Be a fan of Scred
There are several places you can sign up to show your appreciation of Scred:
The first is obviously the fan group on Facebook
It also appeared twice in the Top 5 list of the week at Sphred
Finally quite some time ago we appeared at Killer Startups. You can probably still vote for us there.
If all of this sounds like impersonal nonsense, just send us some feedback or post on this blog 
(Thanks to all those who have already done so)
A Web 2.0 bubble?
Steve Rubel posts about what he believes is another bubble about to burst. That after the initial enthusiasm and desire to change the world, everyone is now out for a quick buck.
I’m a latecomer to the Web 2.0 scene, if not necessarily the idea. I do, however, admit that my feeling has often been ambivalent when reading about what is going on. There’s a huge amount of product overlap and of copycatism. Sticking ‘social’ in front of your description does not automatically lead to success or even interest. You need to be the absolute best at what you are doing and offer something really valuable and new to the audience, and forget about the hype.
I have to admit something: I have never thought of Scred as a Web 2.0 application, but rather as a tool to do useful stuff. Scred is indeed an old idea which I happen to think nobody has yet nailed. Before recently I did not blog, as such, although I did read the odd one now and then (I don’t count contributing to the forums of interest groups as blogging). I have contributed to Wikipedia and the original WikiWiki site for a number of years, but I don’t actively use Twitter or Jaiku. I’m a member in only two social networks: Facebook and LinkedIn (the latter for quite some time). Three if you include the Finnish IRC-Galleria.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t great tools and ideas out there. We’ll certainly be using more of them for Scred in the future. It just means I’m not necessarily jumping with joy at the announcement of another tool to manage umpteen blogs and search. That’s just something I do not find myself doing.
Will I be considered lame by the 2.0 scene for admitting this? Possibly. There are, however, loads of really smart and cool people out there, so I don’t intend to view myself as their enemy. Hopefully being a slight outsider can bring something new to the scene as well.
Scred announces a ‘Night of Code’
Next Friday (25th April, 2008) Scred will be offering the use of our office to coders and designers who would like to spend some time together working on cool new stuff, whatever that might be. There will be no marketingpitches, blaring advertisements or anything else that will distract from the most important: creativity.
If you want to share an idea, feel free to do so.
If you want to ask advice, talk to your peers.
If all you want to do is sit by your computer, that is fine too.
We would like to invite all interested participants to join in, whatever it is they are working on. Share as much as you like, or nothing at all. Soak in what is going on around you. This is a relatively new concept and if it works out well, we’ll probably do more, or have other companies organising their own Night of Code.
We will start the night with an unconference. That is we will have 30 minute blocks when people can present and talk about topics they’re keen on, whatever those topics might be. That will continue for as long as there aretopics, followed by the real work. Announce a topic at the Night of Code, or beforehand on our blog.
Some refreshments will be on offer.
Schedule:
15:00- Unconference
??:?? Coding
00:00 Goodbye (or, “time to go home”)
The location:
The Cable Factory (Kaapelitehdas)
Door E, 5th Floor, Room 565
Helsinki, Finland
For more information, see http://night-of-code.com/
If you want to join, add a comment on our blog. You can also contact Kristoffer Lawson at setok@scred.com or by phone at +358-40-7312273.
Update: If you’re planning to attend the event, you can also add yourself to the attendee lists on Facebook or Upcoming.
Scred announces direct transactions
We are very proud to announce the most important release of Scred since the service went public. This one contains the all time most requested feature: direct Screding. This allows you to register debts with people even if they do not share membership of any pools with you. In fact, they do not even need to be registered Scred users!
Scred’s pool feature is extremely useful with its automatic debt shuffling and quick-to-use interface, but sometimes you might need to register a debt with random people who have, for one reason or other, not registered to Scred or do not share a pool with you. This is where direct Screding is useful. Using it, you can easily register a debt with anyone, either by their Scred username or by any valid email address. You can even use any currency supported by us, and yes, this is also possible offline using your mobile phone.
This first version currently supports one-to-one direct Screds. New ways of using this feature are forthcoming, but considering how useful it is we believed it better to bring this out for you to use as soon as possible.
You can start creating direct Screds immediately at: https://www.scred.com/
To make use of it on your mobile phone, be sure to update it to the latest version from: http://www.scred.com/mobile/. (Some phones also provide an ‘Upgrade application’ option.)
Other updates in this release (Army of Ghosts):
- Fixes to make Scred more usable on IE 7.
- Pool IDs can now contain spaces.
- ‘Transfer’ section now renamed ‘Scred it!’ and relocated beside My Scred to reflect its importance in the usage flow.
- Users can now have multiple email addresses assigned per account.
- Country added to profile information.
- Pool members who were not involved with a transaction can no longer cancel it.
- Help pages have now info on creating transactions and joining pools.
- Test pool now more clearly marked as a place for experimentation.
- ‘Add transaction’ in the pool pages now called ‘Quick Scred It’, as that’s closer to its nature. Also has a link to the actual Scred it page.
- Fixed some minor value display problems
- Scred Mobile users can now start using it, even if they are not a member of any pool. Direct Screds are available immediately.
Thank you for the many feedback reports you have sent. We hope this update will please many of you, but do keep the feedback coming in. We will do our very best to help you.
Voluntary economies
Last weekend at the Bar Camp Amsterdam IV there was an interesting presentation by Reinier Zwitserloot of TipIt on “voluntary economies“. Apart from the already canonical example of voluntary economics – namely, Radiohead’s release of In Rainbows as pay what you want – Reinier detailed some fashinating cases of profitable voluntary economics. For example, in the Dutch countryside you can still find unattended fruit stalls where you take the fruit and pay what you feel as the appropriate compensation. However, apparently it is not working as well as it used to be. Happens that folks not connected to the local community come by and “rob” everything the stall’s got.
As an experiment to try whether there is something to voluntary economies we have added buttons to both TipIt and Tipjoy to the right sidebar of this blog. Both of the tipping services are interesting in their own right. Go check them out even if you’re not willing to tip Scred. On the other hand, if you do find Scred useful, why not consider leaving us a small tip?
P.S. While voluntary economies are fascinating we are not entirely convinced. Respects to TipIt for building their product and business model on voluntary economics. Really eating their own dog food. Brave and commendable. However, we here at Scred are a bit more traditional when it comes to business models.
Techcrunched!
What a nice surprise! Returned after a long conference day to the hotel. A cold beer. Good music. Checking email… and the daily Scred usage report. Well, what do you know. Looks like a day on day growth record. How come? Fire up Google Analytics and there it is: Techcrunched!
My personal favorite in the Techcrunch post’s comments: “first Finnish startup in Techcrunch since Jaiku”. And we all know the story with Jaiku.
The Next Web 2008
Another month, another conference. This time we’re here in Amsterdam for the The Next Web for Thursday and Friday, and then on Saturday we’re attending Bar Camp Amsterdam IV. A couple of other startups and bloggers from Finland are also present. And as it happens almost all of us had ended up on the same flight from Helsinki.
More later as the conference gets under way tomorrow. Meanwhile check out the coverage in the Startupbin blog.
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