When we launched our self-service upgrades last week we also launched a radically new design, a new logo, new company pages, new customer support site, and new about pages. There’s definitely some backstory that I’d like to share.

New information
As we’ve worked on our products, the most important thing we wanted to do was make the packages page reflect what we were actually offering and to give people more options. However, we also wanted a place to collect and answer user support requests, so we added a support forum from GetSatisfaction. We’d recommend their service to anyone. We also added a new about page so we could talk about all the wonderful people who make this company run.

More Talking
Last year, MPI, one of two major associations for the meetings industry, invited us to their Meet Different conference, which was focused on all the ways that meetings are changing. Except for us, nobody from the techie startup world was represented. MPI talked about unconferences but I didn’t see any big names from the Open Space movement (Kaliya Hamlin would have been a good choice). They had big attendee PDA vendors, but I didn’t see any hackers like the ones who put together the location-aware social network at Last HOPE. The agenda builder they offered was completely unusable. That’s surprising, because I know two different pairs of programmers who built amazing agenda builders in less than two days. One of those products, icalico, is the base of our calendar/agenda-builder feature.

In the world we’re coming from, Silicon Valley web startups, there’s a lot of great innovation that directly affects conferences. Often, it seems the people we know who are innovating are miles away from talking to the people who are putting on conferences. We like talking to both camps, so we’re going to do more talking. In the old design, our blog was hidden away in the footer. Now our most recent posts and twitters are right on the home page.

Our History
Just for fun, I pulled screen shots of our major designs. We’ve had four. The first was when I was sharing a CrowdVine prototype. Bad design was good for our prototype because we really had to be useful in order to get any compliments.

The second was done by our friends at Neatworks Inc for our first product, now called CrowdVine for Groups. I remember jumping around my house because for the first time we looked like a real company.

The third design was when we added CrowdVine for Conferences. We did the entire design ourselves because we were still on a tight budget. I never thought it had much curb appeal but that didn’t seem to matter because all of our business was coming from word of mouth.

For the fourth (current) design we ran two design competitions on 99designs. I already blogged about the logo competition. We ran a second competition for our home page and that’s where this design came from.

We have a beta of our new mobile version for conferences up. This release is only for conferences with calendars as the calendar is one of the major mobile requests. If you’re using a CrowdVine with a calendar you can go directly to the normal CrowdVine site with your mobile phone, no special URLs necessary.

We’re looking for feedback on this release. What did you use the mobile version for? What do you wish you could use the mobile version for? Did it work well on your phone?

Going into this version, we had a couple of goals:

1. Very fast. I have an iphone, which often makes the idea of a mobile version obsolete, but we tested on a Blackberry from 2005. The last time I surfed the web on that Blackberry I wanted to chuck it across the room. This time, however, the pages loaded quickly and I could make out what I wanted to see. Mission accomplished.

2. Make it very easy to decide where to walk to next. The mobile home page lists the conference schedule on the home page starting with what’s up next.

3. Make it easy to find out more about someone. Did someone just give you their card? Who is that panelist? Search is the only other feature on the mobile home page.

4. Access Your Want-To-Meet List. The reason I make lists is to help me remember. Especially with my want-to-meet lists, I need help remembering names and faces. This is a logged in feature.

5. Access Your Schedule. If you take the time to login, we make it easy to review the schedule you created for yourself.

6. Simple messaging. We took most of the discussion features off the mobile version but left the private messaging in. This way, if you’re stuck for a way to reach someone, you can send them a quick message.

When Sarah Milstein and I were putting together the Web2Open at Web 2.0 Expo SF, we invented a new kind of session based on the concept of speed dating. We put together five tables of attendees and invited five luminaries to give a short Q&A with each table, rotating every few minutes. As she describes, it was definitely the highlight of the conference for us.

Now Nate Westheimer, who has taken on the Web2Open duties for NY, is bringing it back! If you’re in NYC on September 18th, then this is session you need to go to.

More on the Web2Open directly from Nate.

We’ve just launched two upgrades to our self-service conference packages:

Basic: Exactly the same as the free version except we remove the ads. It’s $399/event.

Plus: No ads and you have access to our calendar/agenda-builder feature. $799/event.

We’ve tested these packages with some beta customers and have found the decision process is usually pretty clear. As a conference organizer you have two decisions:

Do you need the calendar?

Our calendar feature is one of the most popular sections of a conference network. It attracts over a quarter of page views and draws more people into the network. It lets attendees keep track of which sessions they want to go to. It lets them start discussions about each session, leave reviews, and ask the speaker questions. It helps them find and meet people who are in the session with them.

We strongly recommend the calendar for any conferences with multiple tracks, breakout sessions, or many optional events. If that’s not you, then consider it a nice-to-have but not a necessity.

Do you need professional support?

We continue to offer three professional support packages where we get personally involved in setup, integration, helping plan your networking and communication strategy, and sometimes even custom features. We’ll take work off your busy plate, make sure the network runs smoothly, customize CrowdVine for a seamless and integrated attendee experience, and talk you through your ideas and plans.

Running a successful network isn’t rocket science but it’s a lot more than possessing software (even ours). Working with our professional support is a powerful assurance. If you’re looking for assurance, we would love to work directly with you. If you’re a do-it-your-selfer, then now you have access to the features that we offer in our professional support packages. If you’re not sure, then you better pick up the telephone, 707.953.3868 between 9am and 5pm PST.