I’ve got some exciting news on the ThinkUp front. Our team is rebooting the project’s non-profit funding organization Expert Labs into a commercial entity. Anil and I are co-founding the new ThinkUp company, and Andy and Clay will advise us. Our goal remains the same: to help users get more meaning out of their social network interactions. We plan to evolve ThinkUp above and beyond the current open source app to include an easy-to-use product with mainstream appeal. Update: To be clear, the existing ThinkUp application will remain open source.
As we get started, we need your help. One initial avenue of funding we’re pursuing is via the Knight Foundation’s News Challenge, a prestigious, international media contest which awards grants to its winners. The competition is fierce, and the applications are numerous. Our News Challenge application lays out details of our plans. If you’ve got a Tumblr account, please like (and even reblog!) our application to increase our chances. Just click on the heart next to the post. Thanks.
In the meantime, work on ThinkUp continues apace. Today’s release includes gorgeous new charts and graphs, an web-based application upgrader, and lots of bugfixes. In the coming weeks, new features like Foursquare support and Facebook domain stats will be ready to test.
I’m deeply grateful to the AAAS and The MacArthur Foundation for funding Expert Labs over the past two years. Looking forward, I’m very excited to focus on the ThinkUp product and make it more useful, accessible, and meaningful. This is gonna be a fun ride.
