1.000.000 mobile users on WidSets!

Updated: See Nokia Press Release.

Many services on the Internet have more than 1M users, since people have been using the net from their laptops and PC's for ages. But if you go into the mobile space, people usually talk about a few 10K's, or maybe 100K, when they mention the amount of mobile users they have.

Well, WidSets now has 1M registered mobile users. Yes, 1.000.000 users! The weekly growth is ramping up continuosly, and we haven't yet even started some activities that will boost the growth substantially. So yes, we are just as amazed by these numbers as probably many of you are!

This is a very worn-out sentence, but this time I really have to say that I am extremely proud of the WidSets team for creating a service that becomes this popular. The founders put the basics in place, but with the rest of the brilliant and hard-working team, this would not have been possible. I am truly proud to be part of that team. I'm not worthy (yes, I have been watching Wayne's World too much at some point :-)

But we should not forget that the growth is all about you, the WidSets users, who have adopted WidSets, provided us with input about what you like and what you don't like, told your friends about it, and so on. Some of you are also the same people who have written so nicely - and widely - about us, which I have tried to cover in the Press & Buzz section of the WidSets site. A big hand to all of you out there covering WidSets in your blogs and magazines, and who are uploading videos to YouTube and similar places. You just don't know how much we enjoy reading those stories and watching those videos - and they are extremely helpful and entertaining for many WidSets users, too!

So thank you all so much. Let's celebrate this together, since we - together - made this happen!

Cheers!

The Webware 100 Awards- Vote for WidSets

Webware together with CNET is arranging the Webware 100 nomination. If you have enjoyed WidSets, please spare a moment to nominate WidSets under the Mobile Category! And if you haven't, vote on some of our competitors :-) And vote for your favorites in the other categories, too, of course! Below is a summary of what it is all about.

We're kicking off the first user-generated Web 2.0 awards program: The Webware 100. What are the best 100 Web 2.0 sites and services? We don't know. But you do. The Webware 100 will be the 10 best sites in 10 categories, chosen by Webware's readers. The first step to picking the winners is nominating candidates to vote on. Use the form to enter a site into the awards program. You may come back to enter more. Deadline is May 7.

Best Web 2.0 application award

Dr.Dobb's Journal in Spain has evaluated products and services for the last twelve months, and WidSets has been awarded The Best Web 2.0 Application! We were notified about the award by Juan Manuale Saez, Director of MKM Publicaciones. We have received a picture of the award, shown here, but we will actually get the physical one, too. I can't wait for that!

This is really an honour, and behalf of the WidSets team I would like to thank Dr.Dobb's for this award!

I would also like to thank the whole WidSets team for the excellent work done when putting together the web site, the servers, the mobile client, the UI, all the integration - everything that WidSets is all about. Now there is proof that we have all actually done some great work! :-)

And here's a copy from the Dr.Dobb's Journal for you (in Spanish)

New Release celebration

We had a very good time going out with the team. This time we don't have any photos to show. Instead our guys decided to create a widget, so that we could see how much everybody was "enjoying themselves".

You could do two things with the widget. Every time you ordered a drink you would press a button called "Drink", which would update the "database" on the network. And if you wanted to see the statistics for the the team, you pressed another button and received a page with the TOP-10.

It doesn't sound like a very sophisticated party, and it probably wasn't. But I can tell you that it was damn fun! And watching the stats at 10am the next day was scary, since the widget also showed how much alcohol there was left in your blod, based on your weight a gender (two parameters in the widget), and time passed.

And my apologizes to the AA for giving an impression that we were performing some unhealty activities. In practise we of course only performed in-depth testing of the widget in question. I wonder if there were any bugs posted to Bugzilla? :-)

Becoming very popular...

It's great to see that so many people like our new release and the WidSets service in general, and that lots and lots of new people are finding out about it. It proves that we're doing at least something right :-)

The downside of becoming more popular seems to be that all the people who just want to have "fun" i.e., spammers, find your service, too. Unfortunately that's what happened over the weekend, which is why some of you have not been able to login to the web service. We're really sorry about that!

Looking back at 2006

I went through some old email conversations and early documentation (what, docs? :-) and it is pretty amazing how much has happened in just a few months.

It's hard to understand that about a year ago we were just putting together a team and getting started, six months later we launched the Beta, during the last six months we've had 5 new releases, and now have a rapidly growing user base from 120+ countries, using 200+ different mobile phone models and brands. And there is 1000+ widsets in the Library - and 90% of them have been created by you, guys!.

And we have generated huge interest all around the world, where people have created a video when starting using WidSets (and another one), as well as making video interviews about WidSets. Fantastic! And the really great things is that finally someone has documented WidSets :-)

If I had to mention one topic that has come up a lot this year, it has to be the relationship between Nokia and WidSets. So here we go.

