imagini blog

We’re super happy to have now launched our sister site Youniverse. It is our dashing new landing site which will now receive much of our attention and dedication and we intend pushing through loads of new stuff there to build on what we did on Imagini.

At the moment, you can find our new Love Quiz up on there. In truth, it has required much of our love in its development and it’s a clever little thing, and we’re quite proud of it (blush, blush). We worked closely with psychologists to help us produce something that’s very accurate in defining the kind of Love Type that you are.

We’ve had really rewarding feedback on the quiz which is enormously encouraging. And people are checking out other people there as we’ve put up a kind of Facewall again - “People“ and you can check them out by Love type, gender, age etc. Furthermore, we’re still working with matching you up with people more like you… But how about people less like you? I’m sure you’ll agree that we also like people who complement us - if you’re pretty bubbly, you might prefer somewhat less bubbly persons to bring you down a notch…!

Well that’s where our sliders come in… you can slide them back and forth according to how much of a given personality trait you want to find people by. So, let’s say if I’m into more Playful and Committed people, I’d drag the sliders towards those qualities and the people listed are jigged around to show me people with those qualities first! They’re in their first stages of development but they’re great to dabble with…

This week we also released our Election Fever Poll. This is kind of different from our usual material as it explores people’s visual responses, and therefore their sentiments and perceptions, around a topical matter - the US and the US elections. The results are fascinating… you can check these out for yourself and make your impact. We’ve also put together a widget to embed on your blog and Myspace page showing the changing results of the poll. This the first of mini-quizzes we hope to get users’ input for and potentially develop themselves… Sigh! So many ideas!!

Finally, we have two other new additions on Youniverse : the Pepsi Football Quiz where you can check out the VisualDNA of top footballers out there and our decor quiz for Mydeco.

And for our old fans, our personality module will shortly be relaunched on Youniverse as well… so you’ll be hearing from us about that soon as well. So hope to hear your thoughts on our new stuff! feedback@imagini.net

So we’ve launched our Xmas Gift Finder but we’re still not done giving it love in-house to enhance its usability for all you folk in need of ideas as the Festive Season swift approaches.

Our main aim is to remove some of the beads of sweat from brows the world around. How you ask? Well, we contemplated the woohoos and boohoos of the holiday season… After much debate, this multicultural melange of muppets more or less agreed on one point: the greatest woe of the season is that our Great consumerist Expectations are often not met! Months before Parcel-Ripping Day (PRD), we gently start hinting to our loved ones how desperately we need that uber useful Remote-Controlled Tarantula, that can’t-live-without 40-Foot Marshmallow Blaster, that pair of socks…

Regrettably, come PRD, the gifts are often thoughtful but not exactly what we wanted for Xmas… So, Imagini decided that the “All I want for Xmas” Gift Finder would do just that - find a safe haven to display tailored inspiration to our loved-ones! We do understand that some people like surprises which is why we offer loads of different ideas which are split up into different categories:

There’s enough choice there to allow for surprises unless you’re lucky enough to be receiving that many presies!

In the next week, our beloved development team are planning on some new graphics going live as well as some new functionality… Our product team, on the other hand, are tirelessly adding new gift ideas to the Gift Finder. You may find some of our gifts on the pricey side - the explanation to this is that we’ve come to think of the Gift Finder as a practical tool and as a “Wishlist” offering some of the dreamy products we simply wish we could have! It’s kind of like virtual window-shopping where you can just have some fun checking out the cool and the beautiful!

You know we like to hear from you, so tell us your thoughts below or shoot us an email if you have time: feedback@imagini.net.

Yes, it’s that time of year again – and help is in hand from all of us here at Imagini with the launch today of our brand new Xmas Gift Finder.

This is a seriously cool new feature from us that finds you products matched to your VisualDNA. Months of work have gone into creating it and today marks the release of it in Beta version.

There is a US and a UK version featuring products that would be shipped from each country. If you live outside these countries, don’t worry, almost all of the suppliers that have the products will ship to anywhere in the world.

Here’s what you do…

You click through visual questions in the same way as you all now know from Imagini and Hey Presto! - loads of cool Xmas present ideas pop up onto your screen that have been specially selected to suit you.

You’ve got to try it to see quite how amazingly clever it is.

You can edit your products - the more you interact, the better match we can make to your VisualDNA.

Click on the Love tab if you like an item - it will bring this product to the top of your list.

Click on the remove tab to delete an item from your list. The system then starts learning what you don’t like and will remember for next time.

Go play with it – and please do send it to friends if you like what you see.

Hello, it’s been a while since we added new to our blog so here’s some news…

Our new Face Wall launched recently and seems to be a bit of hit. The cool bit now is that you can search selected elements of our database - age, gender and country. Once you’ve done that, click ‘Apply Filter’ and hey presto - up comes loads of new faces. It’s a great way of hooking up with people - give it a go here…

How do I find my friends on Imagini?

Lots of people have asked for this and we’re working on a search function right now. Until it gets uploaded, here’s a quick and easy way. All our URL’s are personalised so mine is http://friends.imagini.net/Alex - all you need to do is use this link plus the user name of the person you are hooking up with http://friends.imagini.net/

I hope this is useful to you - we’ll update things when the new search is here.

Try the Wishes module - it’s fun!

