Imran Qureshi

 

On Sunday 10/28/07, we released a brand spanking new version of Spleak after a few weeks in beta.  Add spleak@hotmail.com to your MSN Messenger list or "Spleak" to your AIM buddy list and just say hi to play.  Or visit www.spleak.com.

 

The main thing you'll notice from a user standpoint is that Spleak is now all about you.  It is a place where you can find the latest gossip about celebrities and post your own that you find out from your "secret sources".

 

However it is what is underneath that is most interesting and revolutionary.  Over the past four months we've built a platform that I believe will power the next generation of online communities.

 

Currently there are a lot of sites for "personal expression" e.g., MySpace, Facebook.   There are fewer sites dedicated to "community expression".  The best known is probably still Yahoo Groups although there are a few new ones like Ning.

 

In my view, Yahoo Groups, Ning etc are still stuck in the previous century.  In today's world there are a few things that are necessary for useful online communities:

1. An online community should be everywhere I am.  These days people spend more time on IM and mobile phones than they do on the web. 

2. An online community should be accessible everywhere on the web not just on one web site.  People spend their time on existing "destination" websites like MySpace, Facebook, Piczo etc.  Why force users to go to groups.yahoo.com instead of bringing the community to them?

3. Community posts are too long.  I don't want to see a diatribe from one person - i want to see opinions from lots of people.

4. Everything should be ranked.  Do the work for me and tell me what is good.  Be a Google not a Yahoo web directory(remember the pre-Google Yahoo?).

 

Four months ago we set out to solve these so people can have better online communties.

 

Spleak online communities are available through IM and Web today and in the future will be available via SMS on mobile phones. 

Spleak online communities are accessible through "widgets" that any user can put on their social networking page (see my Myspace page: http://myspace.com/imranq2)  You can access these communities right from your MySpace page or your friends MySpace page.

Spleak online communities force users to write short posts - no diatribes.

Spleak online communities automatically rank every post, every poster and every community.  "Good stuff bubbles to the top and bad stuff to the bottom".

 

Celeb Spleak is our first community focused around gossip about celebrities.  This is what is available at spleak@hotmail.com on MSN and Spleak on AIM.  Once  we've iterated on our platform we'll open it up so you'll be able to create your own communities around whatever topics you're interested in.  Your community will be instantly accessible through IM, your MySpace page and mobile.

 

In a future post, I'll talk more about the platform we built and why it was necessary for enabling this next generation of online communities.

 

Feel free to try out CelebSpleak and let me know what you think at imran_atsign_spleak.com.  Replace "_atsign_" with "@".  (i do this to avoid spammers picking up my email address and sending crap).  We will be continuing to add features over the next few months based on what you tell us you want in the next generation onlne communities.

 

 

 

ok, i'm posting these entries a couple of months after the fact but it's so busy here at Spleak that I had not had time to take photos off my digital camera.  yeah, i know it sounds like it should be so quick but i guess it is more about having the time to think about it.

 

anyway, back in october i headed to Denmark to visit our team there.   i decided to take my wife and two kids with me.  Once I got there we discovered that my boy, Zane, adjusted quickly to the new timezone while my daughter, Malaya, did not.  As a result we had to stay up with Zane during the day and with Malaya during the night and hence got very little sleep.

 

However it was fun to see our Danish team.  Everything is so expensive there compared to the US (which was very surprising to us).  our first night there we ate in KFC for a $25 meal!

 

We did take the train to Helsignor, the supposed castle of Hamlet in Shakespeare's play.  In our photos you'll see the dungeons under this castle. 

 

the best food was smorebrod outside of Copenhagen in a small town where I spent a couple of years when I was really small.

 

I uploaded my photos from the Denmark trip here.

 

 

I'm looking for a developer right now - we have too many cool things we want to do and not enough people .  You can see the job description by clicking the link below.  If you know anyone who would be perfect, please tell them.

 

Note: You can apply for the job at this link.

 

Feel free to trackback/link to this post also to get the word out.  we need a star developer who wants to help define the next communication revolution.

 

thanks,

-Imran

 

Now that I've become a "bridge and tunnel person" according to a friend (because of commuting to SF every day from Milpitas), I'm completely reliant on BART.  The parking situation at Fremont BART station sucks big time.  Even when I get there at 8AM all the parking slots are taken.  There is no place nearby to park.  I parked at a mall next to the bart station and I got a warning.  I've finally found a place to park on the street that is a 20 minute walk.  This is just crazy.  If BART wants people to ride it and cut down on pollution they must fix the parking situation at their stations.  They should just build a multi-level parking structure at this and other stations.

 

 

On Monday, we moved into our brand new offices in San Francisco at 505 Montgomery Street.  Ok, it's actually just two rooms on the 11th floor but still it was fun.  In the morning we couldn't get the internet access to work.  We found out that you have to pay extra to get internet access and it is almost a hundred dollars per person per month.  So we decided just to get Verizon Wireless broadband cards since those are only $60 per month and you can use it anywhere in the bay area.

 

Finally in the afternoon, I got online and was able to check email.  Our office is nice corner office with three windows.  I forgot my camera but i'll post pictures soon.

 

today (Tuesday), the other two people on our team showed up and it was fun to finally have all of us working in one place.  We had to make another trip to Staples to get some office supplies like whiteboards, writing pads, pens etc.   we all seem to get along so it's fun to work and have fun at the same time.