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<rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" version="2.0"><channel><atom:link rel="hub" href="http://tumblr.superfeedr.com/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"/><description>15-year-old web developer. Creator of OneExtraLap, iTunes Instant &amp; TwtRoulette. CodeIgniter addict.</description><title>A Teen's Point Of View</title><generator>Tumblr (3.0; @stephenou)</generator><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/</link><item><title>Goals for 2011</title><description>&lt;p&gt;In 2010, I did quite a bit. And I learned quite a bit. I’ve gone through 5 projects, &lt;a href="http://oneextralap.com" target="_blank"&gt;OneExtraLap&lt;/a&gt; (strategically failed), &lt;a href="http://labs.stephenou.com/itunes" target="_blank"&gt;iTunes Instant&lt;/a&gt; (went massively successful), &lt;a href="http://twtroulette.com" target="_blank"&gt;TwtRoulette&lt;/a&gt; (made with Shervin), Pitch.ly (stopped), and &lt;a href="http://ohboard.com" target="_blank"&gt;OhBoard&lt;/a&gt; (launched 10 days ago). I went from barely knows how to code web apps, to become the creator of several. I felt like I’ve accomplished &lt;em&gt;a lot&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;On the last day of 2010, I think I should create a list of things that I am going to do in 2011. (The list is more for me, but putting it public can give me more momentum because of the more people that know about it).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Focus&lt;/strong&gt;. I’ve been saying this for a long time, and I’ve been constantly pushing myself. Everything I do in 2011 is going to be OhBoard-related. I am going to take it low and slow, and bring in $10000 (well, the more, the better) &lt;a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bcnblihahnkghhpfanepicglgedodjof" target="_blank"&gt;profit&lt;/a&gt; by the end of the year. That’s it.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Blog&lt;/strong&gt;. Not here, but at &lt;a href="http://ohboard.com/blog" target="_blank"&gt;OhBoard Blog&lt;/a&gt;, because I really see the importance of experience sharing about my work. I am going to share about things from design to development, from promotion to customer service, from copywriting to press, and just anything in between.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Learn&lt;/strong&gt;. There is just one thing I want to learn. It’s not another programming language, it’s &lt;em&gt;business&lt;/em&gt;. I’ve been a developer since 2009, but barely have an opportunity to touch on serious business-related matters. With OhBoard, now it’s the time. And I will share about everything I learn.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Help&lt;/strong&gt;. I’ve been active on &lt;a href="http://forrst.com/-stephenou" target="_blank"&gt;Forrst&lt;/a&gt;. And I want to continue helping out people there with design and development. Also, I want to help out more people who contact via Email  (hey, that can be a great promotion machine). It’s necessary to give back to the community since you guys guided me so much in 2010.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;5 hours to go and I will start accomplishing these goals…&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/2548133610</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/2548133610</guid><pubDate>Fri, 31 Dec 2010 16:56:00 -0800</pubDate><category>personal</category></item><item><title>My Latest Creation: OhBoard</title><description>&lt;p&gt;Hello, everyone. Long time no see, but today I’ve got a great Christmas surprise for you. I made &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://ohboard.com"&gt;OhBoard&lt;/a&gt;, a simple, zero-distraction whiteboard application that &lt;a target="_blank" href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bcnblihahnkghhpfanepicglgedodjof"&gt;is available on Chrome Web Store for $3.99&lt;/a&gt;. For more information about the app, read this really post I wrote: &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://ohboard.com/blog/ohboard-manifesto"&gt;&lt;a href="http://ohboard.com/blog/ohboard-manifesto" target="_blank"&gt;http://ohboard.com/blog/ohboard-manifesto&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (a.k.a 10 Reasons You Should Use OhBoard). Here’re some excerpts:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I broke it down and list 10 characteristics physical whiteboard has:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;It has limit. There’s only one possible surface to write on. Old drawing has to be physically disappeared in order for new drawing to be created.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Sometimes it doesn’t fit the size you want it to be. If you are sketching a website mockup on a whiteboard, everything becomes proportionated.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;It requires a special-made writing utensil, called marker, to utilize the whiteboard. The marker is not physically attached to the whiteboard, which means it can be lost (or worse, stolen).&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Marker smells. Barely anyone likes it.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Marker runs out. You have to purchase a new one when it does.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;There’s also a thing called cap in each marker. If it is not correctly positioned, the marker can become useless quickly.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;It requires an eraser (sometimes I use tissues), which most of the time can’t clean the surface entirely – little marks are left on the board.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;When writing/drawing, you need to pay close attention to prevent your hands from erasing previous work unnoticeably.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The material includes paper, plastic, and melamine. They aren’t so environmental-friendly.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Staples sells it for &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.staples.com/OIC-Panel-Verticalmate-Magnetic-Whiteboard-w-Three-Magnets/product_573659"&gt;$15.99&lt;/a&gt;. Office Depot sells it for &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/489633/Quartet-Economy-Dry-Erase-Board-2/"&gt;$29.27&lt;/a&gt;. Walmart sells it for &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.walmart.com/ip/Wall-Pops-Dry-Erase-White-Board/9864744"&gt;$8.55&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;These are all the problems I, you, and probably everybody, have encountered. They are real problems, but they never get your attention. The reason being is they are way too common. You think they will never be solved, so let’s not worry about them. Wrong, OhBoard will be solving them. And here are some benefits of OhBoard vs. physical whiteboard:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;It has no limit. And everything is saved automatically.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The canvas covers up the whole content section. You can make your website mockup exactly the way you want it to look like.