Wow…it’s been a long long time since we wrote. Do not take this as a lack of action, rather as a little rest. We have been at it for quite some time, and it was due for the team to step away for a month or so. Some of us have families that we have not seen, some of us are making big moves to San Francisco, and some were just enjoying a bit of time off. Since we last spoke, we have had a great donation turn out. Thank you to all of our loyal users.

Currently we are toying with the idea of partnering with vendors that will enhance planning. What do you all think of partnering with hotels and/or airlines? What about hooking up with restaurants and bars to bring Planypus only specials to the site?

Let us know, you have the power.

Hey all of you crazy Planypusians out there. On behalf of the Planypus family, I want to wish you all a fun, safe, prosperous, and fulfilling Hanukah and Christmas. Thank you for making Planypus what it is today. Your comments, suggestions, critique, and support has helped drive us for over two years. Keep the thoughts flowing.

Plan a New Year’s party!

Jelly Chicago with 10 Chicago startups including Planypus are throwing a holiday bash tonight, Saturday December 13th. Come on down to Noble Tree Coffee & Tea for drinks, snacks, and of course free schwag We’ll also be accepting donations of coats, scarves, hats, etc. as well as raising money for local charities. More info at Jelly Chicago.

I am an absolute ski fanatic. But I live in Chicago, so it’s not that easy for me to get out to the mountains. Yet every year I make it a priority to get off my butt and plan at least three ski trips out west. It used to be a huge pain, dealing with huge email threads, trying to track who’s going in a spreadsheet, figuring out when people want to go.

One of the big reasons we created Planypus was to help with exactly this type of planning. Not only is the planspace wiki a great place to track flights, housing, and who paid, but you can also drop a snippet of HTML to create a snow report widget so you can easily track the mountain conditions. The RSVP’s help us track who’s going, and the polls and voting help sort out issues like trip duration. Of course having an instant comment and chat really helps in figuring out problems on the spot. Check out the screenshot below, and click to make your own plan!

Our recently launched Polls feature lets you ask your friends anything you want! But don’t limit it to yes or no questions, there are lots of ways to use Polls to ask people to indicate their preference. From voting on the length of a vacation, to movie showtimes, Polls are a versatile way to quickly get everyone to agree. Check out the screenshot below for how a poll was used to let friends know about a movie showtime!

I’m really happy to report that after seven months of hard work, we’re back and better than ever! The new Planypus is an example of beautiful user-driven design, that really focuses on the goal: to make plans as humanly fast as possible.

Not satisfied with the overcomplicated process of making plans at competing websites, we’ve got it down to one screen, and actually just one field! Type in a title and let your friends fill in the details. It’s that easy. You can have a plan page up in about 10 seconds and let your friends use the planspace wiki, vote on time and locations, create and respond to polls, and chat. And of course you can get notifications on your phone, email, rss, integrate with calendars, and one-click post to Twitter and Facebook!

We wouldn’t be here today without the hard work of the Planypus team, especially Luciano Pouzada, the talented designer who created the interface for the new Planypus. And tons of thanks to our beta users who helped us test the product in its final pre-release stages. Your support has kept us going!

And while all that’s been going on, we launched our new platform website at http://platform.planyp.us to help websites use the Planypus engine to enable social interaction on their events. Get in touch with us and find out how we can create page views and brand loyalty for you!

Now onto world domination in 2009

Here’s a little taste of what’s to come Click on the pic for more!

Our bubbes certainly approve of the Planypus article in this week’s Oy!Chicago.

Laura Brown did an excellent job of telling the Planypus spiel and concisely communicating that Planypus is a “wevite” service that’s easy to use even by a schlemiel like me. If I forget to invite a friend or specify a location, it is easily added by another nebbish.

To be mentioned in the same article as the mensch across town, Jason Fried of 37signals is quite an honor. Reading his book on efficiency, Getting Real, will help you make more gelt, and save enough time to call your poor mother more often.

However only Planypus has the chutzpah to organize your zeit.

Do you run an event blog? Drive users to your events by offering them a plan button that lets them add your event to their calendar and create plans on on Planypus. We now have plugins available for WordPress, Movable Type, and a FeedFlare for your FeedBurner feed. We even offer free co-branding if you contact us. Enjoy, and let us know how we can improve these plugins!

St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. Moses lead the Hebrews out of Egypt. The planypus dev team has liberated you from being tethered to your computer.

Go to http://m.planyp.us and check your plans, update your plans, but most importantly share your plans.

Leave a comment on how you have used Planypus Mobile or plan on using it, or wish you could have used it the other night when your house had a power outage.

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