imagini blog

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…