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;It requires a mouse, or a trackpad. But you will have one if you are using a computer. And you are using a computer if you are on OhBoard.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;A mouse/trackpad doesn’t smell.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;A mouse/trackpad doesn’t run out. (Well, a wireless one does, but the price vs. usage ratio is extremely low.)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;A mouse/trackpad doesn’t need a cap/cover/protection mask/security guard.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;An eraser is not required. An undo button is already included in OhBoard.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Your hand will never smear the computer screen. If you do, your drawing won’t be erased either.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;The material only includes code and pixels, which will not harm the environment.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bcnblihahnkghhpfanepicglgedodjof" target="_blank"&gt;I sell it for $3.99&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/2547877545</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/2547877545</guid><pubDate>Fri, 31 Dec 2010 16:28:24 -0800</pubDate></item><item><title>State of Pitch.ly</title><description>&lt;p&gt;2 months ago, the idea of &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://pitch.ly"&gt;Pitch.ly&lt;/a&gt; was born out of the marketing failure of &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.com"&gt;OneExtraLap&lt;/a&gt;. I was frustrated, disappointed, and partially desperate at the time. And I decided to take this revolutionary idea into reality with my buddy &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/netspencer"&gt;Spencer&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://hi.spncr.me"&gt;Schoeben&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;For those who aren’t clear about the original idea of Pitch.ly, let me explain briefly. The goal of Pitch.ly is to centralize the way startup founders communicate with bloggers. Right now, the pitching process is painful, it’s hard to find blogger’s contact information, it’s hard to show a video demo, and it’s hard to keep them updated with new releases. We are trying to be the place where startups can upload demos/screenshots easily, bloggers can check them out quickly, and be the platform where both sides can communicate efficiently.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;A good’ol 50 days has past since I came up with the idea. Thousands of you are curious on what Pitch.ly really is and how we are going to change the way startups pitch. Hundreds of you are eager to be early adopters and enter your email addresses. And I really want to say a big thank-you for everyone’s interest toward Pitch.ly.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;But, there are so much happened between these 50 days, so much that I’ve never seen, experienced, and even imagined before. The night of &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://teensintech.com/conference"&gt;Teens In Tech miniConference&lt;/a&gt;, I &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://blog.stephenou.com/post/1114020526/itunes-instant"&gt;spent&lt;/a&gt; 3 hours building &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://labs.stephenou.com/itunes"&gt;iTunes Instant&lt;/a&gt;, attempting to provide a faster speed and cleaner interface for iTunes search. Out of everyone’s imagination, &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://mashable.com/2010/09/13/itunes-instant/"&gt;it&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.tuaw.com/2010/09/17/itunes-instant-search-itunes-instantly-developed-by-a-15-year/"&gt;took&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://techleash.com/2010/09/stephen-ou-strikes-again-the-birth-of-itunes-instant/"&gt;off&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://gizmodo.com/5642947/itunes-instant-a-lightning-fast-way-to-search-itunes-and-the-app-store"&gt;and&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://calacanis.com/2010/09/12/itunes-instant-created-by-a-15-year-old-take-that-google-instant-p/"&gt;it&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a target="_blank" href="http://smokingapples.com/asides/itunes-instant/"&gt; took&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/09/fifteen-year-old-cleans-up-with-itunes-instant-search/62871/"&gt;off&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.helium.com/items/1953046-what-is-itunes-instant"&gt;pretty&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.switched.com/2010/09/14/15-year-old-stephen-ou-develops-itunes-instant-search-engine/"&gt;w&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/itunes-unofficially-jumps-on-the-instant-bandwagon/8167"&gt;i&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.electricpig.co.uk/2010/09/13/itunes-instant-google-instant-trends-hits-apple/"&gt;l&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.technixupdate.com/itunes-instant-search-web-app/"&gt;d&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.iphonehacks.com/2010/09/itunes-instant-faster-and-easier-way-to-search-itunes-and-the-app-store.html"&gt;l&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.fastcompany.com/1689432/itunes-the-latest-app-to-go-instant-thanks-to-amateur-hackers"&gt;y&lt;/a&gt;. Few days later, a well-respected angel investor, &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/shervin"&gt;Shervin&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://sgn.com"&gt;Pishevar&lt;/a&gt;, came to me and pitched me about the idea of peeking other people’s timeline. I truly love the concept and build an alpha of &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://twtroulette.com"&gt;TwtRoulette&lt;/a&gt; in approximately 5 days. It was &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/26/view-twitter-through-other-peoples-eyes-with-twtroulette/"&gt;featured on TechCrunch&lt;/a&gt; on the day of launch, and it was growing ever since.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;As Spencer Schoeben (FYI: he also built &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://friendsonamap.com"&gt;FriendsOnAMap&lt;/a&gt; &amp; &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://lab.netspencer.com/crunchbase/"&gt;CrunchBase Instant&lt;/a&gt; in these 50 days!) pointed out to me, for teenagers working part-time on the web, a smaller niche project will have a much higher success rate than a more serious, elaborated startup. Working on a time-consuming company/product requires people working full-time, having all the resources dedicated to it, and focusing on it 100%. But neither Spencer and I can be able to accomplish that since we are in the middle of high school. We both fear that there are more risk than success if we develop and support Pitch.ly ourselves.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;So after some discussions, here’s what we are going to do:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If there are any adults out there who are interested in the idea and think that they can be able to take it into reality and grow it into a business, definitely contact &lt;a target="_blank" href="mailto:me@stephenou.com"&gt;me&lt;/a&gt; or &lt;a target="_blank" href="mailto:spencer@netspencer.com"&gt;Spencer&lt;/a&gt;. We can negotiate for more details and get you going!