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/

Pssst … There’s A New Feature in Mingleverse: You Can Now Whisper (Yes, Whisper)

We’ve just added a brand new feature for our minglers. In addition to the text chat whisper mode, you can now whisper “talk” to any participant in a mingle as well – without interrupting a presentation or general conversation. Just like you can quietly talk to people in a physical meeting, the new feature enables you to whisper to any other person in a mingle.

To whisper, simply choose the “Online” tab and select the “Actions” menu next to the person you want to whisper to. Click the whisper button and keep it pressed when you are whispering. You will hear a subtle background sound to let you know that you are in whisper mode. Release the button when you are done. You don’t have to keep the button pressed when someone else is whispering to you.

Your meeting will continue in the background and you will hear what is being discussed. We are excited about this new feature as we believe it is one more component that builds on the realism of Mingleverse online meetings. We want you to feel like if you were there.

Give this new feature a spin. We’d love to hear from you what you think!

Win A Custom-Made Mingle Room

What You'll Win:
A 50-Person Mingle Room with all features, including live video, for 1-year, built to your personal specifications. You will get to spend an hour with our Mingle Room designer to discuss what you'd like your personal Mingle Room design to look like.

Additionally, you will win a $50 Google Adwords credit to spend on promoting your mingles or your mingle group.

How To win:

1. Sign-Up for a free Mingleverse account, and then:



2. Follow Mingleverse on Twitter and post
   "Follow @Mingleverse and retweet this to win a custom Mingle Room! Details: http://mingleverse.com/promo/contest/".
   
   
   OR
   
   Write a couple sentences about how meeting online would save you time or money, and make your life easier. Email your entry to daniel@mingleverse.com and feel free to post it to your blog or Facebook page.

Contest Rules

Contest is open to everyone. Winner will be chosen at random on March 22nd, 2010. You will be contacted by Daniel Ruscigno to schedule your session right away.