Ka-ching.

This week, Amazon Web Services has granted SnapImpact up to $5,000-worth of hosting services for the first year that we exist! What this means is, barring our iPhone app being used more than the iFart, we will not have to worry about a major portion of our operating costs for 365 days. BOOM!

Now, an announcement from the development team that actually won’t make our readers nod off: we’ve finalized the beta version of iVolunteer, our first mobile app for the iPhone, and it’s been submitted to the Apple-saurus for digestion and an ultimate determination as to whether or not we get a spot in the App Store. Keep your fingers crossed tight, people!

That’s it for this week. I made a promise to myself to keep it snappy so that I could, you know, actually WRITE A POST. I’m sorry, that was directed at me, not you. You’re great (except for you, Bruce).

Until next week…..

Our iPhone app will still maintain the iVolunteer name, but everything else will move to SnapImpact, including our Facebook account, the Wordpress plugin, the website, and our Twitter account.  Links coming soon!

Welcome to SnapImpact.org!

First, we’ll take a brief moment so you can stand and applaud our three newest iVolunteerers – Dan Hellman, Rick Saltzman, and Brett Greene!

…

…

Okay, okay, that’s plenty. They’re still noobs, after all. And they will be hazed this time! I will not be the only one!

A lot of news coming fast and furious out of the development (a.k.a. Nerd) team:

• We have a scriplet version of Interest Areas for Facebook.
• We are completing iPhone filter page development this week.
• Dave will complete ipconversion by Thu for Neil to continue WordPress plugin development.
• Dave fixed data feed and is optimizing to load quicker and will push to server this week.
• We have successfully figured out how to encabulate retroactively as this video explains. I think that means we can now travel through time, but I’ll double-check that with the techies, just to be sure.

If you understood what any of that meant, then faaaaantastic. In fact, if you’re in the Denver/Boulder area join our Facebook group, and come to our next working sesh. Especially if you like being more employable, because you’ll be able to learn all kinds of stuff about iPhoneDev, Facebook App Dev, and other things that now are closing $3 million funding rounds. Learn how to make three million dollars from geniuses. That’s what we’re offering, here.

On the BizDev side, I guess we don’t have that much to report, you know, except for, oh yeah, this little thing about us getting the call to be the featured iPhone partner for HandsOn Network, more or less the biggest volunteer-opportunity-finder in the country, and also for the National Conference on Volunteering and Service on June 22nd-24th. Which is totally splendiforous on the surface, yet means we have to do all this in the next 37 days.

Here’s a few ways you can help:

One (Less than a minute): Go vote for HandsOn Network, our new partner, to receive more money from Target. The more votes they get, the more resources they have to accomplish the dream of creating a global, mobile, and instant volunteering force to give aid in the largest and smallest of crises.

Two (a few minutes): Go to this page and enter iVolunteer in the “Designation” field for whatever amount you can give. Our meetings run on pizza and beer, which doesn’t cost more than $60 or so every meeting. Even a few bucks would totally go a long way.

Three (a couple hours): Join our Facebook group, and stay abreast (yes, I wrote that) of all upcoming meetings. Drop in sometime. Considering the fact that we’re now launching different parts of the service over the next month, culminating in a huge coming-out party. If you’ve ever wanted to learn Product Launching, PR, or Strategic Fundraising (or if you just want to pad your resume in those areas), we always need more big brains attached to little beer-and-pizza-holes to sit in. To repeat: We are launching a technology product nationally and need help from anyone who’s got a couple hours to spare! Be a part of something cool.

Plus, we’ll let you in on our time-traveling device. As soon as we get more prefamulated amulite and a flux capacitor.

We’ll be revealing another big surprise soon, so be sure to follow us on Twitter. In the meantime, stay classy, Colorado!

