Internet connectivity issue for some users

Some people may not be able to get through to BillMonk.com right now. The problem is upstream of our service provider. They report that a major bundle of Internet fibers connecting Los Angeles and Washington state was accidentally cut at around 10am. While normally the Internet architecture can work around downed links, a cut of this magnitude means that some people’s routes will just not work until a fix is in place. This problem is affecting many Internet companies; an army of engineers is working on it. We’ll keep you posted.

[Update 12:48pm] The issue appears to be resolved. Whew!

Geeking with the Monk

We’re delighted to announce billmonk.com/geek, a place where we will post projects that we’ve open sourced, discussions on technical topics, and APIs to interact with BillMonk. Our first release is a Ruby library for accessing Facebook’s APIs, and we have several more projects on the way. BillMonk is built entirely on open source software, and we’re happy to finally be giving something back to the community.

Boing!

BillMonk is on BoingBoing today! For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, BoingBoing describes itself as “a directory of wonderful things”, and is one of the most frequented sites on the internet. Many thanks to H1kar1, an avid user, for the post.

Extreme money-math: “even plus/minus amount”

Working tirelessly alongside a team of top Caltech scientists, we have cracked the split-bill problem. You can now specify your participation as “even plus/minus amount.”

As any experienced restauranteer can attest, it sounds so simple to say “Jill will cover for Joe, Bob will pay $10 more because he got the lobster, and Joey owes $3.50,” but calculating this frightening mess of shifting averages and combined totals is not just a nightmare, but is also demonstrably impossible. Or so said conventional wisdom.

Our new money-math engine makes this sort of problem a thing of the past. Tell us how you think shared bill ought to be split:

• Even
• Evenly, but paying for multiple people
• Even plus/minus amount (new!)
• Fixed

…and we’ll do the work for you.

(Can you identify the obvious falsehood in the above image?)

Facebook Integration and Profiles

Just in time for back-to-school, we have added user profiles and Facebook integration (using their recently released APIs).

• Create a profile including a picture, a bit about you, your websites (e.g. MySpace page), and your birthday
• Add your Facebook friends
• Merge your Facebook photo and details into your BillMonk profile
• Sign in to BillMonk using your Facebook id

We also tidied up “Your Account” to make it easier than ever to control your contacts and settings.

Meanwhile, we’ve been chugging away at some backend features which you don’t see at all, but which enable a lot of other exciting new features and make things run better.

So sharpen those pencils, get ready for school, and try out the BillMonk-Facebook integration!

Namaste (hello) India!

In the past two days, BillMonk has been featured in dozens of newspapers and magazines all over India. This flurry of press is thanks to a widely circulated story by the Press Trust of India (similar to the Associated Press).

Amongst the most prominent publications are the Times of India, the largest English daily newspaper in India with ~8 million readers; and the Dainik Jagran, a Hindi language daily with the highest readership amongst all newspapers in India, with ~20 million readers.

We’re excited because we’ve always considered India to be an ideal location for BillMonk, given the recent explosion of cell phones and households with Internet access. It’s very common to share the costs of food, housing, and utilities, especially among the rapidly growing young and urban middle-class. What’s more, BillMonk’s largest userbase outside of the US today is in India.

The image below is from a clipping from the Dainik Jagran that Gaurav’s uncle Rajesh sent him this morning. Seeing ‘BillMonk’ printed in Hindi was so cool that we just had to share it with you all.

10 Things Everybody Ought to Know about Bottom-Up Marketing

Since we launched BillMonk in January, we’ve enjoyed a steady flow of positive PR which includes a story in Business 2.0, an interview on BBC World Service Radio, an invitation to speak at Google, several positive blogger reviews including ones from TechCrunch, CNET, eHub, Springwise, and lots of other press.

How did two guys on a shoe-string budget without the help of a PR firm get all this coverage? Many of you have asked, and we wanted to share. Click here to learn about 10 simple but effective strategies we followed to market BillMonk.

BillMonk on BBC World Service Radio

A couple of weeks ago we spoke about BillMonk with the producers of Culture Shock, a BBC World Service Radio show about “the latest global trends in arts, entertainment and culture”. Today’s radio program featured BillMonk as one of the key segments, with more than eight minutes of air time.

The hosts of the show introduced us as “the next MySpace online,” and continued to describe the general problem of borrowing, the BillMonk solution, and the social implications of using a service like ours:

“Most of us have probably forgotten to return stuff on occasion, and this of course, can lead to all kinds of tension… with a student or community setting, [BillMonk is] actually going to make life easier, you are going to do away with the post-it notes, the IOUs, there isn’t going to be one person made to feel like they’re the bill nazi… The community library is a brilliant idea… guerilla [and] ad-hoc… it adds an element of fairness… I think we’re looking at human activities being turned into transactions, because it’s a way of creating social ease.”

Wow! We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Before you buy – search!

Let’s say you’re out shopping, and a copy of “The Da Vinci” catches your eye. You’re all set to buy it, but then you realize, “this is ridiculous. One of my friends must already have a copy.”

So you pull out your cell phone and send us the text message: “item search da vinci”. We respond and let you know that both Brian and Mary have a copy. Amazing! BillMonk just saved you fifteen bucks.

In addition to searching the community library via mobile phone, you can also add items to your collection while on the go, using the ISBN or UPC code.

The message formats are:

item search <title or author>

item add <ISBN or UPC>

We’re pretty flexible. For searching, “library search”, “find item”, “lib find” all work equally well; learn more.

As always, whatever you can do on your phone, you can also do via email.

Library – CueCat scanner, UI fixes, similiar items

We’re happy to start this week with a bucket ‘o improvements to the BillMonk library.

Dig that “misc computer stuff” box out of the attic and find the :CueCat (c) scanner that you grabbed from RadioShack back in 1998. Plug ‘er in, go to the “Bulk Add” page (from the Library), and happily scan in stacks of books for your collection – we translate its wacky output to ISBN and UPC codes.

We also made some UI fixes:

• When you pick which items to add, we tell you which ones are already in your collection
• Rather than having to aim your mouse at teensy checkboxes to pick which items to add or check-out, you can now click anywhere on a line

Finally, we plugged Amazon recommendations into the “Add” pipeline, making it super-easy to say “hey, I own that, too!”