With the release of the Qwidget fast approaching, I want to give a quick update on what is occupying our time in the lead up to our launch.

• Our QA (quality assurance) server has been set up to run a few VMs so we can test how the Qwidget works with different OS/browser combinations.
• We are tweaking the design of the Qwidget interface to make it easy on the eyes and easy on the brain.
• Refining the feature set that we will launch with.  As we play with the early versions, we are discovering features that seem necessary even though they weren’t in the initial specs.  I am also working with our awesome engineers to refine and improve a few of the existing features.  To be clear, we’re not adding new features willy nilly.  It’s simply a process of adding new and better ways to accomplish the one and only goal of the Qwidget - to increase reader participation on publisher sites.
• My fantastic designer/animator friend Erin Kilkenny (who posts great sketchbooks online) has been designing the Qwidget logo and style guides.  We are in the last rounds of notes and the logo is looking pretty awesome.  When it is finished, I will post it here along with some of the logo treatments that we did not choose.  We will also relaunch this blog with a custom theme that Erin built.
• Preparing to build the Qwidget.com site.  We have wireframes ready and are waiting on the style guides from Erin.  It will mostly be a site that shows how the Qwidget helps publishers increase engagement on their site and then showcases some of the activity generated by Qwidgets around the web.
• Assorted other items like: establishing a TOS, setting up feedback mechanisms, etc.