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Thanks everyone for supporting us so far!&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/1288235384</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/1288235384</guid><pubDate>Sun, 10 Oct 2010 19:31:54 -0700</pubDate></item><item><title>iTunes Instant Manifesto</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Note: I will keep it fairly short since I’ve been slightly overwhelming with everything that’s going on.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;What is iTunes Instant?&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a target="_blank" href="http://labs.stephenou.com/itunes"&gt;iTunes Instant&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is a web-based iTunes search engine that delivers instant music results on a clean interface.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;Why did you make it? Doesn’t iTunes already have a search feature?&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Yes, the native official iTunes application does provide search functionality for songs, albums, apps, etc. But I think there are two major problems that are keeping people away from using it:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;1) &lt;strong&gt;The lack of speed&lt;/strong&gt;. If you use iTunes, you know what I am talking about. The speed (especially on searching) is nothing comparable to the search on web (like Google or Bing search). It is just way too slow. When I originally purchased my iPhone, I was irritated by iTunes’ slow speed because there were always few seconds of freeze/lack every time I was searching for a song/app to download/buy.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;2). &lt;strong&gt;The clutter interface design&lt;/strong&gt;. I know Apple is usually doing a pretty good job on cleaning their use interface clean and simple. But I think iTunes (I mean the desktop one, the mobile one is actually fairly organized) is an exception. When you are performing a search, there are too content displaying upfront. You will be definitely overwhelmed once search results are being shown.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;So how is iTunes Instant going to solve these problems?&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Solutions for problem #1:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;a). It is &lt;strong&gt;web-based&lt;/strong&gt;, which means searches and results can be transfered back and forth at a rapid speed, whereas every search within the iTunes native app requires few seconds of waiting time.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;b). Using &lt;strong&gt;search-as-you-type&lt;/strong&gt; functionality that searches the term as it’s being entered and show off results automatically on the page. It will saves your time from hitting enter and seeing the progress bar and wait.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Solutions for problem #2:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;a). &lt;strong&gt;Minimized CSS style&lt;/strong&gt;. I’ve been a fan of super clean UI, so the site basically contains a title, a text input box, an area to display search results and few sharing buttons. That’s all, I don’t even want to put one of my intuitive background texture on it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;b). &lt;strong&gt;Some Javascript/jQuery magic. &lt;/strong&gt;If you’ve been following me, you know I highly focus on details. Examples on the site: the text field is auto-focused, that saves you one click; you can click the title to clear the text field and search results, no need to hit delete, that saves another few seconds. Feel free to dig into the site and you can probably find out some more.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;Did Google Instant give you this idea?&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Yes and no. I’ve actually had this idea in my mind for a while (reasons listed above). But this *instantization* hype started by Google really makes me believe now is the right time to develop and release it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;What do you think of Google Instant?&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt; &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_instant_search.php"&gt;As I said to ReadWriteWeb&lt;/a&gt;, I definitely see Google is making a big move through Google Instant, not only for their own user/advertising growth, but also they started to lead off a whole industry move toward instant search. And I am sure this trend will continue to grow and grow in the upcoming months.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;Woo, I love the app! What can I do for you?&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;You’ve got a plenty of options: &lt;a href="http://twitter.com/?status=iTunes%20Instant%20-%20Clean%20Interface%2C%20Instant%20Results%20(By%20%40stephenou)%20http%3A%2F%2Flabs.stephenou.com%2Fitunes" target="_blank"&gt;tweet&lt;/a&gt; it, &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1683965"&gt;vote&lt;/a&gt; on it, &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://facebook.com"&gt;like&lt;/a&gt; it, and &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://forrst.com/posts/iTunes_Instant_-_Clean_Interface_Instant_Results-Xwk"&gt;like&lt;/a&gt; it again.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;Also, if you know someone who is a blogger, feel free to tell them they are awesome and ask them if they want to check out iTunes Instant!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Again, thanks everyone for using iTunes Instant!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/1114020526</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/1114020526</guid><pubDate>Sun, 12 Sep 2010 23:03:00 -0700</pubDate><category>itunes instant</category></item><item><title>Kyle Bragger: A few random thoughts on building communities</title><description>&lt;a href="http://&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http//kylewritescode.com/post/1065654202/a-few-random-thoughts-on-building-communities" class="tumblr_blog"&gt;kylewritescode&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;  &lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;Some learnings I’ve acquired over the past nine months building &lt;a href="http://forrst.com/" target="_blank"&gt;Forrst&lt;/a&gt;, bullet-point style and in no particular order:&lt;/p&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;Your earliest users are &lt;em&gt;vital&lt;/em&gt; to the success of the community. They should be people you absolutely trust and/or know IRL (the first 100 or so users of Forrst were all...