Facebook

Within just 3 days of entering the competition we moved to the Top 3. Thanks to every one who has voted for Twezr so far and helped us compete against companies who were in the race for almost two months. If you haven't yet voted - please do it now. Just 24 hours left.

Minekey team is glad to invite you to try out our latest creation: Twezr (http://twezr.com/) - a personal organizer for the iPhone.

Twezr organizes all your contacts and messages across your phone book, email, Facebook and Twitter in one place. Check out the attached two minute demo video of Twezr.

If you are an iPhone/ iPod touch or iPad user you can download Twezr for free from the app store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/twezr-your-contacts-email/id379278108?mt=8. Don’t worry if you don’t own one of these devices. We plan to roll out Twezr on other platforms over time. Like us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/Twezr) or follow us on Twitter (http://twitter.com/twezr) to stay tuned.

Thank you all for your continued support during 2010. We had an exciting and hectic 2010 at Minekey. Hope you had an exciting 2010 too. Here are a couple updates:

Over the last year we conceptualized and developed Twezr (http://twezr.com) - a personal organizer for the iPhone. Twezr organizes all your contacts and messages across your phone book, email, Facebook and Twitter in one place. A quick two minute demo video of Twezr is attached. If you are an iPhone/ iPod touch or iPad user you can download Twezr for free from the app store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/twezr-your-contacts-email/id379278108?mt=8. Don’t worry if you don’t own one of these devices. We plan to roll out Twezr on other platforms over time. Like us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/Twezr) or follow us on Twitter (http://twitter.com/twezr) to stay tuned.

Over the last week we migrated Minekey infrastructure from a co-location facility to world class Amazon Web Services infrastructure. We believe Amazon infrastructure will provide far better reliability and performance. Thanks for your patience and support during the down time we had with the move.

Wish you and your dear ones a very happy 2011. We hope the New Year brings you a lot of good luck, health, happiness, peace and prosperity.

Cheers,
The Minekey Team

We just rolled out a few improvements to make the Opinion Creation process simpler and organized all the received items under “Home” to facilitate faster and smoother interaction.

Visit Minekey to Check out the new features: http://apps.facebook.com/minekey/home

We just launched the Minekey Activity Rewards system. Starting today you will earn Golden Eggs for all your Minekey activity. Check out the Rewards Scorecard for more details (http://apps.new.facebook.com/minekey/documents/rewards?bpst).

As mentioned earlier, we have awarded 20% credit for the user activity prior to launch to recognize the earlier contribution, while ensuring that some of the early users don’t start with an unfair advantage.

More eggs for you! How do you like them? Fried, scrambled or boiled :) …

The race is on! Go ahead and start grabbing as many Golden Eggs without worrying about how to cook them or sell them in the market. We are exploring ways to make these Egg rewards you earn for your participation on Minekey more tangible by partnering with non-profit organizations, online game communities and micro-payment providers. If you have questions or suggestions, please email us at community AT minekey DOT com.

Minekey team has answered all the questions that the community members have asked recently.

Question: Why were the fake profiles banned?

Answer: Minekey’s mission is to connect real people through real conversations. To date, over two million people have participated in discussions on Minekey, and over 90% of them have used their real identity. This has resulted in greater bonding and connection among the users compared to any other online community. We would like to preserve this value. Therefore, we encourage all our users to use their real names and pictures on Minekey.

For more questions and answers, please read our latest blog entry at Minekey.

http://blog.minekey.com/blog/2008/11/23/minekey-community-bulletin/

Thanks,
The Minekey Team

Minekey was founded with a vision to provide a place on the Internet where people can express themselves freely. We value Freedom of Speech and preserving it is of utmost importance to Minekey.

However, in a large and diverse community like Minekey, people tend to have diverse opinions and viewpoints. We have noticed that discussions sometimes turn into a heated argument and lead to personal attacks, profanity, hate speech and threats. This disrupts the harmony within the environment and creates tension that restricts free flow of thought and creativity.

To date, over two million people have participated in Minekey. In a survey we conducted for users who were no longer actively participating in Minekey, , “Profanity and Personal attacks” was amongst the top three reasons why they were not active. Our goal is to keep the best interest of the vast majority in mind, and hence, the reason for measures articulated in our previous blog post (http://blog.minekey.com/blog/2008/11/19/let%e2%80%99s-make-minekey-more-friendly/). These measures are absolutely important for us to maintain harmony in Minekey which would enable the free flow of expression and creativity.

