Remembering Gary Coleman

RIP Gary Coleman. What's your favorite Gary Coleman memory? Our little buddy growing up from Diff'rent Strokes has passed on, sadly... but he was a big part of many of our childhoods and will likely / hopefully be remembered fondly.

Hayley Williams, Paramore and the Real Dictionary

We're loving the new Real Dictionary on EP... tonight after a certain rockstar claimed to have been hacked by way of naked pictures of herself being tweeted out to 600K+ people, we saw these two great definitions posted:

Who is Hayley Williams
Who are Paramore

Take a look and enjoy the laugh...

The Real Dictionary

We've just introduced a new EP Labs, which we're calling the Real Dictionary. What is it? It's a dictionary that is built by you, our members. Of course, it has the usual "standard dictionary" definitions (thousands and counting-- we're including a number of great resources, including Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary), but what makes it great is the ability for people to contribute THEIR own interpretations of words to it. This might be a strange acronym finally being defined, or a witty definition of a common word. We figured drawing from our millions of experienced users, we could make huge progress in defining the world around us through the eyes of the people who know best.

Please enjoy, use, and provide us feedback on our dictionary!

Worst Case Scenario

Many of us on Team EP are huge Bear Grylls fans, from his first show on Discovery called "Man versus Wild" to his latest new show, called, "Worst Case Scenario." Groups on EP share the love!

The Questions of the Day

One of our longest-running features, it often gets the short end of our promotional time, but it's always a goodie. Our Question of the Day asks something interesting, provocative, but also light-hearted (no political questions or depressing existential questions allowed!). The best answer gets trophies, points and recognition on the page. Check it out when you get a chance... and yes, it is also due for the makeover that much of EP has already seen (no offense, page!)

Trending Feed

hi all, we're testing out a new feature at EP-- a trending feed that shows you some of the hotter topics that are being discussed on site. For now, it appears near the bottom search bar on every page, and updates many times per hour. Taking a quick look, this is what we see right now:

Trending…

• phillies fan tasered video |
• kentucky derby |
• bret michaels press conference |
• poptropica |
• national star wars day |
• ovine |
• faisal shahzad facebook |
• trap or die 2 mixtape download…

We'll keep testing to see if it's something people find useful, but in the few short days we've had it live, many thousands have checked out what EP's got on these topics. Thx always for your support as we experiment, tweak, and improve on our commitment to make EP better each and every day.

Sexless Marriage

Hey all, Happy New Year!

As with 2008, our most popular group by activity for the 2009 year was:

I live in Sexless Marriage

More popular groups to come once we analyze the numbers, but wanted to throw that one out there as it was a runaway winner.

It's tough being married-- kids, medical issues, and particularly last year, economic stress, all took their hit in creating marriages without sex.

Merry Christmas from EP

We wish our community a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays-- here's a few Christmas groups to mark the day:

• I say Merry Christmas


• I think Christmas is a really sad time for a lot of people
  
• I hate Christmas


• I love Christmas
  

Brittany Murphy's Death

Tragic to see any young person lose their lives, but particularly poignant when it's a movie star that so many people are familiar with and would relate to. EP's discussions include:

Q&A:

Have you Heard About Brittany Murphey's Death and What Was the Cause?

Experience Group:
Can't Believe Brittany Murphy Died

RIP, Mrs. Murphy

Andre Agassi Revisited

It's been almost a month since Andre Agassi's confession came out that he used crystal meth during the earlier portions of his tennis career.

For those on the less wild side, check out the I Play Tennis group!

Our Military Wives and Girlfriends

Military families have always been a big part of the Experience Project family, and so we'll highlight a few of our hundreds of military wife and girlfriend support groups here:

• I am an Army Wife


• I am a Navy Wife


• I am a Marine Girlfriend or Marine Wife

Life can be hard and often lonely in these situations, but these fine folks make their country and us proud. Their resolve and strength, with a little bit of help from their EP friends, is so admirable, and we're thrilled to call them our friends on EP.

Tiger Woods: Thoughts on the Girls

Tiger Woods has been the buzz of the online world for the last couple weeks. Just uncovered a fun Q&A thread:

Tiger's Girls - What do you think their Thought Process was

Ping Sitemaps to Google, Yahoo and Bing

Recently we discovered that our sitemaps-- the list of pages on the site-- for Yahoo and Bing were not updating on their own. Google handles this task automatically, so we had blissfully assumed it was the same case with everyone else. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be. You should manually ping the other major search engines each time your sitemap changes.

To help save you the time, here are all the addresses you need to hit:

Google Sitemap Ping Address:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ping?sitemap=[your sitemap url]

Yahoo! Sitemap Ping Address
http://search.yahooapis.com/SiteExplorerService/V1/ping?sitemap=[your sitemap url]

Ask.com Sitemap Ping Address
http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=[your sitemap url]

Microsoft Bing Sitemap Ping Address
http://www.bing.com/webmaster/ping.aspx?siteMap=[your sitemap url]

You can also include your sitemap (or sitemap of sitemaps) in your robots.txt file.
Just add the following directive to robots.txt:

Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

Hope this helps! Happy sitemap indexing! For more information, check out the sitemap protocol site.

