getting the conversation going …

LifeHack, rated in the #100 most popular blog in the blogosphere by Technorati, is featuring Dad’s Perfect Baby in its latest blog post - 5 Ways To Celebrate Father’s Day, When Your Child is Still a Baby

Create a “Dad and Kids” moment on your iPhone.
You want to form a rock band with your kids and perform on stage? Or take mom and the kids to Mars? Apparently there is an iPhone App called Dad’s Perfect Baby that just does that. It lets you superimpose your face (or your little one’s) onto cute cartoon bodies and share with friends.

Thank you LifeHack for the coverage!

Dear members,

Due to scheduled maintenance, Thumbdive will be temporarily out of service on May 16th, 2009 from 16:00 - 18:00 UTC.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

~ From the Thumbdive crew

Now you can take Thumbdive on the go and stay connected to your friends on your mobile phones! Point your mobile browser to M.THUMBDIVE.COM and you will be served automatically with the most optimal site (iPhone users will be automatically redirected to the our iPhone site). In this way, our users are guaranteed to have the optimal mobile web experience.

There are several enhanced features added to M.THUMBDIVE.COM, which include:

• Post message with photos to your SharingPools via Email or MMS
• Easy sharing using the all-in-one Superpost

No matter what phone you’re on, you can start exploring Thumbdive the mobile way!

Thumbdive is getting lots of new users every day, and we have been hearing great feedbacks from time to time. Some of you have asked us what Thumbdive is and how to use it. Here’s a little 101 to help put you on the right track. In Thumbdive, groups can be formed and they are called SharingPools. Through interacting in a SharingPool, we can have complete control of our conversations, and sharing updates from other social networking sites will also be safe and easy. 

Let’s start with taking a look at the following key screens:

HOME - a place for you to enter your SharingPools

Home with SharingPool(s)

SharingPool - a place where you and your friends engage in conversations

SharingPool

Posting view - this is where you start a new conversation!

Post message to SharingPool

Below is what you can do in Thumbdive:

1. Make use of SharingPools for different groups of friends

To enjoy Thumbdive, it’s important that you have SharingPool(s)! If you join Thumbdive via a SharingPool invite, then you at least have one SharingPool to start with. If not, click the “Create New SharingPool” link at the bottom of your Thumbdive Home. You will then be taken to a different page that asks you to name this SharingPool and choose a color palette for it (each SharingPool member can choose a color from the palette to represent himself/herself).

Create New SharingPool

After you create a SharingPool, you can see it at HOME. Whenever there are new activities in the SharingPool (e.g. New member joining, a new message is posted), HOME will be updated. 

You can always send out a SharingPool invite when you want to ask someone new to join - use the link  ”Invite friends to join XXX” at the bottom of the SharingPool stream. You can use the import function to send out a batch of invites if you are a Gmail or Yahoo! Mail user.

Invite someone to join a SharingPool

2. Post SharingPool messages and share photos

Click the “pencil” icon at the top of the bar in a SharingPool to compose a new message. Images can also be added to the message by clicking the “camera” icon in the compose view.

Compose SharingPool message and add photos to share

3. Engage in conversations with your friends

You can write a few words for your friends in the SharingPool, whether it’s responding to their SharingPool messages or commenting on their web profile updates. To join a conversation, click the “Comment” link.

Comment on your friend's web profile update

4. Share your online life

You can also make use of your Web Basket (a place that holds your social networking profiles) to share selectively with your SharingPool members. Here’s a more detailed post on Web Basket.

Web Sharing with your SharingPool

This post contains just the bare minimum of Thumbdive, and new features are added in an on-going basis. We need your feedback to help us make Thumbdive better!

Not a member yet? Get an invite!

You are everywhere; Facebook, blog, Twitter, YouTube, Last.fm…etc. Every day you spend time updating your status, writing blogs or even tagging songs or books you like. But do you know that you can share your online life with your SharingPools in Thumbdive?

Sharing makes everything more fun. In Thumbdive, you can share your social profiles with your SharingPools “selectively”. For example, you keep a travel blog and an online bookself. You want to share your blog and bookself with your “Travelmates” SharingPool, but you don’t want “Read Everyday” (another SharingPool) to see your blog. This “selective” sharing can be done in your Web Basket in Thumbdive.

To locate your Web Basket, click “Enrich your Web Profile” at HOME

Enrich your Web Profile

If you don’t have anything set up, there’s a big button that says “Add web service”. Click it.

Add new web profile

You’ll then be taken to a page where you can select which social profile you want to add. They are grouped in different categories and the social profiles that are available are: blog, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Picasa, Goodreads, aNobii, Digg, Mixx, Google Reader, Last.fm and YouTube.

Profile selections

Click on the profile button you want to setup. You should see a setup page in which you need to enter your account information. Towards the bottom of the page, you are given the option to share this profile with your SharingPool(s) by using the “On/Off” buttons. For any SharingPool that is “On”, any update from this particular profile will be showing up in this SharingPool.

Profile Setup

When you return to your Web Basket page, your new profile will be displayed in a blob format. If you expand this blob, you get to see which SharingPool has a share of it and you can also update the settings right from there.

New profile added

Profile Update in a SharingPool

Happy Sharing!

Thanks to Nick @ brightwurks.com for posting Thumbdive on “Mobile Awesomeness” Gallery. And it’s great to see the high rating! Thank you to those who’ve voted for us :)

Come vote for Thumbdive on Mobile Awesomeness!

Thanks to E-Zone magazine for featuring us !

Anobii - Share your online bookshelf, let your friends know what you’re into :)

Picasa - Have a great chat among friends while sharing your latest album

YouTube - My SharingPool friends let me know which are the best of the best on YouTube!

Thank you Bien Perez @ South China Morning Post for covering Thumbdive in the ‘Hot.com’ column!

Visit SCMP.com for the article online.