However, when we introduce the profanity settings in the coming weeks, users will have a choice to turn off their profanity filter if they have no objection and view all the content they used to view as usual. Our goal is to provide greater freedom and choice to our users to control what they would like to see and who they would like to interact as stated by a passionate user: (http://minekey.com/theopinion/1447199/swear-if-you-want-but-this-does-not-mean-i-have-to-listen).

Further, the new content rating system will provide a greater degree of power to the users to promote the content and discussions they would like to see on Minekey.

Let’s usher in an era of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Choice while respecting people and their perspectives, community mission and guidelines.

If you have any questions or suggestions please email us at community@minekey.com or post your comments on the blog post: http://blog.minekey.com/blog/2008/11/22/freedom-of-choice/. Also, stay tuned to Minekey bog (http://blog.minekey.com) for further updates.

Thanks,
The Minekey Team

However, in a large and diverse community like Minekey, people tend to have diverse opinions and viewpoints. We have noticed that discussions sometimes turn into a heated argument and lead to personal attacks, profanity, hate speech and threats. This disrupts the harmony within the environment and creates tension that restricts free flow of thought and creativity.

To date, over two million people have participated in Minekey. In a survey we conducted for users who were no longer actively participating in Minekey, , “Profanity and Personal attacks” was amongst the top three reasons why they were not active. Our goal is to keep the best interest of the vast majority in mind, and hence, the reason for measures articulated in our previous blog post (http://blog.minekey.com/blog/2008/11/19/let%e2%80%99s-make-minekey-more-friendly/). These measures are absolutely important for us to maintain harmony in Minekey which would enable the free flow of expression and creativity.

However, when we introduce the profanity settings in the coming weeks, users will have a choice to turn off their profanity filter if they have no objection and view all the content they used to view as usual. Our goal is to provide greater freedom and choice to our users to control what they would like to see and who they would like to interact as stated by a passionate user: (http://minekey.com/theopinion/1447199/swear-if-you-want-but-this-does-not-mean-i-have-to-listen).

Further, the new content rating system will provide a greater degree of power to the users to promote the content and discussions they would like to see on Minekey.

Let’s usher in an era of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Choice while respecting people and their perspectives, community mission and guidelines.

If you have any questions or suggestions please email us at community@minekey.com or post your comments on the blog post: http://blog.minekey.com/blog/2008/11/22/freedom-of-choice/. Also, stay tuned to Minekey bog (http://blog.minekey.com) for further updates.

Thanks,
The Minekey Team

Recently several users have expressed their concern about instances of insult and personal attack. Our vision at Minekey is to provide a shared environment for people from all over the world to connect and share their perspective. To accomplish this vision, it is important we maintain it as a place where people feel safe and comfortable to share their opinions.

We consulted several Industry experts on how to make Minekey a safe and comfortable environment that promotes sharing. We have received some practical advice based on the best practices adopted by top Internet communities and we plan to move forward with their recommendations. As a part of this exercise, we have also retained a moderation team well versed with the Industry best practices to help achieve our goals. Some of the suggestions we will implement over the coming weeks are:

1. Profanity filters
2. Block user function to prevent certain users from posting notes on profile
3. Content rating and reputation system that helps surface quality content and discussions

We are committed to making Minekey more friendly. We seek support from all our users to help us reach this goal by complying with the Community Guidelines. Violation of Community Guidelines could result in disabling of content and user access. Listed below are a few suggestions on what constitutes good behavior and bad behavior on Minekey:

Do
1. Respect the opinions of Minekey peers, even when you disagree with them.
2. Avoid using profanity.
3. Delete any offensive comments on your opinions and any offensive notes on your profile.
4. Use the report abuse system judiciously to alert the Minekey team.

Don’t
1. Personal attacks are prohibited.
2. Trolling is prohibited.
3. Sexually explicit material is prohibited
4. Creating multiple accounts and identities is prohibited– It’s a place for real people to connect through real conversations.

For more details refer to Minekey Community Guidelines (http://minekey.com/footer/code). The use of Minekey is a privilege, not a right. The Minekey staff reserves the right to revoke access and remove content without notice. If you have any questions or suggestions email us at “community AT minekey DOT com”.

The Minekey Team

We just rolled out a new feature that allows Minekey users on Facebook to set their opinions as Facebook Status Messages. This is a great way to get your friends to notice your opinions and vote on them. Won’t that be Fun?

Through Minekey you can connect with people beyond your immediate social circle and gain more friends. Posting an update as a Minekey opinion and setting it as Facebook Status Message can bring more interaction and participation to your Status Updates.

