1. Videos: two new introduction videos on the homepage, one about the benefits of earthfaves, one about how to add earthfaves – don’t miss them!

2.  Your new location recommendation network size overview: the area on your user home page that shows the number of all the location recommendations you have from your friends and their friends at earthfaves!

3. New “Invite your friends” tool: on top of the page you now find the tool to quickly grow your number of friends at earthfaves. This is important, as the more friends you have, the more earthfaves they have, the more and better location recommendations you can get. So invite your friends!

4. Your discovery rank score – the points you got so far for adding earthfaves and for people that earthfave them. You get 10 points for adding an earthfave, 20 points if someone earthfaves them and 10 if you earthfave another users’ earthfave. You start as “Freshman”. With 1000 points you become “Pearldiver”, with 5000 “Connoisseur” and with 10000 “(Wo)Man of the World”! So adding earthfaves and finding people who like them increases your reputation in the network a lot!

5. “Recommendation rank”™ results: if you are logged in and you search for locations, you get results filtered along your personal trust levels. This way, we make it easier for you to always find the best and most trusted results first. Your own earthfaves appear on top, followed by those of your friends, those of your friends of friends and then those of other earthfavers.

6. Messaging: if someone wants to become your friend or if somebody has earthfaved one of your earthfaves, we send you notification mails so that you quickly can reply to the other users actions.

7. Mapping: simply by copying and pasting code just like at youtube, you can now add your map with your earthfaves to your blog or any other website. This helps you to make more new friends quicker and, for sure, you can show the great places you know much more easily to your friends and readers. You find the link on your user home page.

We plan a lot more for 2009: especially we want to improve the search and the adding functionality (please always search first if you want to add new earthfaves . We also want you to say about earthfaves “I love this place”, so keep us posted with your ideas and the bugs you find at info@earthfaves.com.

We wish you and your families a great year 2009!

Happy discovering & recommending!

Your earthfaves team:

Barrett, Daniel, Markus T, Oliver, Tim, Tom, and Markus S.

Hier ein paar Eindrücke:

M.I.A. (from her first indie album – she rocks!)

Santogold (very major-label like already)

New Young Pony Club (I like them a lot, too!)

What a great opportunity it was to speak at the SAP Web2.0 Business User Summit last week! Using the collective intelligence of your business teams’ “social knowledge” about where to stay, where to go out, and what to do when traveling professionally was our presentation focus. The presentation also included a live demo of our beta platform and lead into a great discussion about mobile Web2.0 applications and how they will ultimately enhance business users access to trusted information on the go. Audience members actively participated in a half hour post-presentation discussion and asked some solid questions about our platform and how it will benefit all types of teams within SAP.

A big thanks goes out to Michael Altendorf for inviting us to take part in what was a very successful event!

But now I’m back in my Saarbrücken apartment, comfortably submerged in the life giving, blog enabling, amniotic fluid of the internet, the world returned to my needy, greedy fingertips.  Elisabeth is currently getting job training in Frankfurt, busy learning the ancient methods of the Berlitz language program, so I will do my best to recount a couple of highlights from our two days in Berlin.

The first night was a night of coincidences.  We met up with one of my sister’s Berlin friends, who’s brother, who coincidentally goes to school with me, was also visiting.  We had never met, however, until that night.  We then went to a club in which another alum from our school, Santogold, was coincidentally performing that very same night.  And then we were coincidentally turned away at the door, after coincidentally waiting in line for two hours!  ”We’re at capacity,” explained a bloated man at the entrance, whose tight fitting shirt was clearly already over capacity, “You can get in after the show.”  But since we were only there to see Santogold, there was no way we were going to stay and wait until the show was over.  So sadly, I will never know if the club, which I believe was called Tape, is worthy of an earthfave.  But I know that Santogold is still worthy of a listen.  Hailing from Brooklyn,  she’s America’s answer to M.I.A., for better or worse, and she’s likely to get really big in the next few months, so get on the wagon before it’s too late.

Santogold is the new M.I.A.