-Josh

But I was actually half lying. It is cool, kinda. But I thought it would be a lot cooler to let everyone decide how it turns out. Like everyone everyone. You know – on the planet. Being totally honest, some of us thought that just keeping it to a bunch of people that showed up on a Tuesday in a building in Boulder smacked of place-ism (and volunteerism). So, because this whole innertubes or webernets (or whatever the kids are calling it) deal is like one big, happy family of zeros and ones, we wanted to give any of our cyber siblings out there a chance to change the world. And it’s so freakin’ easy. We need you to click three times. That’s it.

And did we mention it’s fun? It’s not even fun like when your parents told you you were going to the Hot Air Balloon Festival, leading you to believe you were going to get to ride on a hot air balloon, only to later realize that you would merely be watching as the more privileged people got to fly away while you stood there holding a hot chocolate in the freezing cold – at 4:30 am (I guess we never forget some things). No, it’s actually fun, because it involves critiquing stuff. And who doesn’t like to judge? Voicing your opinion is one of the most fun things you can do, and it’s totally free (unlike dates)!

So what is it exactly? Well, the iVolunteer unit has selected (after careful, meticulous research and composition that took us an entire Saturday) FOUR different logos and brand identities for the iVolunteer program that will help us spread the love of community service as though it were contagious. We need you, fair internet, to guide us in your infinite wisdom toward the proper decision. Here’s how it works: Each logo/brand set has been neatly packaged for speedy consumption (unlike this intro), and includes a primary logo, secondary logo(s), and one example of what an ad might look like to get a feel for the brand (for those among us who take yoga and drink herbal tea). Interpret them however you wish (click the image to see a bigger version), and then go to the survey link at the end of this post to submit your vote. Don’t like what you see? Maybe you can do better. If you would like to take a stab, send your competing submissions to josh AT tuggl DOT com, and they wil be added into the mix immediately. We will not be offended. Without further ado, here are your choices:

IDENTITY A

Like this one? This is Identity A (Original Logo)! Go to the bottom to vote!

IDENTITY B

Like this one? This is Identity B (iBot)! Go to the bottom to vote!

IDENTITY C

Like this one? This is Identity C (Phone Signal)! Go to the bottom to vote!

IDENTITY D

Like this one? This is Identity D (Scribbly)! Go to the bottom to vote!

I know what you’re thinking: Those su-uuuuu-ck. Don’t forget, you can submit your own, but the later you do, the fewer votes you have time to get. So get on it! Or, alternatively, you can be lazy and just vote on one like I’m about to do at the SURVEY SITE: Click me! Click me!

Feel free to leave a comment on the survey site about how much we suck, but be prepared to couple it with how we can suck less.

Thanks, everybody in the whole world! Have a great week, and be sure to check back in a few weeks when we’ll be announcing the winner, or you can just subscribe to this blog’s super-awesome, satisfaction-guaranteed RSS feed to make sure you know when it comes up.

-Josh Clauss, on behalf of the iVolunteer Marketing Mod Squad

It was standing room only, and I was squeezed way in the back when announcement time came around. Some guy named Dave stood up and said that he was looking for iPhone developers for a volunteering application. A couple books and a crash course on Cocoa hardly makes me an iPhone dev, but I’d been wanting to learn for some time, so I tracked him down after the meetup. And the rest is history. Recent history. Still in the making, actually, since we’re still plugging away.

Which brings me to my point: iPhone development is capital F-U-N fun. I’ve done most of the major languages, but Obj-C is the first one I’ve picked up in a matter of hours vs. days or weeks. Think about it: on Febuary 1st, I had a vague idea that the iPhone used something called Cocoa, and that Objective C “was sort of like C++, but not”. Yesterday I got my first data-bound UI up and running. And this isn’t full time by any means, just an hour here and there where possible, and a couple stints on the weekend.

But the real reason I piqued up at the iVolunteer opprotunity was that, as a telecommuter, I’ve gotten kind of bored with discussing application design and implementation with myself. So, why not share the fun? You really don’t need to know the first thing about iPhone development, just a general computer programming background is more than enough to get started. You don’t even need an iPhone, just a Mac, some curiosity, and patience while the SDK downloads.