&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;"&gt;Kyle Bragger: A few random thoughts on building communities&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;p&gt;Some learnings I’ve acquired over the past nine months building &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://forrst.com/"&gt;Forrst&lt;/a&gt;, bullet-point style and in no particular order:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;Your earliest users are &lt;em&gt;vital&lt;/em&gt; to the success of the community. They should be people you absolutely trust and/or know IRL (the first 100 or so users of Forrst were all either friends, current/former co-workers, or close friends of theirs)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Your web app itself is only a means to an end; it helps the community form but it doesn’t define it (Forrst is a pretty simple piece of technology in and of itself)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Be ready to follow the community; that is, the community might end up in a slightly/vastly different place than you intended. That’s okay; embrace it. (Forrst became a place where anyone, no matter what their skill level, can come to get great feedback and get better at what they do. My original goal for Forrst was merely to build something to replace the way I (didn’t) use Twitter and Tumblr to post development-related stuff)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Be active as hell and be human. The community needs to know there’s someone just like them on the other end of the line (I use Forrst every single day and interact as much as I can. I also read and respond to every email I get [though it might take me some time :)]. Forrst never would have grown the way it has if I had just stayed out of sight)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Don’t take things so personally; you’ll inevitably have problematic users from time to time. Be adult and human about it. It’s not your fault. It happens.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Have rules and enforce them. Don’t be afraid of not being a one-size fits all place where anything goes (one of the reasons I personally feel Forrst has been successful thus far is that there are rules about what fits and what doesn’t. It’s helped keep content highly focused and relevant)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Reward users for being awesome (Forrst users get more invites for their friends the more active and engaged they are)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;It’s okay to be exclusive (Forrst’s invite-only model definitely has gotten its share of flak for being “elitist” [even though we’re far from it], but it’s also helped keep the number of new users per day down to a &lt;em&gt;very&lt;/em&gt; manageable number [updated] This is good because it doesn’t overwhelm the existing community with 100s or 1000s of new users in a short amount of time)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Don’t be afraid to say “no” to features (everyone’s going to want feature X or thing Y in the community, but it’s important to maintain a razor-sharp focus. If it doesn’t make sense to in the big picture, &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://startupquote.com/post/1027951018"&gt;don’t do it&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/1066381554</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/1066381554</guid><pubDate>Sat, 04 Sep 2010 16:09:21 -0700</pubDate><category>forrst</category><category>community</category></item><item><title>Lessons Learned with OneExtraLap</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;p class="p1"&gt;Tomorrow will be my first day of school, and I think it will be a pretty good time to write a quick post and share some of the lessons I learned with &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.com"&gt;OneExtraLap&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Didn’t solve a real-world need&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt; &lt;/strong&gt;Before I started writing code of OneExtraLap, I didn’t even think of the essential questions that every application should answer. How will your app benefit users? What niche are you targeting? So I basically built the entire product without knowing what is it for and who is it for.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Expecting too much&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt; &lt;/strong&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class="p1"&gt;I always have a high expectation on everything I do, no matter how important the task is. Everything time I announce something on Twitter, I expect retweets, I expect current users to try it out, I expect visitors to sign up. But it never happens.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Didn’t collect email address&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt; &lt;/strong&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class="p1"&gt;This might seems an extremely minor part of a business, but it is very crucial. Because the soonish you put up a landing page to collect email address, the more users your app will have on the first day. I made a big mistake here. I only started this process a week before the launch, which I can only collect less than 50 emails.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. Want everything to be perfect&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt; &lt;/strong&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class="p1"&gt;I guess I am a perfectionist, I always want the entire site to look perfectly and behave perfectly. So I put in too much time and focus on the design and development of the site, and ignore the business side of things most of the time.&lt;/p&gt;


&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5. Having too much to worry about&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt; &lt;/strong&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class="p1"&gt;I have to be responsible on every parts of OneExtraLap. Interface design, feature development, customer support, bug fixes, system administration are all things I need to deal with. This constantly caused a problem: If I can’t fix a bug, I can’t continue on new feature development. If the site is down, I can’t respond to customer email complaint because I need to get the site up as soon as possible.&lt;/p&gt;


&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6. Didn’t notify bloggers ahead of time&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt; &lt;/strong&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class="p1"&gt;I didn’t notice the importance of this until I actually launched OneExtraLap. I didn’t contact any bloggers when the app is in beta mode (which is the time bloggers will mostly like to try out and write about the app, because of the exclusivity). Until recently when I tried to reach out to them, I never get a response.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Moving on…&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;I couldn’t be happier with the success of OneExtraLap, my first project. Success not as much measured in users, pageviews and press but success measured in how much I’ve learned through the process. But from the survey I created last week, I heard that OneExtraLap is quite cool and fun, but it is definitely not something a “must-have” or a “can’t-live-without”. And it is not something that solves a real-world need.