Uploading PowerPoint Presentations With 1-Click

We've just released a new feature that makes uploading PowerPoint presentations SUPER easy.

We now have a PowerPoint add-in that allows for 1-click uploading. Simply go to the media page in your Mingleverse account and click the "Install the Add-In" button on the right. (Note, that this feature is available only to Windows users).

Once the add-in is installed, you will see a new tab in PowerPoint called 'Add-Ins' and a button that says 'Export to Mingleverse'. Simply click the 'Export to Mingleverse' button and your presentation will be instantly uploaded to Mingleverse!


Note that this feature is only available to Mingle Pro subscribers. Click here to trial Mingle Pro.

No Account Required To Mingle

Did you know that your friends don’t need a Mingleverse account to join you in your Mingle Room?

You can invite them to a scheduled mingle, or simply instantly invite them by sending them the link to your room.

When they come to your Mingle Room, they simply enter a name for their nametag and choose an avatar. This means that you can invite a friend and have them in your Mingle Room in under a minute!

Benefits of Connecting With Facebook

The next time you log-in to Mingleverse we suggest using the Facebook Connect button. This will allow you to connect your Facebook account to Mingleverse and has two main benefits:

1) Access Your Facebook Photos From Your Mingle Room:
Once connected with Facebook you'll see a list of your Facebook photo albums on the pictures tab. Click the album you'd like to show for everyone in your Mingle Room to see.

2) Gain Access To Your Mingle Room on Facebook
Enter your Mingle Room in Facebook and instantly invite your online Facebook friends to join you in your Mingle Room.

Mingleverse Community Forum

We've just opened up a Community Forum to bring our customers and employees closer together. Our Community Forum will be used as a place for you to ask a question, share an idea or a problem, or just to let us know you like a new feature.

We'll start the Forum off by posting a few of the frequently asked questions, but feel free to get involved now!

Vancouver Canucks Fans Are Mingling

Today, the Vancouver Canucks Post-Game Mingle schedule was released for October. After every game, the Vancouver Canucks will host a fan meet-up where they can have a live discussion about the night's game as well as watch highlights and live post-game interviews together.

You can find the Canucks mingle schedule here.

Remember, Canucks mingles can also be accessed through the Mingleverse Facebook App.

Check back for other upcoming Canucks special event mingles!

Publish Your Mingle To Facebook

You've just scheduled your next mingle and you want to invite your friends to come. Since you don't have everyone's email address handy, we've provided a way for you to publish your event to Facebook so you can then send all of your Facebook friends an invitation to join you.

Publishing your mingle is easy, simple click the 'Publish to Facebook' link on your mingle page.

Then follow the simple 3 step instructions and you're on your way. Just remember to log in to Facebook to invite your friends to the event you've just published!

Mingling = Save Carbon = Win Badges

I thought I'd take a moment to talk about some ideas we have for our Facebook App in hopes that you'll share your feedback/ideas with us.

Since we are really focused on eliminating unnecessary travel to help reduce the emission of carbon into the atmosphere, we are going to create a series of badges to award minglers for the amount of carbon they are saving... and we're hoping to have a little bit of fun with it.

Here's where I'm hoping you can help. Below are 2 of 12 badges that minglers can win... I'd really like to hear some of your ideas for fun new badges!

Sneak Peek of Our New Design

Note: The new design went live today, July 29, so head to mingleverse.com to check out the new design, or to http://apps.facebook.com/mingleverse to see the new Facebook redesign.

Although our mom has always told us we're handsome, it was becoming clear that perhaps a make-over wouldn't hurt. Our summer intern Brad has been hard at work putting a new site design together and I'm happy to be the first to say that it is looking damn good! Along with a new design of the website, we'll also be launching a new design of our Facebook App, making it much more functional.

This is only the first bit of great news that will be coming from us over the next few weeks, so be sure to check back often.

Here is a sneak peek of the new design:

iPhone 4 Draw Winner

Congratulations to the winner of our iPhone 4 draw, Arpana Prajapati!!

