Some quick updates!

We’re really sorry for not having updated this blog in quite sometime now.
But there is an explanation – which is – we were terribly caught up with tonnes of work.

We all took a much needed Diwali break and have had some time to catch up with other things.
So whats happening at ThinkingSpace of late you wonder …

UPDATE 1: We’ve been nominated for the TATA – NEN Hottest Startups Award!
Yes we have! We were at a particular time on rank 21 – but now are steadily slipping down to rank 50.
(This is out of 590 startups from India)

The ranking consists of an Experts rating (50%) and public voting (50%)
We have gotten a favourable expert’s rating and the only way we can move up is if you vote for us.

If we make it to number 30 (or lesser), we stand to gain tremendous exposure via online and offline press coverage. So we really need your help on this. Please vote for us.

Quick way (You will be charged Rs. 3): From India, send an SMS to 56767 with: “HOT <space> 327″ (without quotes)
Longer free way: Head over to this URL, sign up and vote for us online.

UPDATE 2: EventAZoo is now live!
We have been furiously working on EventAZoo and have released a live version online!
But until we have things stabilized, we’re giving out invite codes to try out the service for free to a select group of people only.

If you are interested, leave a comment on this post and I’ll send you an invite to try out our professional package – completely free for a month! (Invites open on a first come first serve basis to the first 10 comments)

Don’t know what EventAZoo is?
EventAZoo is a mind numbingly simple, no nonsense event website generator and registration taker!

Head over to EventAZoo at http://www.eventazoo.com to know more!

ActiveCiti – just updated …

We have just finished making very important updates to ActiveCiti and you can check out the website online.
If you have logged on and are wondering what the changes are (besides the opening page looking slightly different) – don’t worry. The changes are not visible :)

Most of the changes have been made to the internal workings of ActiveCiti. The UI has been changed at very few places (though expect to see changes over the coming days)

We have hammered away and tweaked at the internal gears that make ActiveCiti tick and have shaved off tremendous amounts of fat from the system which was slowing down the website at places.
You will definitely notice quite some performance improvement at lots of places.

We’ve added two new features which will help you in promoting your event!

1. Share your public event page on social content sharing websites!
We have added a widget to all the public event pages which will allow anyone visiting the page to share the page on other social content sharing and social network websites like digg, facebook, etc.
Now you can promote your event with just one click!

2. Featured Events are now Active
The featured events bar on your calendar page will now show a randomly chosen featured event every time you open up the page. This feature was a long time coming.
Incase you are organizing a public event and would like to get the word out to the ActiveCiti community, just send us a message using our Contact Us page and we’ll see what we can do.
If your event matches our criteria for being listed as a featured event, we’ll make it one so that you can have more visitors checking your event page out!

Besides this, we have also spruced up our main page to give people pointers on what tools they can use to organize and plan different types of events. To know more, head to our main page and click any of icons at the bottom of the page.

I am sure a lot of you would be surprised at the many features we have that you didn’t know about.

We’ll be rolling out more changes and features in the coming weeks.
So stay tuned to this page …

(If you’re feeling lazy to come back and check this blog regularly, you can subscribe to it via an RSS reader or via email. The options to do so are on the bottom-right hand side of this page. Go ahead and subscribe to the blog!

We promise not to spam…)

ActiveCiti – Now new and better than ever before :)

Remember those soap and detergent commercials?
Every bar of soap that you purchased within two weeks of the previous one, was somehow many times better than the other – even though you would probably not be able to make out one distinguishing difference if your life depended on it.

However, let me assure you that — when you log onto ActiveCiti now, you will find refreshing changes in the UI – and lots of other (distinguishable) improvements…

After ActiveCiti went online for private beta – we got tonnes of feedback with stuff that people wanted.
So, we all got down and worked furiously to implement the ones we thought were really needed.

The newest version of ActiveCiti (which we also opened up for a public beta) is a result of this.
We sincerely hope you love the new UI. Its cooler, simpler, squeaky clean and brand new :)

Some of the improvements and changes are:

• Brand new UI – The event creation pages have become a lot simpler and clutter free!
• Polls – Now, you have the ability to have upto five polls per event. So, go ahead and poll your invitees on anything you want.
• Import and Invite friends from Orkut, Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc – You can now invite friends by uploading the csv (comma separated value) file exported to you by these services.
• People can invite themselves to public events – The public event pages now feature an “I am attending button” which ActiveCiti members can click to inform the organiser that they will be attending.
• Friends of Friends - You can now see friends of your immediate friends.
• Better guest lists - The guest lists have become more informative and graphical.
• Support for time zones – ActiveCiti, now supports time zones for both users and events :)

Below, you will find screen shots of some of the stuff thats changed:

You can now create the event quickly – within seconds and then add guests later.

The guests page is now cleaner, faster and easier to use.

All events have their event summary pages now. This page plays the role of the control panel for the particular event.

Our newest feature – Polls !

So, check out the new improvements …
If you liked the UI before, I think you will love it now :)

- Saurabh