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;So now I decide to move on and I want to use all my the knowledge I learned in OneExtraLap to build something that solves a real-world need. Enter &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://pitch.ly"&gt;pitch.ly&lt;/a&gt;, something that is going to change the way startup pitch their ideas, startes by &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/netspencer"&gt;Spencer&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://netspencer.com"&gt;Schoeben&lt;/a&gt; and me. More details soon…&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/1032466491</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/1032466491</guid><pubDate>Sun, 29 Aug 2010 12:24:53 -0700</pubDate><category>oneextralap</category><category>pitchly</category><category>lessons learned</category></item><item><title>You are going to LOVE...</title><description>&lt;img src="http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l7qzijbFFE1qawmdto1_500.png"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;p&gt;You are going to LOVE this.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/stephenou/status/22151847749"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/stephenou/status/22151847749" target="_blank"&gt;http://twitter.com/stephenou/status/22151847749&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a target="_blank" href="http://cl.ly/282B"&gt;&lt;a href="http://cl.ly/282B" target="_blank"&gt;http://cl.ly/282B&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/1013146784</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/1013146784</guid><pubDate>Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:01:31 -0700</pubDate></item><item><title>Photo</title><description>&lt;img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l79q0zxG7m1qawmdto1_500.png"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/964968220</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/964968220</guid><pubDate>Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:17:23 -0700</pubDate></item><item><title>My Time Management</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;p class="p1"&gt;As you know, I worked on &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.com"&gt;OneExtraLap&lt;/a&gt; (for those who don’t know, it is an addictive social quizzing site) mostly by myself, mostly being part-time, and obviously, being a 15-year-old. Some of you might be surprised by my high productivity, and some of you might start asking me - how can I utilize my tiny bit of time so well that I can crack up a powerful, intuitive, non-buggish application in 8 months?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Motivation is a crucial element&lt;/strong&gt;. Because I understand and prioritize the importance of quality, since the very beginning of OneExtraLap, most people had been enjoying it. It was proven from dozens of positive tweets (&lt;a target="_blank" href="http://blog.stephenou.com/post/928603190/incredible"&gt;examples&lt;/a&gt;) people sent out every time I released something brand new, and something that immediately surprised their minds. I am happy, I am honored, and I am consistently gaining motivation from those appreciations and encouragements. I can work relatively faster right now than what I could 8 months ago. Not because I am more familiar with the technical knowledge of I am doing, but because I have some strong, constant motivation that can make me write a model or design an icon quicker and better than before. There is always strong, invisible power that is pushing me forward.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;That will lead to my next point, &lt;strong&gt;do what you enjoy&lt;/strong&gt;. Let’s say you are a long-time iPhone developer, and someone offered you a freelance job - which is to develop an Windows Desktop game. Would you do it? Obviously, you wouldn’t. It will be just a full day of pain because you completely don’t know what you are doing. And you will probably quit your job within a day or two because you can’t accomplish any tasks in your work. So that means you simply can’t boost up your productivity if you are not in love with the fields you are working on.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;Last thing I want to say is &lt;strong&gt;do not waste any seconds of time&lt;/strong&gt;. I have much lesser time than any general web developers. During school seasons, I only have evenings and weekends. And there are only 2 months in a year when I can work full-time on my application. So I have to grasp all the time available for me. For example, I usually do work during commute to/from somewhere (this blog post was written on a day-trip to Monterey Bay yesterday), I usually check emails/Twitter before going to bed or after waking up in the morning. And it will be a whole chunk of time once you add it up.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;Though one area I want to improve on is &lt;strong&gt;to stay one thing at one time&lt;/strong&gt;. I am currently not doing well at this. While I was coding, I always had a blog post idea that I want to write immediately. But when I started writing the blog post for a couple minutes or so, I get bored and want to switch back to coding mode. What it lead to was a huge amount of incomplete work. I currently have 8 drafts in my Tumblr that are started but never finished.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;I hope I can improve on this in the near future.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/948167837</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/948167837</guid><pubDate>Fri, 13 Aug 2010 10:42:39 -0700</pubDate></item><item><title>Not incredible and excited enough?</title><description>&lt;img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6wmjbJ2ks1qawmdto1_500.png"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not incredible and excited enough?&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/928603190</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/928603190</guid><pubDate>Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:33:11 -0700</pubDate><category>oneextralap</category></item><item><title>"I just became the mayor of foursquare."</title><description>“I just became the mayor of foursquare.”&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; - &lt;em&gt;via &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://Peter%20Vidani"&gt;Peter Vidani&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/924356157</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/924356157</guid><pubDate>Sun, 08 Aug 2010 17:08:37 -0700</pubDate><category>foursquare</category></item><item><title>OneExtraLap is officially launching!</title><description>&lt;a href="http://oneextralap.tumblr.com/post/922860777/oneextralap-is-officially-launching"&gt;OneExtraLap is officially launching!&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;p&gt;After 8 months of hard work, now it’s finally flying off!