Jamie Lynn Spears' Pregnancy

Oh boy. Britney Spears is a perennial favorite at Experience Project, but now news that her younger sister, Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant-- at 16 years old-- is shocking news indeed. There's a small Jamie Lynn Spears Fan Board at EP, with lots of Jamie Lynn Video Clips.

Oprah Obama Barack Winfrey

The United States Presidential Election begins to heat up at the close of this year, and it's interesting to see the star power coming into play at this still early stage.

Most notably, Oprah Winfrey has thrown her formidable support unequivocally behind Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton, often seen with her husband Bill Clinton, today featured her daughter Chelsea and mother Dorothy Rodham on the campaign trail-- to elicit a feeling of a new message 'for the generations.'

It's far too early to get very excited, but it's interesting to see how campaigning-- which has become so much of a media management issue, comes together. Ron Paul, the surprise candidate of 2008 in terms of grassroots internet support, even has the Ron Paul Blimp coming together!

At Experience Project, where we have numerous presidential polls and surveys running, the overall leading candidate (survey prompt: Who would you vote for US President in 2008" is Barack Obama, at 27%, to Hillary Clinton's 25%, followed by Rudy Giuliani's 17%. Check it out and make your voice heard today!

Or join your favorite candidate's support and discussion group:

Barack Obama Supporters
Hillary Clinton Supporters
John Edwards Supporters

Rudy Giuliani Supporters
John McCain Supporters
Mitt Romney Supporters
Ron Paul Supporters
Mike Gravel Supporters
Mike Huckabee Supporters

Heather Mills Talks of Suicide

Heather Mills, ex-wife of Paul McCartney, was on TV this morning talking about how hard her life has been since the news of the split broke, even going so far as contemplating taking her own life so her daughter could then, in her mind, be safe with her father.

Celebrities are real people, and their needs are like ours. Under a microscope, we see their flaws and successes, but we are always keen to point out that underneath it all, we can relate.

Check out the rather shocking Heather Mills crying and suicidal thoughts videos.

Last Minute Halloween Costume Ideas and Contest

Boo! It's Halloween and we should point out that we've got over 100 great Halloween costume ideas, with stories on how to make them and what reaction they get, posted in our "I remember my favorite Halloween Costume" group.

Likewise, today is the last day to enter the Halloween contest where if you submit a story about YOUR favorite Halloween costume, you're automatically entered to win a $25 iTunes gift certificate!

Trick or Treat? Treat!

Carving Pumpkins

Halloween is coming up... and thoughts turn to pumpkins. Want to figure out how to carve them? Don't feel like the messy task of carving pumpkins is for you? In our own search, we found some neat flash pumpkin carving applications... you get a virtual pumpkin, a virtual knife, and then you have at it. We thought it was neat enough to share. Get in the Halloween spirit ;)

Here are some links for you to try carving your own pumpkin, without seeds or a pattern!

Virtual Pumpkin

Another Pumpkin Carving Game

One more Pumpkin Carver for good measure!

And be sure to take our Halloween Survey


Enjoy your virtual pumpkin simulators!

Another Universe (Youniverse)

So interesting to see Law and Order have an episode on Virtual Worlds, which they called Another Youniverse (which everyone will misspell as Another Universe when searching for it). This was about, the, well nefarious side of things involving such savory topics as sexsomnia.

Which made us check out if there were any Law and Order groups on Experience Project-- and indeed there were, with "I love Law and Order" leading the pack in activity...

Oops She Did it Again

With news of Britney Spears' lackluster performance last nigh at the MTV Video Awards, we took a look at Experience Project to see if a group existed about her. And indeed, there was one called "I Feel Sorry for Britney Spears" (and another more lighthearted one, called "I Share the Same Birthday as Britney Spears."

Britney Spears remains insanely poplar, even if the sentiment towards her skews towards the (increasingly) negative. It's a shame, because if you look at Britney's collective works, no one can deny she knows how to entertain.