Let the fun multiply! To set your opinion or anyone else’s opinion as a Status Message on your Facebook profile, click on the “set as your status” link just beneath the opinion. For more details check out: http://blog.minekey.com/blog/2008/11/14/post-minekey-opinions-as-facebook-status-messages-have-more-fun/

If you have any questions or need any additional help send an email to community AT minekey DOT com.

Happy Minekeying!

Visit the Minekey Election 2008 microsite and discover, vote upon and discuss the issues and policies being debated by Barack Obama and John McCain.

Learn about the respective positions of each Presidential candidate on twenty key issues, including taxes, health care, housing, energy, the environment, Iraq, gun control, and abortion.

Click here to join the conversation:
http://minekey.com/election08

Daily, an iPod will be awarded randomly to a qualifying user who invites 100 friends or more to join Minekey.com.

There are only 2 days left in the contest, so invite your friends now!

Benefits of signing up for Minekey.com:
* Get your custom URL (yourname.minekey.com) – so your friends can find you and your opinions easily
* Embed and view pics and videos within comments
* Faster page loads and less errors

Check it out: http://minekey.com

For contest details:
http://blog.minekey.com/blog/2008/09/05/win-an-ipod-invite-your-friends-to-minekey/

Join Minekey.com, invite 100 friends, and possibly win an iPod.

Daily, an iPod will be awarded randomly to a qualifying user.

Benefits of signing up for Minekey.com:
* Get your custom URL (yourname.minekey.com) – so your friends can find you and your opinions easily
* Embed and view pics and videos within comments
* Faster page loads and less errors

Check it out: http://minekey.com


When you sign up for Minekey.com, don’t forget to link your account to your Minekey profile on Facebook. For more information, click here: http://apps.new.facebook.com/minekey/opinionpage?id=1094523

Since Minekey launched in late 2007, many of you have told us that you would like a dedicated website for Minekey. We’ve listening to your suggestions intently, and spent long hours brainstorming and planning … and today we’re proud to let you know that we will be launching a Minekey website next week. (Register for a preview at www.minekey.com).

Given how popular the application is on Facebook, we will continue to host and develop this version. In fact, you will be able to access and interact with all of the opinions, comments and other members’ activity from the Website, Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, hi5 or Orkut -- at any time, from any of those locations.

Note that with the new website, you will be able set-up your own personal URL for your Minekey profile (for instance, johnsmith.minekey.com, or sandra.minekey.com), which will then serve as a destination for your Minekey activity which can then be directly accessed by anyone. Also, we are exploring the possibility giving you the capability to attach photos and videos to comments.

We will invite people to use the service in three stages. Firstly, it will be available to those of you who sign up for the preview by entering your email address at www.minekey.com. Next, existing users of the app on social networks will be invited. And lastly, anyone will be able to join. Signing up on the website now will definitely increase your chance of getting the URL of your choice, as they will be available on a first come, first serve basis.

For more information see the following:

http://www.minekey.com/blog/2008/08/27/sign-up-now-for-minekeycom-preview-get-the-right-to-your-own-url/

Alex Gault

In line with our vision to be the leading destination for online discussions, we very excited to announce and introducing two new features which will take the discussions and conversations to a totally new level!

You can now have discussions within an Opinion, so that you able to reply to specific comments and carry on a threaded discussion. Also when other users reply to your comments, you will get a notification and activity update so you will be able better track your discussions across multiple opinions.

You can also view conversations between two people who are communicating using their notes. And if the your are viewing your own conversation, you will be able to easily write a note to the other user directly on that page. Making notes an even stronger communication channel between two users.

These features we hope will help and let users share their passion more easily on Minekey and with each other!

http://www.minekey.com/blog/2008/08/02/minekey-discussions-conversations/

Think is now Minekey!

You favorite Facebook app has a new name, but all the features remain the same.

For more info on the name change, please click here:

http://www.minekey.com/blog/2008/07/29/ithink-is-now-minekey/

Alex Gault
Community Relations and Marketing Director
Minekey

iThink will soon be renamed Minekey. Please see the announcement and the explanation here.

http://www.new.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=6937601243&topic=5453

Thanks to the entire community for your ongoing support!

Minekey Team

Several months ago a company called i.think, inc threatened legal action against Minekey, charging that our use of the name iThink infringes upon its right to the name. We've worked diligently trying to negotiate a settlement whereby Minekey secures the right to use the iThink name on Facebook and other social networks. Unfortunately i.think, inc has not exhibited any willingness to compromise, and our attorneys advise that should we enter litigation with i.think, inc, the legal costs would be prohibitive and the expected verdict uncertain at best.