&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/923177424</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/923177424</guid><pubDate>Sun, 08 Aug 2010 11:40:02 -0700</pubDate><category>oneextralap</category><category>launch</category></item><item><title>A Different Perspective</title><description>&lt;p&gt;On Monday this week, I posted a &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://blog.stephenou.com/post/895527719/growing-userbase"&gt;question&lt;/a&gt; (which I asked on &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://forrst.com/posts/How_To_Grow_Userbase_Effectively-u0e"&gt;Forrst&lt;/a&gt; &amp; &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.quora.com/How-should-I-grow-my-userbase-efficiently"&gt;Quora&lt;/a&gt; as well) about my confusion on why &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.com"&gt;my app&lt;/a&gt; isn’t gaining as much attention as I’d hoped at the beginning, and why users aren’t signing up even though there are people spreading the words out.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Now, I’ve got the answer. (Thanks to all the kind folks who helps me learn!)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a target="_blank" href="http://forrst.com/kolombiken"&gt;kolombiken&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;If someone sent me a link to this site I would never sign up. Why? I have no idea what this is about. What’s the purpose? Why should I care? I clicked on the link that said “blog post” and read something about new features. Still didn’t get it.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My point is that if you can’t get people to instantly understand what this is about you will never get a lot of users.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Right now, I feel like her point is right on. Over the past, because I dedicated most of my time into the development of OneExtraLap, I am getting over-familiar with my app. My perspective is a total insider’s perspective. I felt like I know everything about my app, which means when it comes to user interface design, I will naturally decrease the amount of explanation about the app. But when someone never heard about OneExtraLap landed on the site, they have no idea what’s the purpose of the app. And of course, they won’t sign up.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;So I’ve made the &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.com/tour"&gt;tour page&lt;/a&gt; with small screenshots that has specific, but not super-detailed insights about OneExtraLap. The initial feedback is great, people now are willing to sign up because they have a simple sense of the site. And I am continue to improve in different ways that will increase the conversion rate.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/915441185</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/915441185</guid><pubDate>Fri, 06 Aug 2010 19:24:38 -0700</pubDate><category>Business Strategy</category></item><item><title>My Question: How To Grow Userbase Effectively?</title><description>&lt;p&gt;So here’re more details behind this question:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Now I’ve finished building v1.0 of &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.com"&gt;OneExtraLap&lt;/a&gt; (in case you haven’t heard, it’s a social quizzing site that I build and religiously love), &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.tumblr.com/post/890436930/onemoreweek-oneextralap"&gt;pre-launched&lt;/a&gt; it yesterday. Here’s what happened:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Current beta testers (total of 114) are enjoying the site so much as usual (same since I released the first beta). The pageviews per visit (13.58) and average time on site (10:45) are relatively high. So the statistics has proven the site is addictive and beta users have found the usefulness. Even more, the number of positive tweets they sent out was incredible. Just did an approximate mention count, it has been more than 40 (but remember, only 114 users, more than 1/3 tweeted). Here’re just few examples:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: the stuff @stephenou is doing with @OneExtraLap is top-notch. Great work! &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/roboteti/status/13278281958"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/roboteti/status/13278281958" target="_blank"&gt;http://twitter.com/roboteti/status/13278281958&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;@OneExtraLap = awesomeness. &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/jakemates/status/13402874859"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/jakemates/status/13402874859" target="_blank"&gt;http://twitter.com/jakemates/status/13402874859&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The new @OneExtraLap looks awesome! Congrats to @stephenou for a great job! &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/mike3k/status/20096498869"&gt;&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/mike3k/status/20096498869" target="_blank"&gt;http://twitter.com/mike3k/status/20096498869&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;But no matter how much current users love OneExtraLap and how much they tweeted, I am feeling relatively difficult to reach a larger and further market. Like yesterday, I expected at least 50 people sign up for the 2-day preview program (more details &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://blog.stephenou.com/post/890842950/oneextralap-launch-plan"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;) from 10 tweets that were sent out. But currently, there are only 8 requests, much lower than expectation. One tweet wasn’t even referring one sign up.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;So I am trying to find out: &lt;strong&gt;What methods should I use to expand userbase from people that I don’t know and people that don’t know me? And in general how to effectively draw attention from a broader group of audience?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;My age is the age of learning, the age of absorbing information. So I would truly appreciate for anyone who had knowledge and experience in this topic to contribute your answer. I greatly value everyone’s input. Thanks.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;(Note: This is a long-time question I had in my mind, but a bit afraid/lazy to ask people around. But the tips “&lt;strong&gt;ASK FOR HELP&lt;/strong&gt;” from the &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://www.slideshare.net/wongbrian/being-young-and-rocking-it"&gt;presentation&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://brianwong.me"&gt;Brian Wong&lt;/a&gt; shared at &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://twit.tv"&gt;Twit.tv&lt;/a&gt; yesterday really motivated me to do so.)&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/895527719</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/895527719</guid><pubDate>Mon, 02 Aug 2010 17:38:00 -0700</pubDate><category>questions</category><category>Business Strategy</category></item><item><title>My Launch Plan for OneExtraLap</title><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;p class="p1"&gt;Over the past, I mostly focus on the development and design of &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.com"&gt;OneExtraLap&lt;/a&gt;, all the code I wrote for OneExtraLap (since the initial prototype) has exceeded 40000 lines (a conservative educated prediction). But without a suitable marketing campaign, a product will still remain unnoticeable in this noisy, cruel, overheated market, no matter how secure or reliable that product is. You just can’t attract attention from audiences in your target market, because there are thousands of others that are trying to do the same thing. If you aren’t convincing people with something special and cutting-edge, they will be naturally moving to your competitors.