollars!). I never thought my love of sprinkles was a big deal or that unusual, but I’ve been informed that it is.

• Couscous. Getting the idea here? They’re small, there’s lots of them, so i like them. Back in my bachelor days I could eat a whole box of “Near East” couscous for dinner. My wife Jessie informed me that it wasn’t a well-balanced meal. Huh … well OK maybe not.

• Angel hair pasta. Slight variation here but the spirit is the same - small in diameter, large in quantity. I prefer Pesto sauce. In fact, i boycotted red sauce for a while cause I got tired of it. Speaking of boycotting, that brings me to my next life revelation …

2 - I’m not going to drink wine anymore

Look it’s not that i hate wine or have some big issue with it, I’d just rather drink other alcoholic beverages. I don’t particularly like wine, and I don’t have a great palette for it (in a blindfold test i could probably tell you if it was red or white) and so you know what? Not gonna drink it anymore. In case you’re wondering, i like beer, bourbon, vodka, and gin (I drink them separately, of course).

3 - Liquid and leather.

These are the two forms in which I eat fruit. So to clarify: If you want me to eat fruit (Jessie tells me it’s healthy) give it to me in liquid form (e.g. a smoothie, or ‘Naked’ juice) or give me some fruit leather (it’s like a natural fruit roll-up) and I’m in!

OK, that about wraps it up. I eagerly await my next moment of clarity. I hope others will be inspired to look inward, dig deep, and uncover some truly profound, fundamental, life-altering revelations like I recently have. Feel free to share with us if you do …

-Sean

Last week the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange awards ceremony was held in Boston. The MITX awards “recognize innovative technology products and services developed in New England.”

MITX has a strict process for this competition, and it included a significant questionnaire, an in-person interview, and a number of follow-up questions. These awards only go to the best of the best companies in New England. 

I’m really happy that MyPunchbowl was recognized as a winner of the MITX award for “Usability.” We’ve worked hard to make a user-friendly and feature-rich web application for party and event planning. It’s very rewarding to be recognized by such a fantastic organization like MITX.

Special thanks to Blake (our Director of Engineering) for accepting the award on Punchbowl’s behalf. I wish I could have been there, but I was out of the office all week in California. I heard that Blake even had to give a speech!

Here’s a picture of the plaque from MITX that we’ll be hanging on our awards wall. Thanks to everyone who helped make this award possible.

Last night I attended the PopSignal event at Tequila Rain (near Fenway Park). The PopSignal event is a gathering of tech and web like-minded people in Boston. Here are a few observations from last night:

1) Venue: Tequila Rain is a great place to have an event. It is large enough to hold more than 500 people, the bar is very accessible, and the waitstaff and friendly and helpful. I’m looking forward to the time when MyPunchbowl holds our own event at Tequila Rain. Great spot.

2) Boston CEO’s: I was lucky enough to have some significant time with a few CEO’s that I really really respect. It’s not every day you get to have a conversation with Dharmesh Shah (Hubspot) AND Jon Radoff (gamerDNA) at the same time. Both of these guys have had multiple successful startups, and the tidbits of wisdom that they shared with me in those few minutes were invaluable. Guys like Dharmesh and Jon are what makes the Boston startup scene so rewarding for me.

3) The new “cool” metric: I overheard quite a few conversations where people were comparing number of Twitter followers. No offense intended, but it was kind of like watching a bunch of kids brag about how many baseball cards they have in their collection. Apparently, the new way that you know if you are cool is to have thousands of followers on Twitter. I just checked: I have 72. Enough said.

4) Recruiting is easy when you wear a sticker that says “I’m hiring”: Apparently, my idea to wear a sticker that said “I’m hiring” was unique. It was also pretty effective. I found a bunch of potential employees among the crowd and had some significant conversations with some nice people. If I met you last night and we talked about a position at Punchbowl Software: email me your resume today!

5) Popularity of MyPunchbowl: When I used to go to these types of events two years ago, I’d have to explain what MyPunchbowl.com was all about. Last night, about every other person I spoke with mentioned that they had just used MyPunchbowl recently — it was pretty amazing, and pretty humbling.

It was a great event last night. Congrats to the guys at PopSignal. They pulled off one of the best events I’ve been to in Boston in a long time.

Those that live and breathe Web 2.0 know the guys at 37 Signals write a blog about design and simplicity. It’s called “Signal to Noise” and it’s read by tens of thousands of bleeding edge designers and web programmers every day.

37 Signals is a company that does some neat office productivity apps — including Campfire (groupchat) and Basecamp (project management) — both of which we use at Punchbowl Software. The designers at 37 Signals believe in simple web apps that get the job done rather than over-complicated apps that have lots of features. The “Signal to Noise” blog is about simplicity in design, and they seek submissions from the community at large.

A few months ago, I sent them a screenshot of our new theme picker. I didn’t hear anything back from them, so I assumed it fell into the black hole. But just last week, a few of these bleeding edge folks emailed me to let me know that we had been featured on the 37 Signals blog. I don’t expect tons of traffic on our site as a result of this mention, but it is neat to be featured on the cool kids blog. Here’s a screenshot from the blog post (click on the picture to see the actual blog entry):

Thanks to 37 Signals for including MyPunchbowl — it’s nice to have our design work recognized by people “in the know.”

