Help Us Improve 43 Places!

We just launched PROJECTS, a new section of 43 Places. This is where you can find things that we’d like to see added to the site. It could be new places, new destinations, and/or new neighborhoods, etc. The idea is that when you have time and inclination, you can pop in and add some content — either brand new entries, or adding to existing lists. We are keenly interested in finding people from different cities to add their knowledge — nobody knows your town better than you! 

Projects Example

Right now we’re focusing on neighborhoods, restaurants, sports-related destinations,  and the like, but we’ll soon be adding more and more projects to the mix. (If you have ideas for new projects, let us know.) It’s easy to get started: just pick a project, and start adding! Ideally you’ll update the Project page, too, so that others know it’s been taken care of.

Questions? Comment below! Thanks all.

Why, Yes, that WAS 43 Things on the Amazon Home Page

If you visited Amazon any time in the past couple of days, you may have seen an ad on the home page touting our New Year’s Resolution feature.

43 Things ad on the Amazon home page

Toot toot, as they say. We worked hard on this feature and are happy to see it get a little love. We hope you like it, too.

And in case you’d like to see it, here’s the link to Jackie Warner’s suggested resolution.

Snow Day

The snow is coming down at the Robot Co-op headquarters in Seattle, and most of the robots are all bundled up in the office, enjoying the view of snow falling on autumn leaves and people trying to drive up the hill.

But one of us is missing out on all the fun:

Poor Josh is stuck in Hawaii!

What’s on your snow day list? Do you want to learn to snowboard? learn to ski? kiss in the snow? build a snowman? have a snowball fight?

Or does the thought of snow inspire you to move to a tropical island?

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

The Robot Co-op's new window sign

For the first time in Robot history, we are publicly touting just what it is that we do around here. In other words, we acquired — and self-installed — some window signage. Now, people who are strolling, sauntering, tripping, or driving by the office can look up and get a sense of what happens behind these windows. It’s a tad uncomfortable calling attention to ourselves like this, but hopefully it’ll help answer the question, “What the hell is it that you do, anyway?”

Here are the Co-op thoughts on the window decal adventure:

Joe: “I already sent you email about that.” (He was right, he had…here’s what it said) “I’m going to enjoy watching people stop on Pike St and look up, wonder what the sign is about, then walk away thinking about their life goals.”

Ivan: “If it was straight, I’m fine with it.”

Michelle: “It’s crooked! we’d better peel it up and start over again… kiiiiiidding!! It looks great!!”

Laurel: “What about it?”

Kathy: “I love it! Perfection is overrated. Besides, if everything were perfect, 43 Things wouldn’t exist.”

Josh: “Saying who we are seems like a bold step. But we are 6 years in. It might be time to say who we are.”

A great thing came out of the ultra-mega-window-decal project, however: we learned something new about each other. In addition to being a crack team of developers, designers, thinkers, and joyologists, we discovered a hidden talent for applying window decals. Who knew?

In other news, we’re working on a New Year’s Resolution feature. It’s forcing us to talk to a lot more people than we normally do, and is taking us into uncharted “public relations” territory. Whoa. We hope that it will get you psyched for 2011.

Feel free to share your thoughts on the new window decal. And whatever else. We like to hear from you.

KMar

Introducing, our new water cooler (and the fabulous Kathy Mar)

She did it. In her first week on the job, Kathy Mar, our newest Robot brought cool, fresh water back to our office.

Kathy’s been a user of 43Things since December 16, 2004, making her one of the first 300 users. We are still working out her title, but “Captain Obvious” is in the lead. She brings a practical approach to the Co-op that is already getting us to rethink some of the 6 year old ruts we’ve created for ourselves.

Kathy is a graduate of Columbia University. She’s an accomplished internet veteran. Kathy’s worked at Microsoft, Real Networks, Disney and multiple mobile companies.

Hiring Kathy brings the Robot Co-op back up to fighting strength. We are now 6 Robots. She also adds the 10th dependent (Joe and Venessa are about to bring it to 11).

And we’re back

Someone forgot to pay the bills around here so our WordPress domain mapping quietly expired yesterday. Sorry if you were unable to get to our blog. Everything should be back to normal now.

Holiday Cheers

Josh thinks we get more cards than Google.

Thanks for the cards, and we hope you’re finding success in the New Year so far!

Robots Love Robots

When I tell people I’m working for the Robot Co-op, sometimes they ask if we make robots. I’ve had to explain that we actually make websites, but we got our long-awaited Roomba yesterday, so now I can say we own one at least.

We put it together yesterday, watched it buzz around the office, chased each other with the remote control mode, and asked it to find its way home to its dock. Not to neglect the actual cleaning functionality, we programmed it to run early this morning. The first question we all asked when we came in was “how is the robot?” (answer: it got stuck on one side of the office because we forgot to turn on the Virtual Walls).

Looks like there’s competition for the title of Chief Janitorial Officer.

Holiday Cheers

This weekend our new sysadmin Chuq will be visiting Seattle and we’ll finally get to meet him in person. He’s been a very active user for some time and has worked closely at the DNC with an old colleague of ours, so we look forward to hanging out. After familiarizing Chuq with Seattle, the Robot Co-op office, the all-important baristas at Cafe Vita, Credit Card Roulette, and our systems and technology, our top priority is to teach him the dark magic of the so-called Cheer Goblin. As we’ve expressed before, this infamous algorithm is shocking in its simplicity…but awesome in its mysterious powers.

Sorry, but Chuq will be sworn to secrecy.

We’d also like to thank everyone for the nice holiday cards we’ve been receiving. We do appreciate it. It is natural that people would be thinking of the Robot Co-op and our sites this time of year, though. Despite the fact that he’s never written a single entry, the top subscribee on 43 People is God.

Postcards arrive at the Co-op!

The mail a postcard to The Robots from one of my 43 Places goal went up a couple weeks ago and we’ve already received 4 postcards from users. So far 6 people want to do this, but we’re hoping to get more 43 Places users to start sending postcards in from around the world so we can plaster our white walls.

Our first postcard writers:

• Laurel wrote from Mt. Rainier, Washington
• Linda wrote from Boston, Massachusetts
• Gabriel wrote from Tecate, Mexico