Moo

MOO API hacks at BarCampLondon5 - and a winner

At BarCampLondon5, I gave a session on the beta MOO API. The slides are here. We also held a little competition - the best API hack over the weekend would win a Flip Video Ultra

The entries were as follows:

They’re all a little rough and ready (knocked together in hours, in
true barcamp spirit), but they do demonstrate the range of things one
can do quite nicely.

1. Make MOO postcards via MMS, with a nice little shortcode authentication method too.

   by Sam Machin.

2. Make MOO Postcards from Flickr Sunsets

   by Nathan O’Hanlon

3. Make MOO minicards from Amazon book covers.

   by Simon Willison

4. Generate minicards with your Wii codes on them for sharing

   by Dominic Hodgson (and (unnamed) girlfriend)

5. Ten Word Review Moo cards

   which takes reviews from , The Ten Word Review and renders them into cards.

   by Neil Crosby

and the winner is…

It was tricky. I like them all, and all demonstrate API superpowers in different ways, but the grand prize goes to…

Ten Word Review Moo cards

Well done, Neil.

I think we’ll be having some more competitions soon. I enjoyed that. Thanks to all who entered.

MOO & People’s Music Store - Beautiful beta welcome packs.

Because I’m into API fun, (and just like showing off) I wanted you to see a beautiful use of MiniCards the lovely chaps at People’s Music Store made up to thank their beta testers.

You all know how much we love people-powered here at Moo, whether it’s making personalised gift tags or postcards from your actual holiday instead of boring Scarborough seaside collages (well, maybe I should go on better holidays, but anyway). So what do you get when you put MOO and the People’s Music Store together?

At the People’s Music Store you add exactly the music you want to your store (they’ve got lots), start telling people about it and when they buy from it, you get points to spend on more music for yourself. Perfect. Now I’m going to be a bit cheeky, and ask you to check out my own People Powered store and help me save up for the uber-awesome Magnetic Fields release I really really really need ;-)

So, the point, I get to it: imagine my delight after I had been helping beta test the site for them for a while, and in the post one morning was a totally gorgeous package of Moo MiniCards with my store name and link on the back, and my store picture on the front! Also included: a beautiful screen print, stickers and - my favourite bit - a packet of sweets.

Run by six guys over in Soho, who all have impeccable musical pedigrees, throw brilliant parties, and of course all have excellent taste in music, I showed it to Denise, Paul and Alex, the art & design geeks here at Moo, and they all fell in love with it too, especially the personalised letter and screen print by Kate Gibb (in keeping with the musical theme, you may recognise her work from some Chemical Brothers cover art).

The cards were printed using the MOO API, with different text on the back each time (you can do that when you’re programming with the API) - with the newest wrapper, Ruminant. Ruminant is written in Ruby by James Darling, and at first it only supported lovely but lonely MiniCards for his People’s Music Store project. But then he put his code up on GitHub, the social sourcecode website. He says, “Github’s sort of like a code orgy” - uh-huh, and it must be sexy, because before long Tom Armitage found it, extended it, and now it works for stickers too.

I’m told there are other exciting but currently super-secret ideas hatching at People’s Music Store and with Ruminant - I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I hope it involves more sweets.

Ooh - almost forgot! A few of us from MOO will be heading to the Photography Book Now event put on by Blurb on Friday, October 10th in London. It’s a celebration of the winners and all entrants behind their People Powered photography book competition (we talked about the competition here). If you’re interested, why not join us? Sign up over here: http://pbnmeetupuk.eventbrite.com/?ce=moo

Pretty in Pink, Back in Black, and… Orange!

(I couldn’t think of anything for orange - can you? Answers in the comments please). Anyway- we’ve got COLOURED MINICARD HOLDERS! They’re in stock right now - and come in hot pink, bright orange, and a black so black it could crush a man’s soul.

The office opinion is split as to which colour is best. Notable comments were as follows:
Pete (Global Marketing Manager): I like the pink one best. I mean, well… Not for me! For my wife.
Richard (Founder & Chief Executive): White is still the best, I have no need of this coloured frivolity.
Jake (Lovely German intern, since gone to study): At last! They come in black! I know it’s only a test one but can I have it?
Alex (Web/Graphic Designer): Is that the orange one? Nice. I’ll have that.

Which all goes to show every colour is good! (So perhaps you should get them all?) They’re still the same bargain price of $4.99/€3.74/£2.49, and are a worthwhile investment to protect your cards.

