Game on!!! On Wednesday afternoon, Userplane met the Rubicon Project for a friendly game of softball in Culver City. Considering the first inning was Userplane’s warm up time, both teams played really well! Players were sliding for bases, catching fly balls, and just hoping for the umpire to shout “You’re outta here!” for the opposing team. Userplane’s very own Nick Schneble hit the only home run of the game! It was a great game where each team showed great sportsmanship.

Userplane’rs were fired up with our friends and family in the stands cheering us on. A special thank you to all those who came out to support us! And a question for the Rubicon people… can you say “rematch”?

Message boards - also known as bulletin boards, discussion forums, or simply forums - suck! Ok, maybe that’s a little harsh. But if you’ve read our last post (The Boards Are Coming, The Boards Are Coming!) then you understand how ground-breaking Userplane’s new message board - Userplane Boards - will be. And if you’re like most people who are aware of the upcoming release of this highly-advanced bulletin board application, then you’ve been salivating all over your pins and needles!

Well clean yourself up and get ready. The Userplane discussion forum has gone into QA! With such a rich feature set, you wouldn’t expect us to release a buggy bulletin board, now would you? No way! By the time you embed Userplane’s message board into your website, integration will be painless and functionality will be at the level of perfection you’ve come to expect from Userplane applications.

During the QA process, our team will be focusing heavily on our bulletin board’s real-time posting feature. What is real-time posting? It’s the defining characteristic you won’t find in any other discussion forum available today! Simply put, with a real-time message board you see posts as they happen… unlike every other bulletin board out there where you need to refresh the page every time you want to view a new post.

Another landmark feature QA will pay close attention to is the instant messaging system, which is built right into the message board. When one of your discussion forum visitors wants to chat with another, at the click of a button they can open up a private one-to-one conversation with them. This takes the bulletin board to a new level, essentially creating two application within one.

Some of Userplane’s message board features are already out of QA! The ability for your visitors to embed images, video, and formatted text within the discussion forum threads has been scrutinized and deemed flawless. Advanced skinning, the ability for you to customize the look and feel of your bulletin board, has also passed through QA with flying colors.

Due sheerly to the time demanded, several of the message board features will remain in QA until enough data has been collected and disseminated by the forum. These include attributes such as persistent content, which allows the search engines to index the content of every post on your discussion forum from day one, forward. In conjunction with search engine indexing, persistent content is also tied to ComScore rankings of User Views and Page Views. So it’s easy to see why these bulletin board features by nature require more time.

Lastly, since Userplane is going to host your message board, relieving you of bandwidth costs and overly-taxed resources, our tech team is hard at work running QA on our servers, which will be dedicated solely to our bulletin board site owners. By launch time, you can rest assured that your discussion forum will be up and running 24/7 and your data will be safe and secure.

So there’s the latest update on Userplane Boards. Over the coming months you’re sure to hear a lot of buzz about this one-of-a-kind message board, and rightfully so. It’s a bulletin board that has no equal.

Don’t forget, Userplane Boards is set to release on August 4, 2008. If you would like to be among the first the get a Userplane Board, please visit us at: http://www.userplane.com/boards/

Are you looking for a way to better engage your users? A way to get them to stay longer, and return more often? Then you need a bulletin board! But wait, you don’t want just any message board. The message boards of today have changed very little since their first appearance on the burgeoning Internet. They are static, tedious, and quite frankly, boring. Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of these forums is the requirement to refresh your browser every time you want to see a new post. Not very engaging.

That was then, this is now. Userplane, the leader in application platforms for online communities, announces the upcoming release of Userplane Boards. Userplane has applied its cutting-edge technology to create a bulletin board with features unrivaled by any other provider in the industry. First and foremost, Userplane Boards operates in real-time, completely eliminating the need to refresh the page to see updated posts. Instead, you see posts as they happen. Think of it like a chat room. This feature alone is guaranteed to make your site more sticky.

But Userplane’s bulletin board does not stop there. With the click of a mouse, users can communicate with each other privately via an instant messaging system built right into the board. And while they’re posting to various threads, they can feel free to include images, videos, and custom formatted text. To add to the message board’s flexibility, Userplane Boards allows advanced skinning, giving you the ability to keep the look and feel of your message board consistent with your website.

With such compelling features, it is easy to see why your site “regulars” will be absolutely enthralled with your new bulletin board. But what about generating additional traffic? Worry not, you needn’t lift a finger! Userplane Boards’ persistent content component is configured to allow the search engines to easily index the keywords from every post generated from day one. The inevitable depth of this content is sure to boost your SEO and improve your rankings. Furthermore, the message board is integrated with ComScore tracking of User Views and Page Views, giving your site even more visibility. So all you have to do is sit back and watch the traffic roll in!