Having spent the last few hours amid the scummiest and creepiest club-goers that Berlin could conjure up, and the previous night in front of security checkpoint 5 at Stansted International, me and my sister had no choice but to walk dejectedly back to our hotel and sleep it off.

Thanks, Santogold, for puking gold glitter all over our night.

The next day, however, made up for the tragedies of the night before.  Thai food at a restaurant called Mr. Hai and Friends, and later a club in the heart of Berlin, aptly named Weekend.  Both places have been geobookmarked for everyone to see.  So check them out at earthfaves, they’re both great places, especially Weekend, which is truly one of the city’s greatest clubs.

The next day saw us both off at the train station, me heading for Saarbrücken, my sister for Frankfurt.  So that’s it then, unless my sister has something to add.  The trip was great, and now that I’m back, I get to spend another week in the office before going back home to America.  Farewell for now, friends and friendly people.

Today was the first day of my first ever visit to London, and it did not disappoint by a long shot. My brother and I flew into Stansted airport late last night, passed out in a hotel, and hopped a bus into the city late this morning, after enjoying a leisurely and satisfying complimentary continental breakfast. The first thing we did when we arrived at Victoria station was buy a day pass for the Tube, which, while it cost us over 5 pounds each, turned out to be a good idea as it let us see a great deal in just a few hours. We strolled along the Thames, looked at that fancy ferris wheel (the “London Eye,” as it is eerily named), though without really being tempted to pay exorbitant prices and stand in line for hours in order to ride it,

crossed the river to gaze upon Big Ben,

marveled at Westminster Abbey, etc…. Finally we decided it was time to stop looking at things and time to start picking things up and buying them, so we headed over to Covent Garden, where the vast quantity of shoes on sale was almost too much for one girl to take, and certainly too much for my brother, who was, understandably I suppose, not the least bit intrigued by the idea of waiting around with nothing to do while I tried things on.

At some point we agreed that we were starving, so we moved over a few blocks to Chinatown, and after a little bit of hunting setlled on a small Taiwanese/Dim Sum restaurant called Leong’s Legends (check out the new earthfave), which seemed like a promising choice. Boy was it ever, and I’m pretty sure I’m not just saying that because we were ravenously hungry.

It was great all around, and most importantly, it was reasonably priced.

Sated, we decided that no visit to London could be complete without a trip to Harrod’s, so back on the Tube we went. It was full of expensive things, as expected, but certainly a step beyond any department store I’ve ever seen, even Berlin’s famed KaDeWe. It was like some sort of catacombs containing everything your heart might desire, treasures uspeakable and profound and heart-wrenchingly out of reach. After some exploring, we even managed to find puppies (only 1500 pounds!). I bought a pair of jeans instead.

More tomorrow, I’m exhausted!

Liebe Sarah,

wir hatten gestern Abend ne Menge Spaß während Deiner Sendung, aber nicht immer mit ihr!

Wir waren doch erschrocken, dass gerade Du, alte Tratschtante, sprachlos warst ob der Frage warum man nach Saarbrücken kommen sollte!

Als stolze Saarbrücker mit jahrelanger “Auslandserfahrung” (Düsseldorf/Köln, Heidelberg, Spanien) wissen wir, warum wir nach schönen Jahren “im Reich” (wie manch ein Saarländer auch heute noch zur “Restrepublik” sagt) wieder nach Saarbrücken (zurück)gekommen sind.

Viele unserer Freunde kommen gerne hierher, auch und gerade die aus Weltstädten wie z.B. Berlin, New York oder Schmelz (wie Kinski ). Und das nicht nur weil wir supernette Leute sind oder weil wir Ihnen den Aufenthalt bezahlen – nein, sie zahlen selbst, denn Saarbrücken gefällt ihnen einfach, jetzt, wo sie es “rischdisch” kennen gelernt haben!

