It’s been a while since we blogged, as we have all been very busy. Sorry about that!

Next week I will be attending 2 conferences in San Fran (Widgets Live! Conference and Web 2.0 Conference). Whilst I am there I will obviously be representing Minti and Vibe Capital, so if you want to catch up with me just send me a message through this contact us form.

Hope to see you there.

– Clay Cook

With huge thanks to Molly over at Screeniac here is her screen-cast guided tour to Minti and many of its more recent features:

http://screeniac.com/2006/09/09/minticom/

or you can get straight to the movie tour here:

http://screeniac.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/minti.com.review.wmv

Great work Molly and all the best with Screeniac

We sent out a press release the other day, which made public that we are now out of Beta, plus some other interesting info. Check out the press release here.

You can now claim your blog on Minti !!

What does this mean?

Each time you do a post on your blog (that is external to your Minti blog), that post will automatically appear (in full or partial based on what you set) as a post on your Minti blog also :)

Why would you want to do this?

• At the top of each post we provide a link to the originating blog post.
• You get more readership of your blog content.
• And more traffic to your external blog.

How do I set this up? Read this post and also this one.

Rachel has returned from an intense and very enjoyable few days at the annual BlogHer conference which was in San Jose, California over the last weekend. Minti is a sponsor of BlogHer and we put a unique BlogHer Minti-bib into the schwag bag for all participants.

To mark this occasion we have also added the new Minti Messy Bib to our Minti online store :

Here are a few blog posts which make a mention of Minti - thanks for the “link-love” folks and also for the great (and innovative) ways you have used our Minti-bibs:

Mom-101 who provides some insight into the thought provoking aspects of the BlogHer event:

http://mom-101.blogspot.com/2006/07/mommybloggings.html

DrumsNWhistles provides an analysis of the sponsor contributions to BlogHer:

http://www.drumsnwhistles.com/2006/07/31/and-now-a-word-to-our-sponsors

Nancy from Full Circle who discusses the title of mommyblogger amongst other things:

http://www.fullcirc.com/weblog/2006/07/blogher-year-2.htm

The Silicon Valley Moms (I think only one of them was able to make it to BlogHer) really had a great time:

http://svmomblog.typepad.com/silicon_valley_moms_blog/2006/07/simply_awesome_.html

TW over on the Wee Hours blog gave an assessment of the Schwag at BlogHer:

http://ramblewoman.blogspot.com/2006/07/blogher-swag.html

Antonella met Rachel and gave us a mention:

http://www.antonellapavese.com/archive/2006/07/200/

Leah in Chicago from Accidentally Jewish also gave us a few kind words:

http://leahj.blog-city.com/i_smell_like_a_man.htm

Photos:

The Minti bib is turned into a Cat-cape for a loved family member at a-girl-and-a-boy:

http://www.agirlandaboy.com/journal/archives/001104.html

Flickr has a few photos with Minti action including Rachel and Tracey:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=blogher%20AND%20minti&w=all&s=int

Minti just got another update and here are a few of the key improvements to the site :

• Groups have been added - There are:

1. public groups (such as for each country and for parents with children born in the same year) - where members can contribute to a collborative blog or chat via a group conversations.
2. private groups which any member can form and then invite others to join into their own private area.  Maybe you have a parenting group you are a member of and you want a private place to make posts in a blog format or chat with one another about the latest goings on in the conversation area- start your own group and be the administrator and controller of who gets to join in :)

• Forums have been added - you can now chat about a range of topics organised into popular forums

• Daily emails are now available summarising activity on articles, blogs or by members who are on your “watch list” - these emails are relevant to your requirements and the watch list is easy to edit if you are receiving too much detail

• There is a new Blog calendar to help you track your blog entries by date and make it easy to recall when you made your last Blog update

• There are some pretty flags next to the member names to make countries clearer

• We have revised the ranking formula to make it more likely for those participating actively in the site to improve their ranking (through advice, voting, comments and regular visits)

• The Member’s menu’s have been simplified and the look of the member homepages revised :)

Let me know if you find anything else that has been updated :)  I am worn out from testing it all and would love to hear from anyone who finds any issues with the new release (remember we are still beta testing this site ;) )

Enjoy the new stuff and have fun !

Minti is giving away 2 tickets for free to Blogher ‘06.
Click here to see the blog post about it.

On the 5th of May we launched a bunch of new features at Minti.

Here is a list of some of the main changes…

• New homepage design.
• Popular advice makes its appearance on the homepage.
• Latest activity is expanded on the homepage.
• Need Votes is now in top navigation bar.
• You can now add links and images to your blog or friends forum posts. Example.
• Easier star voting on comments. See comments on this article.
• Far easier to upload an image as your avatar. See people’s images on the Minti homepage.
• Your avatar now appears at the top of your articles of advice. See at the top of this article as an example.
• Ability to write a personal note when inviting a friend.
• Initial phase of daily summary email completed. Members will soon be notified of advice they are watching etc.
• More sorting on advice page.
• Popular advice.
• Most recent advice.
• Advice needing votes.
• Most viewed advice.
• Visits are being tracked and displayed for profile views (example), blog post views (example), article views (example) etc.

We continue to innovate at Minti, please let us know what you think about the new changes and others you would like to see.

We have had some very nice feedback on our logo and particularly our tag-line “Powered by Parents” so it gives me great pleasure to annouce the launch of the Minti store (created with a great deal of help from Cafepress).

Here is the store website:  http://www.cafepress.com/minti 

There is a wide selection of fun items for all ages so please take a look at show your early support for Minti by telling more friends about our wonderful and growing community :)

If you are interested in finding out more about Minti, you will be pleased to hear that the 3 Co-Founders of Minti all have their own blogs.

Here they are…

• Clay Cook’s Minti blog
• Rachel Cook’s Minti blog
• Matthew Macfarlanes’ Minti blog