Should Minekey decide not to defend the right to use the iThink name in court, the consequence will likely be that we have to change the name of the application. We are asking users to please advise by voting and giving suggestions here: http://apps.facebook.com/ithinkapp/opinionpage?id=777554

You can also view the lawsuit filing here: http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-txndce/case_no-3:2008cv00163/case_id-174011/

We appreciate everyone who has participated in the process of changing the button design and anyone who has given their feedback. It seems to be overall postive so unless anyone has any more feedback we will proceed with the change in the next 24 hours.

If you haven't voted and given your feedback/suggestion yet please feel free to in this opinion: http://apps.facebook.com/ithinkapp/opinionpage?id=767593

We really appreciate everyone's patience and support in helping us come up with the new designs that all the users may like.

Even though 68% agreed to the opinion (http://apps.facebook.com/ithinkapp/opinionpage?id=718957) on the new design there was some mixed feedback over all. Keeping in mind that 32% of the users disagreed and that is with Minekey team members and our friends/ families restraining from voting on that opinion so we would not bias the results in any way. If you review the comments while some users have strongly expressed that we revert to the old design, some have said they have already started getting used to the new design and don't want one more change. We wanted to make sure that we execute changes much more carefully this time so users don't feel completely left out. Hence it has been taking us some time to make sure we do it right this time.

We have reviewed all the feedback that was posted by users in opinions, wall posts, discussion threads and reviews systematically to understand the objections and issues clearly - so we can work on a clear actionable plan. Regarding the design/ color scheme the biggest issue pointed out earlier was the buttons, which were looking very glaring. People didn't seem to have too much issues with the tabs and the rest of the template.

It was absolutely clear to us that we had to make the change in a way that we would satisfy: 1. Users - who didn't like too much of Orange on the buttons 2. Users who are some what getting used to the new template and don't want too much change once more and 3. Our engineers who want to see minimal template changes because they are already swamped with requests. We decided that the only way we can accomplish it is to compromise the Orange on the buttons. We therefore decided to do another design iteration where we modified the buttons to Grey color which is far less glaring and far more soothing to the eyes with a small stroke of Orange to give the distinct look and feel and make them easily noticeable. I hope everyone understands and appreciate the amount of thought and work that went into making sure this is done correctly. You'll notice that these buttons work quite decently in the currently template and need minimal changes.

View the design, then vote and comment on this opinion to let us know your feedback and suggestions:
http://apps.facebook.com/ithinkapp/opinionpage?id=767593

Once we get all the feedback from users we will expedite the roll out of the buttons.

Working with a few passionate iThinkers, we have come up with an alternative design with a mellow color scheme (link embeded whtinin the opinion). Let us know if you like this or the exisiting template or continue working on tweaking the design.

Vote and comment on this opinion to let us know your feedback:
http://apps.facebook.com/ithinkapp/opinionpage?id=718957

Today we launched a new and improved iThink, with a host of new features that we're really excited about! Most of the changes are based upon extensive suggestions and feedback we received from many iThink community members, and we look forward to hearing what you think about the new design.

Here’s a short list of what’s new:
- An entirely new look and feel.
- A “Topics” section, which allow you to view and sort opinions by topics.
- The “My Activity” Page, which updates the “My Opinions” page. You can now sort your own opinions by recently added, most voted and most discussed.
- The “You Have” area, which is located on the top right of every page, gives you one click access to all the opinions you have received, new comments on your opinions, and a list of your friends.
- The “Add Opinion” page with enhanced commenting. Now, when you accompany a new opinion with a comment, the comment will appear directly on the opinion boards with the opinion, making your comment always visible with the opinion.
- The “New Opinion” Page. The new layout allows you to easily navigate and find comments, insights, votes, followers, and related. - Comments on all opinions can also be sorted by newest to oldest and oldest to newest.

If you have any questions, please go to our help section where we provide more details: http://apps.facebook.com/ithinkapp/documents/help.

We want to hear what you think, so please share with us your feedback and suggestions.

Thanks.

Minekey invites you to join the iThink contest on hi5. Vote, express opinions, comment, add followers, and you could win up to $700. Visit the official Minekey blog for more information on how to win!

http://www.minekey.com/blog/

iThink invites you to join the Navigator team – a community of seasoned iThinkers who provide guidance and leadership to new users.

