Spanking New: 43 Places from the Robot Co-op

I'll be talking a lot more about this soon, but I wanted to post a quick link to 43 Places, the latest from my homies here in Seattle, the Robot Coop, of 43 Things fame.

Update: At the time of this writing (6/26/05), 43 Places is not yet public, but should be soon.

It's all about where you've been and where you want to go. I'm digging the cool mapping features and the other 43 things-style goodness. Like 43 Things, it's a blog for people who aren't necessarily "bloggers".

43 RipOffs

I suppose imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but there are some shameless 43 Things copy-cat sites popping up internationally.

Check out Aimido, which is not bashful about adopting almost the exact same look and functionality as 43 Things. Wow, they even have management and advisors. To me, this says: “Here are the people who couldn’t find anything better to do than rip off an existing site”. They look so respectable too, except maybe Harald. I’d like to know exactly what kind of advice the advisors are giving?

43 Things Wins a Webby

This is a great big shout out to the Robot Co-op for their Webby in the Social Networking category. The great guys/robots with big brains who created 43 Things deserve it and and I say more power to 'em. It blows my mind to think that just 4.5 months ago there were 139 people doing 411 things. Now, it's 21,500 doing nearly 83,000 things. Go Robots Go!

Eating Their Dog Food

That phrase always makes me laugh, but I think it's accurate. If you're not familiar, it means that a company that produces a product should use the product themselves.

In the online community world, I've been suspicious of companies that purport to understand all things "community" but don't have a community that supports their customers using their platform. It's one of the things I do like about Web Crossing, they have WebXHarbor.

I haven't seen a more productive example of eating their dogfood than how the Robot Co-op is using with their new site at ideas.43things.com.

43 Things in the Seattle Times

The Seattle Times had an article today about 43 Things. Unlike the conspiracy theories started from the Salon article, this one is a bit more balanced and talks about it as an example of Social Networking sites.

New Features at 43 Things

The folks at the Robot Co-op have added some cool new features to 43 Things.

The site has a new "Cities" resource that enables you to see more localized goals. For instance, the most popular goal in Austin Texas is "Go Kayaking".

43 Things and Getting Your Stuff Done

A while back I heard about a new idea for a social networking site from Josh Petersen, who happens to live in my neighborhood. He described a site called “43 Things” where a person can find other people based on common goals or “things”.

Soon after, he quit his job at Microsoft, assembled a great team called The Robot Co-op and today, 43 Things went live with an invitation-only beta.