We’ve got our data model foundation pretty well worked out, so now it’s the fun stuff: a slick UI, tight look and feel, and all the cool little bells and whistles that make an app really shine. Even if you don’t want to touch a line of code, a keen eye for design is also very welcome. So if you want a chance to learn a new technology while contributing to a really good cause, drop us a line. Or look for us at next week’s BDNT Meetup in Boulder.

iVolunteer Meetup Location

iVolunteer Meetup

Tuesday, January 27, 2009
5:00pm – 9:00pm
Van Heyst Group Office
719 Walnut St
Boulder, CO  [map]

As mentioned at the last New Tech Meetup, iVolunteer’s first working session will be held on Tuesday, January 27. After the closing of RedFish Brewery, the folks at the Van Heyst Group graciously stepped up and offered their space to our efforts. Thank you!

iVolunteer has no employees and is entirely a not-for-profit endeavor. We see the project as a way to support community organizations across the country and also as a showcase for Boulder’s incredible depth of startup talent. We’ll have our laptops out hacking on code for the iPhone app and website, working on marketing plans, writing blog posts, and doing whatever needs doing to make iVolunteer successful.

Equal parts social and working, this is a great opportunity to meet interesting people in the Boulder community and work on something big. Bring your friends and anyone else who might be good to have along for the ride.

RSVP here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=46562643122

Thanks!

Dave Angulo (@daveangulo)
Rich Grote (@heyrich)

What’s missing? What haven’t we thought through? What’s just jacked up? How should we connect up to social media like Facebook and Twitter? Your comments will help iVolunteer evolve and become a truly useful tool for people all across the U.S. who want to make a positive difference in their communities

Thanks!

iVolunteer is a free location-aware iPhone application that makes it easy for people to find one-time volunteer opportunities and get involved in their communities.

With the participation and support of Boulder’s awesome tech scene, we are in a great position with iVolunteer. Dave Angulo has rewritten the server back end, the development of both the website and iPhone app are progressing, we have secured 501(c)3 status as a component fund of The Community Foundation, and we have a data sharing agreement with the Hands On Network which utilizes their new API. We were very fortunate in the timing of our agreement with Hands On Network, as we contacted them right as they were making significant changes to that API. With Dave’s background in web service development, we were able to give them some timely advice on how to make their service more scalable and their API most useful to their data consumers.

While the data from Hands On Network is enough for us to meet our requirements to launch (“one-time low-commitment volunteering opportunities covering the entire US”), our hope has always been that our database be as large as possible. To that end, we’ve had very positive conversations with VolunteerMatch and are continuing to reach out to the American Red Cross, United Way, and other sources for event data. Please let us know if you have any great leads with folks in those organizations!

Creating iVolunteer is an all-volunteer effort started by Dave Angulo and Rich Grote. We would be nowhere if so many talented folks hadn’t volunteered their time and amazing abilities to making the project a reality. Thanks to Bracken Christensen for the sweet logo, Andrew Hyde for his awesome design work, Ryan Imel for turning that design into CSS, Chris Browne for his work on the iVolunteer website, and Aubrey Francois for his contributions to the iPhone app. Brian Burns is our master wordsmith and Gerhard Rivera has shown an inspiring willingness to step in wherever we need.

People are drawn to the startup scene for three main reasons. To make a bunch of money, to work on something cool and important, and to work with awesome people who are fun and wicked smart. Since iVolunteer is going to be given away at the App Store for free, we can’t do much for the first one. But we’ve definitely got the last two handled.

To continue to make this project social and move quickly, we’re setting up a weekly informal meetup at RedFish Brewhouse on Tuesday nights, beginning January 27th. It’ll be part hackathon, part technology discussion, part group blogging adventure, part strategy session, and all fun. No experience necessary, just bring your enthusiasm. More details to follow in additional blog posts, join us!