If you’ve not seen them before, take a quick look - they’re small enough to fit in your pocket, slide open with one hand, and have a little ‘ramp’ inside, which means you can slide the cards out easily. One of the main thoughts when we designed this, was that it should be able to be used one handed - if you’re networking you need the other hand free for drinks, receiving a card from the person you’re talking to, or even shaking hands. This little holder fits the bill perfectly.

Delightful data

There’s a lot of things that make the MOO crew happy - and contrary to popular belief, they’re not all food related. One such thing is people doing cool things with the MOO API - like Mooplr the recent MOO/Dopplr mash-up, by Kevin Lloyd, which helps you make Stickers with the names of the cities of your past, present and future trips.

This week we spotted Alberto Naranjo Galet had made a cool little app that helps you easily make coloured 2d barcode stickers, with the text of your choice. Creating the barcode in real-time, the application lets you choose a background and foreground colour and save the results. Once you’ve made as many as you need, it drops you neatly into the sticker making process, and away you go. A book of stickers ready for tagging anything and everything.

Try it out - it’s fun to use - and getting a book of coloured barcodes is so much cooler than boring black and white. Personally, I think you should make barcode trick or treat treasure hunt stickers, for über tech-happy halloween fun…

Start ‘em young

Do you find it difficult to network? To walk right up to people and say ‘Hi! I’m X from Y company, nice to meet you..!’ It’s not as easy as everyone makes out, is it? Even if you do have a beautiful MiniCard or Business Card in hand. Well, if you’re thinking of having children who will one day become Captains of Industry, you could help them out a bit by starting them off networking when they’re young. By the time they get to pre-school they’ll be old hands at this game and will work that reception room like a pro.

How? Easy, just get them some MiniCards (easier for little hands) and get them out there practising. digitalkatie has wasted no time with her son Louis, who is now eight months old. He’s got his own set of Text MiniCards all ready for handing out at the Scottish Learning Festival this week:

At this point I must admit to being unsure as to whether Louis is giving a seminar at the festival or merely watching. I like to think he’s giving a seminar though - he sounds like a little chap we could all learn from.

If you’re at all worried about a potential ‘cards+mouth=soggy cards’ situation, don’t worry. That problem has already been user tested and dealt with a long time ago, by the lovely Alice. She found that due to the matt laminate on MiniCards, they were far more durable than your average business card. Hooray!

So, what are you waiting for? Set your children up with the skills they’ll need in later life, right from the very beginning. (Bonus points if you can get them coding something that integrates with the MOO API before the age of 5).

Dopplr, MOO, Microformats, APIs and you

It’s been a busy week in the MOO office, and our trip to the dConstruct conference feels more like a month ago than the 7 days it’s really been. But while we’ve been busy behind the scenes, the team have been bowled over by the cool things people in the MOO Community have been making.

If you remember earlier in the week, I mentioned how excited we were to see MOO Stickers featured in Dopplr’s presentation. They created Stickers featuring the names and associated colours of cities all over the world, as seen on Dopplr.com. Actually - they looked just like the ones featured in this photo, by Matt Jones, Dopplr’s own Design Director.

The stickers were handed out at the conference, and are now adorning everything from laptops, to foreheads… In fact, if you have your own photos, you could consider adding them to the Flickr pool.

Anyway - as is always the way with cool conferences, there are people that have to watch from afar. Either tickets are sold out, or it’s just too hard to travel half way round the world for one day. One such person decided, if he couldn’t go to the conference, he could at least bring a bit of the conference to him.

And thus, Mooplr was born! The wonderful Kevin Lloyd has created a simple tool for making your own Dopplr/MOO Stickers, using both the MOO and Dopplr API! Not only that, but as you log in to Dopplr to create your stickers, you can specify the stickers are made of your past and present trips. (And, if you’re like me and don’t get out much, you could choose places you’d *like* to go to, and just pretend you have been really. Awesome!) It’s great to see things like this being built, and we were really excited when Kevin got in touch - so go check out Mooplr, and get in on the action. There are more foreheads to adorn!

And, if you’re feeling the need for even more Stickers, then these are for you. Again, made using the MOO API these are to promote Microformats, and feature the logo, designed by MOO favourite, Dan Cederholm. The cool little app, made by Brian Suda drops you neatly into the sticker-making process, and you can choose to print a variety of colours, or select your favourites.

