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.

Our Webby Award statues for our web series Hometown Baghdad arrived in the mail two days ago and I got the chance to play with them up close. I was surprised by how heavy they are and how bouncy the slinky is. I thought it’d be stiff metal. Check out the detail shots below:

	Here is a close up of the label on the award we won for Best Reality.
	A close up of the News and Politics Series award.
	A close up of the Best Public Service and Activism Award. This one was especially meaningful to us because the series was done in the spirit of public service and was funded by philanthropists at the Shei’rah Foundation and Cinereach.
	Here are all three awards lined up. Where on earth should we put them in the office? The conference room? Near the entry-way? WWSGD?
	I thought it was pretty cool that there are 1s and 0s on the slinky.
	Here is a little detail that I almost missed myself. The Webby Award logo is printed inside the slinky.

On June 9th, the Chat the Planet team took a trip to the Webby Online Film and Video Awards to accept three Awards for our production Hometown Baghdad. (As is mentioned elsewhere on this blog, our experience producing and distributing that series online led us to develop a better way for web publishers/bloggers to foster dialogue around their content. But that’s a story for another post.) Saif, one of the documentary’s subjects who now lives in Boston as a refugee, and his wife Noor were able to come down to New York for the show. Fady, the Iraqi producer of Hometown Baghdad, was also able to come. He is in NY for the summer on break from getting his MFA at USC. Here is our night in pictures:

Saif, Fady and me (L-R) at the pre-award show cocktail party

That’s senior editor Barrett Hawes accepting the award for Best Reality. His five word speech was, “Brave Iraqis made this possible.”

That’s executive producer Kate Hillis saying, “Real Stories help overcome ignorance,” upon accepting the award for Best News and Politics Series.

Here’s our other executive producer Laurie Meadoff accepting the award for Best Public Service and Activism. Her speech, decided about thirty seconds in advance, was, “Alright brave Iraqis, please stand.” When she said those words, Fady, Saif and Noor, who were taken by complete surprise, stood up to a big ovation from the crowd. A very cool moment as captured in this incredibly low quality video.

Laurie, Fady and me at the after party.

Kate, me and Fady at the after party.

At the after party, there was this cool little photo booth taking portraits that were then shown up on a big screen at the party, right above the DJ (who happened to be LCD Soundsystem!!). Here’s me, an excited Saif and Fady posing for our close-up.

Webby winners were asked to do a short interview at the party on the “red couch.” There were a lot of Chat people there so we crowded up the couch. Too bad editors Will Gardiner and Barrett Hawes and exec producer Laurie had left by that point.