We’ve had quite a few great chapters added to SendMeHome stories recently that we thought we’d let you know about.

1) Disposable Camera tied to a Bench

This story involved tying a cheap disposable camera to any bench in a high traffic area for one day and seeing what pictures get taken. It was started back in Santa Barbara but has recently had another chapter added from Palo Alto, California. There are some great pictures, including one of a fantastic winged-tattoo across a woman’s chest. See the story here and feel free to add your own chapter from a bench near you!

2) Ugh the Head

One of our most fascinating stories is Ugh the Head, a miniature Easter Island statue that is aiming to return home to Easter Island. He’s been all over the globe from Obama’s Inaguration, to Mardi Gras and his latest stop was on the Great Wall of China. Check out Ugh over here.

We encourage you to check out these stories, continue them, and even start your own!

We appreciate the recognition and the review they did earlier in the year.

In other news, we’ve installed a discussion feature, called Envolve, that will allow you to converse about SendMeHome stories in real-time. (As opposed to just through the comment feature) You can find out more about it at http://www.envolve.com

Stay tuned for more exciting news from SendMeHome!

At the tail end of 2008 they conducted a photography contest in which they collected 1,900 images from around the globe. Avid photographers were asked to capture images of love in whatever capacity they related to it. It was a huge success with unsolicited sponsorships and prizes being donated and an overwhelming show of support.

Glen and Gabe are at it again, and this time they are using Send Me Home. Their latest inspirational creation ties together people from all over the globe through shared photography. A disposable camera is assigned a theme ‘Suburbia, America, Pets & Animals’ etc. and passed between 13 people, each taking two exposures. This project is a fantastic way to enable talented people with a shared interest to collaboratively create something wonderful.

And the really great part? They are using Send Me Home to track the cameras and facilitate communication between the participants. Each camera has been given its own Send Me Home story, so not only can enthusiastic photographers be part of a large project but is is now a highly social and interactive project where they’ll get updates every step of the way.

Here is a camera that has already made a few stops: PhotoJournal ShareCamera 4: Americana. Be sure to follow the cameras as each one will be turned into a bound book at the end of the project.

If you’d like to get involved check out their Facebook group where you can sign up to get involved! Thanks Guys!

During his 30 minute slot Peter interviewed us about Send Me Home.

James Tamplin and Andrew Lee on Holder Tonight with Peter Anthony Holder

Click the link to listen in your browser or right click and select “Save Link As” in order to download the file to your computer.

Fast forward 6 months. I just found this great tool from UserVoice. If you head to the homepage you’ll notice the tab that says feedback on the right hand side. You can easily click on it and give us suggestions or vote on suggestions that others have entered.

We’re looking forward to hearing what we can do to improve the service!

1. Webcam MUSIC VIDEO! (34 facebook followers)
2. Album of Astounding Strength and Inarguable Awesomeness (12 facebook followers)
3. My Kickass Kicks (7 facebook followers)
4. Show Me You TAT (4 facebook followers)
5. Ketel one citroen 50ml (3 facebook followers)

Good luck to all our contestants!

We were interviewed last week by Brad Stone a Technology Reporter for the New York Times. On Tuesday his article ran in the technology section of the paper and was also published online.

The article focuses on the creative ways people have returned lost property through the web. Brad illustrated the often painstaking effort that some people go to in order to return valuables which have high tangible and sentimental value. All the more reason to use Send Me Home :)

On Wednesday this week, we received a phone call from Peter Holder, host of Holder Tonight on CJAD Montreal and CFRB Toronto. He had previously mentioned Bacon Camp - a convention held in San Francisco for bacon lovers - on his show. A listener called in to tell him about Send Me Home’s traveling bacon pan, which is now in Minnesota after traveling through Rhode Island and California.

Peter interviewed us for 30 minutes asking about the philosophy behind Send Me Home and the current objects traveling the globe.

It was a good week :)

We’re giving away a grand. 1K. 10 Benjamins.

All you have a do is create a great SendMeHome Story. Simple right? (If you’re not up to speed on what a SendMeHome Story is - find out here)

To win money your Story has to have the most people interested in it - following it - by May 4th. 6 weeks from now. So create something that people can relate to and collaborate around and the money is as good as yours.

Oh! And in case we didn’t mention this enough already, this is all because we’ve now got a brand spanking new Facebook app. So tell your Facebook friends about it!

You can find out all the details here.

If you want to jump straight into our Facebook app, here’s the link: http://apps.facebook.com/sendmehome

Good luck!

It’s going to be a busy day!

SendMeHome.com Launches New Facebook Application
Collaborative story telling is now available via Facebook, with $1,000 in cash prizes

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., March 24th 2009 – While most social media sites help connect people in the virtual world, SendMeHome.com aims to forge connections through real world objects by allowing users to create a collaborative blog about a physical object. To help users more easily connect and create great stories SendMeHome.com is making its free service available to 175 million Facebook users.

SendMeHome.com’s new Facebook application allows story authors and contributors to share their creations in bold new ways. Stories can be shared virally through news feeds, wall posts, and direct invitations. In addition, users can view the Facebook profile of any author and also receive Facebook notifications when a story they like is updated. All these features will serve to virally spread great stories and connect people with like-minded individuals they may have otherwise never met.

To accompany this launch, SendMeHome.com is announcing $1,000 in cash prizes in its “Cash for Creativity” competition. The competition can be entered by anyone for free - all that is needed is an object, an internet connection, and some creativity.

The $1,000 in prize money will be divided into four separate awards. Three cash prizes will be given to the users who create stories that acquire the largest number of followers by May 4th. A fourth prize will be given to the user who creates a story that exhibits the most creativity as determined by SendMeHome.com’s two founders. More information is available at: http://sendmehome.com/news/contest.

SendMeHome’s Stories launched in January and users have already collaborated to share cooking tips, collect monologues, discuss political events, and even transport a statue to Easter Island. An example story can be found at: http://sendmehome.com/#stories&smhid=1-T1C.

First of all, we’ve redesigned the homepage, the about pages, and given tweaks to various graphics throughout the site. We hope that first time visitors to the homepage will now get an understanding of what SendMeHome is quickly and easily. Our mantra of minimalism still remains, but we believe that presenting a range of extremely useful and relevant information can still embody simplicity. We’ve moved the login and sign-up functions onto the homepage itself. This reduces clicks and help all our users get to where they are going faster. Also, it looks prettier :)

Second, we now have a Facebook application! However, there is 100% integration between SendMeHome.com and our Facebook application. You can see the same data and do exactly the same things on both, there is just a slightly different look to each one. The Facebook application lets you share Stories with your friends, get notifications about Stories you’re following, distribute content virally through news feeds and wall posts, and find more about authors who are also using SendMeHome through Facebook. You can even start using our Facebook application and then jump to SendMeHome.com and you’ll be logged in there if you prefer not to be constrained by 2/3 of a page. This feature is still in Beta, but we’ll be doing a press release and an official launch soon.

Thirdly, we’ve upgraded our search. Finding the relevant stories you’re searching for is now faster and easier.

Lastly, we’ve increased the visibility of our “Follow” buttons. They now have graphics and are located on the Front Page, the Story Browser, and the Story Page itself. Hopefully this will give you an easier way to keep up with stories you like.

Have a play around with the new features and let us know what you think!