As you might have noticed -- we have the latest Amazee release up and running since last night. We just want to keep you updated on what's new and what kept epoint, netnode and us (especially Malte) busy since mid April.

Here we go:

Login with OpenID
You are now able to log-in to Amazee with OpenID. Either add your OpenID to your current Amazee account or create a new account with the use of your favorite OpenID provider. You can add as many OpenID accounts to your profile as you like to. Once registered or associated you only need your OpenID URL to access Amazee.

Easy text formating
By huge request we added TinyMCE, an easy WYSIWYG editor (What You See Is What You Get) to most of our text input fields. From now on, if you set up a project or message your friends on Amazee, you are able to use bold, italic or undelinded text, use ordered and unordered lists and put clickable links in your message as well.

HTML mails
To really make use of the features from TinyMCE we now send mails to you in HTML format. The HTML messages make use of the same elements like TinyMCE allows you to use during input.

Message notification / layout optimizations
Ever came back to your account and wondered about old and outdated private messages in your inbox? We now send you a notification by email if new messages have arrived in your Amazee inbox. We also restructured the inbox a little bit so organizing your messages should be easier from now on.

Connections
If you already have a project up and running and suddenly realize there is a similar one running on Amazee, why not connect the two projects? More visitors might come and see your project and vice versa. Show some strength by loosely linking them together. Or just link all your projects to show your portfolio whenever someone visits one of them.

Alliances
Alliances are stronger than the connections. An alliance is a meta-project above the allied projects. So meta projects do not have real people as members but projects. Still members are very important in an alliance, since every single member counts in case of size. The alliance has it's own management tools like talk, wiki, to dos and polls as well as it's own project magazine to show the users the cause of the alliance.
We will soon tell you more about the power of this new feature.

Archiving
Once your project is done and achieved you want to put it in an archive, right? If nothing is going on in there things get boring. So go ahead and archive the project! It'll always stay in the archive unless you kick it out or delete it.

On hold projects (future premium member feature)
Your project is on hold because you do not have time to finish the project now? You do not have time to update the magazine as often as you like? Set your project on hold and revoke it back to the full Amazee flavor whenever you want.

Latest visitors widget
Always wanted to know who exactly visits your project? This is very easy now. Just add the latest visitors widget to your magazine in the usual drag and drop style, give it a title and see and show others who visits your magazine.

Feed integration widget
Are you already running a project blog or Flickr image gallery to document your project? We now give you the possibility to integrate them in your project magazine so you do not have to put content twice. Just drag the feed widget to your magazine, give it a title, enter the external RSS or atom URL, and tell the widget how many entries you want to show. Easy as 1-2-3..., and your magazine stays up to date.

Magazine RSS
Do you prefer your RSS reader to the Amazee matrix (we do not really encourage this but you are the boss...)? Now you can add every project magazine via RSS feed to your RSS reader of choice. This is an easy way to monitor every project on Amazee.

Twitter notification
You like Twitter? You want the world (or at least your friends) to know when you update your magazine? Now you can. During the project setup progress in step 1 we ask you for a Twitter user name and password. Just put them there and we send a tweet to Twitter each time you update your project magazine. Sounds like fun, right? And like lots of traffic for your project as well.

Hall of Fame Top 50
Ever wondered how you or your project are ranking on Amazee? You want to know if you already qualified for the 10'000 Euro contest? The hall of fame is now extended to 50 entries per category. We also will clean things up in there so the Amazee employees will disappear until the contest is over (since we are not allowed to participate :-( ).

Changes / Enhancements

• The project matrix now updates correctly. There were some glitches when updating, certain areas did not trigger the matrix.
• All project matrix fields are now clickable by default, even if there are no updates - so you can reach certain areas much quicker than before.
• We changed the sorting order in the talk section of all projects so the latest entries show up on top now.
• The sponsoring link on a project short view only appears if sponsoring options are defined.
• Now you can recommend projects not only to your friends outside of Amazee but also search for friends who are already members of Amazee.
• Plus many, many more fixes and tickets that came during the last couple of weeks...!

Please let us know if you run into any problems -- there are several feedback channels on the platform. Have fun, keep your projects coming, and don't forget to tell your friends!

I just want to give you the quick outlook that Amazee.com will be offline for a couple of minutes tomorrow night starting 21:00 CET.

We will deploy some really cool updates for you! There will be:

• project connections
• project alliances
• achieve/archive projects
• RSS for project magazines
• RSS into project magazines
• latest visitors to your project
• project and personal widgets for your blog or website
• enhanced (Top 50) hall of fame to check your Amazee € 10k Contest status
• ... and tons of minor fixes, improvements, and enhancements

So no worries if you end up here on this blog tomorrow night. We are working hard to bring the features out as fast as possible. Promise.

Amazee is looking for a passionate PHP Software Engineer!

Amazee is a Zurich domiciled internet start-up with global ambitions. Our vision is to become the world’s largest social collaboration platform. Join our team and grow with us!

Your responsibilities

• Support Amazee's Head Technology with the development of new and innovative platform solutions
• Code clean code that is built to scale and last
• Review code of our external developers
• Ensure unit testing, deployment and version control with SVN
• Continually research new technologies

Your professional skills

• 4+ years in Software Development
• Strong knowledge of building secure and scalable PHP applications. Knowledge of OS CMS programming preferably Drupal, Open Auth and APIs desired. You have experience with internet media technology and Web 2.0 architecture.
• Strong knowledge of Java, HTML, JavaScript, Linux, MySQL and Apache
• Experience with JSON and XML, including parsing, schema, and transformations
• Experience with memcache and server optimization a plus
• Strong grasp of network protocols, caching, synchronization, pooling, threads, concurrency, distributed computing, transactions, and optimization
• Hands-on experience with one or more established software development methodologies, preferably both Agile (UP, SCRUM, etc.) and Waterfall

Your personal characteristics

You are hands-on, intelligent, structured, reliable, curious, fast and innovative. You do not think in problems but in solutions. You have a strong interest for Web 2.0 and want to be part of the Web 3.0 movement.

We will put a lot of trust in you!

If you are keen on accepting this challenge and working in an ambitious and fun team, please contact Markus Tressl, Head Technology

markus.tressl(at)amazee.com

The bad news is: For the first time Lucas Bally, our editorial mastermind left for a hard earned week of holiday. The good news is: Our northern German colleague and multimedia guru Dirk Kirchberg has virtually joined our team to help out! When Dirk doesn't work on mercenary assignments like this he contributes to the two fine blogging coops cafedigital.de and mackauf.de and works as a multimedia journalist for the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung. Find his daily contributions in the Project News Feeds on Amazee's startpage.

Dirk, hanging loose