Scott Kirsner of the Boston Globe wrote a fun blog post last week with his list of 50 interesting Boston-based companies

Here was his “off the cuff” criteria for the list:

There were basically two questions I considered:

1) Is the company working on something important, or at least fun?
2) If you worked there, would you put people to sleep explaining what you do?

If the answer to the first question is “yes,” and the second “no,” the company is eligible.

MyPunchbowl made the Web 2.0/Digital Media list along with successful companies such as Brightcove, Maven Networks, and TripAdvisor.

If you’re interested in the innovation economy, Scott’s blog is a must read. Thanks for including us Scott!

The Webby awards are kind of like the Academy Awards for the web. For years, they have been recognized as the most important award to be bestowed on a web site. In the early days, a website that earned a Webby was sure to be a commercial success.

As the web has evolved, the annual Webby awards have been a constant. Each year, they are still an important barometer of the best websites available.

We’re really happy to announce that MyPunchbowl has been nominated for a Webby award in the category of “Events.” Here’s part of the email that was sent to me: “As one of only five nominees in its category, your work and the team behind it are eligible for the Internet industry’s two most sought-after awards: The Webby Award and The Webby People’s Voice Award. This honor signifies the highest standard of excellence.”

There are two winners for every category:

1) The Academy Webby Awards’ winner, selected by the 550 member academy

2) The People’s Voice Award winners, selected from voters like you

So, we need your help! Please vote for MyPunchbowl for the People’s Voice Award (unfortunately, you have to signup for an account in order to vote. If you love MyPunchbowl, I hope you’ll take a minute to create an account and vote for us. Once you signup to vote, you’ll find us under the Living>Events category).

Thanks in advance!

I just received an email which had three different mentions of MyPunchbowl. In each case, MyPunchbowl was capitalized differently:

MyPunchBowl

Mypunchbowl

myPunchBowl

For the record, it’s “MyPunchbowl” Should I really care about this– no, probably not. But three different ways in the same email? Come on, at least pick one way and go with it!

So why is it “MyPunchbowl”? Back in the day, I borrowed the convention from MySpace. When the MySpace appears in the logo, it’s all lowercase.

When MySpace appears in text, it’s MySpace. Here’s an example: I searched “myspace” in google:

I probably have better things to do than worry about capitalization, but it’s all part of branding. So next time you email me, please refer to our product as “MyPunchbowl.” My inner brand marketing voice will thank you.

Happy Monday morning.

MyPunchbowl users awoke this morning to a St. Patrick’s Day greeting in their inbox. We sent out our monthly newsletter this morning with a small reminder that St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner. In case you missed it, here is a screenshot of this month’s newsletter.

If you look closely, you’ll notice that we say “St. Patrick’s Day is this coming Friday” at the bottom of the newsletter. Actually, it’s a little confusing this year. You see, St. Patrick’s Day is actually on Monday, March 17th. But this year, it’s being celebrated on Saturday March 15th. Apparently, the Roman Catholic Church changed the date to avoid conflict with Holy Monday that falls on March 17th.

So why did we say that St. Patrick’s Day was this coming Friday? Well, sometimes these things happen after too many edits– what we meant to say is “St. Patrick’s Day this coming weekend.” We’re not quite sure exactly how Friday made its way into the copy, but we take full responsibility for the massive confusion we must have caused around the globe this morning. Rest assured, St. Patrick’s Day is not March 17th this year nor is it March 14th… it’s actually Saturday, March 15th.

Bottom line: you have many options for celebrating St. Patrick’s Day this year. Perhaps you’ll head out Friday night for a few green beers or maybe you’ll choose to plan a get-together with your family on Saturday or Sunday. Or — you can wait until Monday and watch the New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade on March 17th (apparently, they didn’t get the memo either). Whenever you choose to celebrate, we hope you’ll stop by MyPunchbowl for all of your St. Patrick’s Day party planning needs.

St. Patrick’s Day party planning and St. Patrick’s Day online invitations at MyPunchbowl.

Once in a while something happens to you that just makes you feel good about human-kind. This is one of those stories.

A few weeks ago, I blogged about our new office. In a follow-up post, I asked readers of our blog to send plants to help make our office green. A few days later, some plants began arriving– mostly from friends and family. We appreciated every plant that we got, and it’s really given the office a good vibe. (Shameless plug: It’s not too late to send us more plants!)

Just when we thought we had received all of the new plants we were going to get, a small box arrived. In the box was a beautiful (and very green) plant with a note from a person I’ve never met. With the plant was a simple note: “Congrats on your new digs! May it become even more green. From blogger/fan Proud Geek.”

As you can see from the picture, the plant is really nice. It seems to love water; we can’t seem to water it enough.

I’ve only gotten to know Proud Geek over email. From what I can tell from the Proud Geek blog, he’s lives in DC (or around there) and he’s part of the thriving deaf community in that area. He’s an active blogger and writes about all things technology. One of the pages on his site that I really like is the “Doing Everything Online.” I hope he’ll continue to grow this page with more resources for his readers.

Proud Geek has blogged about MyPunchbowl in the past — and while he ran into a few problems, I’m happy to say that we’ve now addressed all of his key issues. It looks like the last time he used MyPunchbowl was before we fixed issues with email deliverability. Proud Geek: I hope you’ll give MyPunchbowl a try for your next event or party.

Thanks to Proud Geek for sending us a plant. You’ll forever have a special place in the hearts and minds of the Punchbowlers!