But now that her musical career seems to be in its death throes, the reason people are so interested in her these days might have something to do with the fact that she's becoming more human. She's no longer waif-like, she's had marital problems, she's had her rebellion(s). We don't judge nor condone whatever she does-- it's none of our business. But we are always fascinated by the complexity, the triumphs, the challenges of human life-- from celebrities to your neighbors.

Experience Project covers that range of life-- weigh in, read some stories about Britney, and check out the videos of Britney Spears at the Video Music Awards (VMAs).

Luciano Pavarotti Memorial

It is with great sadness I mourn the passing of Luciano Pavarotti.

I became a fan of Luciano Pavarotti after his appearance on the haunting U2 ode to Bosnia, Miss Sarajevo. It was astounding work:



[Pavarotti]
Dici che il fiume
trova la via al mare
E come il fiume
giungerai a me
Oltre i confini
e le terre assetate
Dici che come fiume
come fiume
L'amore giunger
L'amore
E non so pi pregare
E nell'amore non so pi sperare
E quell'amore non so pi aspettare

[English translation:]

You say that the river
finds the way to the sea
And as the river
you'll come to me
Beyond the borders
and the thirsty lands
You say that as river
As river
Love will come
Love
And I cannot pray anymore
And I cannot hope in love anymore
And I cannot wait for love anymore

You can visit Experience Project's Luciano Pavarotti Memorial here.

Paula Zahn shows that celebrities are not Immune to a Sexless Marriage

With the media frenzy picking up, it's hard to avoid word of former news anchor Paula Zahn's affair with Paul Fribourg. Word has now come out that Paula blames this very public ordeal because her marriage with husband Richard Cohen was of the sexless variety.

Whether or not these tawdry tales are true, sexless marriage is a serious and pressing issue. One of the most powerful experience groups at Experience Project is "I live in a sexless marriage"-- and provides an exploration from both gender's perspectives of what such an arrangement is not only like, but how it might be improved. Experience Project's culture is about positive growth and improvement of wellness- and that often starts by realizing you are not alone.

Through our encouragement of anonymity, our members can explore whatever it is that is on their minds-- be it a sexless marriage or remembering your first kiss, in a comfortable, safe environment and meet people who truly understand them.

Welcome tour of the Experience Project World Headquarters

To kick off a new project we're calling "EP TV" we did a quick welcome tour of the Experience Project office to introduce you to the team. Check out the video below:

For the beholder

Yawn!

No, not bored. But a bit underslept!

I can't explain just how productive the Experience Project Team is. In the past week, we've added:

-Powerful new threaded mailbox (think Gmail)
-A promotional badge and logo page (share EP on your website or blog)
-Address book import (pass on EP to your address book without sharing your username)
-Random story and group links (stumble through Experience Project!)
-Sorting your stories by unread comments (we heard you!)
-Subscribe to stories (get notified by email when someone else posts a comment)
-Tons of tweaks and bug fixes to make the site more usable for you

Yes, all in 7 days. Weekends count at EP.

Why? Because we love our users and know how important the site is to them, and so going the extra mile could very well make their lives just a tad bit better.

Keep the suggestions coming. We're listening. And just you wait until the features coming out NEXT week. We're going to knock your socks off. Maybe your shirt too. Scandalous!

BlogHer (dawn's take)

Wow, Julio covered a lot of bases with his summary of BlogHer. He did forget an couple of key details, however. One was the amazing dance party that Jessica and I had along with many other women at the final cocktail party in the Children's Museum at the Navy Pier in Chicago. We busted some moves to a mix of top 40's. Gwen (www.gwenbell.com) and Tara (iquitforlijit.typepad.com) were key dance floor buddies, and many other women joined our hip-swiveling affair until we had a full on funk fest (ok this is getting a bit cheesy...) We're still anxiously awaiting some of the many pics that were taken to appear in the blogosphere.
Speaking of pictures, another one of our fave features of this particular party was the old-fashioned photo booth that Jessica and I (ok, especially Jess;) took full advantage of. We have several sets of pics of the EP team making all sorts of ridiculous faces in black and white awesomeness.

