 | May 6th, 2008 - by Marcelo Calbucci |
Thanks to your handy Countdown Widget you know that Mother's Day is just around the corner. Of course you'd love to trek out for some nice overpriced roses or a sappy card for mom, but what with monitoring your Facebook, Myspace, and Bebo accounts, you're not really in a position to take time off. If you are looking for a Mother's Day gift that won't cramp your Second Lifestyle, here's a guide to parlaying your favorite social networks into totally legit Mother's Day gifts that will make mom melt.
Family ReunionIntroduce Mom to the excitement of social networks for herself with Sampa.com. Sampa.com is a family-oriented website that automatically connects family, extended family, and a close circle of friends with simplicity and safety.
With easy-to-use templates and posting options, Mom can have a blast chronicling family milestones and getting in on the social networking trend in a way that's fun snd stress-free. Story Time
Recall the ultimate mother-child bonding experience when you make mom a Shelfari shelf of your favorite childhood bedtime stories.
Add sentimental tags like "the one you read me when I wouldn't stop crying" or "the one we'd recite together word for word." She'll be over the moon quicker than you can say "Goodnight creatures everywhere." Getting Home in Time for Dinner
You know how moms worry! For Mother's Day, give her peace of mind when you add Whereaboutz, the Facebook app that uses Google maps to display, you guessed it, your whereabouts.
The best part is the SMS functionality, which allows tech-phobic moms to view your location right from their cell phones as they push their cart in the grocery store. For the Helicopter Mom, there's no better gift than Whereaboutz. A Trip Down Memory Lane
Use geotagging to make a Zoomr map of places where you and your mom have been together. Amp up the sentiment by creating descriptive tags like " 'our' sushi place" and "the ski camp with the dreamy instructor."
Your mom will love this techie travelogue of your special times together. Bragging Rights
Making mom a Flickr photo album is child's play. Show momma what a mature young adult you are when you hook her up with the handy plugin Slickr.
Slickr uses Flickr pictures as a feed to create family picture screensavers, so she can show off your adorable mugs to her colleagues and houseguests without having to resort to anything so overt as a forward. We can just hear the choruses of "Look what my son made me for Mother's Day" now! Home Videos
Home movies are the heart of any good Mother's Day gift, so do it in exportable style when you make it on MotionBox. Not only does this site include sophisticated features like the ability to send just a clip or highlight, these elegant movies are also easily exportable to mom's mp3 player or laptop.
Once she's breaking a sweat on the Stairmaster to your four- year-old rendition of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" you'll know you've achieved a place in the Mother's Day Gifts Hall of Fame. Family HootenannyIn honor of Mother's Day, hook mom up with a convenient platform for her favorite hobby: planning family get-togethers. Like a less dictatorial Evite, Planypus lets you post potential plans in a more casual, conversational way.
Because the messages can be delivered back and forth by email, SMS, RSS or online homepages and calendaring tools, Planypus works great for both your text-savvy sister, your geek brother, and your mom who won't stop driving you crazy trying to learn how to use her BlueTooth headset. Misty Watercolored Memories
This next gift idea is the Gen-Y equivalent of the classic handprint-in-the paint Mother's Day card. Like ComicLife and RockYou combined, Bubbleshare lets you give mom a killer slideshow of pictures with bubble captions, holiday themes, audio captions and video captions. So creative and cute!
| April 28th, 2008 - by Roy Leban |
Earlier this month, we launched the new, improved version of Sampa. Because the new Sampa is so different from the first version of Sampa, we couldn't immediately upgrade all of our existing users. If you became a Sampa user before April of this year, you're still using Sampa V1. But we haven't forgotten you.
In May, we'll be providing a way for you to upgrade your site to version 2. When you upgrade, you'll have access to our new, streamlined, easier-to-use user interface. All of your stories, blog posts, albums, and pictures will be retained, plus you'll have access to all our great new themes and layouts as well as the new features we'll be adding in the future.
In the meantime, you can continue to edit and add to your site as you always have -- we'll let you know when you can upgrade.
| April 17th, 2008 - by Marcelo Calbucci |
We are looking to hire a few great persons to work with us. If you are into Web 2.0, love to create consumer-oriented products and has the skill we are looking for, do contact us. Positions include: - VP of Engineering
- Sr. Software Engineer
- Chief Marketing Officer
Check out our career opportunities.
| April 2nd, 2008 - by Marcelo Calbucci |
Quite a few online news sites and blogs have covered the launch and our funding. Check out the coverage:
| April 2nd, 2008 - by Marcelo Calbucci |
Simplicity, email integration and privacy enable secure family web sites. Sampa Corporation announced today the immediate availability of a breakthrough free service to enable people to share life stories and photos with family and friends by creating a personal private place on the web. For the first time, a non-technical user can easily create a customizable website that combines multimedia blogging, photo albums and specialty features for families and babies such as a family tree or a baby countdown timer - all with the assurance that only family and friends can access it. "Families have been searching for a simple and safe way to share their kids' daily triumphs without the pitfalls of emailing digital pictures or annoyances of social networking sites," said Paul Gross, CEO of Sampa. "A Sampa site provides a fun, secure and easy way for parents to tell a story with pictures and keep close friends and families members up to date." Sampa makes it easy to share across generations and geography. "Since we moved to Boston, Sampa has been integral to how we share the latest stories of our kids and our experience here with our relatives and friends back in Portugal," said Sara Martins de Oliveira, a mom and a long-standing Sampa customer. "Every time they receive the Sampa mail regarding a new posting they run to see the latest news. It is amazing how it makes the distance shorter." Since parents are a primary audience for Sampa, ease of personalization and privacy were key design goals. A Sampa site is created in 5 easy steps. - Choose a name for your site
- Enter a few details about your baby or family
- Choose a design
- Upload a photo and customize your welcome message
- Easily invite your family and friends
Users will be up and running in 5 minutes or less with their own personal private place on the web to begin sharing stories and photos. The free service is available today at www.sampa.com. Features and Benefits Built-in Themes and Applications for a Personalized Website Sampa features a broad array of themes to suit a wide variety of expression. Or you can upload a picture to create your own theme. Built-in features including a family tree, profiles, and personalized pages give authors a rich set of easy to use solutions for sharing their life events. These features let you create the perfect family or baby website in minutes. Security Simplified and Engagement Guaranteed Sampa sites are secure without creating complexity for readers. The site engages friends and family by sending an email whenever a new story or set of photos is uploaded. The email contains a personalized key for each reader to enter the site just by clicking on the link in email, so readers do not need to remember an arcane password or even know the site's web address. And patent pending security prevents the key from working if it is forwarded to someone else. Integration with Popular Sites and Services Sampa users can easily integrate content from across the web. Flickr photos and YouTube videos can be seamlessly viewed in a Sampa site so that you can have a single destination for all of your web content.
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