Wigadoo's spiritual home

And so it is, we thank the Hungarians for giving Wigadoo our spiritual home. For on the South side of the Danube, sitting in the bright sun (always) is the Vigado Concert Hall and Vigado Square. According to our friends at Wikipedia, Vigado means "Place for Merriment" in Hungarian. Couldn't be more fitting really, could it?

Here's a photo of Andy recently visiting our spiritual home. (Note the zen like expression of perfect happiness on his face!)

A big welcome to all our new users

To all our new users, a very big Welcome.
And to all those considering trying us out - come on in!

We're delighted with our first week, and look forward to hearing your feedback on the site.

We'd also love to hear stories of what you have been getting up to, and how Wigadoo helped.
Let us know by contacting us on ideas@wigadoo.com.

There is plenty of stuff lined up over the next few months.
We'll keep you posted on the Blog.

Wigadoo Beta Launches on 23rd June 2008

We are pleased to announce the launch of www.wigadoo.com ! As of tomorrow Monday 23rd June the beta version of the site will be open to the public at last! Thanks to all those who have helped us to get to this point, especially all those who helped with the testing and the team of developers, designers, investors, advisors and all the Wigadoo Team members.

Wigadoo and the Social Organisation Space

We at Wigadoo see ourselves as an internet company that is all about getting groups of friends off the internet and helping them get together in the real world to have fun together. That might sound a bit strange, but it does makes sense. For us, the internet is a way to make the world a better place, and often that is done by making things easier rather than by encouraging people to spend their lives sat in front of a PC (or Mac).

So we see ourselves as one of many sites in the Social Organisation space. This is who else we see in there with us.






For more dicussion on this space and the categories and players within it, you can check out my personal blog, Friendship Groups and the Internet.

And if you have any views, comments, thoughts or sites to add to this, we'd love to hear them!

Being Digital

Last week saw the Mashup Being Digital Conference in London and I went along on behalf of Wigadoo. It was a great event for getting a sense of what's top of mind for people in the web space and there were two words that seemed to dominate the day. They were...

Location and Mobile

(Perhaps this isn't surprising several days after Apple announced the launch of the new 3G iphone with GPS.)

"Location" here refers to the fact that within long all phones should be gps enabled so mobile operators will be able to track where you are (and consequently you can track where your friends/family are). There are obviously issues with permission and privacy here but there are also huge opportunities to come up with cool, new ideas that can revolutionise your life. Hence the excitement.

The mobile bit here is what you might expect. The internet is becoming much more accessible from mobile phones (as new technology like the iphone mark a great leap forward in the ability to use the internet on your phone). This is like a new frontier for internet companies.

Anyway, I thought we should share what all of this might mean for Wigadoo.

In terms of location, we'll probably look to partner up with another start-up to enable you to track where your friends are on an event. For instance, imagine it's midnight, you're in Barcelona with 20 friends on a stag or hen do and you're having a great time ... except it's all gone a bit wrong and you've no idea where any of your friends are. Now imagine how cool it could be if you could then pull up a map on your mobile showing where they were and directing you to them?! This is where we want to get to.

In terms of mobile there are lots of things that we plan on doing. In the coming year you should expect to see:

• An iphone app that allows iphone users to quickly create Wigadoo invites and to send them out to their friends.


• SMS replying - so that friends can sign up and pledge by simply texting a response to an SMS that they receive inviting them to an event. This would mean friend's don't need to be online to sign up and will make the whole thing incredibly easy for invitees.
  


• Group SMSing - so you have one phone number for your group that you can text and that forwards rgar text to all members of the group. This will be great for agreeing where to meet for lunch on the ski slopes or letting people know of a last minute change of plan.


• A Facebook app, accessible from mobiles, that gives you Wigadoo's full functionality from your mobile.

There's no doubt that the internet world is evolving ... and we at Wigadoo look forward to evolving with it!

Social decision making made easy

We'd like to recommend another cool, new start-up that - alongside Wigadoo - can take some of the pain out of organising your friends.

Skimbit aims to take the pain out of social decision making. So if you have a number of villas that you've found and you want to get your friends to pick which one they'd like to go to, Skimbit can help.

Basically, you search the web like you normally would but Skimbit picks out the key bits of info and summarises the options. You can then share these summaries with your friends and they can all vote and comment on which options they like and why. Simple.

And if you don't want to use it to book a villa, you can use it to help pick a wedding venue, the film you want to watch or even a pair of shoes.

Although we have to admit to a slight bias, we still think its best use is when you use it to decide where you want to go with your friends ... before then using Wigadoo to go ahead and organise the group and get it booked!

Signing up for someone else

I just wanted to respond to some feature requests that have been coming in thick and fast during the beta testing.

The most pressing request is to enable one person to sign up for multiple people (be they friends, lovers, kids, pets or the other half of a split personality). We just wanted you to know that we hear you and will be working in a solution in the next couple of weeks.

Another request has come from organisers who want to be able to sign up on behalf of their friends who can't get to a PC by the deadline. We'll be working in a solution to this one too.

Thanks very much for all your testing and feedback. It makes a HUGE difference to us. And please keep it coming!!!

No more men

This is just a quick apology to those beta testers who've got in touch asking where the stick men have gone. We're very sorry but in the new design (that is being updated over the next few weeks) the men don't feature.

We've received very mixed feedback on these little fellas whilst we've been testing. Unfortunately for every one person who loved them, there were two that hated them. So, I'm afraid it's time to say goodbye to Mr No-Neck (as we'd come to affectionately know him around the office).

Excitement in the air

I'm excited. I'm like a proud dad and frightened child all at once. Wigadoo's debut is fast approaching and I can't wait to see it being used by you guys. Personally, I'm making my way through London's musicals, organising great nights out in the name of testing! Mamma Mia is up next. I booked the tickets on the phone and confirmed the price and collected the money in seconds - very proud of Wigadoo!

Strange thing was I mentioned Wigadoo to the guy in the theatre and he didn't even ask? Not a sausage - guess he was busy, but surely you'd ask? Will try increasingly weird names in the future and see if they react.