The Windorphins eBay Campaign Deconstructed

eBay has been running a mysterious mass-market ad campaign for the past two months, referred to as "Windorphins." Cryptic messages on billboards, bus stops, newspaper stands show colorful, cutesy blobs like the one above, and some feel-good message that you might think is more appropriate for an anti-depressant or Microsoft Windows ad instead of one for the onlin auction giant.

But you see, you get a "windorphin"-- a play on the stress hormone endorphin-- when you win an auction. Oh. Right.

The purpose of this post isn't to argue the merits of the ad campaign itself, but rather to try to get a sense of what the impact is of such a mass-market, eyeballs campaign where the brand is hidden behind some mystery. The hope is that this triggers curiosity in people who already know (and are indifferent) to the brand, and both reinvigorates abandoned users, as well as enchants people who had previously dismissed the idea of using the given brand's products. A very similar example could be found in the Ask.com campaign for their search engine about "the Algorithm."

So, enough of the theory-- is this a good use of limited marketing dollars? Certainly Windorphins has gone from no recognition to some semblance of fame in a very short time...

But that graph is useless without comparing it to something... more impactful. Like the ladies of the press, Paris and Britney:



Now we see that windorphins really aren't making all that much of a splash, particularly for a site with the girth of eBay. To be fair, Paris and Britney are monstrous search terms, but that's the type of traffic one might think eBay needs to generate for this to be a worthwhile endeavor.

However, in the interest of pseudo-science, let's take a look at something more up the alley... another recently rising star, like David Beckham of the Galaxy. Surely eBay can compete with Beckham in the US? And for good measure, let's throw in a well known, but off the radar actor, oh, say Rob Schneider?

Ouch. Beckham has bent it all around the Windorphs. And Schneider, at minimal baseline levels, is pulling the same.

It's hard to tell what the actual traffic is that makes up these graphs. The best we can do from publicly available data is to take a look at Quantcast's chart, which is very likely underestimating the traffic and is likewise dated to only the beginnings of the campaign:



Oh my. Approximately 3-4 thousand visitors a day? What does each "eyeball" cost?

One other thorn: If you type in "Windorphin" on Google, the first result isn't even Ebay's! (Windorphins does lead to eBay if you're feeling lucky, however).

So the laymen's conclusion about mass eyeball marketing in major cities for a cutesy technology product with zero name recognition and no brand association? It simply isn't doing a whole lot of anything for eBay but costing them lots of money, and perhaps a collective annoyance among the public when people discover the brand behind the ruse.

You can discuss your thoughts on the Windorphs and Windorphins at Experience Project.

Other articles of interest here,here, and here.

Dispatch from Blogher Part 1: Julio’s Take

As our videos below can attest we had a great time at Blogher, learning a lot from all the amazing women that were there. As many of you know, Experience Project has very strong female participation, and as the site grows we need to ensure we are able to maintain the safe and comfortable culture that has been so valuable to members over time. What best way to get feedback and input on community building than from talking to hundreds of women that are experts in social media?!?!

The conference merits some honorable mentions from my side… I’ll let Jessica and Dawn do their own honorable mentions in later posts. So here we go:

• Special thanks to all the bloggers that helped us steer through the conference and meet more great women. Wendy Piersall, Elizabeth Edwards, Kelly Reising, and Liz Strauss were all especially welcoming and generous.
• I personally love photography (and dabble a bit in it) so a special mention to Georgia Popplewell for always being on top of the photo world during all the social events. Caroline Donahue is an insightful life coach moonlighting as a talented photographer (or is it the other way around?)
• Most inspiring interview we did was with Carol Lin (you can see the video in our previous post), former CNN anchor who lost her husband to cancer and is on a mission to bring support to others like her via the web (cancer social network). Carol’s story especially resonated with all of us at EP given the commonalities of how both sites got started from a personal need to help others going through difficult times. I told Carol that I thought that her genuine desire to help is the greatest driver of all as it has been in our case at EP.
• Most laughter: Gina Trapani of Lifehacker. Despite being super busy and overly sought-out (blog superstar!), Gina sat around with us for an interview and for nearly 20 minutes afterwards just joking around and exchanging ideas. We were all incredibly surprised at how giving Gina was and especially how carefree and contagiously jovial she was – must be that amazing San Diego lifestyle!
• Making a big difference: Two bloggers that I met over lunch that are making a big difference to their readers are Therese Borchard and Rachel Inbar. Therese does a near “Dear Therese” Q&A spin on fighting depression and is insightful and compassionate on her blog. Rachel talks about infertility and introduced me to some great web tools that she uses to make a lasting difference with her readers.
• Best t-shirt design, Larry Smith of SMITH. Too bad they weren’t giving any out (at least I didn’t get any...) but the company logo and t-shirt design were beautiful. On some shameful self-promotion, our t-shirts came out pretty cool as well if I may say so myself. Design was courtesy of Bruce Drummon, an amazing and very professional designer.
• Finally, special thanks to the wonderful women behind blogher: Jory, Lisa, and Elisa who I had the pleasure of meeting in person over the weekend and who put together what was a flawless conference!

Facebook Down: We Missed You

The Facebook outage this morning left us without our beloved series of applications. Happily, they were restored within a few hours, but it makes you realize just how important a part of our lives FB has become-- not only for individuals, but also for companies!

Check out our Facebook Applications

BlogHer 2007 and Experience Project

We had a wonderful time at BlogHer 2007 in Chicago. Thank you to all of the wonderful bloggers we met and had the opportunity to chat with. Your thoughts and friendship are so very meaningful to us!

We were able to conduct a number of interviews with attendees; see below!

BlogHer Interview with Elisa Camahort:



BlogHer Interview with Esther Dyson:



BlogHer Interview with Gina Trapani:





BlogHer Interview with Jane Goldman:



BlogHer Interview with Carol Lin:

Experiencing BlogHer

Just a quick update-- we will be at the BlogHer conference in Chicago this weekend, meeting many of our blogger friends. If you'll be in the area, drop us a note and say hello!

More Facebook Applications: Diversity, Goals, Dreams, Stories, and Moods

Bringing the power of Experience Project to new audiences is incredibly exciting for us. Which is why we've spent some time pulling together an impressive armada of useful, interesting applications for the Facebook platform. Try some out today!

Facebook Moods- Share your moods with tons of choices and smileys. Call out friends who made you feel the way you do. And we'll put a music player on your profile that automatically matches your mood. Get the Facebook Moods & Music Application Now

Diversity and Ethnic Pride
Show your ethnic heritage on your profile, meet people like you, and find out what your friends are made of! We'll even show you a breakdown of your friends' ethnicities-- how diverse are you? Get the Facebook Ethnicity Application Now

My Dreams Keep a dream and nightmare log. Share with friends-- and let them know when they pop up in your dreams!
Get Facebook Dreams and Nightmares Application Now!


My Goals Facebook Goal Tracker lets you set your top personal goals, track them, share them with your friends, and see how many share your goals. Discover who else has the same aspirations and talk to people who have been there are glad to help. And it's absolutely free. Get Facebook My Goals Application Now

Facebook "Random Story" Profile Content Generator Random Story puts a new story from Experience Project on your page multiple times per day. It's interesting, fun, compelling content--
and it will keep people coming back to your profile constantly for more.
Get Facebook Random Story Application Now

For a list of all of our applications, with screen shots and longer descriptions, please click here:
Facebook Moods, Diversity, Surveys, Goals, Dreams, Nightmares, and more

And Another: Facebook Moods

The hive has been busy. We are proud to announce the release of another new Facebook application that builds upon one of the more popular features at Experience Project: Facebook Moods.

Moods lets you set your current mood, choosing from over 100 presets (frustrated, happy, flirtatious, etc.), and degrees (slightly, extremely, etc.). You can also pick out the friends that are the cause of your mood. Finally, and here's the best part, when you set your mood, we put a music player in your profile with a playlist of songs that match exactly how you're feeling (we have tens of thousands of music recommendations made by members of the Experience Project.