There’s something new to try out on Imagini - it’s called the Wishes module and you choose from ten wishes and we calculate your VisualDNA to match you up with up to 20 links that we hope you’ll find entertaining. It’s really worth a try
http://dna.imagini.net/friends/wishes.html

Today’s news is that our long awaited private messaging service has just gone live. This means that it is now possible to send someone a message via Imagini without you having to use your own email or blog.

Here’s what it looks like:

Hi everyone,

For those of you that haven’t seen our home page - do take a look - http://www.imagini.net/ There’s loads more to come on this page, but it’s got a few new things on it, including a call for all willing Imagini Guinea Pigs to help us test the new things we’ll be releasing over the next few weeks and months and our FaceWall which is a great way of seeing who’s new to Imagini - it’s totally addictive looking through and reading everyone’s comments…love it

These are the top five…

For all of you that want to see how many people have profiled themselves from your country, check out the new page on this blog - we’ve downloaded the latest figures and put them up here.

Today marks the launch of something new on Imagini - we’re launching a new feature that finds interesting travel sites that are matched to your VisualDNA. So here’s an example in the side panel - you get to use the slider to see images of sites that in theory move further from your VisualDNA, but you might find things that interest you anywhere along the slider. The images in this panel are matched to my profile so you’ll have to go into your profile to see the selections that are found to suit you. We’d love to hear your feedback on this, so please do click away and let us know how this very early Beta is stacking up.

The plan is to launch a whole series of different sections for you so that you can start to use your VisualDNA to find things that you might like. In time, we’ll link this to products too, in a similar way to the ‘gift finders’ you’ll find on www.imagini.net

Do remember that this is something totally new and it’s very much in Beta so be prepared for the odd bug or two!

Wow, what a month – one million people have discovered their VisualDNA™ since the beginning of March. So here’s a huuuuge thank you to all of you that have passed on links to friends – it’s made our year!

There’s no doubt that all of this has taken us by surprise so we’re feeling the pressure to get all of the things we’ve got planned and in the pipeline out to you as fast as we can.

Aled, Arne, Claire, Elle, Jack, Justine, Marie and Shim are working away on loads of cool new things - here’s some of what is coming up…

This week:

Plaxo integration

This lets you add your existing contact list to Imagini Friends. You can then invite your friends to profile themselves and you can share your results with each other.

Custom widgets

Our widget has been really popular but it has been a bit limited - so now we’re going to enable it so that you can customise it to what you like so you can adjust the layout to fit in with your blog or page. You’ll be able to enable it to be either static or dynamic.

Change password and user settings.

Yes, we know, our passwords have been rubbish - so we’re coding right now to enable you to choose your own and make the whole process a lot easier.
During the next 4 weeks:

Personal URLs

I personally can’t wait for this - you’ll have a simple URL for your profile - here’s an example:

Example: http://friends.imagini.net/alex

Private messaging

An obvious one we know, we just didn’t get time to get it implemented before we launched the beta site. It’s going to allow you to message each other without having to go through email.

Sending personalized e-mails

This will enable you to choose an option that notifies you if someone joins up who closely matches your profile.

Compare your data

This is going to be cool when it is up - it will allow you to search the database and compare yourself with other people around the world - comparing to your location/age-group/gender, and generally browse and share all the visual stories we have collected.

Longer term…

Lots of really great stuff coming - including new modules and ….

Some background to our vision

Did you know that businesses around the globe spend a staggering $18 billion per year on market research, trying to work out better ways of understanding what we all want? On top of this, about another $350 billion is spent every year advertising to persuade us to buy what’s been produced and available…

We think that this is totally outdated and simply not a sustainable way to carry on. It just makes sense that the future must be about producing less whilst meeting peoples needs more. We believe that the changing way in which we are all using the internet will make this possible by enabling people to get together and share information about what they like, want and need.

Our view is that the way to start assisting this process is to open up a completely new method of communication – a language that everyone who can see can interact with and understand – a language of images that enables people to understand each other in a different way.

The reason we have chosen images as a way of doing this is because about 90% of the way we all communicate is non-verbal. This 90% is made up of all sorts of different components that include many visual aspects such as who we look, act and behave.

Every moment of every day we make choices based on what things look like and we react differently to the same things. For instance – two very basic examples; a dog to one person might appear to be friendly and to another it could be the opposite, a pin-striped suit may represent comfort to one but could be perceived as totally stuffy by another.

These visual preferences ‘say’ a lot about us – a picture paints a thousand words after all. So, if you group together a few pictures that sum up yourself you soon get a short story about yourself – collect together a series of images about each aspect of your life and you have a whole novel. It’s these ‘picture stories’ that make up what we describe as our VisualDNA™.

At the moment, we’re enabling people to share their visual stories through a general lifestyle ‘module’, as we call it, but eventually, we’re going to be releasing ‘modules’ across many different and specific aspects of life such as health and well being, travel, fashion, entertainment and many more.

What we’re about then is collecting millions of visual stories together in one place and enabling those that have shared them to benefit from all the information that they contain.

We’re working on making Imagini a place where people can come to share, explore and discover through linking up with people like them across many different areas of life. As a result we aim to produce a new way for people to search – essentially one that allows you to find things based on your style and taste preferences.

As I said, one million people have shared their VisualDNA so far and about 50,000 are coming each day. Soon we’ll be releasing lots of different features that will hopefully make the process of communicating with each other far easier than it is right now and more fun too.

Here by the way is my VisualDNA…