With the well documented problems with the iPhone 4, Arpana has opted for an iPad instead, which will be a great device to be mingling from when Mingleverse releases an iPad app (coming soon, stay tuned).

Arpana has been making great use of Mingleverse since she found the app on Facebook:

"I will really like to thank Mingleverse for making my life easier. It is so convenient for me to chat with my parents back in India, share my latest pictures from FB album and enjoy an amazing voice quality. The 3D room presence almost makes me feel at home. With YouTube in built, I can now watch recorded episodes with my family from a distance. Thank you so much MV team!"

Meet Alina

Alina has more than 7 years of experience in software engineering and software testing, specializing in the development of client-side and service oriented solutions and the development of rich internet applications using Flash. Alina is originally from Russia, but now calls Vancouver her home.

Mingleverse 3D Telepresence running on Google Nexus One/Flash Player!

The video is pretty raw, but here is a sneak peek of Mingleverse running on a Google Nexus One (running Andriod 2.2 and Adobe Flash Player 10.1). Still lots of work to be done, but Mingleverse on mobile devices is not too far away.

Meet Brad

Brad has joined us as a summer intern from Capilano University where he studies Interactive Design. Brad specializes in HTML, CSS, Javascript, jQuery, Wireframing… and the list goes on. He's from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories and is married to Laura.

BTW, this guy can sing!

Our mom thinks we're handsome, but apparently not, so one of Brad's first jobs is to give our website a facelift - keep your eye out, it should be happening very soon.

Mingle in Full Screen Mode

We added a simple but very useful feature last week - you can now expand your mingle room to take up your full screen. Even though it's a small change, it makes a big difference and really makes the mingle feel more immersive. It's especially useful in our Facebook Application because apps have to fit within their walls, but this button allows you to escape the small area that they give us.

Keep in mind that for security reasons Flash does not allow text entry while in full screen mode, so if you find yourself using the text chat or need to search for a YouTube video you'll have to temporarily exit full screen mode by pressing the 'Esc' key on your keyboard.

Just a side note to help avoid any confusion. We continue to have our expand media button which is a separate function from Full Screen... it will take the presentation/picture/video off of the wall and bring it to the front and center of your view. Once you try it once you'll see what I mean.

Meet Aaron

Aaron is one of our engineers. Formally, Aaron has over 5 years experience in software development and consumer electronics, with a focus on building web-based applications. But after creeping his Facebook profile we can get some more fun information. Aaron grew up in Chilliwack, B.C, went to school at UBC and is married to Elanor. Aaron seems to love having his heart broken - he's a diehard Canucks fan and is cheering for England in the World Cup.

Aaron's suggestion for a good laugh: Fake Yo-Yo Trickster Fools Every TV Station Everywhere

Win An iPhone 4

Today Apple announced the iPhone 4... and we think it's really cool. We're even excited enough about it to camp overnight to get one. We figured that while we're there we may as well pick up a couple for our minglers and host a contest to decide the winners!

Mingle To Win An iPhone 4
For every 1,000 people to enter the contest we'll be giving away an iPhone 4!

All you have to do to enter is go to www.mingleverse.com/contest and sign-in using Facebook Connect.

And be sure to invite your friends because the more people that enter, the more chances you have to win!

-- Good luck --

Facebook Image Sharing Just Got Much More Social

How social is looking at images on your Facebook page or someone else’s page, if you do it alone? Well, it is not social enough in our mind. That’s why our Facebook Application can now access the images stored on your Facebook page. Invite your friends into the mingle and enjoy your snapshots together, whether they are from your most recent vacation, childhood memories, or a special event.

Of course, sharing images is just one small part of our Facebook app. Watch YouTube or Justin TV together with friends, or share presentations with colleagues. Stream videos live in your room or stream yourself via your webcam. If you ask us, talking live and sharing live does not get much more social and we are pretty excited about it.