How Cute is Obama's Dog? Is Bo "the Cutest Dog Ever?"

In a recent survey, respondents rated Obama's new dog, Bo, cuter than 95% of all dogs -- with most respondents considering Bo "extra cute."

America recently watched Bo's arrival at the White House closer than it has that of any world leader, men and women of all ages fawning over this Portuguese water dog's every move.

Upon hearing my colleague Deven proclaim "OMG I think I am going to faint...that is the cutest dog ever!" I took it upon myself to figure out how cute Obama's dog really is. Is Bo really "the cutest dog ever?"

As many of you know, here at Experience Project we have a large and vibrant community of pet lovers among the tens of thousands of passionate life experience groups members have formed. One of the things that pet lovers enjoy on the site is the EP Pet Project which, among other things, allows them to share pictures of their pets, adopt virtual pets, and play "Cute or Not" -- a fun game where they can rate how cute they think a pet is.

To help me answer whether Bo is "the cutest dog ever," I asked a friend to submit a photo of Bo as a "contestant" in EP's Cute or Not game.

Within a day, Bo's cuteness had been voted on by nearly 600 people, and we had come to an average cuteness rating of 4.4 out of 5. So, how does that stack up against all dogs in America?

Since the EP Pet Project has had over 2,000 different pets submitted, I was able to look up my answer. Based on his cuteness score, Bo was rated as being cuter than 95% of all dogs! That's pretty remarkable and certainly places Bo as one of the cutest dogs in America -- quite an honor, if being America's First Dog wasn't enough!

UPDATE: the "Cute Puppies" Page on Facebook and @PuppyOfTheDay on Twitter also ran an informal poll on how cute fans thought Bo was as part of their Puppy of the Day game. According to them, Bo is cuter than 85% of all puppies. Nevertheless, Bo is still being considered cuter than most!

Experience Project Finds Osama Bin Laden, Receives Strategic Investment from Central Intelligence Agency

April 1, 2009 SAN FRANCISCO: Experience Project Inc, the world’s largest living archive of life experiences, announced today that the company has found international terrorist Osama Bin Laden as a member of its anonymous online community.

Mr. Bin Laden’s identity was spotted through the company’s new location-sharing feature, where members can share the location of where a confession or experience took place. Mr. Bin Laden shared his location as Sar-e-Raqowl, Afghanistan – a cave dwelling in southern Afghanistan inhabited by 6 people and 2 mountain goats.

Mr. Bin Laden, or “SamaBabby” as he is known on the site, shared a confession about his secret love for Mochi Ball kebabs, a dessert previously forbidden by the Taliban. Mr. Bin Laden and his supporters continue to protest Mochi Ball kebabs as a tactic by the “imperialist demonic powers” to brainwash his supporters through the Mochi Ball Kebab’s soft and delicious flavors.

Mr. Bin Laden was an active member of the community, and a member of communities including “I Loved Someone that Didn’t Love Me,” “I Want to Lose Weight,” and “I Live in a Sexless Marriage.”

Immediately following the announcement, the Central Intelligence Agency announced a $200 million investment in Experience Project at an undisclosed valuation. The funds will be used to develop state-of-the-art location technology and algorithms to match the writing style of Experience Project stories to that of international criminals.

50 Things You Didn't Know about Sarah Palin

Lots of talk today about Sarah Palin-- McCain's surprise VP pick. Learn 50 Things You Didn't Know about Sarah Palin here

Dream Meanings

Every now and then we want to highlight a hidden treasure of the EP community. Today it is our dreams section, which helps with dream interpretation and dream meanings.

Dreams often reflect our innermost thoughts in their most raw form, so they are a staging ground for EP users to help better understand themselves and get help and input from the community on an often pressing question of What Does My Dream Mean?

Check it out and share your dreams today!

George Carlin RIP

We just learned that George Carlin passed away on Sunday Night. Rest in peace-- like him or not, he was a true comedic giant that changed the landscape forever.

George Carlin Tributes and Video Clips at Experience Project

Hillary Clinton to Concede Defeat on Friday in Democratic National Primary

According to ABC News, a senior person in Hillary Clinton's entourage said she would concede defeat in the United States Democratic National Primary on Friday.

After Tuesday's split decision in the Montana and South Dakota primaries, and the en masse endorsement of Senator Barack Obama on Tuesday morning by nearly 70 party superdelegates, it was only a matter of when and how, not if.

It has been a truly historic occasion, and we, alongside the EP community, have been enthralled by it. Now it becomes Obama versus John McCain, a
nd the EP communities are ready to throw their support behind their chosen candidate:

I Support John McCain for President

I Support Barack Obama for President

Support Ted Kennedy in his battle against a Malignant Brain Tumor

Senator Edward (Teddy) Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Experience Project users have set up an online get-well card to show support for Senator Kennedy and his family as he battles glioma.

Teddy Kennedy Brain Tumor Diagnosis Support Card

Brain Tumor Survivor Stories at Experience Project