Dan Mayer's Blog

Thanks for the feedback people have given me on the Seekler widgets. Most of you I talked to in person, but I still wanted to show the new version here and ask for any other feedback people might have to improve the widget. So check out the old vs new picture, and all the embedded widgets on my pages should now be running the new version so you can try it out.

Also, it seems our best concert venues in Denver, has become one of our more searched lists. If you have a favorite place to see shows in Denver definitely add your opinion into the mix as well.

I know some people might be sick of my posts on widgets wanting a return to some of my other thoughts, but unfortunately this is what I am working on right now so it is dominating my thoughts. So here is a new Seekler widget, which allows users to instead of sharing all of their lists target a specific list or only a community list. We are hoping this will be a great way for users to share their lists and make lists on their blogs more useful. As always any thoughts appreciated, and enjoy a list of my favorite lists.

Congrats to Ben on 1 year out on your own. Ben has now been with out a regular job for a full year. I consider that a nice list accomplishment, something I hope I will also achieve. I can say that time has seriously been flying past, so quick I can barely believe it. We have come up with a ton of ideas, dealt with all the business necessities (incorporation, lawyers, and accountants), and gotten to pitch in front of some of the most influential tech startup investors in the country. It has been an amazing learning experience, and I have truly enjoyed it all.

After I quit my job, my to-do list had a nagging item that I kept ignoring, update my resume. Making sure I would still have a list of the most recent projects and things I had been working on before I left. One day I mentioned that I have been skipping over it forever to Ben, and he said that he eventually just decided not to deal with it. He didn’t do a final update on his resume after leaving his job. I guess then I decided, screw it, I won’t update my resume either. It is almost as if updating my resume, would be like admitting that eventually I do want another ‘real’ job, where I have to have a nice resume, covered with all sorts of things I know, but haven’t used for years. Things I am not even interested in working with. It was a great feeling realizing, that no I am not going to update my resume, because this is what I want to do. I want to succeed. I want to make this startup work. I don’t want to go back trying to prove my worth to other companies and people, all of them thinking I seem a little young to be qualified for anything other than entry level software development. I don’t really want to even think about if I have to go back to that right now. In fact I don’t really have to as, I know that there is still a decent amount of time left for us to keep working away.

So update my resume was removed from my to-do list long ago, as something I just don’t have to do, because I already have the job I want.

On Tuesday we celebrated Hanukkah by having a dinner with some of our friends. The dinner was put together by Dina at our house. We cooked some traditional Jewish foods. We lit the menorah, and Dina told the story of Hanukkah using pictures from a children's book to help all us non Jewish people to get the story. We then received gifts, played dradle, chatted, and played video games.

We also finally got a chance to meat Dina's boyfriend, which was nice since many of us were starting to doubt that he existed... Crazy

Anyways that was a good time, followed by a Jimmy Eat World concert with Jesse on Wednesday. It wasn't the most productive week ever, but I had a great time and got to see some good friends.

Friday night we tried to go see I Am Legend on the IMAX screen only so we could see the 7 min special IMAX The Dark Knight preview, but even arriving 2 hours and 45 minutes early the show was already sold out. So we ended up not really doing much of anything... Another night I wish I could have just spent with Erin... oh well

Lastly, if you haven't checked out Nicole's project 365 yet you definitely should. It is a cool and interesting project.

The Flobots are in rotation on 93.3 thru December. Thanks to everyone that voted for them, it is not to late, if you weren't part of the crew that got them in the top 10 for the radio, you can still help by getting them in the top 3 which gets to play at a large concert promoted by 93.3...

Just sign up and vote here:
http://www.ktcl.com/cc-common/globalcontestfinder.html?contest=26974

Anyways thanks everyone who has called, messaged, or emailed about the Flobots being on. Unfortunately I haven't caught them on the air yet, but I never really listen to the radio. The closest I came was when Jon messaged me that the Flobots would be on in the next hour, but I was still in a movie theater seeing I Am Legend... After the movie I made it out to my car and tuned in to 93.3, but I had apparently already missed the song being played.

The IMAX preview of batman, was pretty sweet, seems like a creepy and cool take on the Joker.

well back to whatever I am doing...

As we come to the end of 2007, we start to think about 2008. I have started to think about all the cool movies coming out in 2008. There is a great list of the most anticipated movies of 2008 growing on Seekler. It is currently or most searched list. So if you haven't created your own best movies of 2008 list, nows the time. If you are interested in what movies I am looking forward to, here is my list of most anticipated movies for 2008.

We also added a cool new feature, when you expand an item, by clicking on the title, you will see the number of reviews an item has. If you click that link you can read all of the user reviews for that item. If you have a favorite lis tyou have been working on you can go back and review your items now. On any list go to your list view and you should see add review / edit review links on your items. These can be small little review about why you placed this item on your list, or large in depth reviews where you really go into the details about the item. Most of my reviews are just short snippets about why it made the list, and how it ended up at it's position. Like for the Dark Knight my review is, "Batman Begins was the best comic movie created, I have high hopes for the sequel. If keep the more grown up and darker batman it will be an amazing movie."

So if you feel like it give that feature a look, since it is new most items don't have reviews yet, but we are busy importing a bunch of reviews. We have already populated a bunch of reviews on our most anticipated movies of 2008 list.

Looks like that might be the final feature to make the cut for this holiday season, but I guess we will see... I love movies, rock on for an exciting year coming up.