Lots of people out there think that this is a huge Nokia-wide effort with unlimited resources. The truth is that WidSets is as official as it can get, but we are still a small and pretty independent startup team, doing things a little differently. And in order to stay innovative and fast we need to keep it that way. Our team has always been working according to the Agile Manifesto principles (I'm glad that somebody else documented it for us :-), which is not the way everybody around us works. Balancing these aspects will continue to be... um... interesting.

Fortunately we have support from some excellent people in top management, who have visions, dare to think differently - and are ready to pay our wages :-) Hopefully they will continue approving our quite open-minded postings in the WidSets blog, too...

Anyway, 2006 was a very exciting year, and I'm very confident that 2007 will be a fantastic year for WidSets. The mobile Internet service and open widget creation platform that we decided to create a year ago is now starting to have its foundations in place. After this its all about "more", "better", "easier to use", "new" - truly exciting things.

With that, let me and the whole WidSets team thank all our users - you, guys - for the great support and patience during these first months together with WidSets. Happy New Year and stay tuned for some great stuff coming up in 2007!

Merry Christmas!

Wow, I just realized that Christmas is almost knocking on the door, and that there's quite a few things to be done until we can calm down and enjoy a few days off with our family and friends. But before that, here are a few Christmas-related widgets for you.

Spot Santa - pictures to your phone

Next time you come across Santa in a supermarket, your local gas station, or wherever, take a picture and upload it to Flickr. Mark it public and tag it with 'spotsanta'. Or just pick the spotsanta widget from the Library (or directly from your mobile) and enjoy the pictures.

Greeting card

Are you like me i.e., forgetting to send those Christmas cards, or sending them all too late? One alternative is to leave out the year in the cards, so that they can arrive any year. Another possibility is to send a WidSets Greeting Card to your friends.

Competition update

What else... oh, yes, the competition pages have been slightly updated, so there is a list of widgets that you can share directly, including some of the Christmas widgets mentioned here.

And with that I wish you all a Merry Christmas!

Sharing and Competition

Now is a good time to start exercising your sharing skills using WidSets. We have a competition coming up, where you will need those skills - especially if you are interested in the possibility of winning great prizes. You will also need to have some friends.

So, practise your "sharing fingers"  - and be sure you get some friends :-) The competition pages will be opened on WidSets next week.

WidSets officially launched

We started working on WidSets in the beginning of this year and launched the service in June. We then released the first upgrade at the end of June, and the second upgrade in September. We started in early Beta, but the service has now been available for 4 months, so we thought we'd make it official by telling everybody about its existence.

We already started making noise about us in conferences and events, but we now launched a Press Release, which is very offical, so now there's no turn back :-) Otherwise nothing has changed, we are the same small crazy team, working with the thing we love.

Don't be evil

No, we are not associated with that tag line, and we know that it has lost its strength over time, but we do support the message. That's why we were disappointed to find someone bombing/spamming the WidSets site this weekend, making it tougher to use for our dear WidSetsers. We knew it was bound to happen when WidSets was getting more famous, but still we wonder if people don't have anything better to do with their life. Anyway, we apologize for not being able to provide our users - You - the smooth service you expect.

WidSets on Times Square

Remember the posting about the Manhattan Mashup a few days ago / a few inches down (whatever measurement you prefer)? Well, we made it there, and it was a really great and addictive game! People could follow the stories created from the Manhattan Mashup widget, and the pics & stories were also shown on the huuge screen on the Reuter's Building. Oh, and we also ensured that the free WiFi networks worked, like in Battery Park.

In addition, WidSets was presented on the screen, too, which, for me personally was an amazing sight. The WidSets presentation was a video, which had a great storyline and some very cool animation, created by our friends from Valve. The video showed examples of how some widsets in our Library works, like Fotolog and Technorati, and it also featured Newsvine, Slide, and Zvents.   

For those who weren't there, or didn't get a chance to check it out from the Reuter's webcam, here's the original video (animated) as well as some live footage of the Reuter's screen (and environment). Enjoy!

Manhattan Story Mashup

There's a pretty cool thing coming up on September 23rd called the Manhattan Story Mashup. During the event, approximately 250 players will move around Manhattan, taking photos which match a given target.

Targets are words from stories, written by visitors on the web site while the game goes on. The resulting illustrated stories are shown on large public signs in Times Square in real-time and on the event web site at http://www.storymashup.org/

What makes this so cool is that these mashups get their world premiere on the Reuters Sign in Times Square, immediately after they are finished.

As the organizers say, do not miss this unique opportunity to show your creativity in one of the most visible locations in the world!

So, what does this have to do with WidSets?