(Please note, these Microformats stickers will be regular MOO Sticker size - not like the ones you might’ve got previously, which, curiously featured a section which itself was MOO Sticker-sized, as modelled in this photo, by Tom Coates, taken by Ben Ward)

If you’re London based, and would like to know more about the MOO API, then Bar Camp London is just what you need! Stef, our CTO is presenting a short piece about the API, how it works, and what you can do with it. Also good to know is that if you check out the wiki you can get a special code, which will give you free delivery on your orders - which you can pick up at the event. It’s happening on September 27th, so get your orders in now.

And - one last thing. If you’ve already made something with the MOO API, do let us know. We love seeing the stuff you’re making.

UPDATE: we’ve also spotted that Aral Balkan has used the MOO Api to make Stickers and MiniCards for the Head Web Conference he’s working on. Check them out - they’re really pretty!

Work for MOO!

Got the skillz to pay the bills? Then read on, because you could be just the person we’re after. We’re looking for a few different people for a couple of different roles, and here to tell you all about them is Joy, our head of HR:
—–

Hello! I should probably start with the obvious: What is working at a London startup like?

Well, it’s an exciting time to be in a tech startup in London. The tech community is still small but growing by leaps and bounds. We are very passionate, outspoken, and super-social. It reminds me of the climate during the dot-com boom in California in the 90’s. We got some amazing talent, and we’re always looking for more.

Our expansive offices are right on the newly dubbed “Silicon Roundabout”, and in the afternoon, one of the resident DJs start spinning some tunes for us. The tea kettle and the espresso machine are constantly going in the background, and once in a while, we get together and rock out on Guitar Hero or Rock Band. Fridays are reserved for the Tech Terrace where many of the local startups drop in for drinks, munchies and a little bit of socializing.

When we’re not busy having fun, we’re working hard! If you’d like to be a part of the next big thing, please have a look at our jobs page.

If you’ve got the skills we need, please send your CV to jobs@moo.com. A few of the crew will be in San Francisco next week, so if you’d like to talk to us about working for MOO, definitely drop us a line.

Joy,your friendly neighborhood HR person

—–

It might be wrong to bring it up at this point but what Joy didn’t mention was the pie:

If that doesn’t convince you, maybe nothing will. In the meantime, please keep an eye on the jobs page, because I know we’re also looking for 2 extra people, and the job descriptions are coming online in the next few days.

Hope to see you soon.

PS: British? We have neither tiny bikes, nor Nathan Barleys. We’d like to, of course, but we’re too busy ;)

Booksquirms

As you know, we’re a big fan of ‘People Powered’ stuff. We had a People Powered Holiday Card Competition last year, and you lovely people voted for us to win the People’s Voice award for Services at The Webbys earlier this year.

Our book-making friends over at Blurb are currently holding a vote for the best photography book, entered into their Photography Book Now competition. If you have spare half hour, and love photography, do dip into the competition and vote for the ones you think are the best. If nothing else, the ones I’ve seen so far have made me really want to travel more - perhaps you could use this as a little exercise in planning where you want to go next :)

Back from the seaside

We’re back after the dConstruct conference - and glad to say, much fun was had by all. There were a few MOO Stickers lurking around the place, in various guises - like these for Silverback, which were shot by sophystar:

You can see them already stuck in place, in this lovely shot by paulstanton

We were also excited to see MOO Stickers on the big screen! They were shown in a presentation by Matt Jones, of Dopplr, and handed out later in the day. This shot is by Andy Budd

And although we didn’t get to see these MiniCards in person, we did spot them on Flickr, in this photo by koopd. Great colours:

And talking of Flickr, I’ve just seen these pop up - matching MiniCards and Stickers, by dotdean

Been to any conferences recently? If so, what did you put on *your* cards?

Come and say hello at dConstruct

Some of the MOO Crew are heading down to Brighton tomorrow, for dConstruct. It’s a one day conference - with a great line up - which we’re all looking forward to.

Speakers aside, it’s a very sociable conference - and we’re looking forward to meeting new people there too. If you spot any of us, do come and say hello - and give us a card, if you have one!

We’ve seen a few orders whizzing through in the last few weeks, which we’d like to see in real life.

Like these MiniCards, by cole h, for the new app he’s working on

And these Business Cards, by builtbydave

We’ve also spotted these great shots by people a little further afield. Sadly, I’m not sure we’ll get to see these in person, but they definitely worth a look here:

Great photography and products make for great cards, by raisinsawdust

These cards are super-happy-cute, by Chisa

And more great cards via Wordle, this time by echo4ngel

And last but not least - I love these kind of shots. This one is by El Buen Matador