I haven’t celebrated New Year’s Eve with my parents in 11 years. There’s a time when you are not especially eager to do that every year anyway, but I somewhat miss my family. I left my home country in 1998 and made the U.S. my new home.
My parents and my family here were never able to celebrate Christmas or New Year’s Eve together. This year, we will try to bridge the gap for the first time.
We decided to use Mingleverse to connect Munich with Chicago and bring family members together on computer screens here in the U.S. and in Germany. We will have our traditional gathering here at home and add Germany via a mingle, chat and video streams. I’ll also give my fancy Bluetooth headset a try. I’ve always been the geek in the family, but it’s always special when you know you’ve found a technology that’s not just a toy, but something that can truly improve your life.
If you think about it, Mingleverse is a way that enables you to divide yourself and be in multiple places around the globe at the same time. It is fascinating how geographic distances have become almost meaningless these days. Well, with the exception of time, of course. I’ll write in the new year how the mingle went - can't wait!
- Wolfgang
If you are mingling over the year celebration as well, send us a quick note! We’d love to hear about it!
Friday, January 1, 2010
Monday, December 21, 2009
Top 10 Mingling Countries
1. Canada
2. India
3. United States
4. Pakistan
5. Egypt
6. Philippines
7. Iran
8. Hungary
9. United Arab Emirates
10. China
2. India
3. United States
4. Pakistan
5. Egypt
6. Philippines
7. Iran
8. Hungary
9. United Arab Emirates
10. China
Monday, December 7, 2009
New Features Update
Ohhh exciting times! We released some new features today along with some essential bug fixes and fancy back-end work.
No Headphones Mode
Don't have headphones handy? No problem. We've implemented a "push-to-talk" mode where you can enter the room and just use your computer speakers and microphone.
Although a convenient feature, it is still highly recommended that you wear a headset to experience 3D voice chat.
Improved First Time Experience
We've built a nifty set-up process that makes the first-time experience much easier. New minglers will go through our simple step-by-step process to make sure everything is configured properly before they join your mingle.
Enhanced Host Controls
Hosts now have the benefit of directing your attention to them or to their presentation screen. From the 'Minglers' tab the host can click 'Look at me' or 'Look at the screen' and all guests will be directed in the proper direction. Additionally, the host can choose to put the guests in a line, circle or grid.
Those are the biggest changes we've made.. you'll run into some smaller ones as you mingle.
There is a lot to look forward to over the next couple weeks. You'll see us release some improvements to our user interface, implement groups functionality, and we're going to take some time to make our existing features better :)
- Daniel
No Headphones Mode
Don't have headphones handy? No problem. We've implemented a "push-to-talk" mode where you can enter the room and just use your computer speakers and microphone.
Although a convenient feature, it is still highly recommended that you wear a headset to experience 3D voice chat.
Improved First Time Experience
We've built a nifty set-up process that makes the first-time experience much easier. New minglers will go through our simple step-by-step process to make sure everything is configured properly before they join your mingle.
Enhanced Host Controls
Hosts now have the benefit of directing your attention to them or to their presentation screen. From the 'Minglers' tab the host can click 'Look at me' or 'Look at the screen' and all guests will be directed in the proper direction. Additionally, the host can choose to put the guests in a line, circle or grid.
Those are the biggest changes we've made.. you'll run into some smaller ones as you mingle.
There is a lot to look forward to over the next couple weeks. You'll see us release some improvements to our user interface, implement groups functionality, and we're going to take some time to make our existing features better :)
- Daniel
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Embed Your Mingle Room Into Your Website or Blog
We have a first version of embeddable Mingle Rooms up and running. When you're on your 'My Mingle Rooms' page you will see an Embed link beside your Mingle Room. Click the link and we'll reveal the code that you need. Simply copy and paste it into your blog and it will look like this:
Welcome Room
We will be hosting mingles every Monday-Friday from 11am-1pm PDT.
Learn how to use all of your MingleRoom features as well as charge admission to your mingles!
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
New Features: No Sign-Up Required & Speaking Indicators
With the help of your great feedback we've launched 2 new features this week.
1) No Sign-Up Required
This feature helps make your mingles even more accessible. Invite someone to your MingleRoom and they will be granted access even if they don't have an account. They will simply be prompted to enter a name for their name tag and they are in - it's that easy!
2) Speaking Indicators
Although the 3D sound makes it easy to tell who is talking based on their position in the room, you have asked to also include visual cues. Now when a mingler is speaking their avatar will have a blue glow - making it even easier to know who is speaking.
Come try it out in the Welcome Room.
1) No Sign-Up Required
This feature helps make your mingles even more accessible. Invite someone to your MingleRoom and they will be granted access even if they don't have an account. They will simply be prompted to enter a name for their name tag and they are in - it's that easy!
2) Speaking Indicators
Although the 3D sound makes it easy to tell who is talking based on their position in the room, you have asked to also include visual cues. Now when a mingler is speaking their avatar will have a blue glow - making it even easier to know who is speaking.
Come try it out in the Welcome Room.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Mingleverse Update
Well, we've had a very busy last few weeks. Len and I spent some time in Banff at the Banff Venture Forum followed by a day in donwtown Vancouver at the SOHO SME Expo where we were able to demo Mingleverse to many small and medium sized businesses.
The positive feedback we received was very encouraging especially from those excited about the opportunity to supplement their income by using their MingleRoom and the admission system to earn some extra money. One person really put it into perspective for me when explaining us to her friend, "What Ebay and Amazon have done for selling your products to the world, Mingleverse is doing for selling your services".
We continue to receive many feature requests and I'm happy to say that we've been working hard on what we are calling 'casual entrance' where your guests will not be required to sign-up for a Mingleverse account to enter your MingleRoom. This means that once you have sent them an invitation to your MingleRoom, all it takes is a click of a link for them to enter - it's a matter of seconds! We're hoping to release this feature along with several back-end upgrades this week - so stay tuned.
-Daniel
The positive feedback we received was very encouraging especially from those excited about the opportunity to supplement their income by using their MingleRoom and the admission system to earn some extra money. One person really put it into perspective for me when explaining us to her friend, "What Ebay and Amazon have done for selling your products to the world, Mingleverse is doing for selling your services".
We continue to receive many feature requests and I'm happy to say that we've been working hard on what we are calling 'casual entrance' where your guests will not be required to sign-up for a Mingleverse account to enter your MingleRoom. This means that once you have sent them an invitation to your MingleRoom, all it takes is a click of a link for them to enter - it's a matter of seconds! We're hoping to release this feature along with several back-end upgrades this week - so stay tuned.
-Daniel
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