Miro

We released Miro Public Preview 1 last month and we’ll be releasing Public Preview 2 in the next week or so. After that comes Miro 1.0.

There aren’t many major new features in these two upcoming versions, but the changes will make a big difference in your day-to-day experience with Miro. Above all, we’re fixing bugs, bugs, bugs, bugs. There aren’t many common bugs left, but even an occasional problem can be annoying and disrupt your flow.

But we’re also polishing the application in other ways. Here’s one example: we’ve overhauled the Windows preference panel, organizing everything into tabs. It looks great and is much more usable:

Ahhh…. so much better.

We’re having a design contest to see who makes the coolest 1-click subscribe buttons. THANKS SO MUCH to everyone who submitted designs — there is some seriously awesome looking work here!

The Voters Pamphlet

You may need to click the image a second time to zoom to 100%.

Voting

Voting will take place in the comments. We’re changing the voting a bit — it will last 72 hours (instead of 24), so the polls close at noon on August 24th. Furthermore, each voter should pick their top four favorite designs (in order of preference). You CAN vote for more than one button from a single designer.

Designers shouldn’t vote, but they can invite their friends and family to vote (but not their dogs and cats).

Important

You MUST choose four buttons that you like — votes with one, two, or three choices will not be counted. Please use a valid e.mail address, we might contact you if we suspect any foul play (i.e. ballot stuffing).

Your Ballot

Keep it simple, like this (just leave a single comment):

Name (design letter)
Name (design letter)
Name (design letter)
Name (design letter)

Order matters… put your favorite at the top, and remember to choose four designs!

Note: I grouped the buttons by designer and laid them out in order of submission. Some submissions had really nice layouts with multiple color swatches, but to keep things fair, I just took a selection of three buttons from each designer.

If you’re still thinking of entering the 1-click subscribe design contest, DO IT! We already have some sweet entries, but we still need more. Remember, this is an opportunity to get your hands on one of the brand new Miro shirts (before they’re publicly available).

Also, if you’re not sure about hosting an image file but still want to enter, either send me your graphic (dean at pculture d org), or put it up on a free hosting service, such as photobucket.

At midnight (EST) on August 20th, we’ll stop accepting submissions. I’ll put a post together, featuring all of the submissions, and from noon on the 21st to noon on the 22nd (EST), voting will be open.

Best of luck!

PCF is a non-profit organization and the vast majority of our budget so far has come from foundation grants and user donations. In the long-term, we’re hoping to follow Mozilla’s model of finding ways that we can generate earned income to partially or complete support the organization without compromising our mission focus (for example, Mozilla earns most of its operating budget from deals with search engines).

Generating more income would allow us to focus less time on fundraising and more time developing Miro and spreading our message. It wouldn’t mean that we would stop being a non-profit– nobody would own any share of PCF, no company could buy us, and our mission would stay primary. Being a 501c3 non-profit locks our values into the organizational structure (which is exactly why we set ourselves up as a non-profit).

I believe that we’re ready to start experimenting with some business deals. I’ve been talking over ideas with lots of different groups and companies, but we need someone who can focus on this full-time.

Who We’re Looking For

Above all, we need somebody who is passionate about our mission. We expect all our employees to be world-class talents who work with us because they believe that open media is vitally important. We can’t provide a Google-level salary, we can’t give you equity or stock options, but we can offer an opportunity to work with smart people on an exciting, growing project that really matters to the world.

We’re hoping to hire an individual who’s based on the west coast of the US so that they can meet with companies and follow leads.

We don’t have a specific set of criteria, but you must have a solid understanding of Miro and a clear idea of how you might pitch the project to potential business partners. You must be very sharp, flexible, and good at building relationships. If you have business experience in Silicon Valley, that’s great. if you don’t, convince us why you could still excel in this position.

So if you think you can help us grow our organization, I’d love to hear from you. Send a resume and tell us why you think you are the person we need. Email: nicholas|at|pculture.org

And if you know anyone who you think might fit this description, please pass the message along! We need all the help we can get to find the perfect person.