Thanks to everyone who’s been coming to our meet-ups, reporting issues, and sharing ideas (especially Holly T, Erueti, Saira and Donza).

Yesterday we took a little break to head over to Under the Radar, a get-together for new start-ups to demo and show their stuff. We were presenting in the Social Networking category along with social-meets-mobile companies Jygy and Xumii and niche social network Nesting.com. After a quick six-minute demo on a wireless card, our CEO Keith pulled off the victory. Thanks to everyone who voted for us!

We celebrated of course, but quickly returned to reality… getting the Vivaty experience right. There are so many features you’ve asked for that make a lot of sense: more avatar customization, more SNS integration (Twitter or Friendfeed anyone?), more objects, sit gestures, more moods, and more user-control around chat. While we won’t get to all of these by our public launch, we’re carefully tracking requests and we will eventually get to yours!  Want to share more feedback live? Join us for our next meet up.

When: Tomorrow, June 5 at 11 – 11:30 am PST Find your time zone here.
Where:  Your scene.  Not in our beta yet? Email us at beta@vivaty.com.
Who:  Look for us (Mark, Heidi, Tony, Jay) and find other users by going into our scenes.

Email us at beta@vivaty.com and we’ll pair you up with someone new! See you in Vivaty!

Thanks to everyone who joined us in our first ever Vivaty Meetup last week. We had such a great time, we’re going to make it a regular occurrence, and try to do it every week. We were mightily impressed that die-hard Vivaty fans from Europe stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to join us!

We loved seeing all the creativity folks had put into their scenes at this early stage. Our prizes for the best scenes go to Carmen V., Erueti B., and Dianne J! Thanks you guys not only for showing your creativity, but for also sending us all your great ideas and feedback on how to make the Vivaty experience even more compelling for you and your friends!

The next Vivaty Meetup (can anyone come up with a cooler name?) will be held on Thursday, May 22 at 11AM Pacific Time (7PM GMT). Should make it a little easier on all our friends from outside the Western Hemisphere. Come join up and meet us and let us know your ideas!  Find your local time here. 

During this phase of the beta, we’ve turned off invitations, which makes it a little tougher to go explore, but you’ll see a few Vivaty people on your Friends List (Jay, Tony and myself – Mark) who you can chat with and join in our scenes. Make sure to drop by and say hello! Also, during the meetup, we’ll jump around and visit your scenes, too. We’re working on our housewarming gifts of virtual apple pie and cookies. J

See you soon!

Mark H