Expanding the Team

Shelfari's team has grown substantially in the last seven days, so I thought it appropriate to introduce you our new best friends. 

As you may have known, Shelfari (Shelfari.com , our Facebook application, the blog widgets, and our upcoming OpenSocial widget) is built and supported by two men, both named Kevin.  They work long hours, efficiently creating great products and releasing them to the world.  Last week, we added three new full-time team members: Jason Hills, Aaron Colwell, and Mike Smuga to take some of that burden off their backs and help us move faster.  You'll want to get to know them, so here's a blurb about each one.

Jason's specialty is in building the user interface of software and web sites, and will bring his wealth of experience to Shelfari.  He joins us most recently from HouseValues, and previously cut his teeth on Microsoft Word, rode the startup road at Cozi, and lived through the dot-com crash and aftermath at Construx Software.  Jason is also our company pilot.  He builds planes (yikes!) and flies them around the beautiful Puget Sound.  He is also enjoys ice climbing, racing cars, and skydiving.  So, hopefully we'll have him longer than a life insurance actuary might predict. 

Like a few of us at Shelfari, Aaron hails from RealNetworks, where he was a software developer for nine years (a certified eon in Internet time).  Aaron worked with Real's top clients to customize server software and spent several years building RealPlayers for set-top boxes, phones, and a variety of hand-held devices. He helped launch the Helix Community, developed high-performance media delivery systems, and managed the RealLabs Systems Research Group. Josh and Aaron became friends during this period, and have stayed in touch since then. As you may have guessed, Aaron is the man who will ensure Shelfari performs better and better, and can support the mounting load you all keep piling on our servers.  (Don't stop!  We'll catch up soon.)

Mike left Microsoft after nearly seven years to join our team.  At Shelfari Mike will work with Tim to create an incredible user experience that is second to none.  At Microsoft he worked as a program manager, focusing mostly on mobile phone products, including Windows Live Spaces, Hotmail, Messenger, and Windows Live for Windows Mobile.  Kevin D worked with Mike when Kevin was fresh out of school, and remembered how talented Mike was and how great he was to work with.  Mike will be reading over all of the feedback, recommending what should come next for Shelfari's products, and prioritizing how we will get it all done.  So don't be shy.  Tell Mike what you want.  He wants to deliver. 

We're really excited to have these new folks packed into our Pioneer Square office, and expect to see a dramatic improvements to our products, which we already think is pretty great.  (Hubris, I know.  But what can I say?)

--Dave

Comments

[nikdokht]

Hi
this site is a lovely site. i like it very much, but how can i add new books to the list. i am iranian. many books of our country is still unknown. i like to introduce them to the world.but they can not be found in searsh of shelfari and amazon.com
sincerely yours
niki

[M. M]

I leave this message here because I know no other way to make recomendations to the site management. As you know, many of the books in search results show no cover illustration. Many member have the books and can upload the cover if such a facility is provided in the site. I recommend such a facility to be added to the site.
Thanks.

[Brian Larsen]

By expanding the team, i know hope you can allocate the ressources to do the same for functionality. I for one, would love to see shelgari expanding with DVD's, before delicious library or others comes with an adequately nice web app.

Shelfari would be perfect for this too.

[Fim]

Are bhaiyya mera manna yeh hai ki yeh kitabon ka shauk burhape ke liye chorh dijiye, abhi jawaani mein kitabein parhne kaa waqt kahan hai.

[Shrotyria]

I just want to change my login email id..... anyone to tell me how do we do it.....Or

[Jacqueline Haun]

Hi, guys -- I love this site and log in regularly! I noticed that since yesterday, I keep getting the following, tech-heavy page. Is it just me or is there a problem with the site? Sorry to use this forum, but I can't get the rest of the site to open.

Server Error in '/' Application.
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Runtime Error
Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine.

Details: To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable on remote machines, please create a tag within a "web.config" configuration file located in the root directory of the current web application. This tag should then have its "mode" attribute set to "Off".

Notes: The current error page you are seeing can be replaced by a custom error page by modifying the "defaultRedirect" attribute of the application's configuration tag to point to a custom error page URL.