We hope you give it a spin, and let us know how we can make it better.

Try Facebook Moods here

Facebook Applications for Goals and Stories

It has been far too long since we've written here, but would you rather we worked on building a better community, or waxing poetic in a blog? Thought so! ;)

This will be brief, but important. Experience Project is proud to announce the release of the first two of our Facebook Applications: Random Story, which allows you to keep your profile ever-fascinating with a random story from the tens of thousands at Experience Project, and the one we like the most: My Goals.

My Goals lets you set, track, and share your personal goals, desires and plans. Planning on sleeping this weekend? Add a goal. Planning on getting married? Sure, add that too-- and maybe set a deadline while you're at it. Your friends can see your goals, and add them as well.

Check our Goal and Story Facebook Applications out-- more are coming.

And for developers, here's a helping hand from our house to yours-- "10 Things That Would Have Been Nice to Know When Starting My Facebook Application"

Confessions of a Mayor-- and You

Experience Project is based out of the great, and practically always controversial city of San Francisco. Hearing the 'breaking news' that our Mayor Gavin Newsom had an affair with Ruby Rippey-Tourk (pictured here). Ruby Tourk was not only one of his aides at the time, but also the wife of another one of his campaign staff, Alex Tourk. Let's not get crazy with speculation, but she WAS pregnant just around then too. We're sure the timelines don't add up to mean anything, but that's just too weird, no matter what. Now enough tabloiding-- what can one say but 'ouch and wow.' (Update: We know you want to know about this: The "I Hate Cheaters" group has a forum post with lots of pictures and video of Ruby Rippey-Tourk)

The point is that politicians are unfortunately no different than the (weak) everyman. This is a pretty common occurrence, sadly. And seeing this kind of confession makes us want to remind you of one of the most compelling, but understated features at Experience Project-- confessions.

The feature provides an anonymous platform for people to get things off their chest, and realize that maybe, just maybe they're not exactly alone (they almost never are, for better or for worse). And thousands of people have done just that. So next time you do something you're not proud of, why not join the masses and let the world know about it by confessing it in our confessional. It won't remove your guilt, but you'll probably feel a whole lot better.

Bad Mayor! Bad Wife! Good that they confessed though...right?

And for those that are sinless, oh indulge yourself and see what shenanigans the rest of the world is up to.

We're about connecting people with common experiences, good and bad, for support from people who really understand you and won't judge you. So here are some other stories you might be interested in if Gav's actions caught your attention:

• I Was Cheated on By My Boyfriend
• I Think About Cheating on My Husband
• I Cheated on my Boyfriend With His Sister
• I Hate Cheaters
• And of course, the post with pictures and video of Ruby Rippey Tourk
  

Sources courtesy of CBS 5

Valentine's Day Contest

Valentine's Day is fast approaching. Ah, the scintillation of love. Many of us have a binary view of this celebration-- either we have a Valentine, or we don't.

But there's a few hundred thousand people in our country who get shades of grey. Those people are members of our armed forces deployed in either of the major operations-- Iraqi Freedom in Iraq and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan-- in the War on Terror. For those couples, they may have Valentine's, but they are separated by an ocean and beyond that, subject to the unknown for things we take for granted-- such as their physical well being/safety and when they will see each other again. Puts a little perspective on picking up some last-minute chocolates at Walgreens on the way home from an(other) uneventful day at work, no?

This kind of love, then, is one to be truly celebrated-- a deep and powerful one that withstands time, distance, and uncertainty. We are enamored with it, pun fully intended. So our Valentine's Day Celebration this year is for the military and their significant others. Share the story of your love, how you fell in love, how you cope with being without each other (especially on a day of lovey-dovey celebration), and what your plans are when you are reunited. Prizes are from Bath and Body Works, intended for some self-pampering while you wait.

The contest is now open, so get to writing, and in the process meet other kindred spirits that understand exactly where you're coming from and how you're feeling.

Happy Valentine's Day to All. Experience Project is quite the eligible bachelor, by the way. It hasn't really had time for dating and such this past year, but you know how it goes... ;)