If you are already a registered Mingleverse user, you can use your Mingle Room in Facebook and if you are new, setting up your room is done in less than 10 seconds. And yes, it is free. Give it a try and let us know what you think!

Head over to Mingleverse on Facebook here: http://apps.facebook.com/Mingleverse

Minglverse Celebrates Earth Day!

Today being Earth Day I thought I would take some time to talk about, well... the Earth. I just checked the stats and the combined carbon savings total of all minglers is now 16,719 metric tonnes! That's a serious amount of carbon saved and even if you've mingled just once you're making enormous contributions!

Let's put that 16,719 metric tonnes into perspective. According to the Air Canada Carbon Offset Program, our savings are equal to:

• 3,344 trees planted


• 4,139 cars taken off the road for a year


• $267,500 in carbon offset purchases

As much as buying hybrid cars and taking the bus help the environment, the best way to help the environment is cut out your unnecessary travel, and that's exactly what you are doing when you use Mingleverse.

Here are 5 easy tips to cut your carbon footprint:

1. Replace a regular incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb (cfl)
   CFLs use 60% less energy than a regular bulb. This simple switch will save about 300 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.


2. Install a programmable thermostat
   Programmable thermostats will automatically lower the heat or air conditioning at night and raise them again in the morning. They can save you $100 a year on your energy bill.


3. Clean or replace filters on your furnace and air conditioner
   Cleaning a dirty air filter can save 350 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.


4. Move your thermostat down 2° in winter and up 2° in summer
   Almost half of the energy we use in our homes goes to heating and cooling. You could save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year with this simple adjustment.


5. Reuse your shopping bag
   When shopping, it saves energy and waste to use a reusable bag instead of accepting a disposable one in each shop. Waste not only discharges CO2 and methane into the atmosphere, it can also pollute the air, groundwater and soil.


6. Want more? Read 45 More Tips!

Happy Earth Day!

- Daniel

Talk With Your Friends in Facebook Live!

Today we are launching Mingleverse for Facebook, which allows you to talk and share media live right within Facebook. The best part about using the App is that we tell you which of your Facebook friends are currently online so that you can instantly invite them into your mingle room. Quite simply, there is no better way to interact with your friends on Facebook. Period.

A change that we’ve made so that your guests can enter right away is that we no longer require the 3D voice chat download. Your guests can now instantly enter your mingle room, watch YouTube, Justin.tv, pictures, presentations, etc with you, while communicating via text chat. The quick optional installation of the immersive 3D voice chat will then allow you to talk to each other live and have the full Mingleverse experience!

Head over to our Facebook page and give it a spin. We’d love to hear from you what you think!

Mingleverse Now Streams Justin.tv

We have just upgraded the video integration for Mingle Rooms and it’s ready for a spin. You can now load Justin.tv channels directly in your Mingle Room and watch countless channels with your friends in the privacy of your Mingle Room! Justin.tv is one of the world’s most popular live video sharing platforms with about 300 million video views every month and we are excited to bring this service to Mingleverse.

Also new is a greatly improved YouTube app, in which you can now search YouTube content from right inside of your room and of course watch the video together with your friends on your mingle room’s video screen. You don’t have to leave Mingleverse anymore to locate YouTube videos. Finding and watching video content has just become a lot easier.

You can access both new features directly from the Media tab in your Mingle Room window. Try the new features and let us know what you think!

Review the iPad live!

Today at 5pm PST, we’ll open a mingle to see what you think about the iPad. Tom’s Hardware, one of the world’s leading enthusiast hardware sites is hosting the mingle and will bring in editors as well as readers of the site. We’ve read a lot about Apple’s latest creation, but only know what tech writers think about it. If you have already an iPad, join us and share with others what you think about it. If you are still waiting to purchase an iPad or if you just are not sure what it is for and if it’s worth 500 bucks, drop in and ask your questions directly to those who have been using the iPad for a two days already. Reserve your spot for the mingle here: http://mingleverse.com/mingles/1124/toms-hardware-presents-live-unboxing-of-apple-ipad/