Well, in case you can't come to Times Square, you can (of course :-) see the stories live on your mobile phone using Widsets. We will have a special widget ready for that by the time of the event.

And what makes this really cool is that WidSets will most probably be quite visible for some time on Times Square. I recommend choosing Webcam1 and watching that from around noon (New York time) onwards on Saturday, September 23rd. Or, if you can make it, come to Times Square and say hi to me :-)

Summer Time

It has been a great Summer so far, although reading the news it seems like it's been too hot, like closer to 40C both in many places in Europe and in the US (104F). Many of our guys have been on vacation during this month, enjoying the lovely weather and charging their batteries. I hope that you've had some time to relax and enjoy, too!

The WidSets Forum has been very active, where Antti has been moderating the discussions, as well as creating all kind of information packages for you, like the installation instructions, as well as an overview of what you can do with WidSets, and how to get started. We have also started to gather information about the phone settings on a page, so that you'll have everything in place in your phone to get started with WidSets. In addition, we're checking what widsets you like (and which you don't like). Here's the opportunity for everyone to participate and make WidSets the type of service you'd like it to be!

You, our active users, have created a huge amount of widsets - great! One of our our most active users, TheDream, created a Gmail widget, which has been discussed in the Forum and can be found in the Library. A great example of "if they don't have it, I'll create it myself". Check the "New Widgets" in your WidSets widset (!) on your phone, and bookmark the ones that look interesting. Or search the Library on the WidSets web (Hint: leave the search field empty and click Return). And that reminds me of another thread in the Forum... regarding the usability of the Library, which we want to improve. Tell us what you think! Thanks!

You shouldn't update a posting, but I'll do it this time. Received information from Antti (again) that he had documented the Skin Editor, in addition to the earlier documentation. This is the tool for those of you who want to use existing widsets as base, and then modify (heavily) the way they look.

Press & Buzz & crowded

We've had an incredible amount of coverage in the press and blogosphere, and I'll have to gather that information somewhere during summer. Some of the most noteworthy are probably a story in Gizmodo just after the launch, and then I was interviewed by MobileMonday just before the updated release, which spread quite nicely to various blogs. And there's also some kind soul at e-series, who has reviewed us several times.

What easily happens when stories are read, copyied and modified is that some of the information is not necessary totally accurate. As an example I was upgraded to a Nokia spokesman in some blogs. The sad (?) truth is of course that I'm just representing the WidSets team. For some information about the WidSets - Nokia relationship, see Tuomo's earlier posting.

What also happened (last night) was that so many people were banging on the door, that some people couldn't login (or sign up) to the WidSets web service. We're sorry about that. Everything worked fine on the mobile, though, which of course is most important. And all is back to normal now.

From 5pm to 2am

The whole team had an evening (and many of us also night) out together in Punavuoren Ahven which is specialised in Belgian Beers. Had lots of good and later evening maybe not so high quality ;o) discussions .... anyway it's propably all that hard thinking which has caused some headaches today ?

   

Thanks for Tero-Markus for the brialliant idea and timing for this session ! We needed it and deserved it ;o)

ps. just counted it with Tero-Markus and we actually spend ~9 hours in that pub - Brilliant !

Celebrating Thumbs Up

I told you - stay tuned for more information coming - soon! We don't waste any time when it comes to celebrating, so today we gathered everybody together to a very special "meeting", where we had some great champagne. And something to eat, too. We had received some additional great feedback (see yesterday's posting), so we had even more reasons to celebrate.

Anyway, we had the duties shared between Tuomo, Seppo, and myself. Tuomo served the champagne, Seppo gave the speech, and I babbled somethingh nobody understood a word of. So just doing whatever was related to our normal responsibilities. We'll continue by going out in the evening, coming up with all kinds of interesting new features...

Thumbs up!

We had a go-through with our investor this morning. For those of you who know what type of public holiday we just had, as well as what kind of activities were involved, this was an "interesting" day to have the session. Anyway, things went great and we got the approval to start a managed ramp-up phase. Yes, yes, YES! For those of you out there who at some time have experienced this stage, you'll know how excited we are. And for those of you who haven't - we're damn excited, anyway! And the thanks goes to the whole team for the dedication and the excellent work. Anybody would be proud to get the chance to work with you, guys!

Let's celebrate the fact that we've reached this phase. And since there are many more phases to come (sorry, this is just the start of a long journey), it means that there will be many other reasons to celebrate! Stay tuned for more information coming - soon!

Web Specialist

I just wanted to introduce you to a guy who has been on the web for a long time, and is actually continously developing it. Please meet Speedy. He looks a little scary, but is actually a nice guy. And compared to the rest of us he is the only one, who's photo we dare to publish in this blog. At least at this time.