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;So I dedicated the last 0.2 month (6 days) to develop a detailed, throughout plan on some marketing strategies for the &lt;a href="http://oneextralap.tumblr.com/post/890436930/onemoreweek-oneextralap" target="_blank"&gt;launch&lt;/a&gt;. I conducted a fairly high amount of research regarded to launching techniques and I want to share with our bright current/potential users all the methods I am going to use during the launch.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Leak out some teasers&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;This is the first thing I did in the pre-launch period. I posted three screenshots, naming it “&lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.tumblr.com/post/882341596/teaser-part-3"&gt;Part 1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.tumblr.com/post/877595221/teaser-part-2"&gt;Part 2&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.tumblr.com/post/872775154/teaser-part-1"&gt;Part 3&lt;/a&gt;”. Making the teasers into a series adds whole lots of consistency and engagement. It triggers potential users’ mind step by step, day by day. If you only post once, people will see it, like it, and go away. But if you post multiple times, people will come back, see it again and again. Over time, the concept of the site will be pushing to their minds naturally.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Give out exclusive preview&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;This is happening today (August 1). Anyone who &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.com"&gt;sign up&lt;/a&gt; for the 2-day exclusive preview will receive an email on August 6 with a link to sign up for an account, and they try out the site before anybody does! Those people can offer me two great benefits: they are still acting as beta testers who help me find bugs and enhancements on the site. But additionally, once the site is fully launched, they will be the bellwethers who initiates buzz about the site.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Blog constantly&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;I am going to write constantly, on both this blog and &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.tumblr.com"&gt;the OneExtraLap blog (Updated link)&lt;/a&gt;. In my blog, it will be more things like design, development and business posts in general (like this one), which are all things I learned from working on OneExtraLap. And in the OneExtraLap blog, I will post anything related to OneExtraLap, such as press mentions, feature updates, and maybe just some minor details that nobody pays attention to until I write about. I am sure people are willing to read those things. I believe by creating some unique content regularly will build up a good amount of relevant audience, who will speak for OneExtraLap.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. Notify all my followers/friends&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;It’s not only &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com"&gt;Twitter&lt;/a&gt; that uses the term “followers”, it’s not only &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://facebook.com"&gt;Facebook&lt;/a&gt; that uses the term “friends”. So I am trying to spread the word about the OneExtraLap launch in every of my social portfolio, not just Facebook and Twitter. My Forrst and Plancast’s follower count are relatively high. So in &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://forrst.com"&gt;Forrst&lt;/a&gt;, I am going to release some screenshots and post up some code that associates to OneExtraLap. And in &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://plancast.com"&gt;Plancast&lt;/a&gt;, I am going to create a plan titled “OneExtraLap Launch!” and invite everybody to join!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5. Roll out an referral program&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;I had an invite feature for those who love OneExtraLap and want to refer their friends to the site. It will be simple as just typing their email addresses, and the server will send off a friendly message. This is a great way for drawing users in, because they were being referred by people they trust.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6. Pitch people differently&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;Usually (at least what I’ve learned), people hope to have a significant traffic/sign-up strike by pitching bloggers from high-profile media outlets (most famously, the &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://techcrunch.com"&gt;TechCrunch&lt;/a&gt; Effect). But, what happened to most sites were after the initial strong press converage, their growth slowed down gradually and finally dramatically, that’s obviously what I don’t want to see. So I am going to pitch people that I trust, people who has a niche audience who want to give OneExtraLap a try. Once the OneExtraLap community is having some stable and active users, I will then trying to pitch big guns in the valley who will bring me another wave of healthy growth.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;But:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;The most crucial factor to ensure a successful launch is the site itself, the quality of the site, the design of the site, the user experience of the site, the viral coefficient of the site, the internal addictiveness of the site, etc. And that’s what I’ve been working hard on. It’s wonderful if I gain stable traction from powerful PR, but I need to make sure the site itself is engaging users. I want users to enjoy their experiences in OneExtraLap, come back to the site regularly, and actually love OneExtraLap. Once their engagement levels are getting up to a certain height, the organic user growth from referrals will be increasing faster and faster as well. And that’s exactly what I want to see.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;Well, I do understand this theory “&lt;strong&gt;Launching is really just a small period of time where a lot of initial attention is drawn to the product&lt;/strong&gt;” (&lt;a target="_blank" href="http://jasonlbaptiste.com/featured-articles/if-you-build-it-they-wont-come/"&gt;written&lt;/a&gt; by &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/JasonLBaptiste"&gt;Jason Baptiste&lt;/a&gt;). I need to put in constant and strong effort in business development after the initial launch. To keep things up, I got to give superior customer service, release feature updates, strengthen SEO, and make sure the site does not break. Doing those things correctly might be even more difficult and challenging. But, I wasn’t afraid.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;Let the launch battle begins!