STATE OF THE UNION: SOOMPI EDITION
Waddup SOOMPI! It's been a while since my last STATE OF SOOMPI address - I have a lot to share with you all!
Let's get organized:
1. Introducing the TEAM
2009 has started out with a bang! I quit my job, packed up the family, and moved to the Bay Area, where I am now working on SOOMPI full-time* as a programmer with my partner, julanrouge, who's taking care of the business-end. Basically, she's the rapper, and I'm the DJ (dj jazzy jeff, anyone?). julanrouge is a well-connected silicon valley tech attorney by trade, and has hung up her lawyering to take SOOMPI to the next level. We are now officially based in San Francisco and have already felt the SOOMPI love all around here!
*btw, in case you are thinking that SOOMPI must be making the big bucks now or something, we are both working with no pay - not because we're trying to be a non-profit or something, but because we have no money ^^;. hopefully one day we'll be able to pay ourselves something with ad revenue, but i'll let julanrouge figure that one out
Everyone knows BrocadeFabric, our resident server admin/tech guru/king of soompi, and Mori, creator of the SOOMPI ROYALE series, our art director/inspirer of awesome.
I'd like to introduce our 2 new COMMUNITY MANAGER interns, kriza_09 and CatchLight. What's a community manager you ask? Basically, they make sure that the needs of the community are heard, and keep the community informed with what's going on with SOOMPI. You'll be seeing them around, asking you what you like and don't like about SOOMPI, what are the key features you would like added, how to make your overall SOOMPI experience better.
We also have 2 new "invisible" members of the team. Kevin is a monster programmer who created the official fan sites for U2, Ozzy Osbourne, Jessica Simpson, etc. The point being, he's built sites much bigger than SOOMPI, and has the experience to rebuild SOOMPI so that it can continue to GROW without breaking ^^;. The 2nd mystery-man is ejang, our UX (user experience) designer. He designed the user blogging system for Cyworld, so he brings a tremendous amount of experience (and structure) to our team.
2. What's the plan?
We are in the process of completely redesigning SOOMPI from the ground-up, with a unified login system (no more 2 logins!) and a single profile that will keep track of your activity and friends on both the "mainsite" and the forum. We want YOU to tell us what you want to see on SOOMPI, so it's very important that you participate in the various polls we will post in "Questions, Comments, Suggestions" forum asking for your feedback.
We are aiming to launch the new system in June, with beta testing starting in May. All current FOS (friend of soompi) members will be invited to the closed BETA program, so if you want to help, and get a sneak-peak at what's going on (and support SOOMPI!), become a FRIEND OF SOOMPI today. Not able to support us directly? You can still help us by using our various affiliate links* for things you already buy (Amazon, iTunes, YesAsia).
*note - because we have no way of figuring out who used the affiliate links, we cannot give FOS credit for them - but we'd REALLY appreciate your help, especially with the current economic downturn, which has caused our ad revenue to drop dramatically (
)3. 11 YEARS
How many old-school SOOMPI members are in the house?? Can you believe that we'll be celebrating our 11th anniversary on March 27? Our 10th year just kinda came and went without much fanfare, but let's celebrate this year! Send us your SOOMPI fansigns, and we'll post them in a special we'll do for our 11th birthday. I also want to feature all the SOOMPI MEETS that have been taking place around the world, so if you have a SOOMPI MEETS thread, send it my way!
Finally, my darling ceej will be turning 2 in just a month! How time flies -
Looking forward to an exciting 2009,
-soomp <3
p.s. Today (March 16) is the last day to pre-order BoA's US CD release from Amazon to win an exclusive behind-the-scenes DVD or poster! {more info}
