During the past month, we upgraded the site to Ruby on Rails 2.0 to provide a faster, more reliable, and more secure website. We also implemented the following enhancements:

Simplified Invite terminology

There are now only two invite types to choose from:

• Public Invites - These invites are published on the site so that anyone can review and accept. However, you can approve or decline any acceptance received from another user for any reason since it’s your meeting. You can also invite friends to your proposed meeting and/or describe the type of people youd like to meet. You control who attends your proposed meeting.
• Private Invites - These invites are only emailed to the contacts or friends you select and are not published on the website. Invite your friends to coffee, lunch, or any proposed meeting.

Important Improvements to your Profile Page

• Display Your Posted Invites. Your posted public invites will now be posted in your profile page and viewable by anyone viewing your profile. If they cannot make one meeting, this will allow them to see your other meetings they may want to accept.
• Export your Public Invites. We added a tool to allow you to easily export your public invites to another site (e.g., your blog, another website, etc.). Our simple “widget-builder” lets you customize what it will look like. You can then copy-and-paste the code into your website or blog.
• List your Meeting Interests. You can now list your Meeting Interests on your Profile page to describe the types of meetings or the types of people you’re interested in meeting. Interested in meeting other Michigan alumni? Want to network with others in your industry? Looking for new clients or customers? This will allow other users who have similar interests to know to invite you to their meetings.
• Your New Simple Profile URL. We’ve simplified the URL for your Profile page to make it easier to share with others. We now allow http://meetingwave.com/p/username as well as the current http://meetingwave.com/member_profiles/show/username.
• Facelift. Finally, we’ve given your Profile page a facelift and added more flexibility for you. You can now create new profile boxes for additional information you wish to include in your profile and can also organize your profile boxes however you want. Let us know what you think. Don’t forget to create your Profile. It helps at either end of the invite! Whether someone is deciding to accept your public invite or deciding whether to approve your invite.

We can now send Reminders and Invite Notifications to your Cellphone.

Just enter your cell phone number into your My Account page and we will send your scheduled reminders and notifications when you’re invited to a meeting to your cell phone. The number entered into your My Account page will not be disclosed to others.

Improved Facebook Integration

You can now manage your guest lists, see your invite activity in your news feed and view your Facebook friend’s invites! Don’t forget to check out our Facebook application at http://apps.facebook.com/meetingwave.

We’d like to thank everyone for their feedback. Watch for our improvements in the future.

We’ve been very busy since our beta launch this summer and now want to update you on several new and important features that we have added to MeetingWave.

MeetingWave is a free networking tool that helps you connect offline with people you would like to meet in the places you will be. You can arrange social or business networking meetings with new people. Or, you can use MeetingWave to arrange get-togethers just with your friends. Either way, through features offered by our service, you decide who attends your meetings.

Here are the improvements we have added–please try them and let us know what you think:

Private Invites - MeetingWave now offers you the option of inviting only specific guests to meetings you organize. We will not post these meetings on the website — no one but your invited guests would know about the meeting.  We will send your Invite directly to each of your guests, at the email addresses you provide.

Messaging System - You now have the ability to communicate directly and privately with people who accept your Invite. And, your guests also have a way of communicating directly with you. Email communications are private between the two individuals communicating, AND no email addresses are ever disclosed (unless you decide to disclose your own email address). With the messaging system, you can follow up easily with your guests on any meeting details.

Private Meeting Location - You now have the option to post an Invite on MeetingWave without disclosing the specific location of your proposed meeting. The meeting location may be disclosed later only to guests who you, as the meeting organizer, approve to attend your meeting. This feature gives you more control in organizing the meeting, while still allowing you to post an Open Invite on the service to meet new people.

RSS Feeds - You can now sign up for a feed that will be updated whenever there is an Invite posted that matches your search criteria. You will not have to browse the website — if you don’t want to — for meetings that interest you.

Meeting Reminders - MeetingWave now allows you to set up email reminders for upcoming meetings.

Why should you use MeetingWave instead of other networking sites?  We believe the versatility of MeetingWave is its biggest asset. You can set up meetings with people you already know.  You can set up meetings with new people. Or, you can set up meetings with some combination of both new people and friends.  You can post your meetings for all to see; or you can keep your meetings completely private among you and your invited guests.  You can arrange meetings anywhere. You can communicate directly with people who have indicated an interest in attending your meetings. MeetingWave gives you a high degree of control in organizing meetings, even when you are looking to meet new people!

Our newest features integrate MeetingWave with commonly used web applications and also simplify the process for creating Invites. We are very excited about these enhancements.

MeetingWave now available on Facebook - You can now access MeetingWave through Facebook - networking opportunities are now at your finger tips! Please check out the <a href=”http://apps.facebook.com/meetingwave”>first version of this application</a>.  We welcome any feedback.

Streamlined Invite creation - You can now input all the details for your Invites on one page.  This replaces our multi-page, multi-step process for creating Invites.

QuickInvite - Use this simplified process to set up an Invite when you don’t need to input as many details for a meeting (e.g., when you want to set up an Invite for coffee with friends).

Invite templates - Yet another feature that makes creating Invites easier is our new “Copy Invite” functionality, which allows you to use one of your existing Invites as a template for a new Invite. You won’t need to input Invite details that are already in the template.