So now you may be saying to yourself, “This sounds great, but the bandwidth and storage costs are going to kill me!” Well Userplane has covered that too. Every bulletin board comes with completely free hosting, relieving you of any costs or resources associated with the board. You simply embed the message board into your site, and Userplane takes care of the rest.

Whether you are looking to build a casual community or a behemoth that rivals MySpace and Facebook, Userplane Boards is the clear choice. With a rich feature set certain to engage your visitors, the flexibility of total customization, and the lack of any costs, Userplane Boards will quickly become the new Gold Standard.

Userplane Boards is set to release on August 4, 2008. If you would like to be among the first the get a Userplane Board, please visit us at: http://www.userplane.com/boards/

As we all continue to network 24/7, how about a conference all about social networking in San Francisco, CA?  Userplane is sponsoring the upcoming Social Networking Conference event held on July 10 - 11, 2008 at the Mission Bay Conference Center at UCSF in San Francisco, USA.  The event agenda includes a lineup of speakers such as Motorola, Twitter, Steve Wozniak, Piczo, and many others!  Userplane’s very own Mike Jones, Shane Hall and Kyle Ellis will be networking at the event and presenting our new and exciting Mediaplayer and our soon to launch (July 21st), Boards!  Visit Userplane at booths 104 and 105 and join in on the social networking too

Userplane has been working closely with Ticonderoga Ventures to exhibit in the largest of the four annual Social Networking Conferences. The Social Networking Conference will be taking place in Miami, January 31 - February 1, 2008. Covering all business aspects social networking markets, it’ll be the place to be on the east coast! If you’re attending, we’re adding to all the excitement by having a live demo of Userplane’s Desktop application at Userplane’s Exhibitor Seminar Series Workshop on Wednesday, January 31, at 1:30 pm. Visit us at our Userplane booth – located at booths #601 and #602 We’ll see you in Miami!

Tomorrow, December 19, Userplane’s business development team will be attending the first virtual Social Networking Conference, hosted by our friends at iDate. Our chat software is a key component to make this online-only conference possible! Over 300 high-profile executives from the social networking space have already signed up to attend. Please join us for this unique event at http://www.socialnetworkingexpo.com.

This week, Userplane’s business development team will be in full effect at PubCon in Las Vegas. If you’re in town for the conference, please stop by our booth (#409) to check out the newest/latest Userplane happenings and say hi.

Today, we launched our new version of the Userplane Directory.  This rollout will primarily affect Userplane community owners (Instant Install), who will see some new and improved features: 

- New “Most Active” chat section - updates every 5 minutes
- Ability to sort search results to only see the chats with active users in them
- Easier access to chat room personalization because it is now localized in one easy access area
- Faster “my users” section w/ enhanced usability
- You can now customize the window title of your chat
- You can now delete your communities and even your own account (Userplane ID)

We’ve been quite busy here in Santa Monica. Here are a few highlights from the last couple of months…

1) Userplane Feeds are introduced - Our initial Feeds API, Truveo Video Search allows you to embed advanced video search results on your site - which can be integrated with advertising and Userplane Money to generate additional revenue.

2) FREE Webrecorder is pushed out - Our record and share app - used for video profiles, posting a/v comments on profile pages, video blogs, and more - can now be installed with no monthly fees, supported by ads.

3) Userplane’s Facebook App - We join FB’s social graph with our very own chat app, which allows users to chat and instant message their Facebook friends using Userplane’s feature-rich tools.

4) Userplane Embraces Google’s OpenSocial - Our new APIs will allow OpenSocial application developers to integrate Userplane apps, such as Webchat, Webmessenger and Webrecorder, within their applications.

6) Our dev team diligently works on new version of Userplane Directory - about to launch! More details to follow shortly…

Userplane will be a sponsor and exhibitor at the 5^th annual Social Networking Conference, taking place in Miami, January 31 - February 1, 2008.

Scheduled topics are: new technologies, revenue models for social networking, mobile, venture capital, social networking and online personals marketing, social networking software, online personals software, global business strategies, partnerships, legal issues and payments. Historically, the Miami event has been the most significant and the largest. Converging at the Miami event are senior executives in the social networking and social media industry from several continents, including growth markets such as China and Europe.

While the Social Networking Conference is taking place at the Miami Beach Convention Center , the Internet Dating Confernce will also be taking place down the hall. Registration to the Social Networking Conference also gets you complimentary admission to the dating conference.

Let us know if you plan on attending and would like to meet up! For more information on the event, please visit their website: www.SocialNetworkingConference.com