Navigators will engage new users by posting introductions on new users’ iThink walls, and comments on new users’ opinions. On occasion, iThink will send out welcoming messages to new users on behalf of individual Navigators, and they are expected to respond to replies to those messages.

Benefits of Membership:
• Peer recognition as leader of the iThink community
• Participation in exclusive contests
• Participation in invitation only sneak previews of future iThink releases
• Eligibility for Thought for the Day contributions

As official representatives of iThink, Navigators should familiarize themselves with and abide by the iThink 8 Rules.

Navigators will be identified by a bold icon beneath their picture on their iThink profile pages.

As there are a limited number of openings, the first group of Navigators selected by Minekey will represent the diversity and extensive interests of iThink users.

To apply, fill out the following questionnaire, and we’ll get in touch with you soon.

http://tinyurl.com/6z85q9

Today we launched a new version of iThink with improvements that we're very excited about! All of the changes are visible immediately.

What's new in this release?

- New People Area. We replaced the leaderboard with a page where you can discover new and fascinating people ranked according to their activity on iThink. See who has Most Followers, Most Opinions, Voted Most, Commented Most and Recently Joined. Discover the most active members of iThink, or welcome new users to the application with the new People page!
- Enhanced Pagination. It's now much easier to browse the opinion boards, notes and comments.
- Online Now Status. In the People area, at any time you can see who's online.

If you have any questions please go to our help section where we provide more details: http://apps.facebook.com/ithinkapp/documents/help

Don't forget about your friends - be sure to share the joys of iThink by inviting them!

Today we launched a new version of iThink that we are very excited about. We are constantly evolving iThink as we listen to our users.

Here are just a few of the improvements we made with this release:
- New Most Discussed tab, which is set as the default for Opinions page and Home. iThink has become a place for conversations, so we wanted to surface those opinions that spark great conversations.
- More Opinions, so within each opinion page you will now be able to discover more opinions from within the same category that you may also be interested in.
- Enhanced Profile Box, the profile box has been completely revamped. It now features all your activity within iThink as well as the ability for you to read your notes and for your friends to leave you notes directly from your within your Facebook profile.

Also don't forget about your friends - make sure they don't miss all the fun on iThink, invite them!

There is a lot happening on iThink every day. Several thousands of opinions are added, hundreds of thousands of votes are cast, and thousands of comments are posted, making iThink an intense and fun filled interactive forum. Users have been asking us for greater degree of visibility into what's happening on iThink. Few weeks ago, we introduced the "Follow" feature to help users follow interesting people and opinions they would like to keep track of.

We have also been working hard to see how we can deliver meaningful notifications to you. Currently, we send notifications for various activities within the application such as commenting, leaving a note, sending an opinion and following a user. Today we introduced voting notification which is delivered to you once a day when your friends vote on an interesting opinion, which may not have been shared with you. This enables you to participate in opinions your Friends have voted on. Also, your friends may be notified to vote on an opinion you may have voted on, to encourage their participation in that discussion. Of course, we submit a notification request to Facebook and Facebook picks the set of Friends randomly and notifies them based on the number of notifications allocated to iThink. iThink is all about sharing thoughts, and with this new feature we make it possible to get your friends more actively involved. I hope you'll all have more fun with this.

Also, going forward when you receive notifications from other users, the first one everyday will be delivered via email. Subsequent notifications will be delivered within Facebook.

We hope these changes will help keep you and your friends better informed of all the exciting conversations happening on iThink. We want to hear what you think, so please leave us your feedback and suggestions on our discussion board.

We wanted to let you know about some cool new features we have launched on iThink. Many of these were requested by our fans, so enjoy:

* Ability to follow specific opinions
* Ability to follow opinion makers
* Public pages—your opinions and comments can now be seen even by FB users who have not installed iThink as well as general internet users
* Many more changes behind the scenes to insure faster loading, reliability, etc.

Check out the changes now!

Also, we wanted to let everyone know that we launched iThink on MySpace this past week. If you have a MySpace account or know someone who does, help us get the ball rolling:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=349292705

Thanks for your support,

The iThink Team

As users have already noticed, we've been closely listening to user feedback and working hard behind the scenes to bring you the newest version of iThink! We hope you like the changes and would love to hear what you think.

Here are just some of the improvements we made:
- We made it easier to browse categories by bringing category navigation to the right side in the form of a tag cloud. The relative size of the category also represents the popularity of that category.
- New notification area on top of the application where we be highlighting interesting opinions and topics.
- New iThink logo!

Stay tuned for even more over the next few weeks because we are going continue to improve the iThink experience.

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=6937601243&topic=4359