Für das Saarland und Saarbrücken wird ja auch wenig geworben, so dass eigentlich NIEMAND IRGENDWAS über dieses nette Fleckchen Erde weiß! Nur dunkel erinnert sich manch einer mit Taschenlampe-im-Dunkeln-von-unten-ins-schreckverzerrte-Gesicht-gehalten an obskure politisch engagierte Saarländer wie Oskar Lafontaine oder Erich Honecker (ja, der war gebürtiger Saarländer) – und dann vielleicht noch an Dieter Thomas Heck und Heinz Becker.

So warst auch du, sonst so wortgewaltiges Wesen, gestern in der Sendung ideenlos, als es drum ging, Gründe zu finden, warum man nach Saarbrücken kommen sollte. Hier ist ein kleines Highlight-Listchen, damit Du beim nächsten Mal besser informiert bist und ein paar stichhaltige Argumente findest, anstatt gleich wieder mit hektisch in der Luft wedelnden Armen, manisch kopfschüttelnd und hysterisch “Ogottogottogott, Provinz!”-schreiend unser Kleinodland zu verlassen. Vor allem zum Genießen von Kultur, Natur und Gastronomie sollte man herkommen! Und natürlich wegen der netten, humorvollen und gastfreundlichen Leute kann man hier ein paar außergewöhnlich schöne Stunden – und sogar Tage – verbringen!

1. Die Ludwigskirche – eine der bedeutendsten Barockbauten Deutschlands

2. Die lokalen Spezialitäten und der “Haupdsach’ gudd ‘gess’ “-Lifestyle:

- De Lyoner

- De Schwenker

- Chillen am St.Johanner Markt

- Und dazu ein Saar Riesling

- Oder ein Karlsberg Ur-Pils

3. Um die landschaftlich schöne und Genuss-shopping-technisch sehr reizvolle Grenzlage zu erkunden, z.B. in einem 3 Länder-Trip über nur 90 KM Sarreguemines (F) – Saarbrücken – Remich (LUX) mit erstaunlich opulenten Käse- und Desserttheken in Frankreich und Billo-Benzin- und -Fluppen in Luxemburg.

4. Die interessante Geschichte – vor knapp mehr als 50 Jahren war das Saarland ein souveräner Staat mit eigener Landesflagge, Fussball-Nationalmannschaft (3:2 gegen Norwegen gewonnen, mit Helmut Schön, dem Mann mit der Mütze, als Trainer!) und Olympiateam

5. Die schönen Laubwälder
“Ein Drittel der Fläche des Saarlandes ist mit sommergrünem Mischwald bedeckt. Damit hat das Saarland gemeinsam mit Hessen und Baden-Württemberg die prozentual größte Waldfläche Deutschlands. Darüber hinaus nimmt hier der Laubwald im Vergleich zu allen anderen Bundesländern den größten Anteil der Gesamtwaldfläche ein.”

6. Die Saarschleife
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourismus_im_Saarland

7. Das UNESCO-Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte

So, und als Retourkutsche für diese tollen Insiderinfos könntest du mal was für unseren Startup earthfaves (kurz für “favorite places on earth”) tun: leg dir doch mal einen User auf unserem demnächst startenden (9.8.) und momentan noch nicht ganz fertigen “Tolle-Leute-(wie-z.B.-Du-und-Deine-Freunde)-Empfehlen-Tolle-Locations-weltweit”-Netzwerk www.earthfaves.com an und geb ein paar Deiner Tipps/Lieblingslocations an alle weiter!

Dort kannst Du uns auch (kostenlos;) zu deinen Freunden machen und so immer automatisch Bescheid wissen, wo du z.B. im Saarland hingehen solltest! Ich z.B. hab noch gar nicht richtig angefangen und schon fast 600 Tipps von Freunden, unter “My Friends“. Mit einem guten earthfaves-Netzwerk weiß man immer Bescheid und ist nie mehr sprachlos !

Oder tu der Dame, die das Bordell verkaufen will, einen Gefallen und packe es als earthfave auf unsere Karte und den Link dazu auf Deine Website – dann kriegt sie es bestimmt los!

Also, earthfaven – und weitermachen!

Viele Grüße

Markus