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p class="p1"&gt;PS: If you want to be a part of the exclusive 2-day preview program, sign up &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.com"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/890842950</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/890842950</guid><pubDate>Sun, 01 Aug 2010 18:03:00 -0700</pubDate><category>Business Strategy</category><category>OneExtraLap</category></item><item><title>OneExtraLap will be launching August 8th</title><description>&lt;a href="http://oneextralap.tumblr.com/post/890436930/onemoreweek-oneextralap"&gt;OneExtraLap will be launching August 8th&lt;/a&gt;: &lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Hello, everyone! This amazing moment is finally  coming! Under my hard and solid work this summer, OneExtraLap will be  officially launching to public on &lt;strong&gt;August 8th&lt;/strong&gt;, which is  one week from today.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;First and foremost, I want to give my sincere thank you to our super  responsible early adopters who helped me test the beta version of the  site (since OneExtraLap was a single-feature web app that had creepy  design). You guys are the biggest momentum to push me working hard in  OneExtraLap, you guys really rock!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What’s new?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;You will see a very beautiful, intuitive new design. I posted three  teasers recently (&lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.tumblr.com/post/882341596/teaser-part-3"&gt;Part 1&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.tumblr.com/post/877595221/teaser-part-2"&gt;Part 2&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.tumblr.com/post/872775154/teaser-part-1"&gt;Part 3&lt;/a&gt;)  that will get your mind going and your hands spinning before the  morning of August 8th!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Along with that, you can starting playing around with the Badges  feature which is actually one of the most-requested feature! And it’s  finally out!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;&lt;strong&gt;But there is one more thing…&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h4&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I am sure if you are pretty impatient right now that you want to  actually use the site. So I am giving you a priceless ticket - to be a  part of our exclusive 2-day preview program. If you sign up, you will  have the ability to try out OneExtraLap 2 days in advanced, before  everyone else! The total space is limited to 88, so hurry up! &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.com"&gt;Sign up&lt;/a&gt; right now, and  check your inbox in the morning of August 6th!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Note: If you are one of our beta testers, you are already in,  although you are not counted inside of the 88 people limit. You can  simply &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.com/login"&gt;log in&lt;/a&gt; here.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Happy social quizzing everyone!&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Stephen, Founder of &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://oneextralap.com"&gt;OneExtraLap&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;/blockquote&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/890724172</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/890724172</guid><pubDate>Sun, 01 Aug 2010 17:30:10 -0700</pubDate><category>OneExtraLap</category><category>Launch</category></item><item><title>More food.</title><description>&lt;img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bxpwj3mx1qawmdto1_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bxpwj3mx1qawmdto2_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bxpwj3mx1qawmdto3_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;img src="http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bxpwj3mx1qawmdto4_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;p&gt;More food.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/875862670</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/875862670</guid><pubDate>Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:25:07 -0700</pubDate><category>china trip</category></item><item><title>The night of Shanghai, with a lot of people. Simply gorgeous.</title><description>&lt;img src="http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bxhatA881qawmdto1_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bxhatA881qawmdto2_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;img src="http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bxhatA881qawmdto3_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;img src="http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bxhatA881qawmdto4_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;img src="http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bxhatA881qawmdto5_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bxhatA881qawmdto6_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;p&gt;The night of Shanghai, with a lot of people. Simply gorgeous.&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/875851358</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/875851358</guid><pubDate>Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:19:57 -0700</pubDate><category>china trip</category></item><item><title>Huge merchandise store.
— Taken from the Shanghai Expo</title><description>&lt;img src="http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bx38VaE01qawmdto1_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;img src="http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bx38VaE01qawmdto2_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;img src="http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bx38VaE01qawmdto3_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;img src="http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bx38VaE01qawmdto4_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bx38VaE01qawmdto5_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;p&gt;Huge merchandise store.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;— Taken from the Shanghai Expo&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/875825160</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/875825160</guid><pubDate>Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:11:31 -0700</pubDate><category>shanghai expo</category><category>china trip</category></item><item><title>DIM SUM!</title><description>&lt;img src="http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bw39rO8p1qawmdto1_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bw39rO8p1qawmdto2_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bw39rO8p1qawmdto3_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;img src="http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bw39rO8p1qawmdto4_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bw39rO8p1qawmdto5_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l6bw39rO8p1qawmdto6_500.jpg"/&gt;&lt;br/&gt; &lt;br/&gt;&lt;p&gt;DIM SUM!&lt;/p&gt;</description><link>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/875754661</link><guid>http://blog.stephenou.com/post/875754661</guid><pubDate>Thu, 29 Jul 2010 09:49:56 -0700</pubDate><category>china trip</category></item></channel></rss>

